- 
 
 
 
 
 ; - -$fc$J$!&! v; $.$ 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 .
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 - ' J . 
 
 . 
 
 -4L.
 
 ECHOES OF EUROPE; 
 
 OB, 
 
 WORD PICTURES OF TRAVEL 
 
 E. K. WASHINGTON 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 JAMKS CHALLEN & SON 
 
 No. 25 SOUTH SIXTH STREET. 
 
 1860.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year I860, by 
 JAMES CHALLEN & SON, 
 
 MTKKKOTVl'fr I> 15 Y S. A. GEUHOKj 
 607 S VNSOM STRKKT.
 
 TO 
 
 MAJOR HENRY VAUGHAN 
 
 OF MISSISSIPPI, 
 
 f Ijis Dolmni 
 
 IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 AS 
 
 AN HUMBLE MEMENTO OF ESTEEM 
 
 (3)
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 MANY things in this book might have been omitted, 
 
 oc many other things might have been said : those that 
 
 M ;ire said might have been said better, and the whole 
 
 might have been omitted altogether, and no harm 
 
 done to, or much advantage lost by, a single human 
 to 
 
 * being. Therefore, on the few who may beg, buy, 
 
 borrow, or steal it, the Author will not inflict the 
 
 additional penalty of a Preface. The Author wrote 
 
 it, because he desired to do so; the Publishers pub- 
 
 1} lished it, because they desired to do so; and the 
 
 LI Reader may read it, if he desires to do so. 
 
 453981
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOl 
 
 Off 13 
 
 Washington City The President, his Cabinet, Ac 15 
 
 Outward Bound 23 
 
 Havre Notre Dame 35 
 
 Rouen William the Conqueror Richard the Lion-Hearted '.) 
 
 Paris Pdre La Chaise St. Cloud The Louvre Louis Napoleon. 45 
 
 The City of Geneva Lake Geneva 66 
 
 Chamouni M ont Blanc Le Jurdin 68 
 
 Switzerland Castle of Chillon Vevay 76 
 
 Berne 82 
 
 Lausanne Ncufchutel 85 
 
 Freiburg The Cathedral and Convent 87 
 
 Interlaken \Vengern Alps 93 
 
 The Great Schcidegg Grimsel Hospice Furka 98 
 
 Lake Lucerne Mount Righi 108 
 
 Zurich SchafThausen on the Rhine 116 
 
 Unoth The Castle 121 
 
 Basle on the Rhine 124 
 
 Strasbourg 129 
 
 Baden-Baden 134 
 
 Heidelburg The College 137 
 
 Frankfort-on-the-Main 140 
 
 Wiesbaden 145 
 
 Mayence, on the Rhine Bingen Coblentz 147
 
 10 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAfJR 
 
 Cologne 158 
 
 Brussels Field of Waterloo 164 
 
 Antwerp Raphael, Michael Angelo, Rubens, M urillo 171 
 
 London The Churches The Tower Windsor Castle 174 
 
 The Journey from London to Edinburg Newcastle-on-Tyne 
 
 Castle of Edinburg, &c 101 
 
 Stirling Bannockburn Grampian Hills Aberdeen 205 
 
 Castle of Inverness Culloden Moor 212 
 
 Glasgow Ayrshire Home of Burns 218 
 
 Belfast Giant's Causeway Londonderry 224 
 
 Enniskillen Athlone The Shannon 231 
 
 Killaloe Limerick Killarney 240 
 
 Dublin Cork 25(i 
 
 Wales Bangor 2(54 
 
 Liverpool Chester Shrewsbury 26H 
 
 Stratford-on-Avon Reminiscences of Shakespeare 27.'? 
 
 Kenilworth Oxford 27(5 
 
 London-- The - Crystal Palace Westminster Abbey Regent's 
 
 Park, Zoological Gardens, &c 270 
 
 Holland Rotterdam Hague Amsterdam 28f> 
 
 Brunswick Berlin Dresden The Green Vaults 2!H 
 
 Prague 310 
 
 Vienna Trieste Adelsburgh 314 
 
 Venice Its Churches, Palaces, Dungeons. &c 32* 
 
 Verona Alps of the Tyrol Milan 3 4 1 
 
 Genoa Leghorn Pisa 850 
 
 Florence Its Cathedrals, Palaces, and Galleries 3(51 
 
 Fiesole The Uffizi Gallery 37's 
 
 Route to Rome Levane Arezzo Terni 37'.) 
 
 The Eternal City First Impressions The Pope High Mass and 
 Vespers in St. Peter's The Coliseum The Palatine Hill Tin- 
 Borghese Palaco Forum of Trajan Churches of Rome Ruins 
 Catacombs The Galleries Vatican, Etruscan, and Lateran 
 
 Museums Feast of the Purification The Carnival, (fee., &c. . . 398
 
 CONTEXTS. 11 
 
 PAOF. 
 
 Frascati Tusculnm Pincian Hill 525 
 
 Tivoli Villa Adriano San Lorenzo 531 
 
 Route to Naples Lake Albano Velletri Tomb of Oicero 
 
 Capua 542 
 
 Naples Borbon Museum Chapel of San Gennaro 5GO 
 
 Herculaneum Pompeii Vesuvius 569 
 
 Rains of Pratum Cava Salerno Tomb of Virgil 607 
 
 The Mediterranean Marseilles Aries Nismes 617 
 
 Lyons 632 
 
 Paris Louvre Museum St. Denis Notre Dame Bois Boulogne. 63G 
 
 Versailles 657 
 
 Departure from Paris 678 
 
 Across 688 
 
 New York 690 
 
 Notes for Travelers. . 696
 
 SKETCHES AND SNATCHES OF TRAVEL 
 
 OFF 
 
 FOR Europe, then the grand old land of the dead 
 past. Let us see with our own eyes the graves of "the 
 things that were," as well as the actualities of the present, 
 and forget awhile our busy, progressive native land, strong 
 yet in its youth, hopefulness and onwardness, and look on 
 those lands where the shadows of the past obtrude amongst 
 the givings out of the present. We are going for our own 
 edification merely "to see what we shall see" and we 
 resolve to keep a record of our impressions of travel, the 
 fleet gatherings of eye and ear, for our perusal in after days, 
 or for the entertainment of others. We shall not over- 
 burden ourselves with any more tliought than is absolutely 
 necessary, but content ourselves with broad sketches and 
 outlines or simply those pennings or limnings of the out- 
 sides of travel that may employ without working our mind. 
 We shall let what we see write itself, if it should please to 
 do so. We shall not tell who we are. That may also tell 
 itself! It is Wednesday morning, five o'clock, June 17th. 
 The steam-whistle has resounded through the tranquil val- 
 leys of the river, and on we go rapidly the old town, our 
 temporary residence, fading away in the distance the 
 mountains in the back-ground, dense and wooded, retiring 
 beneath the horizon. But onward speed the cars. The 
 river by our side alternately forgets itself to a lake then 
 rushes along with the rapidity of a mountain torrent the 
 
 B (13)
 
 14 OFF. 
 
 morning sunlight mingles with the green foliage of the high 
 river banks, and the world smiles cheerily in the glory and 
 freshness-of June. Here is a city, with its smoke, dust and 
 heat; but in the cool precincts of a hotel, and in the luxuries 
 of its good cheer " strawberries smothered in ice-cream" 
 we forget the business, bustle, money-making and worldly 
 goings on of the outside world. And now, this pleasant 
 sunlit evening, we are careering our way down another 
 river not on it, but by its side. Steamboating is already 
 obsolete. The scenes flit by us like creatures of magic. 
 The distance is soon conquered, and we are at a riverside 
 village. Having resolved on a visit to the interior, we are 
 soon in an antiquated vehicle, rolling along on one of the 
 most romantic roads in the Union to a collegiate seat of 
 learning. We spend several days pleasantly ; listen to the 
 president's lectures on the Bible to the students, and 
 observe the general order and schalarly deameanor of the 
 students. The Bible, in the sublime and masterly analysis 
 of the president, becomes vivific and energizing. All the 
 principles of philosophy, in their most salient points, either 
 by precept or in example, are discovered to be illustrated in 
 it; and the study and investigation of it aftbrd inexhaustible 
 stimulus to the largest intellect, being the book of the most 
 healthy mental and moral tendency in the world. In these 
 lectures, the Bible became the Book of Human Nature 
 the key that unlocks all the mysteries of man. But adieu 
 to the green old fields, and the quiet, dreamy hills, and the 
 ardent minds and gentle hearts which are there uttering out 
 the work of life ! 
 
 But time hurries us on. At ten o'clock at night, we de- 
 part for the East, on the cars of the Baltimore and Ohio 
 Railroad. No sleep, no comfort, no talk, no nothing, but on, 
 on for several hours. The starlight reveals the dusky out- 
 lines of mountains, among, around and through which we 
 pass screaming, hastening like an insane tornado. Then
 
 WASHINGTON CITY. 16 
 
 comes out the morning star upon the sky the mountains 
 grow into distinctness the rocks gather visibility, and are 
 graced with laurels in bloom ; laughing mountain torrents 
 leap along the railway, and the morning, like a great spirit, 
 smiles over the world. Here all the obstacles that Nature 
 can oppose to railways are conquered ; and if this age were 
 not replete with marvels, this railroad would rank among 
 the greatest of human achievements. 
 
 Portions of the route unfold scenery of the most romantic 
 character. Cheat River is cradled among these mountains 
 as their favorite child. It runs along the railway, for some 
 distance far beneath it, and seems not yet recovered from 
 its astonishment at finding its tranquil retreats invaded by 
 the worldly-hearted locomotive. Approaching Cumberland, 
 the scenery becomes more bold and rugged the strata 
 project almost perpendicularly indicating the tremendous 
 convulsions of old earth in past ages. Some of the moun- 
 tains melt away in soft and wavy outlines ; others advance 
 boldly into view, rocky, precipitous and jagged, and ver- 
 dureless ; but through all we permeate our course, moun- 
 tain alter mountain receding in the dim distance. 
 
 Harper's Ferry has become celebrated on account of Jef- 
 ferson's fine description and theoretic views concerning it ; 
 and his expression, " It is worth a trip across the Atlantic," 
 is infallibly quoted by every tourist. The view is con- 
 tracted, but bold, bald, and picturesque jn the highest 
 degree. The mountains, however, are all now passed, and 
 we are in 
 
 WASHINGTON CITY, 
 
 perpetuating in its name and local surroundings, the influ- 
 ence of that man whose extraordinary and massive charac- 
 ter grows greater and grander with the efflux of time, and 
 whose history is the centre point to which all Americans 
 can turn without shame, and admire, as the spotless sun of
 
 16 WASHINGTON CITY. 
 
 the past, the man who became great by being true and 
 honest, highly celebrated by being modest and humble, and 
 highly useful by merely doing his duty. The City of 
 Washington combines, possibly, more advantages than any 
 other city in America. The ground is admirably undulat- 
 ing, giving the advantages of draining, and fine scenery 
 without the inconvenience of abrupt hills ; the streets and 
 banquettes are remarkably wide the public buildings com- 
 bining the perfection of classic taste and beauty with utility 
 the majestic frith of the Potomac the numerous and 
 flourishing forest trees that adorn the sidewalks the public 
 grounds the prestige of it being the nucleus of a mighty 
 republic the society, refined though somewhat pretentious, 
 all these make Washington probably, on the whole, the 
 most attractive city in America. 
 
 The President receives the calls of visitors on Tuesdays 
 and Fridays, between the hours of twelve and two o'clock. 
 We called to pay our respects merely. There were many 
 persons present who appeared to desecrate this public 
 reception into an opportunity for vulgar solicitations for 
 office, and presentation of their claims. Mr. Buchanan has 
 a fine head and -good face; health apparently vigorous, at 
 present ; hair thin and gray ; stature tall and form portly, 
 and presence commanding and impressive. There were 
 numerous applicants for office, all of whom were more or 
 less embarrassejl the President preserving a courteous ease 
 and listening to each with suavity but firmness. Each 
 visitor introduces himself, presenting his own card, shakes 
 hands with the President, converses five or six minutes, 
 and retires, shaking hands again at parting. Some urged 
 their claims in a low, deprecating tone ; others more loudly, 
 asserting " they never had asked any thing from the gov- 
 ernment." All of course were intense Democrats. We 
 noticed the candor with which the President responded : 
 neither unduly elevating nor depressing the hopes of the
 
 WASHINGTON CITY. 17 
 
 applicants. But surely the President of the United States 
 ought to be approached by his fellow-citizens without 
 being regarded as a mere office-dispenser to needy appli- 
 cants. The office should seek the man, not the man the 
 office. When it came our time to have a few words with 
 him, he indicated it by a glance. After shaking hands, we 
 told him where we were from were friends to his adminis- 
 tration wished nothing from it, however, except that he 
 might long have health, and his administration might pros- 
 per. His countenance manifested great relief when we said 
 we wanted nothing, and he became quite gracious; said 
 " England was a most wonderful little island ;" said six or 
 eight months were sufficient to see all in Europe worth 
 seeing; wished us a pleasant journey, and then we left him 
 to encounter again the gauntlets of unceasing office- 
 seekers. 
 
 The President's Cabinet is composed of men who are 
 moderate in patriotism, tolerably honest, and rather respect- 
 able in intellect ; Mr. Buchanan is the superior of every one 
 of them, in practical intellectual penetration, and will doubt- 
 less not allow them to rule him. Cass is an accomplished 
 rather than able politician, and more of a sleek, suave, suc- 
 cessful old gentleman than any thing else. Black is rather 
 able, but has more empresament of greatness than reality; has 
 been spoiled by being thought able to be President, and by 
 living among small men, among whom he is relatively 
 great, but really only pompously little. Thompson is ener- 
 getic and practical, and would make a good President, had 
 any of the members of this Cabinet such a thing written 
 in their destinies. The practice of our government has of 
 late years revolted from its original intendmeut. It was 
 not expected the President would be a party man. The 
 theory of government in Europe is, that the apex, the 
 supreme head of the governing power, should belong to no 
 party specially. A party is essentially a faction. Parties 
 2 B2
 
 18 WASHINGTON CITY. 
 
 may and must exist, but there should be a power above 
 partyism, in every government. But of late years all our 
 great, or so-called great men, may be presumed already 
 convicted of aspiring to the Presidency ; and the business 
 of the people seems reduced to the endorsement of certain 
 men who have caused themselves to be nominated by a pro- 
 cess of intrigue, which begins in ambition and ends in 
 corruption. Each party endures the other's four years' 
 government in hope of success the next time ; consequently 
 no general attachment (which is, in European monarchies, 
 the strongest power in the state,) can spring up between the 
 person or character of the President and the people. Who 
 feels any real attachment to any President, of late years, 
 except for interest or pride ? It would seem to be getting 
 high time for the people to oust the miserable brood of 
 Presidency seekers and party mongers, to elect a man who, 
 not trammeled by party, and who has the intellect to dis- 
 cern the right, and the will to dare to do it, no matter 
 where or what the opposition, to whom they might become 
 attached for his personal or individual virtues, and to hurl 
 the low Congressmen, and small-brained and corrupt- 
 hearted dealers, and vendors, and pedlers in our great gov- 
 ernment, to their merited damnation. A republican 
 government is slow in action and execution, but great in 
 deliberation, therefore the President should have a certain 
 energy and assumption of the responsibility, to compensate 
 for the slowness and stagnation induced by factious opposi- 
 tion. He should be no man of show, no creature of state, 
 no mere department, but an understanding, directing, re- 
 solved will, honest, inflexible and efficient, who can accom- 
 plish by the nation, and not by a party, the great mission 
 of the new idea of America, that governments derive their 
 just origin from the consent of the governed. But the vir- 
 tue of our people will long preserve our government, not- 
 withstanding the dishonesty and imbecility of the preten-
 
 WASHINGTON <?1TY. 19 
 
 tious demagogues who aspire to govern, but only degrade 
 the name of legislator. 
 
 Mount Vernon is sixteen miles below Washington, and 
 is still iu the possession of one who bears the name of the 
 original possessor. The family are understood to be re- 
 duced, and none of them have displayed any abilities 
 similar to those of the renowned chief. Like many other 
 Virginia families, they require an infusion of Irish, Ger- 
 man, or plebeian blood to energize them. But the over- 
 shadowing greatness of George Washington has not invited 
 competition, though it has discouraged effort. Most of them 
 seem to think it is great enough simply to wear his name. 
 The family have gone down, and will never rise again. 
 Yet to Mount Vernon still turn, and ever will turn, the 
 fondest wishes and warmest aspirations of every true 
 American, as the Mecca shrine of Freedom as the grave 
 of a buried, powerful influence, that, instead of growing 
 gray, grows grander with time. The bells of steamers are 
 tolled as they pass near Mount Vernon. 
 
 The old town of Alexandria is eight miles below Wash- 
 ington. We strolled through its streets, the names of which 
 still revive the associations of the old colonial times. 
 Arlington is the fine, old baronial-looking residence of 
 G. W. P. Custis, Esq. The view from it is beautiful in the 
 extreme ; and the woods around it, and its general appear- 
 ance, have an ancestral and old-time aspect, perhaps no- 
 where found out of England except in Virginia. The old 
 gentleman himself is plainly dressed, prepossessing in man- 
 ner, with a florid complexion, and good health, though in 
 his seventy-seventh year. He lives in the past. He is the 
 only surviving member of Gen. W.'s domestic family. He 
 is a myth, associating the past with the present. Racked 
 and tortured his memory has been to disintegrate from it 
 all its past. He will soon be no more, and the fact of 
 Gen. W.'s actuality will depend on written records alone-
 
 20 WA^IINGTON CITY. 
 
 He has lived well, and has been in prosperous circumstances 
 from inherited wealth all his life ; to which he has added 
 the accomplishments of literature and painting. But his 
 old age is melancholy, for the men of his time have departed. 
 We found him, however, in the midst of a festive rural 
 scene, enacting at the Arlington Springs a great sylvan 
 place and a favorite resort of summer parties from the city. 
 The dancing and song sped gayly on ; and the mirth of 
 many feet made music sweet while the old gentleman and 
 ourself on a rustic seat entered upon the bygone. Familiar 
 already with many of his recollections, it was yet pleasant 
 to hear them from the living lips. One of his remarks was, 
 "that we shall never again have such another man as 
 Washington till we have such another mother." What we 
 want in America is mothers not the novel-reading, ner- 
 vous, sedentary, fashionable females but true women 
 conscientious and high-spirited who can learn to enforce 
 discipline by learning to obey it. The general's mother, 
 according to Mr. Custis, preserved a great influence over 
 him, even in extreme age. He always addressed her as 
 "Madam," not as mother. He recounted that Lawrence 
 Washington had told him that in the days of the general's 
 boyhood, he was frequently at the house during the hour of 
 meals. Mrs. W. advanced to the table all standing none 
 daring to sit down till she, shading her eyes a few moments 
 with her hand, offered a silent invocation to the Source of 
 all : after which, moving her hand, all sat down, not a word 
 being said during the meal. The six or eight tall, athletic 
 young men and one of them afterward the hero of the 
 age would sooner, according to Mr. Custis, have put their 
 heads into the fire than disobey her slightest injunction. 
 After the victory of Yorktown when Gen. W. was at the 
 zenith of his popularity he came, attended by a numerous 
 staff of officers, into the town of Fredericksburg, Va. 
 A vast excitement prevailed in the county and town to see
 
 WASHINGTON CITY. 21 
 
 him. He was the throbbing pulse of every man's heart. 
 In the midst of this his mother remained in her room spin- 
 ning worsted, saying, " It was George's duty to come and 
 see her:" which he soon did not at the head of his officers, 
 but privately sending his sister, Mrs. Lewis, to know 
 whether she was ready to see him; and, after the first greet- 
 ing was over, she looked at him, and merely said: "Time 
 and hard service, George, have very much changed your 
 appearance." Not a word of Yorktown, no allusion to his 
 battles or his glory. When La Fayette had exhausted 
 panegyric in favor of her son, in a set speech to her, she 
 merely replied: "My dear marquis, I am not surprised. 
 George was a good boy." Lund Washington, proprietor 
 of the II uy field estate, four miles from Mount Vernon, was 
 the general's agent at Mount Vernon during the entire war. 
 The British troops ascending the Potomac, sent him a civil 
 message, requesting to buy some fresh provisions; which 
 he sent on board, without, however, taking payment. For 
 this he was censured by the general, who said, " The exam- 
 ple was bad; that the British should have been forced to 
 come and take the provisions." Posterity has, however, 
 decided generally in favor of Lund Washington, who, acting 
 for another, did not feel free to expose the premises to 
 destruction for refusal, without specific directions from the 
 proprietor ; and to his course in this matter is perhaps due 
 the preservation of Mount Vernon to the present time. 
 
 The great cities of Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New 
 York, though each has a distinct physiognomy, yet apart 
 from their business facilities, present but few attractions to 
 the mere tourist. Our American cities are as yet lacking 
 in this sort of interest. Their historical associations are too 
 recent to be interesting. The traveler catches the spirit of 
 the population feels impelled irresistibly onward and 
 feels but little disposition to linger calmly over past or 
 present. America is hurrying on to its future. The hearts
 
 22 WASHINGTON CITY. 
 
 of our citizens beat rapidly. We are the fastest people on 
 all the records of time. There is no time to muse on the 
 days of departed glory. We are the actors, the workers of 
 the great Present. Acquisitive, accumulative and ardent, 
 with redundant life, and a continent to be conquered, that 
 had slept too long, we look not back over the " things that 
 were," but grasp our future, and the mighty grave alone 
 can still the restless hearts agitating through our lives. But 
 the quiet sleepers of the " Old Trinity," who have lain down 
 to rest by the side of the busy thoroughfare over which their 
 past life walked, lie and sleep on unheeded by the living 
 who tread beside them, enacting the same twice-told tale of 
 joys, loves, cares, strifes soon to sleep themselves and give 
 place to other dreamers. Sayeth the French proverb, and 
 truly : " Life is a dream, of which Death is the awaken- 
 ing." 
 
 New York is getting rather famous for its strong-minded 
 preachers, who are rather strongly minded to do certain 
 things than actually able men parts of great men, rather 
 than men of great parts. The self-satisfied and intensely 
 self-appreciating H. W. Beecher, preaches here to vast 
 crowds. He is a plausible, youthful-looking personage, 
 who appears to be on good terms with himself. It has 
 been remarked that those who are without passions are 
 without talents. Mr. B. is fanatical, but yet presents the 
 phenomenon among fanatics, of having some ability 
 though it is rather of the notorious than noted kind. lie 
 has an easy delivery and is voluble but the "Nascitur 
 ridiculus mus" may often apply to the ideas uttered with 
 so much diction and empressmenl. He has politics in his 
 head, and in his heart a worldly, utilizing something which 
 he thinks is religion. Men of his stamp are always wrong, 
 especially in matters of religion, which have to be received, 
 and not improved, revised and amended; and these irrever- 
 ential men take the Bible as they make it, and like the
 
 OUTWARD. 23 
 
 Portuguese astronomer, would advise the Creator better. 
 Their minds being unballasted, the possession of a promi- 
 nent idea enslaves their intellect, and comet-like, the stars 
 must do it reverence as it passes though when investi- 
 gated, it is found to be empty, gaseous, and a mere trans- 
 parent tail. 
 
 The egregious Greeley, one of the notabilities of New 
 York, is another instance of coarse success without respect- 
 ability and without genius one of the men who have 
 achieved success by mere low, dogged devotion to the 
 world, and concentrated self-interest. The success of such 
 men is ephemeral ; that of true genius is undying, and 
 gathers lustre with age. If it were better to be wrong with 
 Plato than right with all the world besides, it were surely 
 better to fail with Burns, Poe, or Coleridge, than succeed 
 with such earth, earthy creatures as Barnum or Greeley. 
 The lowest kind of success is money success ; the next 
 lowest is popularity with a party. We assimilate to what 
 we work for. As nothing is more delightful than a new 
 feeling, how refreshing, how luxurious it would be to 
 Greeley to indulge himself with a little honesty and patriot- 
 ism, or for Beecher to be pious and acquaint himself a little 
 with Christianity! these being things that do not necessarily 
 come as parts of any pursuits, but require to be made dis- 
 tinct objects. But perhaps this suffices for the gaseous 
 Greeley and the bombastic Beecher. 
 
 OUTWARD. 
 
 But we are off at last this day, Wednesday, July 1st, at 
 twelve o'clock in our ship. The day is most peculiarly 
 dreary, drizzling, disheartening. We step aboard the bark 
 to which we commit our fortunes for some weeks; we are 
 towed down New York bay by a steamer some eighteen 
 miles to Sandy Hook, and there we are left; the winds hav- 
 ing " no west" in them, as the captain remarks.
 
 24 OUTWARD. 
 
 Obstinate east winds prevail rain, cold, dreariness, dull- 
 ness, of course. We lie at anchor here all night next 
 d a y night next clay also weather continuing dismal. 
 What resource but to bear it and be sea-sick ! We indulge 
 in the latter duly. Our captain very sociably, however, 
 makes efforts to relieve the tedium, but in vain. Our 
 cabin passengers consist of but four persons two young 
 men, one from Massachusetts, another from New York, our 
 friend, and ourself. We selected a sailing vessel, because 
 we wished to take a regular old-fashioned sea- voyage, and 
 get as much of the sea into us as possible. Our destina- 
 tion is Havre. In New York we purchased circular letters 
 from the house of Duncan, Sherman & Co., addressed to 
 their correspondents in the various cities of Europe, accom- 
 panied by small bills or drafts on them ten and twenty 
 pounds sterling each payable in the current coin of any 
 country in Europe. But five miles more remain and we 
 shall be on the sea, the open sea, and the last hill of our 
 native land will have faded into thin air. How, in looking 
 back, we seem to see the beckoning hands of friends from 
 whom we parted, rising from far away, but in vain. Life 
 will go on with them as with us; and if in the dubious 
 future we meet again, we shall not be what we were. We 
 may overtake our future, but our past never. How the 
 joys of quiet firesides in the olden, with friends now per- 
 ished, flit before our mind, and mock the chase of phantom 
 happiness in the future. But life must on. Around us 
 groan the sad waves ; afar in the distance lie the lowlands 
 of Long Island ; those of the Jersey shore higher ; and on 
 the restless waters float many vessels, some large, others 
 small, waiting for the winds " to get out," all sails furled, 
 all at anchor, and the rain, the dreary rain, over all. What 
 a fine opening for the Steam Power to wake these black 
 hulls into life and motion! But we are in the care of old 
 JSolus and his winds, older by far than that creature of a
 
 OUTWARD. 26 
 
 fast age, Steam, and more romantic, and must wait his 
 bidding. . '+ 
 
 This morning, Sunday, July 5th, all that was visible of 
 America has sunk beneath the western horizon. Adieu 
 then to our native land for months perhaps forever. Yes- 
 terday was the natal day of our government, and our native 
 land disappeared to us in the dim shades of evening ; the 
 highlands of Neversink, New Jersey, with the white towers 
 and lighthouses, and green woods, gradually lessening and 
 lowering. But the rockets ascending in honor of the day 
 from New York city, and the various hotels on Long 
 Island and Long Branch, still rose high in the air, and 
 were the last signals of the fair, proud and happy land 
 beneath. July '2d and 3d, we remained in Sandy Hook 
 harbor easterly winds, directly ahead, preventing our 
 egress to the open sea. Saturday morning, July 4th, the 
 wind slightly changing, our captain attempted to go 
 out; but failing, the timely aid of a steam tow-boat at 
 length drew us into the open sea. Many vessels had come 
 down from New York, and with all sails set, stretched out 
 to the seaward. Soon after, a calm came down on the sea, 
 and for several hours slight progress was made, and up to 
 this morning, July 5th, our progress is slow. The sea is 
 smooth as a mirror, and only swells and heaves underneath 
 the hazy horizon as if seeking rest. A fleet of vessels is 
 around us at various distances some near enough to hear 
 them striking the bells to chase the hours others afar off, 
 dipping beneath the horizon, apparently motionless, their 
 white sails reflecting the sunlight. To our left, on "Old 
 Long Island's sea-girt shore," can yet be heard the breakers 
 the sound coming over the smooth sea, like "the noise 
 of many waters." It will die away, however, and be the 
 last sound we shall hear from America. Those cheerful 
 little birds, Mother Carey's chickens, come playfully around, 
 in considerable numbers, resting lightly on the water ; they 
 
 C
 
 26 OUTWARD. 
 
 are said to hatch their eggs underneath their own wings. 
 Our passengers are all diversely employed one is reading 
 a recent novel, another looking miscellaneously over space, 
 another is about to try fishing, as he says, "only to raise a 
 breeze"; others yawning; another, who has an inquiring 
 mind, wants information in regard to the various parts of 
 the vessel. One is wishing he could take an excursion out 
 into the woods ; vain hope ! for we are motionless, and 
 
 " The sea and the sky 
 Lie like a load on the weary eye." 
 
 To-day, July 5th, during several hours, we lay in almost 
 a dead calm breezeless, motionless. But toward evening 
 a light wind sprang up, and we are now going " over the 
 waters away and away." The full, round moon, is " hung 
 like a gem in the brow of the sky," and the vessel bounds 
 over the waves like a freed, fearless antelope. The sea 
 heaves and sighs like a living thing underneath us; but we 
 go on to our destiny and our future. 
 
 Some days have passed away. It is now Sunday, July 
 12th. The writer had the unpleasant necessity laid on him 
 of sustaining in its worst form that distressing sickness. 
 Mai de mer. This complaint seems to consist mainly in 
 an accumulation of bile upon the stomach, arising from ,-i 
 perversion of the ordinary centre of gravity in the system, 
 occasioned by the motion of the vessel. There is perhaps 
 no remedy for it. but simply to endure it till the system 
 can habituate itself to the new laws of motion around it. 
 Keeping the bowels relaxed, and taking doses of Seidlitz 
 powders, and also abstinence, will greatly mitigate it. We 
 have had favorable and pleasant winds for some days, and 
 have gone over nearly a third part of our course, or one 
 thousand miles ; and we are now, this pleasant, sunny day. 
 gliding over the Banks of Newfoundland, with several 
 tishing vessels of different nations in sight, engaged in
 
 OUTWARD. 27 
 
 extracting from their native element the codfish, which 
 abound in this shoal part of the ocean. Whales also appear 
 to be numerous here, perhaps of the smaller kinds, as their 
 spouting, or blowing, is seen almost every time the eye rests 
 attentively on the water for a few moments. The fishing is 
 carried on here principally during April, May and June. 
 The depth of the water varies from thirty fathoms to seventy 
 or eighty. The fishing is done by hook and line, or by a 
 number of hooks fastened to one line, called crawls. Any 
 thing would do for bait; but clains are generally used, or a 
 portion of codfish. The proprietors of the vessels usually 
 receive one half of all the fish caught. The captain claims 
 one-fifth of the remainder. The rest are divided among the 
 men : each man receiving in proportion to what he caught. 
 These are the great fishing-banks of the world, and employ 
 annually many thousands of Americans, English and French. 
 Ordinarily a sea voyage is viewed as extremely monot- 
 onous. Yet there are many things presented to observa- 
 tion, even on the wide bosom of old ocean's waste wilderness 
 of waters. The pleasant groves, with their treasure of rich, 
 soft, green leaves; their bird-dwellers, with their cheerful 
 music ; the grassy meads, with their garniture of flowers 
 the mossy rocks, and densely wooded mountains, are far 
 away with the piles of brick in cities, in which revolve 
 the active phases of human life. Yet the deep has its won- 
 ders, its mysteries, and its beauties. At times, throbbing 
 like a great unhappy monster; then playing with its tiny 
 wavelet; and now retiring into obscurity 'neath white folds 
 of mist; then warring with the winds and battling with 
 rock- bound banks it is at once a world apart, and the 
 mirror of the world of men. Its scenes of sunset and sun- 
 rise, its clouds, its moons and stars all have a more 
 wondrous beauty than those of land ; and its ever restless 
 rolling stirs more deeply the infinite deep of the human 
 heart.
 
 28 OUTWARD. 
 
 We are now Thursday, July 17th more than half our 
 way across the ocean, having gone over about 39 of longi- 
 tude, and some 37 yet remain : the latter degrees being of 
 course shorter than the former, as we are further north. 
 We have seen several large whales, one or two being at 
 least one hundred feet long, coming up to the surface to 
 breathe, with a noise similar to that of a high-pressure 
 steam-engine, then again seeking their home in the bound- 
 less deep. Up to the present time, during this week, we 
 have averaged about seven knots per hour ; but now our 
 sails flap idly in the listless breeze ; a dense fog obscures 
 the horizon, and our coiirse is slow. 
 
 Friday, July 18th. This morning the dense cloud in 
 which we had been sailing for twenty-four hours has dis- 
 appeared, and we are careering over the deep at the rate of 
 ten knots an hour. The sea is broken into multitudinous 
 waves, each frothed with the surf, and our gallant ship 
 dashes them aside. They retire, angry and convulsed^ 
 while she, under a favorable breeze, stretches on over the 
 great rotundity of waters. Our captain, who is an expe- 
 rienced seaman, theorizes that there is a correspondent 
 animal in the sea to each species on land. He has himself 
 seen an animal in the sea rise perpendicularly to the height 
 of more than fifty feet, with a serpent-shaped head body 
 as large as a barrel then turn itself spirally and descend. 
 This was seen by himself for several minutes, and by two 
 or three of the crew thus affording additional evidence in 
 favor of the existence of a sea serpent which has been a 
 standing subject on which the wit of editors and others 
 might exhaust itself. There is a sea-cow, a sea-horse; 
 there is the "flying fish ; and the tenantry of the sea offer 
 many other resemblances to those of the land: therefore, 
 why may there not be a sea serpent? Besides, how little 
 do we know of the sea, its miles of perpendicular water, 
 its caves, its valleys where may disport monsters that
 
 OUTWARD. 29 
 
 never come to the surface, similar to or actually realizing 
 earth's lost, extinct animals the Megalonyx, Megatherium, 
 Mastodon, and others huge, cold-blooded animals old, 
 and with barnacles several inches long, covered with moss 
 and seaweed; alive, though overgrown with grass: and 
 which have sometimes been mistaken by sailors for rocks 
 or shallows. 
 
 Last night many porpoises came around the vessel. The 
 water was phosphorescent, and each one as it glided on left 
 a track of golden fire, sometimes near two hundred feet 
 long. 
 
 "And as the/ roared, the elfish light 
 Fell off in snowy flakes." 
 
 How playful and happy seem the myriad dwellers of the 
 deep. Some of them must be literary also, as they go in 
 scftools a pun-ish-meant. 
 
 To-day, Tuesday, July 17th, we are in latitude 47 30', 
 longitude 27 41'. We have lain in almost a calm all 
 morning " with the blue above and the blue below." O for 
 the reliable force of steam to drive us along, instead of the 
 romantic, fitful winds ! Traveling by steam and communi- 
 cation by lightning are requisitions of the age. The mind 
 of man keeps pace in restlessness with the means of grati- 
 fication. The age of repose is gone, and life is everlasting 
 hurry, high-pressure and business. Action and not medi- 
 tation now is our role. We live now, we do not enjoy. We 
 are eager for our future and scornful of ur past. We truly 
 seize Time by the forelock; and the demon of unrest is in 
 our hearts. But the breeze is coming from over the far 
 deep. All our canvas is spread to catch and woo it. Not 
 a single sail has come into our horizon for some days. We 
 have but the sea, and the sky, and the clouds, and the little 
 distinct segments of human existence on board our ship. 
 
 This morning, Monday, July 20th, we are leading quite 
 
 c2
 
 80 OUTWARD. 
 
 a roving, rollicking, romping life. A heavy " Bay of Bis- 
 cay sea," as the captain calls it, is sweeping the ocean ; there 
 is abundance of "table-tipping," chair-overturning, and a mis- 
 cellaneous medley of confusion. The centre of gravity is 
 all upset, we are " rocked in the cradle of the deep," and 
 voluntary motion is suspended. Up and down every thing 
 goes, as if a legion of idle spiritual-rappers had been let 
 loose upon us. I -shall drop the pompous plural and use 
 the more modest " I" hereafter. I have got over two kinds 
 of sea-sickness : one induced by the " pitching" motion of 
 the vessel, the other by its " rolling," so that the longitude 
 and latitude of my stomach have been very often taken. 
 We have run upon one or two sleeping whales of late; and 
 during several evenings past, at sunset, the winds squalled 
 at the waters, old ocean heaved and tossed, the clouds sput- 
 tered down some rain, and there were premonitions of a 
 storm. But now the bright sun is shining on the wild for- 
 lornity of heaving sea, which we are skimming at the rate 
 of seven knots per hour. We are on the European side of 
 the Atlantic, being in Ion. 19, lat. 47. Ships as well as 
 steamers ascend, at this season, to a high latitude, for a 
 double reason : the degrees of longitude decrease as you go 
 north, (in our present latitude, they are about forty-two 
 miles in length,) and also to avoid icebergs, which, at this 
 season, have passed to the southward of us. Yesterday a 
 cane-bottomed chair passed by us, possibly a fragment of 
 some old wreck, which has been floating, unreclaimed, 
 about on the deep, with no voice to tell its tale. Two barks 
 appear in the dim, remote distance : their sails look like 
 shadows of mist. 
 
 It is Tuesday, July 21st. We make, on an average, four 
 degrees per day. Westerly winds prevail at this season, on 
 this side of the Atlantic. We are in Ion. 15 35', lat. 48, 
 being nearly seven hundred miles from our destination. 
 The sea is yet very rough ; vast hills and mountains of un-
 
 OUTWARD. 31 
 
 Julating water rise sometimes on each side of the vessel, 
 which alternately sinks down into the trough of the sea, 
 and rises on the back of a huge swell, while all around the 
 sea appears as if hoary. But 
 
 "Oar ship is light and free, 
 The swiftest falcon scarce can flee 
 More merrily along." 
 
 The " log" indicates our progress to be about ten miles 
 per hour. The method of ascertaining our speed is very 
 simple. A rope with the "log," a triangular piece of board 
 attached, is heaved from the stern. A second-glass ascer- 
 tains the number of seconds a certain number of fathoms 
 occupies in being drawn off the reel which will have the 
 same proportion to miles as the seconds have to hours. As, 
 for example, two hundred and thirty feet are to six thou- 
 sand and eighty-six feet, the number of feet in a sea mile, so 
 are fourteen seconds, the time two hundred and thirty feet 
 occupy in running off the reel, to thirty-six hundred 
 seconds, the number in an hour. 
 
 To-day, Wednesday, July 22d, we have made more than 
 four degrees more to the eastward, and we are now in 
 soundings. The sea has lost its color of deep ocean, and is 
 now of a much darker hue. The heavy, agitating swells 
 have also gone down, but the westerly wind and fine 
 weather still continue. No sails in sight, most of them 
 having been left astern. On Saturday next we expect to 
 make our landing, having only twelve degrees of longitude 
 yet to make. This morning the captain spoke a vessel, 
 bound from Quebec to Shields in England, which had been 
 out thirty days; and having no chronometer, and thus 
 obliged to depend on dead reckoning, they had mistaken 
 their longitude by four degrees. 
 
 Our longitude is 49, and the north star occupies a per-
 
 32 OUTWARD. 
 
 ceptibly higher altitude than that in which we have been 
 accustomed to view it. Who shall solve the great practi- 
 cal problem of the present age, and behold it shining per- 
 pendicularly above him ? 
 
 "We are now, Thursday, July 23d, evidently drawing 
 near to some inhabited region, and we expect in about two 
 days more sail to discover the continent of Europe. Ships 
 are much more numerous, coming out of the English 
 Channel, some of them large vessels, and some of them 
 bound for our own native soil, now far to the westward. 
 We are in Ion. 70, lat. 48 51'. To-night we expect to 
 enter the English Channel, out of which have sailed the 
 British fleets that have conquered the world of waters. We 
 shall probably see land to-morrow, Start Point, England, 
 being perhaps first in view. The weather has been fine for 
 taking observations. The following are the captain's cal- 
 culations for our latitude at the close of the nautical day, or 
 twelve o'clock, July 23d : 
 
 Altitude of Sun, - - 61 21' 
 
 Correction, dip, refraction, - 12' 
 
 Correct altitude, - - 61 14' 
 
 Zenith distance, - 90 00' 
 
 280 46' 
 Declination of Sun, - - 2(P 03' 
 
 True Latitude, - - - 48 49' 
 
 We are, to-day, Friday, July 24th, sailing up the broad 
 waters of the English Channel. The day is bright and 
 lovely, sails flit across the waters, and a strong breeze 
 carries us on our way. No land is in sight on either side. 
 A dull, hazy mist, however, looms above the coast of En- 
 gland. The air is perceptibly warmer as we approach land. 
 To-morrow we expect to see it, and feast our eyes on the
 
 OUTWARD. 33 
 
 more natural abode of man, having seen nothing scarcely 
 for many weary days, but the wide field of waters, and all 
 are thoroughly g^ne and ennuyed by the sea scenes. 
 Novels, high-pressure, thrilling, alarming as they are 
 of late days, have ceased to amuse ; all jokes have become 
 stale, and the surging of the waters has ceased to be musi- 
 cal. A large steamship propeller, met us this morning, 
 bound for the West, heaving and pitching over the waters 
 much more than a ship, which is steadied by her sails. 
 
 It is now late in the afternoon of this sunny, lovely day, 
 and all hearts have been rejoiced by a glimpse of land. To 
 the south may be seen the island of Guernsey, and still 
 further off, in the same direction, the island of Jersey- 
 These, though very near the French coast, belong to En- 
 gland. The white houses on Guernsey are very perceptible 
 through the spy-glass. To the east may be seen, very 
 dimly, the " Caskets," three lighthouses on rocks near the 
 French coast. 
 
 The following calculation represents our longitude to- 
 day at two o'clock : 
 
 Altitude of Sao, - - - - 53O 58' 
 Correction for dip, refraction, - 12' 
 
 Correct altitude, - - - MP 10' -18849 secant. 
 
 Latitude, - 49 37' -10651 cosecant. 
 
 Zenith distance, - - - - 70 11' 8*72120 cosine. 
 
 1730. 58' 9-73396 sine. 
 
 Take half the sum, ... gee 59' 18-75016 sum. 
 Altitude subtracted, - - 54O 10' 
 
 Remainder, 324- 9-37508 half sum. 
 
 Apparent time, - - 
 Equation, ... 
 
 Correct time, - 1-46-5
 
 34 OUTWARD. 
 
 Time by Chronometer, - - 1 '44-25 
 
 Chronometer slow, 12-51 
 
 Correct time at Greenwich, 1-57-16 
 
 - 1-45-06 
 
 Difference, - - 4)11-11 
 
 Longitude west from Greenwich, at present, 2-47^ 
 
 It is now Saturday morning, July 25th. Last evening 
 we passed along the northern coast of France, and we are 
 now entering the mouth of the Seine, near which Havre (or 
 Havre de Grace, the "favorable harbor,'') is situated. We 
 have now the high coast of La Belk France, with its culti- 
 vated fields and its villages distinctly visible. The day is 
 truly beautiful, and everything about the vessel is in readi- 
 ness to disembark, and a sensation of relief at escaping from 
 the foul air of the ship and the confinement is felt by all. 
 Yet we have had a pleasant passage ; the weather has been 
 unusually pleasant; the captain and other officers very 
 courteous ; and, upon the whole, the trip has been thus far 
 as agreeable as under the circumstances it could be. With 
 a memory of the energetic, young, and prosperous native 
 land beyond the broad Atlantic, we gaze around on Euro- 
 pean waters, and see the shores that have furnished history 
 with " her ample pages, rich with the spoils of time." We 
 are glad to step ashore on any land, however far from our 
 own institutions and laws; and we are sure that the peoples 
 of all these countries are with us in feeling and in heart, and 
 that their antiquated monarchies, that have crushed them 
 down like Sindbad's Old Man of the Mountain, will eventu- 
 ally be heaved from their shoulders, and progressive human 
 amelioration make for itself suitable laws. Last night we 
 got some French papers, which reminded us we were yet in 
 the world.
 
 HAVRE. 35 
 
 HAVRE. 
 
 At length we have stepped ashore from the ocean, the 
 common property of all the world, on French soil. The 
 breeze, which had kindly wafted us on, died away into too 
 soft a breath for our clumsy preparations, when we were 
 within six miles of Havre. A telegraphic signal by flags 
 soon brought the powerful agency of a steam tow-boat to 
 our assistance ; and we were soon in the Seine, and moored 
 in its docks. The harbor of Havre is an artificial one, and 
 is principally accessible at high tides. The ground about 
 Havre is high; the hills are under excellent cultivation, 
 and the yellow stubble of wheat looks down from many of 
 them. The city itself occupies low ground, and is pene- 
 trated in various parts by docks, on which may be seen 
 vessels from all ports of the world Havre itself being the 
 harbor of Paris. The tide rises about twenty-three feet. 
 American cities all look alike. There is a certain aspect 
 of newness in them all. But Havre, and I presume most 
 European cities, look old very old. Human action has 
 been at work here for hundreds of years, till its works have 
 crumbled down : yet it still goes on onward. American 
 eyes are struck with the height of the houses and the nar- 
 rowness of the streets. And certain parts of Chartres and 
 Royal-streets in New Orleans are not unlike portions of 
 Havre. The banquettes are very narrow, and a large por- 
 tion of the population walk in the midst of the street. 
 
 But before you land several gendarmes, or police-officers, 
 decorated and uniformed, come on board, who politely 
 demand your passports. Agents from the Custom House 
 take possession of your trunks examine them to see 
 whether you have imported any contraband articles the 
 principal search being made for tobacco, which in all forms 
 is prohibited. If nothing is found, the trunks or luggage 
 are returned, on application, by the agent of the hotel where
 
 36 HAVRE. 
 
 you stop. You reclaim your passports in person at the 
 mayor's office. You find every thing French, and foreign ? 
 and fine. You are addressed in accents foreign to your 
 English ears. You attempt to answer in French. The 
 Frenchman is too polite to laugh, but he bestows on you a 
 look of compassion, and appears to feel inward grief in find- 
 ing his vernacular thus cruelly murdered. You look up 
 the streets; you see moustaches moving along, behind 
 which are men. You see the inevitable gendarmes every- 
 where the national guards of a government which makes 
 itself felt. You feel the presence of a strong imperial 
 government over you. The gendarmes are numerous, and 
 constantly promenading the city in every crowd, and even 
 within the sacred precincts of the churches. They are a 
 courteous, fine-looking body of men ; and Louis Napoleon 
 has shown much wisdom in popularizing this service ren- 
 dering it respectable, and identifying it with the govern- 
 ment, and making it the interest of this disciplined corf)s to 
 be on the side of the government among a people so 
 accessible to periodical excitements, called revolutions, and 
 coups d'etat, as the French are. You reflect with some 
 impatience on the inefficiency of the police department in 
 your own country. Well; you reach your hotel. There 
 your notions of eating undergo an inversion. You are 
 expected to take coftee, or tea, with bread and butter, at or 
 about seven o'clock, your breakfast at eleven, and your 
 dinner at six o'clock in the evening. The waiters wear 
 white gloves; and instead of eating with American vehe- 
 mence and excitement, you behold everybody eating with 
 sublime ease and a calm assurance that he will get enough, 
 and a conviction that he has a stomach and liver whose 
 rights he will respect. 
 
 But now for Havre. And first here, on Rue de Paris, is 
 the silent, old, and stately church of Notre Dame three 
 hundred years old. You enter. It is the first European
 
 37 
 
 church you were ever in ; and it has all the characteristics 
 of "the things you read about." There are paintings, 
 statuary, an immense organ ; all is high, massive, and 
 indicative of the great Catholic religion, which is the same 
 nearly all over the world in its forms. You see the wor- 
 shipers kneeling, devout and attentive. You see the promi- 
 nence which the Virgin Mary occupies in their ritual, 
 which reminds you of Voltaire's observation, that the 
 Catholics believed in a Quaternity instead of a Trinity 
 composed of "Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and the Virgin 
 Mary." As a Protestant you object, of course, to the whole 
 thing, and think this religion is too sensuous; and that 
 they ought to look behind the tiling to the tiling signified. 
 But you forget that all people are not as wise as you are; 
 and that all people should survey all things from the stand- 
 point of their own entirety and not from that of others. 
 Protestants err in many things in regard to Catholics. 
 There is a devotional fervor generated by the Catholic 
 ritual, which produces good effects on the human heart 
 What is believed in as true, has some of the inherent powers 
 of truth. Catholicism twines in many soil nnd pleasing 
 tendrils around a heart. Where there cannot be sunlight, 
 the moonlight may do very well. Protestantism is a larger 
 leap of mind; but we must not despise "the day of small 
 things," nor think that " wisdom will die with us." 
 
 But here is the great old gray tower of Francis the First 
 two hundred and ninety years old. You ascend to its top, 
 and look on a glorious sea. and sunset sea view. The 
 tower is of large stone, and has long outlived its age, use, 
 and generation. Ilere, in the old chivalrous ages of France, 
 were confined rebellious, haughty, feudal subjects. The 
 tears of captives have fallen on these gray, heartless stones. 
 The sighs of chained ambition have gone out of these long, 
 narrow port-holes. The basement descends deep into the 
 earth, and from it is a subterranean passage, which led to 
 
 D 
 
 459931
 
 38 HAVRE. 
 
 
 
 an apartment directly under the Seine; within which, in 
 old times, when England and France were natural enemies, 
 were confined more than five hundred prisoners taken in 
 battle. A revolution in the government happened at this 
 juncture. The persons who alone knew of the passage, for- 
 got the existence of the prisoners; and when the excitement 
 was over, they had all perished of starvation in this deep, 
 dark, subterranean chamber. This tower was founded by 
 Francis the First. Its principal use now is as a place of 
 observation to see ships arriving from foreign ports. They 
 can be seen about twenty -five miles off. The lower parts 
 of the tower have walls over six feet thick. The stones of 
 the upper parts are eaten into by Time; and mysterious 
 Nature attempts to i'asten vegetation within the crevices 
 whence Time has extracted the rock. Around the city you 
 discover remains of its old walls. On the hill D'Ingouville 
 you have splendid seats and fine views. On Sunday, if 
 you are there on that day, you will find no Sabbath day. 
 But you may find an American church in the rear of the 
 new Hotel de Ville, in which you may hear doctrines, accents 
 and ideas strangely at war with the religious desecration of 
 the day, so common in all French and continental cities, 
 and which remind you of the purer morals of your native 
 land. 
 
 But Rouen, the old Gothic Rouen, you must take in your 
 course to Paris. It is many times older than Havre : it is 
 older than Paris ; and it is one of the most interesting cities 
 in France. Therefore we shall not exhaust our astonish- 
 ment at the outset. We call on Mr. Vesey, the very able 
 American consul at Havre, who treats us politely. We 
 give him our hopes that Mr. Buchanan will keep him in 
 office. We see a procession, which can be seen almost 
 every day in continental towns, where the holidays are 
 numerous, and the saints of past ages are duly honored. 
 The women make up a large part of these processions.
 
 ROUEN. 39 
 
 The women, so far as we have observed, are the greatest 
 institution in France. They do the clerk-business of the 
 hotels; they sell you goods ; they are prompt, polite, pretty, 
 and seem altogether to take precedence of the duller and 
 slower male sex. But 'tis time to leave. You pay your 
 bill at the hotel. You find it reasonable, though you are 
 charged for each item separately, for living on the conti- 
 nent of Europe costs much less than in America. The 
 agent, commissaire, or interpreter of the hotel each hotel 
 having an interpreter assists you in regard to the procure- 
 ment of tickets for the cars. You step into one of the first- 
 class cars, though you have heard that none but fools and 
 princes travel in the first-class cars, the second-class being 
 nearly as good at a less price. But your American pride 
 will not let you take any thing second-rate. You find the 
 cars luxuriously furnished, far ahead of American ones, 
 eight persons only being allowed in each. The cars start 
 oft', not with a tremendous, liver-dislocating jerk, as in 
 America not with a hideous, brain-bursting whistle, like 
 the shriek of a rascal attorney when the Devil seizes his 
 soul, (see Sidney Smith.) but softly, easily, and quietly. 
 Your bill at the hotel has not been over two dollars and a 
 half per day, and you are not charged, on the cars, (first- 
 class) over four cents per mile. 
 
 ROUEN. 
 
 You have fifty-six miles to go through to Rouen, over a 
 country more beautiful than your imagination had dreamed 
 of. Portions of the route lie along the valley of the Seine, 
 and part over highlands. It is the harvest-time, and the 
 golden grain stands in its mantle of everlasting sunset, in 
 many a field. No such vulgar things as crooked American 
 fences are to be seen; the beautiful hedges, well-cropped, 
 divide the fields, intermingling some of which you see the 
 grape-vine. You see beautiful clover-fields, flax, oats,
 
 40 ROUEN. 
 
 orchards ; you see the peasantry, apparently happy, at work 
 in the fields, women among them. You see numerous cul- 
 tivated groves of elms planted, regularly trimmed and dis- 
 posed in avenues. You come to little, old, quaint villages, 
 each with a solemn, Gothic old church, its spire pointing 
 starward. You see the hats of the peasantry crowned with 
 flowers. You go through four or five tunnels, several miles 
 in length, some of them. You pass over a viaduct several 
 hundred feet high. You rush down an inclined plane. 
 You come to the queerest-looking assemblage of painted, 
 peaked, irregular, old houses you ever saw. You pass 
 through another tunnel, right under a town, and you stop 
 abruptly in the centre of Rouen, the old capital of Nor- 
 mandy, the town of fifteen hundred years old, out of which 
 went forth the great William the Conqueror, with his sixty 
 thousand Normans, who defeated Harold, the last of the Saxon 
 kings of England, and founded a dynasty the most cele- 
 brated in the world, with the single and sublime and super- 
 natural exception of the kingdom of Judah. You get into 
 a cab and drive to your hotel. A fragment of a young 
 moon hangs up in the sky. The streets are narrow, crooked, 
 angular; every house standing in its own angle every 
 thing but straight. You seem in a place where everything 
 is old, antique, weird, but mankind mankind seem modern 
 and their dwellings mouldering, mementos of things de- 
 parted. You and they seem like live things among monu- 
 ments. Yet they are alive. That man there would sell 
 you that coat for forty francs. That woman there is iron- 
 ing clothes. These things savor of the present. You 
 reach your hotel. Your window overlooks the Seine. In 
 the moonlight and gaslight the old houses, and the narrow 
 streets, (made purposely crooked, to prevent, in the old 
 warlike ages, the attack of cavalry.) look like sepulchres. 
 
 But next morning you go out and thread the serpentine 
 streets. You come directly in contact with a large, long,
 
 ROUKN. 41 
 
 old, gray Gothic- looking pile of stupendous stone buildings, 
 many -pointed, bowed down with age, and looking won- 
 drous pitiful in its exterior carved work and headless, time- 
 eaten statuary. It is the Cathedral of Rouen Ruin, sure 
 enough. You enter and look down the avenues of immense, 
 lofty Gothic columns. Through the stained windows on 
 each one painted a history comes a "dim, religious light." 
 There are twenty-five smaller churches or chapels within, 
 along the sides. On the floor are stones with inscriptions 
 indicating the burial-places of English and French princes, 
 and the heart of Richard Cceur de Lion. Rollo, the first 
 Duke of Normandy, was buried here, in the year 917 A.D. 
 But a Frenchman comes up to you and begins to talk 
 vociferously. You discover he is one of those men who 
 abound in all old European cities, called guides. You en- 
 deavor to shake him off', for you want to be alone with your 
 own thoughts ; but in vain, he cannot be shaken off if you 
 listen, you are lost, lie wants to hurry you from one place 
 to another, stretching out his arms theatrically toward each 
 part. You walk on ; he follows. You offer him sons in 
 self-defense, reseek your hotel, and hire a guide at five 
 francs for the day, and resolve to explore the ruins of Rouen, 
 and in doing so spend the day. If you are a gentleman 
 and a scholar, don't employ a guide. Their incessant, vapid 
 prattle prevents you from feeling and appreciating the just 
 and proper effect of what you see. You are presumed to 
 be acquainted with general history. You are not traveling 
 in order to compile a work on statistical geography, and 
 your own thoughts and observations will supply you with 
 better materials than an ignorant guide, unless, perhaps in 
 the first place, as to the mere localities. But, if you will 
 employ a guide, employ a Frenchman, he will be more 
 minute and enthusiastic than an Englishman. 
 
 I stood in an irregular sort of open space, surrounded by 
 old houses, iu the centre of which rises an awkward-look- 
 
 D2
 
 42 ROUEN. 
 
 ing pedestal, surmounted by a statue of Joan of Arc, the 
 Maid of Orleans the heroic, high-souled, noble peasant 
 girl, who, to the eternal disgrace of the English, was burnt 
 on this spot, (then the market-place,) in May, 1431, under 
 an accusation of sorcery, after the French army under her 
 direction had several times defeated the English, restored 
 their king and crowned him ; and, but for her being unfor- 
 tunately taken prisoner when heading a sortie from a be- 
 sieged city against the English, would most probably have 
 expelled them from the kingdom. From the pedestal of the 
 statue flow several fountains, from which the poor people 
 of Rouen are supplied with water. 
 
 But here is the church of Saint Ouen, perhaps the most 
 ancient and indescribable of all the churches in Normandy ^ 
 with its wilderness of lofty old columns, on which, through 
 the stained windows, eloquent with fine paintings, falls 
 sadly the many-colored, rainbowed light. This church, 
 formerly an abbey, dates, in its present erection, back more 
 than six hundred years. The length, within the walls, is 
 four hundred and fifty feet. It has one hundred and twenty- 
 five windows. Around it is a beautiful garden with avenues 
 of horse-chestnut trees, rich and rare flowers, a fountain, 
 and it is partly surrounded by a portion of the old wall of 
 the city, over which climbs the ivy. The church of Saint 
 Maclou is also beautiful ; and that of Saint Gervaise, where 
 William the Conqueror died, has a deep crypt underneath, 
 into which we entered, the arch of which is made of Roman 
 brick, the cement being now as hard as the brick. It dates 
 back to the third century. I stood in these churches, with 
 their statuary, sculpture, images, paintings, mausoleums, 
 effigies, epitaphs around me, and reflected on the mightiness 
 of the Catholic religion, and the power of the monks in the 
 middle ages. Cumulatively, these piles of churches, with 
 their adornments, attest powerfully the veraciousness of 
 Scripture history. They could not have been erected to
 
 ROUEN. 43 
 
 perpetuate fables. There are many fragments of the old 
 walls of the city on some of which are built houses ; there 
 is a gateway or passage through one of these, called the 
 gate of William the Conqueror; there are some remains of 
 the palace of the " Acquirer," not the Conqueror of England, 
 as Blackstone calls him ; there are the pulverized remains 
 of the heart of Richard Cceur de Lion, of England, the great 
 chivalrous king and crusader, in the museum of antiquities ; 
 there is an extensive and beautiful Boulevarde, or public 
 drive, extending around the city, and occupying the place 
 of the ancient moat; there are numerous old fountains, sur- 
 mounted by statuary ; there are streets, two, four, and six 
 feet wide, with high, ruined houses on each side, which look 
 dark, dirty, and murderous, and, in short, every thing un- 
 like an American city. Of all the churches, that of Saint 
 Ouen is the most admired. The interior of the church pro- 
 duces the impression of being in a vast, old forest; and the 
 antique, painted windows, in their dim, old-age appearance, 
 are almost as lovely as the richest sunset. The church is in 
 the form of a Latin cross, and one end of it deviates from a 
 straight line to represent the inclination of the Saviour's 
 head to one side in the act of death. Two of the windows 
 are especially pointed out, one of which was the work of the 
 master, the other of his pupil, both buried here ; and the 
 master is said to have died of jealousy of his pupil within 
 six months after the completion of the work. In the 
 Museum of Antiquities may be observed some charters in 
 the old Gothic chirography of the middle ages, signed by 
 the mark of William the Conqueror and Richard the Lion- 
 hearted, who were unable to write. From the new church 
 of Bon Secours, within two miles of Rouen, may be seen one 
 of the rarest and most splendid views which La Belle France 
 affords. You have the many-islanded Seine, winding around 
 its meadows, grain-fields, and high chalky hills. You 
 have the Gothic Rouen with its ancient turreted churches.
 
 44 ROUEN. 
 
 Y"ou have the stone and suspension bridges connecting parts 
 of the town separated by the Seine. You have miles of 
 gardens. You have old points where castles were in heroic 
 ages. You have the iron spire of the Cathedral, rising 
 more than four hundred feet high; and you have the 
 ancient grave-yard of the church at your feet a prayer in 
 stone. 
 
 Eouen contains about one hundred thousand inhabitants. 
 It has extensive manufactories of cotton goods ; and though 
 not so commercial a place as Havre, carries on by means of 
 the Seine, a river not half as large as the Ohio, and rail- 
 roads, considerable commerce. Some parts are becoming 
 modernized ; and a lighter taste in architecture is superced- 
 ing the Gothic style of the middle ages. The time will 
 come when this, as well as all other Gothic towns, will be 
 remodeled. Saint Ouen itself will cease to please, and the 
 Gothic arches will topple and fall in fragments. Yet it is 
 pleasant not to have lived when the world had no past. 
 Adarn and Eve had no antiquities their earth had no past, 
 unless Cuvier is right. Yet it is pleasant to retrospect the 
 dim moonlit lights and shadows of the "things that were." 
 But here we are on the cars to Paris great Paris, distant 
 eighty-seven miles passing over a scene of beauty which 
 America is too young by a thousand years to furnish forth. 
 Many little old villages, with their tiled houses one story 
 high, and their solemn church, around which the houses 
 cluster, may be seen at one glance of the eye, nestling along 
 the broad acclivities along the banks of the Seine. More 
 abrupt peaks are surmounted by circular, ruined old towers, 
 while green groves and beautiful gardens around stately 
 brick and stone houses tell of high blood, refinement and 
 gentility while the country is one immense, chequered 
 plantation, with alternate sections of different kinds of 
 grain, and of various colors, ascending the hills ; while tall 
 and trimmed Lombardy poplars, in avenues and lines, and
 
 PARIS. 46 
 
 neat hedges, all do their own proper work of beautifying 
 and utilizing. 
 
 You cross the Seine seven or eight times. And much 
 of the way is through total, pitchy darkness, on account of 
 the number and length of the tunnels. But you enter 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 It impresses you favorably. Streets broad and clean, 
 houses uniform, and a certain gladness or gayety, a sense 
 of enjoying the present, and a polished exterior, seem to 
 prevail all around. You are in a city whose history is 
 dovetailed with, and ramified into, that of every other 
 country in Europe, more than that of any other city, and 
 you survive. It begins to seem to you there are but four 
 periods in the life of man to be born, to get married, to 
 be in Paris, and to die. Paris is an idea. Time has co- 
 quetted with it, and it has experimented with all things on 
 earth, and resolved simply to make the most of the present 
 moment, leaving both past and future to take care of them- 
 selves. It is the pleasantest city in the world beyond all 
 doubt. But how various the significations of the word 
 pleasure ? To the lover, a barren rock, 
 
 " Grotto, mount, or cavern 
 Which serves the happy people for a tavern," 
 
 if with his mistress, is a place of pleasure. To the scholar, 
 the library; to the monk, the cloister; to woman, a bazaar; 
 to young ladies, a ball-room ; to misers, their money -chest : 
 all are places of pleasure. 
 
 But Paris offers the largest gratification to a larger num- 
 ber of human faculties than any other city. It is a happy, 
 worldly, sensual, devilish city where every thing that is 
 pleasant to the eye, and good for food, and to be desired to 
 make one wise, can be found : every thing but the Tree of 
 Lite. The pulse of life here beats fast, and every pulsation
 
 46 PARIS. 
 
 is for enjoyment. True, there is, there must be labor ; but 
 when the labor is over there is the theatre ; there are the 
 promenades, the gardens, the fountains the resorts of all 
 kinds, characters, and reputes. It is not so deliberately and 
 desperately wicked a place as New York, Boston, or Lon- 
 don; but it is gayer more thoughtless, heartless, irreclaim- 
 able. It is better satisfied with this world than any other 
 city. It has all the loveliness of the well-bred, genteel 
 harlot. It has no need of God. All it wants is Mammon 
 and amusement. 
 
 Paris has one million two hundred thousand inhabitants; 
 about fifty thousand houses; more than thirteen hundred 
 and fifty streets; twenty .-eight bridges; is surrounded by 
 seventeen forts; defended by more than thirty -five thousand 
 men; is connected by railroad with all Europe, and defended 
 from the people within by more than five thousand soldiers. 
 Paris first began to be on the island in the Seine now near 
 the middle of the city. The name given to it at first was 
 Lutetia. The inhabitants were called Parisii, or borderers. 
 Julius Cassar found them miserable savages, dwelling in 
 huts; and the country, which is now the refined capital of a 
 powerful empire, covered with gloomy forests. The Romans 
 governed it for five hundred years. Childeric, a Gothic- 
 king, routed their power established a dynasty which 
 lasted two hundred and fifty-six years. How diversified 
 the destinies of its Merovingian, Carlovingian, Capetian, 
 and Bonaparte dynasties ! 
 
 But a nearly round moon hangs visible to half the world 
 at present. The windows of my room look out on the 
 Tuilleries Palace ; in the central tower of which two bright 
 lights are shining. The great bell of the church Notre 
 Dame has been telling the hour of but one to midnight. 
 Before me sleeps in silence the dense groves and beautiful 
 gardens west of the Tuilleries Palace, and below me roar 
 the carriages and pass the promenaders of the great street
 
 PAJUS. 47 
 
 De Rivoli, gaslit and moonlit, full as bright as day, and 
 extending near a mile. 
 
 Hundreds of thousands of hearts are beating in their 
 sleep around me, and here are the places through which 
 have swept the revolutions of past ages. The waves of the 
 past have washed ashore their rich wrecks, and led to the 
 present their freight of what was. The feet of many gene- 
 rations here have walked on through their life-long extinct, 
 and their frames gone into thin air. Ob, is man but a rich 
 nothing, or is earth but his Genesis! 
 
 Here is the Place Vendome, and in its centre rises a 
 a black, hollow column, sculptured on the outside with the 
 incidents of many battles, and on its high top stands the 
 statue of a man in deep, determined, desperate thought, 
 with his long gray coat and three-cornered hat. The build- 
 ings around the square, or Place, are uniform, and are near 
 two hundred years old. The column is one hundred and 
 thirty-five feet high. The pedestal on which it stands is 
 twenty-one feet high, ornamented with bronze bas-reliefs, 
 cast out of twelve hundred pieces of cannon taken by 
 Napoleon in his German wars. The figure on the top is 
 the Man of France Napoleon. It is highly characteristic, 
 thoughtful and impressive. From that height he looks 
 down now on his splendid capital in which, after the dor- 
 mancy of years, he now beholds the redintegration of his 
 great ideas. The Napoleonic ideas are in the hands of one 
 who could not have originated, but who is greater in con- 
 serving and perpetuating them than their founder. The 
 present Napoleon is solidifying the chaos of materials into 
 unity, order and use, collected by the first. He can place a 
 gendarme at the door of every house in France. And 
 what could an army gain by revolting against the Napo- 
 leonic dynasty? You would think, as you look on that 
 statue, that the first Napoleon was indeed the child of 
 Destiny of a great Mission splendidly pregnant in its
 
 4:8 PARIS. 
 
 results to the world but saddening to himself individually. 
 "This simple soldier shall come to empire," was a predic- 
 tion uttered in respect to him in his youth ; and he seemed 
 at times to be astonished and oppressed by the respon- 
 sibilies he had evoked. The present man is not popular, 
 but politic. The first was the most popular of all men. 
 He spoke to the heart. The present man addresses the 
 head. The first was an inspiration to France. The present 
 is a good, strong, able, heartless ruler a usurer, putting 
 out to good account the vast popularity of his uncle. 
 Never had uncle such a nephew ; never had nephew such 
 an uncle. Louis Napoleon has grown great since he be- 
 came emperor. All his powers have had ample occasion to 
 operate, and they have developed him into a considerable 
 man decidedly ahead of any crowned head in Europe at 
 present. Occasions make men, and men make occasions. 
 At first he did not expect the success that has attended 
 his coup d'etat; but he thought it was worthy the effort. 
 France was tired of Tancien regime. A new govern- 
 ment, especially the heroic empire, was refreshing. The 
 French can endure a despotism better than dullness; and 
 any government will please them that is gorgeous and 
 glorious. A republic is too plain and simple. The French 
 emperor possesses the rare and singular talent in those who 
 have power, of knowing what not to do. 
 
 I have been in Pere la Chaise, the beautiful, where Death 
 is denuded of all his terrors ; and the tombs wear a smiling 
 and pleasing appearance, arrayed in immortelles, circlets 
 of flowers mementos of fond but not deathless sorrow 
 streets of tombs, sentiment in stone and every thing 
 French, and fanciful. 'Tis really a pleasant place, with its 
 variously sculptured tombs, its fine trees, and the great 
 view of Paris obtained from it. The tomb of Abelard and 
 Heloise is the most interesting that pretty though mourn- 
 ful story, appealing most powerfully to a people so senti-
 
 PARIS. 49 
 
 mental. " The ashes of Abelard and Heloise are at length 
 united," is one of the inscriptions on it. There they are, 
 represented in the attitude of death, sculptured in marble, 
 under a stone canopy, lying side by side. It is, if I 
 recollect aright, seven hundred years since they died, and 
 yet their peculiarly romantic and pathetic history comes 
 down from the middle ages with all the adornments 
 of chivalry, superstition, and sorrow. There are twenty 
 thousand monuments here. The custom of sculpturing the 
 deceased on his own monument, in the apparel of the dead, 
 has, to our American antecedents, something revolting. 
 Many of the inscriptions have great chasteness of language, 
 brevity, and beauty. One of black marble has no name nor 
 date nothing but " Pray for his soul." Another, that of 
 him who was a traitor to his king, but true to his own 
 instincts and to his heart's recognized idol Marshal Ney, 
 the " Bravest of the brave," the preserver of the " Grand 
 Army" from total destruction in Russia, has only " Stop, 
 traveler, thou treadest on a hero!" The friends of the 
 heroic marshal stole him a grave here. The king, Louis 
 XVIII., ought to have forgiven the subject for the sake of 
 the man. One that of the Princess Demidoff cost sixty 
 thousand dollars. 
 
 Tis a scene of lugubrious magnificence here; and one 
 would think, on seeing these epitaphs, the Parisian popula- 
 tion had been the most virtuous in the world. 
 
 I saw a Catholic funeral of one of the lower orders while 
 strolling around. The relatives of the deceased sprinkled 
 holy water into the grave. Bouquets and other mementos 
 were thrown in. A wooden cross, erected at the head, 
 adorned with bouquets and beads. The priest blessed 
 them. They all went cheerfully away for French feeling 
 is not very deep and the life of Paris is so gay and pleas- 
 ant there is not time to spend it in being sorry for the dead. 
 
 I have visited the great Versailles the embodiment of
 
 50 PARIS. 
 
 the kingly grandeur of the great days of the Louises. With- 
 out doubt it is the greatest royal palace in Europe. It cost, 
 it is said, two hundred millions of dollars; and the debts 
 contracted or rather enlarged in constructing it, are said 
 to have been one of the causes of the French Eevolution 
 According to modern ideas the palace itself is nofhig/i 
 enough, considering its great extent; and the same remark 
 may be made of the Tuilleries and the Palais Royal in 
 Paris. Versailles the city consists of a number of beau- 
 tiful streets and avenues around the palace. Formerly the 
 city contained one hundred thousand inhabitants. Now, 
 since the residence of the monarch is fixed at the Tuilleries, 
 St. Cloud, or Fontainebleau, it contains not more than thirty 
 thousand. It is about seventeen miles from Paris there 
 being two railways one on the right, the other on the left 
 bank of the Seine. It is a place of great resort on Sun- 
 days the attractions presented being the delightful walks 
 and promenades through the great park around the palace, 
 the magnificent jets of water, the fine gardens, shrubbery, 
 orangeries, and statues. The park consists of hundreds of 
 acres, and has two other palaces in it, built for the mistresses 
 of Louis XIV. The palace has not been inhabited by the 
 royal families of France since the Revolution. It is a vast 
 museum ; consecrated, as an inscription, on the facade, 
 announces, "To all the Glories of France." Entering, you 
 walk through seven miles of magnificent rooms, adorned 
 with more than three thousand fine paintings more than 
 one thousand of which are battle scenes. There are also 
 statues casts of tombs. There is a theatre; there is a 
 chapel a most gorgeous one; by the way there are 
 dancing halls, halls of audience, throne-rooms, reception- 
 roomsmarbled, gilt, glorious and grand. You are shown 
 the room, with its bed, where Louis le Grand died. In the 
 principal court-yard, between two of the wings, is a fine 
 equestrian statue of the king, in an attitude of command :
 
 PARIS. 51 
 
 and near him are many other statues of French marshals 
 and heroes. 
 
 Approaching the palace on that side produces a most 
 imposing effect on the mind. There are guides, or guards 
 in uniform, in each room, whose department it is to take 
 care of that room. The effect of the whole is rather sad- 
 dening, however. To one having such a palace it is almost 
 a pity there should be such a thing in the world as death. 
 One's mind is strongly led back to the eras of the middle 
 ages the Crusades; and that kind of chivalrous glory we 
 can never have in America, for we have, as yet, no past, no 
 hereditary monarchs. The old world has worn out all 
 those ideas, and we only make ourselves ridiculous by 
 attempting an imitation of them. Our destiny is simple, 
 rough usefulness no saints, heroes, marshals, battles. We 
 battle with forests and conquer nature making money 
 instead of achieving glory elevating the masses instead of 
 the few. This is our happy age. The age of glory will 
 come by and by : for human nature, in the course of empire, 
 will run in the same channels in the future as in the past. 
 There are busts or pictures of all the kings of France 
 down to the present emperor, through a course of fourteen 
 hundred years. There are paintings of the historical places 
 and persons of all times. The palace is more than two 
 hundred years old, and begins to exhibit some of the decay 
 and neglect consequent on its ceasing to be a royal resi- 
 dence. The stately old trees of the park are in all their 
 glory, and greater than in old days, when they witnessed 
 the feasts and revelries of Louis XIV. and his mistresses. 
 
 St. Cloud is eight or ten miles nearer Paris than Versailles, 
 and is one of the summer residences of the present Emperor. 
 The views from the elegantly laid-ofF grounds of its park 
 are beautiful ; the artificial cascades and jets of water in 
 various places are splendid as royalty and wealth could 
 make them. This was the favorite dwelling-place of Na-
 
 52 PARIS. 
 
 poleon and Josephine. The walls of royal palaces see some 
 strange developments. When France was conquered by the 
 Allies in 1815, Blucher made his dogs sleep in the apart- 
 ments of the Empress. Near St. Cloud is the great porce- 
 lain manufactory of Sevres. This is very interesting; there 
 is a museum of the productions of all countries and ages, 
 in the department of pottery. The vases, paintings on 
 glass, and various manufactures of the place, exceed in 
 beauty and costliness, all others. They are not sold, but 
 intended as adornments of the royal palaces, and as presents 
 to foreign potentates. Many of them are works of extra- 
 ordinary value. 
 
 But the Louvre, that museum of museums ! It is indeed 
 the great attraction of Paris. What must it have been 
 when it contained the spoils, the gems, the chefs d'oeuvres of 
 all lands, collected in the wars of Napoleon, all of which 
 were returned at his downfall ! Whatever a conquered 
 capital contained of art or genius, the imperial autocrat 
 commanded to be transported to this museum. The Louvre 
 (which word is said to be derived from the French Vwuvre 
 "the work,") is a splendid place, with one of the most impos- 
 ing fa9ades or fronts that toward the east in the world. 
 It was begun by Francis I., about 1541. It was the dream of all 
 the French monarchs, but unaccomplished by them all even 
 by Napoleon I. to connect the Louvre by lateral buildings 
 or pavilions to the grand Chateau des Tuilleries perhaps 
 near fifteen hundred feet off toward the west. This has, how- 
 ever, been done by the present Emperor ; the two are now 
 connected, forming perhaps the most splendid pile of build- 
 ings in the world, and enclosing several grand squares or 
 places, courts, etc., for the display of the military reviews ; 
 there are also some fine gardens. The Seine is on one side, 
 and the magnificent Rue de Rivoli on the other, the latter 
 consisting of uniform houses about seven stories high, sup- 
 ported on arcades, and making, especially at night, when
 
 PARIS. 53 
 
 gaslit, the finest display of mirrored shops, hotels, etc., in 
 the world. It is nearly a mile long, and part of it fronts on 
 the gardens of the Tuilleries palace. The palace of the 
 Tuilleries, which word is said to be derived from the tiles 
 or bricks formerly made there, was begun by Mary of 
 ICedicis, one of the French queens, about the year 1564. It 
 is the present winter residence of the Emperor. I have 
 been all through it as well as the Louvre; the latter is open 
 to the public every day except Monday; the former, during 
 the absence of the imperial family, by a special ticket of 
 admission. Its rooms abound in splendor and richness, all 
 the resources of wealth and taste. Gold, gilding, and glass, 
 marble statues, paintings, lofty and carved ceilings, chande- 
 liers, ball-rooms, dining-rooms, reception-rooms, throne- 
 rooms all the encumbrances and superfluity of royalty 
 are here. The rooms are full of historical interest, of things 
 connected with Napoleon, Josephine, Maria Louisa, Louis 
 Philippe. Revolution after revolution has swept the 
 crowned things from these halls. There the face of power 
 has paled and given up the diadem ; the empire of the world 
 has been snatched from the hands of ambition, and pride 
 has been humbled to the dust in the halls of its own crea- 
 tion and enjoyment. In that room the heirs of empires 
 have been born ; in this, monarchs have looked their last on 
 earth. One seems almost surfeited with splendor in such a 
 scene, and feels as if he would like to go out and recline in 
 the mighty shade of a primitive American forest, where the 
 tall grasses arc the harp-strings on which the breeze of even- 
 ing plays soft music. We were present at the fiSte by 
 which was celebrated the completion of the Louvre. It was 
 on the 18th of August, and the principal performances 
 were in the great court of the Louvre aruj Tuilleries. There 
 were many thousands of people collected. The carriages of 
 state, which were emblazoned in magnificent style, bearing 
 the principal ministers of the state departments, the near rela- 
 
 2
 
 54: PARIS. 
 
 tives of the Emperor, and last of all, the Emperor himself, 
 and Empress, came out from the court of the Tuilleries 
 passed under a lofty and magnificent triumphal arch the 
 work of the first Napoleon preceded by a line of soldiers, 
 keeping the crowd off, into the grand court of the Louvre, 
 called the Place Napoleon III., to one of the pavilions, 
 where the guests dismounted, and the Emperor made a 
 speech to the principal workmen engaged in completing 
 the Louvre; after which they returned in procession to the 
 Tuilleries. I had a tolerably near view of the Emperor 
 and Empress, both of whom seemed in excellent health and 
 spirits, bowing courteously to the people, who seemed glad- 
 dened by their approach, but made no demonstrations. 
 The Emperor is more useful to the French people than they 
 are to him. They feel safe from attacks without, and con- 
 vulsions within, while under his government. The secretive- 
 ness of the Emperor cannot secrete itself. There are de- . 
 signs and far-lookings on that face enveloped in a cloud of 
 mute mysteriousness a kind of able comprehensiveness 
 a countenance that tells that it will not tell. It is rare that 
 an able man, a man of decided general ability, occupies a 
 throne. Probably there are as many naturally able men 
 who appear on the lists of tailors or shoemakers, or any 
 other useful and industrious class, as on the lists of monarchs. 
 At present, with the exception of Louis Napoleon, there 
 sits not an able monarch on any of the thrones of Europe. 
 That of England is occupied by a good wife and mother, 
 but a mediocre woman in regard to talent. In the times 
 of the first Napoleon, there were no able monarchs in 
 Europe. That of England was occupied by a lunatic. 
 Great ambitions, evironed by great difficulties, make great 
 men. 
 
 It is common for American papers to decry and under- 
 rate Louis Napoleon. Without doubt he has more right 
 to the French throne than any nephew or descendant of
 
 i ARTS. 55 
 
 Pharamond, Charlemagne, Hugh Capet, or any other founder 
 of any dynasty. In no instance did any of these obtain the 
 throne by either a real or farcical election, but by conquest 
 or intrigue. The majority in favor of Louis Napoleon's 
 empire was between six and seven millions (the first Na- 
 poleon had more than three millions majority); and the 
 elections were as fair and unbiased as many of the elections 
 in our own country or in Great Britain; and no one can 
 doubt that he has more votes in his favor than the Orleans 
 or Bourbon competitors. As to a French republic, it has 
 proved, practically and experimentally, a fallacious idea. 
 When it was strong, it became a Reign of Terror. When 
 it was weak, as in 1848, it became contemptible. The 
 French want a man at the head of artaire, around whom 
 cluster a train of romantic and martial associations ; they 
 worship glory, and they want an embodiment of glory as 
 their ruler not schemers, plodders, poets, or politicians. The 
 resolution of the occurrences of 1848 into Napoleoni.sm, was 
 natural, just, and necessary. France wanted a new dynasty. 
 The old ones had ceased to be glorious. The old soldiers 
 of the empire were yet alive, limped about, and talked of 
 heroic things done under him. The heart-spenking words, 
 " I wish my ashes to repose on the border of the Seine, in 
 the midst of the French people whom I have loved so 
 well," were read daily on the tomb of the Emperor. Na- 
 poleon II. had been done to death by the Emperor of Aus- 
 tria, Fanny Ellsler, and the Jesuits. There was a man, 
 though of rather equivocal character, romantic, chivalrous, 
 a scholar, in exile in prison, at times an author, a believer 
 in his destiny, occasionally a conspirator, and who inherited 
 the blood of Napoleon and Josephine both. His accession was 
 therefore a natural and necessary event. Napoleon I. said, 
 if he could but be his own grandson, he would be irresisti- 
 ble. The present man is, therefore, the child of the present 
 destinies set on foot by the first Napoleon.
 
 56 PARIS. 
 
 On Saturday, the 15th August, was celebrated the fete of 
 St. Napoleon, the patron saint of the Emperor, after whom 
 he was named he being an obscure saint, and having no 
 day in the calendar, was admitted to this honor after the 
 vie of the Emperor the Pope giving him the birthday of 
 the Emperor, which is also the same as that of the Assump- 
 tion of the Virgin Mary, so that the three fetes are all 
 celebrated. The day proved somewhat rainy ; nevertheless 
 there were most brilliant displays of the military on the 
 Champ deMars; sham-battles; the French battles in Algiers 
 were thrice fought and won ; a huge fort was taken ; then 
 there was an aerial chase several figures, resembling stags, 
 and inflated with gas, were, like balloons, let off into the air, 
 then followed hounds, horsemen, footmen. The scene was 
 magnificent. The approaches to the Champ de Mars were 
 filled with the most extraordinary medley of shops, trades, 
 vendors of all kinds of wares. I never saw such a Babel. 
 There were probably two hundred thousand persons or 
 more collected on the great parade-ground the Champ de 
 Mars. Here the great Emperor reviewed his troops in the 
 days of his prosperity ; and here took place the last review 
 previous to the irruption into Belgium, which led to the 
 battle of Waterloo. After night the display of fireworks 
 was both beautiful and tremendous. The Tuilleries gar- 
 dens, the Champ d'Elysses, were brilliant with every kind 
 of deviceful arrangement of lamps the name Napoleon 
 being spelt in every possible way. The fireworks were up- 
 ward cataracts of many-colored lights meteors ascending to 
 great distances, breaking into beautiful forms and colors. 
 In short, the whole great-hearted, enthusiastic city was 
 rapt into the past, and the exile of St. Ilelena, breaking his 
 precious mementos of happier times to pieces to sell them 
 in order to get bread denied by the inhuman rascal of a 
 governor the long-coveted portrait of his own child the 
 noble lion nibbled to death by the sneaking, mean, cur
 
 PARIS. 57 
 
 the man who was never greater than when enduring at St. 
 Helena, might have beheld in this scene the eventual his- 
 toric justice of posterity. At night there were given gratu- 
 itous representations in all the theatres. The theatres are 
 governmental institutions in Paris, it being a part of the 
 prerogative of the monarch to provide amusements for the 
 people, as in ancient Rome; the people in most of these 
 countries being regarded as a huge, blind monster, that re- 
 quires to be amused, lest it should exert its as yet uncon- 
 scious strength. The theatres all receive subsidies from 
 the government; and as, in reality, there is no school so 
 effectual in forming taste, sentiment, and creating ideas, as 
 the stage, a direct control is thereby obtained over public 
 opinion. Every thing is centralized in the hands of the 
 Emperor; the railways are under his immediate control, 
 and, in fact, most of them belong to the government. The 
 object of Louis Napoleon seems to popularize and inaugu- 
 rate the era of wise despotisms, and to base every thing on 
 the present dynasty: all honors, rewards, all nobility, all 
 institutions every thing in the state must rest on the Na- 
 poleonic dynasty as a substratum. 
 
 I have been in many of the points of interest in Paris. 
 The government manufactory of the Gobelin tapestry is an 
 interesting place. The art* of painting is there rivaled by 
 tile skillful interweaving of colors into the tapestry. Many 
 of these are truly wonderful and life-like. Some of the 
 works of this kind will require eight or ten years for their 
 completion. They are used in the adornments of the royal 
 palaces, and sometimes as presents to foreign potentates. 
 Many of the rooms resemble a vast picture gallery ; others 
 are used by the workmen, where you can see the artists en- 
 gaged in weaving and blending the various minute shades 
 of colors of silk or cotton threads, and the picture growing 
 up under their hands into a "thing of beauty." 
 
 I have also been in, under, and on the various remark-
 
 58 PARIS. 
 
 able churches of the city. Notre Dame, with its two grand 
 towers, in one of which is the great bell which requires 
 eight men to toll, and which is rung only on grand occa- 
 sions. I heard a Te Deum performed here on the Emperor's 
 birthday. The music was fine, and the great organ rever- 
 berating along the columned aisles, produced an imposing 
 effect. But the bell was awfully musical. It was subdued 
 thunder. Evening and morning here, for one thousand 
 years past, has the Mass proclaimed the sufferings of Christ. 
 It is so large, that in wandering through it, you corne to 
 various and distinct congregations in different parts of the 
 church, assembled in chapels. They are often diminutive, 
 old, superstitious-looking women, who cross themselves as 
 you pass, to avoid the evil a heretic might impress on them 
 in passing, inasmuch as you neither sprinkle yourself with 
 holy water nor bow to the shrine of the Virgin. There is 
 the beautiful Madeleine, too, looking like a Greek temple 
 with line paintings, and where the music is excellent; there 
 is the middle-age looking church, San Germain Auxerrois, 
 whose bell tolled the signal for the massacre of St. Bartholo- 
 mew's Day, August 2-ith, 1576, when thousands of Protest- 
 ants were shot, and when the miserable King Charles IX. 
 fired on his own subjects from the Louvre palace, opposite 
 the church ; also the Pantheon, with its singular, subter- 
 ranean, reverberating apartments, with the monuments to 
 the great men of France. There is one to Voltaire, who, 
 inasmuch as he doubted whether he had a soul, the epitaph 
 writers courteously waved that question, and inscribed the 
 tomb "to his manes" thus meeting on neutral ground. 
 Then there is, alongside of it, the church St. Etienne du 
 Mont architecturally very quaint with towers, gables, 
 groined and corniced-work, its relics of St. Genevieve, and 
 its abbey-like appearance its assumed miraculous cures 
 for in some of these places the superstitions of the tenth 
 century are lingering like mists.
 
 PARIS. 59 
 
 I have been in the Luxembourg palace also, now the 
 Senate palace of the French government. There is here a 
 fine picture gallery, composed of works of living French 
 artists. The Senate chamber is a splendid hall ; the grounds 
 around the palace are almost equal, in taste and beauty, to 
 those about the Tuilleries, being adorned with statues, and 
 very extensive. They are in the old part of the city, near 
 the Latin quarter; the schools, colleges, medical universi- 
 ties, catacombs, and queer things generally. I stood, near 
 these grounds, on the spot where Marshal Ney was shot. 
 Of late there has been erected, on the spot, a fine monument 
 to his memory, with all the pompous names and titles of 
 the brave Ney thereon. On the opposite side of the city, 
 outside of the great line of fortifications, is the strong fort 
 or Chateau de Vincennes. With a special permission, I 
 strolled through this place, ascended the very high tower 
 to its summit, whence extends a glorious view ; saw the 
 armory with its many hundred thousands of stands of arms 
 of very many kinds, all in excellent order, and many of most 
 ingenious construction, and some very rare. Here War 
 sits enthroned, and looks powerful and terrible. The can- 
 nons are of all kinds; but in the midst of this display of the 
 artillery of death, is a splendid old Cathedral in the Gothic 
 style, in which there is regular service twice a day. The 
 fort is surrounded by a deep fosse or ditch, in one part of 
 which are three small trees growing, which mark the place 
 where the unfortunate Duke d'Enghien was shot by order 
 of the first Napoleon, one of his tyrannous acts, and one 
 which no explanation can thoroughly justify. Some assert 
 that on hearing of the prompt fulfillment of his orders by 
 the commanding officer, he exclaimed, "The wretch! he 
 has been too hasty !" But, in his last will at St. Helena, he 
 declared that in similar circumstances he would do the same 
 thing again, since the young duke was one of sixty conspi- 
 rators maintained in Paris by the Bourbons to assassinate
 
 60 PARIS. 
 
 him The object of Napoleon was to strike terror into the 
 hearts of the Bourbons by a dreadful example; but it was 
 the terror of deeper-rooted hate he produced. 
 
 I have also seen the "Tomb of the Emperor," which is 
 visible to the people twice a week, in the church of the 
 Hotel des Invalides, the latter a hospital for wounded and 
 superannuated soldiers. The old soldiers act as guides 
 around this place ; and some of them mount guard at the 
 entrance, and stand by the side of the tomb. The latter is 
 yet unfinished, and the body reposes in one of the side 
 chapels of the church. The hat and sword of the Emperor 
 are there, and many of the flags taken in his "world-win- 
 ning battles." The tomb, which is of red Finland granite, 
 will rest in a deep circular crypt, directly under the dome 
 of the church. The church itself is magnificent, floored 
 with fine marble; and through the peculiar, semitransparent 
 glass of the windows, fall the day-beams like perpetual sun- 
 set. There is a quaintness about this part of the city that 
 is grandly impressive. You read " Tombeau de 1'Empe- 
 reur," at various places. You need not ask what Emperor. 
 The old soldier led us about ; showed the museum in the 
 hospital and passing a marble bust of the Emperor, kissed 
 it with singular enthusiasm. The old Napoleon is at rest 
 and his glory is full. 
 
 The Hotel de Cluny is an old building of the middle ages, 
 now used as a museum of antiquities. It consists of very 
 many rooms, with much carved-work on oak of those old 
 times, ancient paintings taken out of demolished churches, 
 mosaics, old suits of armor, relics of great men, beds on 
 which monarchs died, statues of all times, Roman and 
 middle-age, tombs cut in stone, and carved figures, effigies 
 of the departed. Adjoining it are the Thermes or Baths, a 
 Roman building, supposed to have been built by Julian the 
 Apostate, when governor of Gaul, and to have been the 
 residence, for a time, of Constantine the Great. It has high,
 
 PARIS. 61 
 
 vaulted apartments, subterranean passages, sculptured frag- 
 ments of Roman divinities. The palace has a solemn 
 appearance. You almost feel as if there had been dark things 
 done there by despotic, irresponsible, cruel power. The 
 evergreen ivy has grown around most of the building, 
 which stares at you in wearisome age ; and, though it is in 
 the central part of the old city, there is a pretty yard, 
 planted with trees, and ornamented with grassy lawns 
 around it. 
 
 After all, however, the Bois de Boulogne and the Boule- 
 vardes are the great attractions of Paris. The former con- 
 sists of about two hundred acres, outside the city, passing 
 along the Elysian Fields and the Barrier (or gate) de 1'Etoile, 
 and near a grand triumphal arch erected by the first 
 Napoleon to himself and the Grand Army. The park or 
 woods of Boulogne may be considered the most agreeable 
 place in Europe, for riding, driving, or promenading. 
 There are long and beautiful avenues, gardens, borders of 
 flowers; there are lakes, streams of water, with artificial 
 cascades, which you can go under; there are theatres, cafes, 
 and restaurants; concerts every day; ruins; solemn and 
 stately woods, formerly a noted place for duelling. This is 
 the usual evening ride or drive: Emperor, Empress, King 
 or peasant, foreign nobleman and retired citizen, coaches 
 and six or cab hired at a franc an hour, all are here, in this 
 scene of sunlight and beauty. The Champs Elysees, inside 
 the walls, is the usual place for promenading, the stream 
 of carriages to the Bois de Boulogne passing through it. It 
 has several out-door theatres, evening concerts, a circus, 
 some beautiful fountains, seats to rest on, and fine trees 
 planted, the shade of which renders the place pleasant at all 
 times, while the fountains cool the air and the various 
 passers; the statues, the palaces, the Palace of Industry, a 
 crystal palace, being near this, give interest and diversion 
 to the scene.
 
 62 PARIS. 
 
 Between these and the gardens of the Tuilleries Palace, 
 is the Place de Concorde, formerly Place de la Revolu- 
 tion, because here the guillotine stood, on which twenty- 
 eight hundred victims of the French revolution were 
 decapitated, including the king, Louis XVI. On the place 
 where the guillotine stood is now a splendid Egyptian obe- 
 lisk, brought from Luxor, with its mute Syenitic hierogly- 
 phics; and surrounding the square, which has also two most 
 beautiful fountains, are statues, allegoric of the principal 
 cities of France ; and in full view are various splendid 
 palaces belonging to the state departments, and also the 
 palace of the Tuilleries, the gardens intervening, with their 
 lofty groves of elms, their lively fountains, and fine statues 
 of marble and bronze. Here is a delicious promenade for 
 all classes children, nurses, boys ; and here, as well as in 
 the square, enclosed by the wings of the Palais Royal, may 
 be heard fine military music, performed by a large band 
 each evening. This keeps up the military spirit, which is 
 the source of many of the ennobling and elevating feelings 
 of man. The love of glory is not a useless thing. Men 
 deteriorate, become low and groveling, whose pursuits are 
 merely buying, selling, and shopkeeping. It is necessary 
 to have occasional wars to arouse up mankind, to make 
 great men, to stimulate and energize the sluggish blood of 
 monotonous life. He is a simpleton who goes about crying 
 "Alas!" over any people, for all have that in themselves 
 which to them is best, or are proceeding toward it in the 
 best way ; or who would quadrate the great ocean of multi- 
 tudinous humanity by the quart-pot of his own little 
 individuality. To do what one can, where one can, how 
 one can, and as one can, is the whole duty of man ; and 
 one's destiny is simply the mute wantings and tendencies 
 of the relations of things, the utterings of what would like 
 to be, and with which our will may either coalesce or 
 not.
 
 PARIS. 63 
 
 August 18th. But we have now been in Paris some 
 three weeks Paris the superb, the cynosure of the world ! 
 Paris is the full, fresh, vigorous, modern world in action 
 It is healthy human life in operation. Here all the arts are 
 done, and well done. The strife of energy and emulation 
 brings out all that is in the heart. Every body must live 
 on a specialty, and every specialty must have a man or 
 woman for here the women are truly co-workers with man 
 and without claiming any peculiar rights, or considering 
 themselves divested of any privileges, seem content to do 
 all their duty in their own recognized sphere, and assist 
 their lords in theirs. It is the Rome of modern days. Its 
 sunny, bright air, its healthfulness, its excellent police 
 which renders all parts safer than any American city the 
 long line of arcades and uniform buildings on the Rue de 
 Rivoli the brilliant Boulevards, wide, airy, and thronged 
 with gay promenaders the splendid imperial corteges that 
 gallop along the streets like a dream of power in glory 
 the associations connected with that stern, silent, sad-look- 
 ing man who bears the name of Bonaparte, whose dazzling 
 story thrills the hearts of our boyhood's years the beauti- 
 ful Empress all these render Paris the most attractive of 
 cities. Then there is the great Louvre, with its collections 
 of all times : Assyrian, Egyptian, the mysterious, supersti- 
 tious middle-age; there are the stately churches; the splendid 
 cafes, shops, gardens, the Champ d'Elysees, are all pleasant 
 and pleasure-giving. But we are off': so adieu to all, espe- 
 cially the Hotel Meurice, with its good and fresh coffee, 
 milk, bread and butter, and its clean service. We depart 
 on our course toward the south of France, by railway travel- 
 ing at night, and thus seeing but little of the country. But 
 the next morning's sun rising over the Jura mountains of 
 Switzerland, on our left, disclosed the fair vine-fields of 
 beautiful France, giving promise of a glad vintage, and drop- 
 ping rich dew which shattered the sunlight into a thousand
 
 64 FRANCE. 
 
 colors. The harvest was just over, and a light fog, which 
 lay over the valley of the Saone, lifting itself up like a 
 gauze, semitransparent curtain, we saw the golden wheat- 
 fields, in oblong patches, ascending the hill-slopes ; and side 
 by side, were similar fields or meadows without fences, or 
 separated by avenues of poplars, all of which, with the 
 antique villages, long-spired churches, or ivy-clad ruins, 
 showed well in the gray fog-light, contrasting with the dark 
 and bleak outline of the mountains. At Macon, our route 
 diverged to the left ; the railway penetrated the Jura moun- 
 tains, passing through a vast chasm, at the bottom of which 
 flowed a rapid torrent or branch of the Saone. Many of the 
 views were of the most lovely character ; the steep moun- 
 tain sides cultivated in small benc/ies, or parterres, to their 
 summits; the Swiss-looking, but comfortable, old, gabled, 
 groined and carved cottages ; the peculiarly wild appearance 
 of the Jura mountains, which, in some places, looked like a 
 suddenly solidified storm : these all swept into our view as 
 we passed. 
 
 The French cars are divided into three classes: first, 
 second and third. There is, in some of them, a car called the 
 coupe, superior to the first, as it admits of an unobstructed 
 view over the whole country, in front as well as on ea.cn 
 side. It contains but four persons; the first-class cars con- 
 taining eight; the second, ten; the third-class, about thirty 
 persons, each class being at a different price the coupe is 
 the highest; which, as well as the first and second-class 
 cars, are much more comfortably and luxuriously furnished 
 than are the cars in America. I had been sitting in the 
 coupe alone, when a lady and gentleman entered, who, on 
 seeing me, testified some displeasure, as they probably ex- 
 pected to appropriate it to themselves. They were French; 
 the lady was young and "beautiful exceedingly," with 
 those dangerous, cheery, attractive kind of eyes, which 
 ladies will have sometimes; the gentleman was much older,
 
 PRANCE. 65 
 
 but agreeably mannered. They seated themselves together 
 at one end of the cushioned sofa ; and, absorbed in looking 
 at the scenery, I did not, at first, pay much attention to 
 them, till the frequent recurrence of a somewhat soft, explo- 
 sive kind of noise, immediately followed by a change of 
 position, so as to glance at me, attracted my notice. It now 
 became evident that the object of this glance was to see that 
 I did not see, and I became equally desirous to see why I 
 was not to see. Yet how was this to be done consistently 
 with etiquette? And what was this noise, this tender ex- 
 plosion, that I heard ? I was plainly de trap, one too many. 
 In this state of uncertainty, anxiety on their part and curi- 
 osity on mine, we rode some distance ; but whenever my 
 attention became absorbed in any thing external, and I ap- 
 peared abstractedly forgetful of my companions, I was 
 recalled to consciousness by a kind of echo of "sweetness 
 long drawn out." At last they were able to calculate the 
 precise length of my occasional abstractions, and profiting 
 thereby, took occasion to produce several slightly musical 
 concussions, while I seemed to be intently engaged in sur- 
 veying the jagged points of llmt mountain away up yonder. 
 On one occasion, however, when their long exemption from 
 detection had made them feel secure, and politeness could 
 no longer command- me in my constrained position, I 
 turned around, and saw the cause of all, in that labial con- 
 taction known as kissing. 'Twas but a moment, yet how 
 delicious the embarrassment on her pretty and gentle face. 
 I was, however, immediately rapt into contemplation of the 
 scenery again, and turning myself inveterately around, left 
 my French friends to their enjoyments. They were prob- 
 ably on their wedding-tour among the Alps, having been, 
 probably, married that morning. We at length arrived at 
 the little town of Seyssel, among the mountains, where the 
 railway terminated, (since completed to Geneva,) where we 
 saw the rushing, rapid Rhone. We had passed through 
 5 F2
 
 66 GENEVA. 
 
 portions of the region producing the fine Burgundy wines 
 of France. At Seyssel, entering that singular-looking 
 vehicle, a Diligence, with five horses to draw us, three in 
 front and two attached immediately to the carriage, having 
 about twenty persons inside, we crossed the Rhone, leaving 
 France and entering Savoy, a province of the kingdom 
 of Sardinia. Our baggage was here examined, and our 
 passports inquired into, which all being en regie, or all 
 right, we were delivered up to the beggars. For, while 
 calmly seated in the vehicle, I discovered a number of hands 
 stretched out toward us, which, on examination, I found 
 proceeded from most ragged, wretched-looking humans, who 
 stood behind them, whom I had not noticed previously on 
 account of their, silent, Niobe-like postures. There were 
 gray-haired men, women and children. Up high hills and 
 vast mountains, our course now lay; fine views wherever 
 the eye turned ; but gray-haired beggars, with locks stream- 
 ing in the wind, followed us for miles, to get the sous the 
 benevolence or irritation of the travelers prompted them to 
 bestow. After a long and romantic ride, during which we 
 had frequent and fine views >f the Rhone, which, in one 
 place, is lost under vast rocks, we descended into the extra- 
 ordinarily beautiful valley near Lake Geneva, in which 
 the 
 
 CITY OF GENEVA 
 
 is situated. The transition from the heat, dust, and ex- 
 citement of Paris, to this pleasant city, surrounded by 
 the most picturesque and lofty mountains, and sitting by 
 the side of the Rhone, which here having passed through 
 Lake Geneva, comes out as blue as a section of an Italian 
 summer's day is most delightful and cheering. The air 
 is cool, on account of the proximity to the snowy Alps. 
 The lake is in length about fifty miles, ten or twelve broad, 
 and not much unlike, in shape, to a crescent moon. Geneva 
 has about thirty thousand inhabitants. We stopped at the
 
 GENEVA. 67 
 
 Hotel de 1'Ecu, an excellent place, with many of its rooms 
 looking out on the lake. The environs of Geneva are de- 
 lightful, but it does not require a long time to exhaust the 
 curiosities of the city. Much of the city is built on the 
 slope of a hill. The fruits here we find excellent, in all 
 varieties, and in great profusion and cheapness. The mar- 
 kets are held principally along the sides of the streets ; the 
 variety of Swiss costumes here seen is very great. There 
 are very many remains of the fortifications and walls of the 
 middle ages, with the outside moat. The manufacture of 
 watches, works in gold, ornaments of glass, coral, pictures, 
 etc., seem to occupy a principal share in the industry of the 
 people. They are chiefly Protestants; and Sunday is better 
 observed here than iu French cities. The language is prin- 
 cipally French, with some German. I went into the old 
 Cathedral, formerly a Catholic church, but since the Reform- 
 ation, (with which Geneva had a great deal to do,) it has 
 been divested of its ornaments, images, and pictures, and 
 consecrated to the humbler, less gorgeous, but probably 
 more sincere services of Protestantism. Here Calvin 
 preached for many years. I sat in his chair, and ascended 
 into his pulpit, from which he preached to the people, arid 
 uttered his denunciations against heretics and Catholics. 
 Beyond all question, his was one of the most astute and vig- 
 orous minds of his age ; a little disposed to tyranny, he was 
 still a man of mighty effort, and ruled Geneva, politically 
 as well as ecclesiastically, in such a manner as to stamp his 
 ideas on the since succeeding times. There is, in this Cathe- 
 dral, a singular, old, carved collection of wooden benches or 
 seats, on which, the guide told us, one of the great general 
 councils had sat: that, if I recollect aright, which con- 
 demned John Huss to be burnt In the cemetery of Geneva, 
 I saw the names of some distinguished Englishmen, who, 
 resorting to Geneva for health, had died there. One of the 
 number was Sir Humphrey Davy. Applying to the guide
 
 68 CHAMOUNI. 
 
 for information, I was conducted to one of the most impres- 
 sive tombs in the world, that of John Calvin. It consisted 
 of nothing but a small marble block, not one foot in height, 
 with nothing on it except the letters " J. C." Even this much 
 was contrary to his will, for he directed that no stone should 
 mark the place of his interment. The cemetery is beauti- 
 ful, and it is somewhat refreshing to see Protestant taste 
 expressed even in a burial-ground, after the numerous 
 crosses and fanciful mournfulness of Pore la Chaise. In a 
 beautiful island at the place where the Khone issues out of 
 the lake, are several statues : one, that of Jean Jaques Bous- 
 seau, long a resident here. This is a delightful place ; 
 there are pleasant nights ; there are large crowds of prome- 
 uaders under the trees ; there is a band of music ; some sail 
 on the blue lake, others indulge in the delicacies of the 
 palate ; the fresh wind from the lake fans the cheek, and the 
 sky seems sepulchred in the beautiful lake below. 
 
 CHAMOUNI. 
 
 But we are now at Chamouni. The cold, bald, hoar brow 
 of Mont Blanc rises far above us, into the high air the 
 most awfully grand sight I have ever beheld. There are 
 three principal summits, the highest being fifteen thousand 
 eight hundred feet. In all directions around shoot up vast 
 granite peaks, like needles, utterly inaccessible, many of 
 them twelve thousand feet high. These are separated by 
 frightful chasms and abysses, the cradles of innumerable 
 glaciers, some of which extend down into the Valley of 
 Chamouni. The line of perpetual snow begins about half 
 way up the mountain, and all the upper parts are shrouded 
 in a snowy mantle, old as the creation, and bound together 
 by glaciers, desolate and dreadful, with seamy ridges and 
 caverns within them, from which burst splendid cataracts, 
 leaping gladly forth as if rejoiced to be freed from frigidity. 
 For about half way up, the mountain is bristled with dark
 
 CHAMOUNI. 69 
 
 pines. Vegetation there ceases, and the realms of eternal 
 snow commence. The sunset rays glamoring and revelling 
 like gladsome fairies on the ever-freezing summit of Mont 
 Blanc, long after darkness has wrapped the entire valley 
 below, are beautiful as a dream of the " golden city." We 
 left Geneva at an early hour this morning, August 21st, 
 and came the whole distance, fifty-one miles, to Chamouni, 
 in a Diligence containing thirty persons. The country 
 through which we passed, near Geneva, is well cultivated, 
 and abounds in lovely villas then through the green val- 
 ley of the Arve one of the streams born from the glaciers 
 of Chamouni. Mountains of appalling height, as if trying 
 to see how high they could get, rose on each side; and 
 feudal ruins of stone castles, in wretched decay, looked out 
 from scenes of natural beauty and lone sublimity. Pasture 
 lands, old, finished and decayed villages; beggars; horn- 
 blowers, cannon-firers, to awaken the mountain echoes and 
 sell them to us all demanded our centimes; and the beau- 
 ties of nature seemed set in contrast with the debasement 
 of man. The splendid cataract of Le Mont d'Arssenoy, 
 eight hundred feet high, shivering down rocks, then leaping 
 madly, then covering itself eoquettishly with rainbows fur- 
 nishes an introduction to the greater glories of Switzerland. 
 On the route we left the territory of Switzerland and 
 entered Sardinia, where our passports were examined, which 
 being found en rlgle we having taken the precaution, at 
 Qeneva, to get a Sardinian visa we were permitted to pro- 
 ceed. Passing a bridge over the Arve we had a sudden 
 view of Mont Blanc, in appalling whiteness and distinct- 
 ness, though twelve miles off in a straight line the great 
 monster mountain of Europe, arrayed in all his dazzling 
 snows. After dining at St. Martin's, we proceeded on our 
 way passing various green and grassy-looking villages 
 our course lying along the Arve, which tumbled and 
 dashed over enormous rocks the water being of the pecu-
 
 70 MONT BLANC LE JARDIN. 
 
 liar white color which distinguishes glacier- water. At some 
 places we were compelled, owing to the steepness of the 
 ascent, to dismount and ascend on foot a grand chaos of 
 lovely and sublime views arresting attention at every step. 
 We then descended into the long, narrow Vale of Chamouni. 
 All nature seems to take on a savage, Alpine air. Two 
 enormous glaciers come down in chasms from Mont Blanc. 
 Cascades and cataracts of rocks appear around you, and 
 devastations apparently caused by ancient volcanoes. A 
 ruin of an ancient chateau is seen on an isolated granite 
 peak. Entering the vale, however, all is peaceful, and 
 serene, and Swiss-like. There is a small valley here, in 
 which we found excellent hotels. There are numerous 
 shops here, in which are sold the carved wood-work of 
 the Swiss ; crystals and specimens of the stones found on 
 Mont Blanc; also the Alpine stick a long, light pole, 
 pointed at one end with iron used in making excursions 
 on the ice. Travelers are here discussing their plans, 
 routes for the day, dangers; guides are making bargains; 
 and the great sublimity of nature is over and around all. 
 Once more, then, before retiring, I turn to the great white 
 thing above me, almost ascending to heaven. Five or six 
 "wild torrents fiercely glad" leap out of its sides, and run 
 down in streams or cataracts to the valley, while forests of 
 pines ascend, like a dark night-shadow, till forbidden by 
 the empire of snow. The stars and moon look down on 
 the scenes from above, and peaceful vales, fields, and meads, 
 and streams, are at the foot of the "monarch of mountains" 
 his crown and his kingdom, himself cold, alone, dreary, and 
 solemn. 
 
 MONT BLANC AND LE JARDIN. 
 
 To-day, August 22d, we have performed a rather unusual 
 and hazardous excursion one among the many that may 
 be made from Chamouni. Having made our arrangements
 
 MONT BLANC LE JARDIN. 71 
 
 with a guide, and each armed with an Alpine stock, we set 
 forward on foot at an early hour. There are about forty 
 guides at Chamouni. They have regular prices for certain 
 places, and all form a community under a leader elected 
 by themselves and subject to an established organization. 
 They are generally very honest. All speak French, some 
 a little English, and in capacity and manners, owing to 
 their contact with travelers, are superior to the ordinary 
 dMnofl of the population. Thus traveling is a means not 
 only of enlarging and improving the mind of the traveler, 
 but becomes also a means of liberalizing those with whom 
 he comes in contact. Leaving Chamouni, we begin to as- 
 cend the mountain by a course winding in zigzags up the 
 steep ascent passing through a dense forest of pines 
 encountering on our way many travelers ascending to its 
 Hermitage ladies on mules all with Alpine stocks the 
 scene presented on looking back over the green Vale of 
 Chamouni, seen far below us, being interesting in the 
 highest degree. At various parts of the ascent generally 
 at some spring or fertile place we met groups of peasant 
 girls, offering us, for a consideration, flowers, strawberries 
 with milk, and other refreshments. At length we reached 
 Montauvert, more than six thousand feet above the sea 
 level. There is a small hotel or chalet here for refresh- 
 ment; and at this point the vast glacier called the "Sea of 
 Ice," burst upon our view. Nothing can exceed the gran- 
 deur of the scene. It descends from the cold, awful heights 
 of Mont Blanc is many miles long, some five or six 
 broad is surrounded on all sides, except on that toward 
 Chamouni, with rugged and lofty granite needles or ele- 
 vated mountain points. Its appearance is like an angry sea 
 in commotion ridges of ice, chasms, caverns, crevices. 
 Directing our guide to procure wine and cold meat as a 
 repast on the way, we now descended upon the Sea of Ice 
 by three dangerous bridges, formed by steps cut into the
 
 72 MONT BLANC LE JARDIN. 
 
 rocks forming one of the needles. After some hours of 
 great labor, scrambling over the huge blocks of ice, and 
 following the difficult route, never to be taken except with 
 an expereinced guide, we found ourselves safely across. 
 The depth of the solid mass of ice is stated to be six hun- 
 dred feet. It is about six thousand feet above the level of 
 the sea. In summer, when the weather is fine, which was 
 the case to-day, there are innumerable streams running over 
 the surface. These converge into a river, which leaps into 
 a tremendous chasm in the middle of the Sea of Ice, and 
 goes down to the bottom, six hundred feet, passing under 
 it, and breaking out with great noise a vast, white cata- 
 ract, into the Valley of Chamouni forms the river Arve. 
 Niagara, with all its vast volume of waters, is not so sub- 
 lime as this cataract with its surroundings. Having crossed 
 the icy sea, our course lay upon an enormous rock, several 
 hundred feet high, which we ascended partly on our hands 
 and feet, crawling upward by means of notches in the rock. 
 We now entered a much wilder looking region. There 
 were large masses of granite, the debris from the needles 
 above fairy cascades dangling from the high glaciers 
 above. We had at length penetrated into the savage heart 
 of Mont Blanc. Resting by the side of one of the clear, 
 ice-cold streams, we devoured our repast with an appetite 
 inspired by our exercise and the elevated air. After this, 
 crossing other glaciers and snows, and making- other as- 
 cents, we attained the object of our excursion the " Jardin," 
 or Garden, more than nine thousand feet high. This is a 
 large rock, covered with a thin sod of verdure, even at this 
 great height, on which are also blooming at this time of the 
 year rich and splendid-looking Alpine flowers, with a deli- 
 cate blue tint, and a wild, untrammelled beauty, as if never 
 gazed at by human eyes, but only made to be the admira- 
 tion of fairy angels. The vegetation here arises from the 
 warmth produced by the rays reflected from the various
 
 MONT BLANC LE JARDIN. 73 
 
 needle- pointed mountains around here converging to one 
 point. It is a warm region in the frosty and windy heart 
 of Mont Blanc, like one bright and tender remembrance in 
 a life otherwise all winter one dear, loved memory in 
 youth, to which age can go back and cull fair flowers of 
 feeling and forget the dreariness of life around. The day 
 had been unusually favorable for our excursion, and we 
 were now in possession of a clear, unclouded view of the 
 extreme summit of Mont Blanc, rising six thousand feet 
 above us. There was a thin, gauze-like drapery of cloud 
 floating just below the summit. On our right rose, piercing 
 into the sky, the Aiguille (or needle) de Talafre, with its 
 snows, glaciers, and cascades. A barricade of other peaked, 
 granite mountains, most of them twelve thousand feet high, 
 and many of them never explored, appeared all around. It 
 was a scene for heart-silence amidst this sublimity of Nature; 
 for there is in nature a development of all feelings of which 
 the mind or heart of man is susceptible. Here the dreary, 
 the lone, the remote and savage, the sublime, find vent 
 But even here is the beautiful too ; and these strange, 
 staring, blue Alpine flowers, seem to show that no situation 
 is without its alleviations, and that way-side flowers spring 
 up even under the pressure of the most forlorn situations. 
 Under a rock here we found a bottle, in which those who, 
 like us, have attained this elevation, leave their names, 
 residence, date of ascending, written on a piece of paper. 
 We did the same; then with a last look at Mont Blanc, 
 and at the sublime scene around, and having taken some 
 of the blue Alpine flowers as mementos, we prepared to 
 descend, being obliged to cross the Sea of Ice before dark, 
 in order to escape its vast fissures. We returned on the 
 same route by which we came. I can never forget the 
 views we had on our return of the red sunset rays slowly 
 climbing the grand granite needles, patched over with snow, 
 gleaming with glaciers ; the huge cataracts bursting out of 
 
 o
 
 74 MONT BLANC LE JARDIN. 
 
 their sides uttering "the voice of many waters" then 
 the lone appearance of the many-ridged and tempest-tossed 
 Sea of Ice, with its clear waters, freezing as we passed in 
 the twilight ; then the deep darkness of the Vale of Cha- 
 mouni, while yet the rays lingered long on the summit of 
 Mont Blanc. The obelisks of naked mountains, which 
 appear to touch the sky the agitated Sea of Ice be- 
 neath, which the suns of thousands of summers have been 
 unable to melt all assume a wondrous solemnity in the 
 evening hour, as if they were the cathedral of Nature, who 
 was then breathing orisons to her Maker. We reached 
 Chamouni late at night, having performed a walk of thirty- 
 six miles. 
 
 The ascent of Mont Blanc to its summit, sixteen thousand 
 feet high, is made almost every season by some anxious-to- 
 distinguish-himself person. It requires at least three days, 
 and six guides to each person : the guides at twenty dollars 
 each. The first night the party sleep at the Grand Mulcts, 
 to which the guides carry provisions, wine, &c. a cabin 
 visible from Chamouni, erected for this purpose. The 
 second day the ascent to the top of Mont Blanc is made, 
 and the party return to the Grand Mulcts; there sleep, and 
 return the ensuing day to Chamouni. Vast and terrible 
 glaciers have to be passed in making the ascent, and preci- 
 pices of ice, extending down five hundred feet, crossed. 
 From the top the view is, of course, grand beyond descrip- 
 tion. Lakes Geneva and Neufchatel can be seen, as also 
 Italy. It is the highest point in Europe; but it lacks near 
 ten thousand feet of being as high as some of the Asiatic 
 mountains. Ladies have made the ascent to the top of 
 Mont Blanc. Many of those who have made the ascent 
 have become deranged in mind. The piercing winds, extreme 
 cold, the thin air, so much change the appearance of those 
 who make the ascent that they are scarcely recognizable on 
 their return. The return of a party who have successfully
 
 MONT BLANC LK JABDIN. 75 
 
 and fairly achieved the ascent is acclaimed at Chamouni by 
 the firing of cannon. Our guide's name was Bulmat. lie 
 is a nephew of the celebrated Joseph Balmat, who was the 
 first of all mankind to stand on the then untrodden summit 
 of the mountain. lie made the ascent some seventy years 
 ago, and afterward perished on the mountain, a martyr to 
 his love of adventurous explorations. 
 
 The great glaciers, with their cataracts; the numerous 
 lofty, jagged, perpendicular points of granite, called needles, 
 which surround them ; the great three-headed white thing 
 that rises far above all, clad in dazzling snows, the top of 
 Mont Blanc: the little village of Chamouni, lying along the 
 rushing Arve; the chequered board-like patches of mead- 
 ows in the vale; the "silent sea of pines" around the base 
 of Mont Blanc all constitute an unparalleled scene of 
 interest. The glaciers occupy enormous ravines, descend- 
 ing from the summit of the mountain almost down into the 
 vale. It is said they have a slight motion, almost imper- 
 ceptible, but yet obvious in the course of years the ten- 
 dency of the glaciers being to slide down the mountain. 
 Or the lower ends, being in a warmer climate, melt, and 
 mere gravity causes a descent the upper portions being 
 still accumulating. In the course of some hundreds of 
 years an entire glacier may have disappeared. The sides 
 of the glaciers, where they rub against their lofty granite 
 boundaries, are covered with stones and accretions from the 
 "needles" above. The ice is in many places beautifully 
 colored ; in others, it presents an old, weary, gray, and deso- 
 late appearance. There are vast caverns in it long and 
 fathomless furrows. The safe paths across are known to 
 the guides only ; and occasionally a singular groaning, like 
 an electrical convulsion, seems to rush over the glaciers, 
 as if the monster groaned in his frigid, dreary, lifeless 
 desolation.
 
 76 SWITZERLAND. 
 
 SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Some days have elapsed. We are now at Martigny, an 
 ancient little Swiss village at the foot of several ranges of 
 mountains. It is on the Drance, a small stream. The 
 inhabitants are afflicted, perhaps beyond any other place in 
 the world, with that dreadful deformity, the goitre. It is so 
 common that the lack of it is considered almost unnatural; 
 and those who have it not are called "goose-necked." 
 There are many theories to account for it. Some attribute 
 it to the water ; some to every cause in the whole category 
 of causes. It is probable it is due to that degeneracy that 
 must come on all human beings who live lor centuries 
 under the same influences, and surrounded by the same 
 scenes and circumstances. Man is migratory; he should 
 vary his circumstances; create new influences; sometimes 
 go to war; any thing to create a change to bring into 
 operation other parts of his system to bring about a new 
 activity or he will degenerate, and sink, and suffer. 
 These Swiss here are wonderfully attached to their coun- 
 try continue in the same employments never emigrate : 
 and probably the goitre is the result. Yet Martigny is a 
 beautiful place; and appears especially so after escaping 
 from the snows and glaciers of Chamouni. It is in the val- 
 ley of the Ehone; and a green, level, and well-cultivated 
 region extends along the river, bounded by high moun- 
 tains. On a hill near the town is a very peculiar looking 
 and strong Eoman ruin or relic of the middle ages a castle 
 or tower of stone, majestic in its age, and frowning down 
 on the transitory present, as if in consciousness of its 
 strength, and its past and its mute unknown history. I 
 walked around on its fallen walls, and climbed to the top 
 of the tower, from whence extends a grand view, embracing 
 the village, the bare mountains around, and the rich plain. 
 The scene is singular and oldi
 
 SWITZERLAND. 77 
 
 The last day of my stay in the sweet and lovely Vale of 
 Cbamouni I made the ascent of the mountain La Flegiere, 
 on the side opposite Le Mont Blanc, with a friend and a 
 guide, passing some distance by a road through meadows. 
 We began the. stern ascent by a path practicable for mules, 
 wending through dark groves of pines, and accomplished 
 the ascent to the cross on the summit in about three hours. 
 At various places were restaurants, where were ottered 
 wines and other liquors to refresh the weary climbers. 
 From the summit a view of extraordinary magnificence 
 appears. The three peaks of Mont Blanc are most clearly 
 seen in all their snowy majesty. Six great glaciers, with 
 their utterances of cataracts; the pine forests around the 
 mountain's base ; the Arve and Arveiron " raving cease- 
 lessly"; and in the dizzy distance below the variegated 
 fields of Chamouni with Swiss chalets all form a scene of 
 wondrous attraction. The height of La Flegiere is over 
 six thousand feet. The view from the "cross" is indeed a 
 luxury of vision. The glaciers have an old world, weary, 
 and heartless aspect, as if never refreshed by warm human 
 sympathies; never formed by gentle words; never the 
 parents of smiling and lovely flowers : as if their's alone 
 was to be a fate of coldness, gloom, and exemption from all 
 the dear delights of earth apart in their high and freez- 
 ing grandeur, wrapped up in the barrenness of inorganic 
 atomry. After a pleasant dinner at the chalet on the sum- 
 mit we descended. The travelers' books, in which they 
 register their names and make sundry remarks, kept at all 
 these hotels, are quite a curiosity, and serve very well as 
 indications of national and individual characteristics. We 
 saw the names of many of our countrymen, many princes 
 of Europe. We returned to Chamouni late in the evening, 
 and the next day we departed on our course to this place, 
 by the pass of the "Tele Noir," a route replete with sub- 
 lime scenes. The first six miles were through the Vale of 
 
 02
 
 78 CASTLE OF CHILLON VEVAY. 
 
 Chamouni; then over a height affording us last views of 
 hoary Mont Blanc, and his family of glaciers; then we 
 descended into passes between mountains of great elevation, 
 whose sides were dotted with miniature fields of grain, sup- 
 ported by terraces, each contiguous to a little, comfortable- 
 looking cottage, surrounded by fruit-trees and small patches 
 of green pasture, while at the base of the mountain roared 
 a torrent, fed by numerous streams and cascades, whitening 
 and foaming down the sides of the mountains from the 
 gleaming glaciers above. Little Catholic villages, with 
 their ever-open churches, and their musical bells, resound- 
 ing in the lone, unworldly-looking valleys; crosses and 
 shrines on the road-sides, with their weeping Madonnas or 
 their suffering Christs; beggars who spake not, but extended 
 a shattered limb all these were on onr pathway, with their 
 different messages of beauty or of sorrow. We passed 
 through the Valley Valorsine, and the singular tunnel 
 near the Tete Noir, which is asserted to have been con- 
 structed by Napoleon, to facilitate intercourse between dif- 
 ferent parts of his empire. This part of the route has the 
 appearance of danger, and causes the traveler to linger and 
 drink in the wild creations of beauty and desolation. A 
 long ascent then brought us to the top of the Forclaz, from 
 whence, in the direction of Martigny, lay extended a view 
 of remarkable beauty fields, meadows, fruit-trees; and in 
 our rear rose the cold and old Mont Blanc, mingling with 
 the clouds, and radiant in sunset. Then descending by 
 many zigzags, and passing through lowlands, we found our- 
 selves in this goitred and unhappy-looking village. 
 
 CASTLE OF CHILLON VEVAY. 
 
 But I am now at Villeneuve, Hotel Byron, at the head 
 of Lake Geneva, or Leman. The lake spreads before me with 
 its wondrous blueness, as if rivaling the sky. On the left 
 are the " Alps, where eternity is throned in icy halls of cold
 
 CASTLE OF CHILLON VEVAY. 79 
 
 sublimity." And here is Byron's little isle, near the shore, 
 with its three tall trees; and just on the right, founded on a 
 rook jutting into the lake, is the Castle of Chillon, gray and 
 Gothic. While around this hotel, to which Lord Byron's 
 name is given as his genius has rendered tiicse scenes 
 classic are beautiful parterres, promenades, terraces, flower- 
 beds, the whole gently sloping to the musical, wave-dash- 
 ing lake. With a guide, to-day I have been through the 
 castle. It is now used as a magazine for cannon and gun- 
 powder. We were shown large oaken halls, with curious 
 old furniture, pictures, the Duke of Savoy's apartment, then 
 that of the Duchess, commanding a most enchanting view 
 over the lake ; also the Chapel, the Hall of Justice, and 
 other places the castle being large, and said to be eight 
 hundred years old. But so much splendor in the past has 
 its counterpart, and he took us into the dungeons below. 
 We saw the prison, rendered celebrated by one of the most 
 beautiful and affecting of Lord Byron's shorter poems, the 
 
 "Seren pillars of Qothio mould, 
 In Chillon 's dungeons deep and old." 
 
 The rings to fasten the prisoners to were still there; and a 
 path is worn in the hard, stone pavement by their feet, as 
 they, bear- like, trod round and round, as far as their chains 
 permitted. The names of many persons, Lord Byron's 
 among others, are on the columns. At the extreme end is 
 a horrid, dark, ghostly place, an oubliette, or chamber of for- 
 getfulness, a sort of well, lined all around with sharp spikes, 
 into which they were thrown, or let down with a windlass, 
 to perish in forgetful ness, while mirth, music, and power 
 feasted above. The guide also showed us a kind of wall or 
 platform, on which many Jews, one at a time, were burnt 
 to death ; then another oubliette, and we had " done" it. The 
 green ivy grows around the white walls on the outside. 
 The castle itself, though more modern and much less in
 
 80 VEVAY. 
 
 decay than many others, seerns to enshroud some destiny 
 of darkness. There is such a thing as an evil physiognomy 
 impressed even on a mere building. The life that has been 
 lived in a house often writes itself on the walls, and looks 
 out upon us in a gay, lively, or gloomy expression. The 
 place partakes of its past. And an unquiet memory haunts 
 the place where evil actions have been perpetrated. People 
 say, " I do not like such a place : I do not know why." Tt 
 is because there is a mute appealing there that would be 
 heard an unvoiced spirit lingers about the place. Other 
 places, on the contrary, impress us with an involuntary feel- 
 ing of gladness. 
 
 We left Martigny yesterday, by Diligence, and arrived 
 at this place, passing through scenery essentially Swiss, and 
 all lovely as a poetic creation. There was the cataract 
 Pissevache, three hundred or more feet high, made by the 
 river Salenche ; there were rugged mountains glaciered over 
 with solid seas of snow, soft and pleasant vales between ; 
 narrow-streeted and ancient-looking villages ; churches and 
 chapels cut out of solid rock ; cathedrals with relics and 
 memoirs of Charlemagne ; bridges built by Caesar; and, in 
 short, as much beauty as could be stowed into twenty-eight 
 miles. We saw the place where the swift Rhone clears its 
 way between heights which appear "as lovers who have 
 parted"; and the opening of the scene toward Lake Geneva, 
 the green, peaceful hills, in contrast to Alpine glaciers; old 
 cities, gray and tile-roofed, sitting by the blue waters: all 
 were beautiful. No wonder the Swiss are patriotic and 
 love their country. It would be easy to form deathless and 
 romantic attachments to a country that is all a delight 
 Yet there is a breadth, an expansion of mind, a largeness 
 of thought felt in America, to which this country is a 
 stranger. America is the land for the accomplishing of 
 great deeds; this for poetry, romance, superstition, relics, 
 and the contracting, the back-looking ties of the heart. It
 
 VKVAY. 81 
 
 must be admitted, too, that in passing through Switzerland, 
 the Cantons in which Protestantism prevails, appear to better 
 advantage and have fewer beggars, and less general abject 
 ness than those of the Catholics. 
 
 But once more at Geneva, this strongly-fortified city, " by 
 the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone." Leaving Ville 
 neuve yesterday, I had a pleasant excursion along the 
 banks of the lake, passing Montreux, with its very pictur- 
 esque situation on a rugged Alpine projection ; its ivy-grown 
 old church, from the terrace of which a view of rare loveli- 
 ness, embracing the lake and the Alps, extends; its foun- 
 tains, water-falls, etc.; then Clarens and Vevay, which are 
 small cities on the lake shore, occupying situations of ro 
 mantic beauty. Vine-plantations and terraces are in the 
 rear, from which are seen the snowy Alps beyond the lake's 
 blue waters. Here the air is pleasant and genial; the situ- 
 ation most healthful, and the sun is rarely clouded. It 
 is impossible to exaggerate the beauty of these shores 
 which have given inspiration to, and received fame from, 
 such talents as were possessed by Byron and Rousseau. 
 From the terrace near the old Cathedral of Bevay is a pros- 
 pect of wondrous beauty. I stood there and gazed long, 
 till the eye and heart both were loth to leave the scene. 
 Protestantism has taken Switzerland in spots. This is a 
 Protestant city, and the grand old cathedral listens to Pro 
 testant sermons instead of Catholic masses. In it is buried 
 one of the three judges who condemned King Charles I. 
 of England. The old grave-yard just back of the church is 
 interesting ; the sleepers sleeping in the midst of glorious 
 scenery : the ivy, the vine, the Alps, and the lovely lake all 
 near. Vevay is a much frequented resort for travelers, on 
 account of the super-excellence of the " Hotel Monnet,'' with 
 its beautiful bowered garden on the lake. The shores of 
 this lake, (here only two or three miles wide,) are remark- 
 able on account of the number of celebrated characters who 
 6
 
 82 BERNE. 
 
 have sought repose from the griefs of heart and head, in 
 the lovely scenery. Voltaire's school, where he lectured, 
 and in which he used that singular, pregnant expression, 
 " If there be no God, one ought to be invented" ; the old 
 church, on which is the inscription, "Erected to God by 
 Voltaire" ; the residence of Madame de Stahl ; Lord Byron's 
 residence (Diodati), in which he composed the principal part 
 of the third canto of Childe Harold all are on these coasts. 
 It is singular how small a portion of our emotions are utter- 
 able. A single glance around, an old ruin, a word, a tone, 
 a ripple, a sunbeam, each may have a powerful spell to 
 evoke in the heart what no language can give birth to. 
 This is the unwritten and only occasionally and transiently 
 felt poetry of an old world, amidst sublime scenery, such as 
 that at present around me. 
 
 BERNE. 
 
 August 27th. We have of late reached this pleasant 
 city, the capital of the Swiss Confederation. It is on the 
 river Aar, whose singularly blue waters wind entirely 
 around it. Here the German language predominates, but 
 at the hotels French is spoken, and a little English. The city 
 has about twenty-five thousand inhabitants. The principal 
 streets are wide, houses supported on arcades, on the plan 
 of the Rue de Rivoli in Paris ; but here the arcades are lower, 
 the columns not so light and elegant, nor so high, but stout, 
 solid, and Dutch-like. The city being on the slope of ground 
 declining toward the Aar, admits of pleasant rivulets of 
 water, running in small canals, through the middle of the 
 streets. The Cathedral here is one of the splendid Gothic 
 works of the middle ages, with a profusion of sculptured 
 statues, arches, groinings, architraves, stained windows, 
 grand organ, a slice of heaven to hear the latter, tombs, 
 etc., all of which have been converted to Protestantism. Not 
 far from the Cathedral is a terrace, at a great height above
 
 BERXE. 83 
 
 the Aar. It has monuments to various old Bernese heroes, 
 who killed huge, monster bears on this place, and thus 
 founded the city, and called it Berne, which means the 
 " bear city." There are elegant promenades here, and it is 
 adorned with trees. But trees, bears, music, heroes, sculp- 
 ture, must all succumb to the real, sublime magnificence of 
 Nature. There is a view of the Alps, the Bernese Ober- 
 land, from the terrace, which is really overpowering. To 
 the southeast, you may see a huge wilderness of silent and 
 sublime, snowed and glaciered mountains, lost in clouds and 
 laved in sunlight. They are probably one hundred miles 
 off. In their whke mantles, they look like ghosts of gone, 
 great worlds, and the impression they make on the heart is 
 one of its eternities. The promenades, avenues, heights, 
 around Berne, are lovely, and its inhabitants are clever, in- 
 dustrious, unpretending and moral. The city is all built 
 of stone ; and under the arcades are the principal shops and 
 hotels, along which is a pleasant, covered promenade. The 
 great town-clock striking "twelve," makes a tremendous 
 ado about it ; figures of angels, bears, trumpeters Death 
 himself come out, stalk around, blow horns, and do vari- 
 ous other things, to the edification of the gazers. The 
 clock is in an immense, old, prison-looking tower, the street 
 passing through an arch under it. 
 
 ' Leaving Tevay a few days ago, I returned in a beautiful 
 little steamer on Lake Geneva to Geneva. The trip down 
 the lake's blue waters, along these old, walled and pictur- 
 esquely situated villages; the mouldering castles peering 
 through groves and vine-plantations; the dark-chasmed 
 Jura mountains on one side, the Alps on the other ; then 
 the white city of Geneva, at the extreme end of the lake, 
 rising into view as yo approach, all form a panorama of 
 beauty at which the eye scarcely even tires of gazing. Ar- 
 rived in Geneva we spent some days in that city of good 
 hotels and ecclesiastical recollections. Among the rather
 
 84: BERNE. 
 
 few objects of interest it offers to the travelers, (it compen- 
 sates, however, in its environs,) is the junction of the Khone 
 and the Arve, a mile from the city. The Rhone, with its 
 extraordinary and inexplainable blueness, rushes along 
 with great rapidity, meets but does not mingle with the 
 Arve, which, being born from the glaciers of Chamouni, 
 partakes of the usual extreme whiteness of glacier-water, a 
 kind of compromise color is the result ; but neither stream 
 is as beautiful as before ; and, as in the case of most com- 
 promises, both appear to be sullenly dissatisfied the Rhone 
 regretting its blueness, and the Arve its whiteness which 
 they enjoyed up in the serpentine, delicious vales of their 
 youth before marriage. 
 
 Resuming our route from Geneva, we again sailed up the 
 lake as far as Ouchy, the port of the beautiful city of Lau- 
 sanne. On our way up, gazing to the right, I was favored 
 with the rare privilege of seeing Mont Blanc, the monster 
 mountain, in all his snowy sublimity, near sixty miles off. 
 All the other mountains, which, when one is near him, 
 seem almost as high as he, were utterly invisible. The red 
 clouds were hanging around him like folds of tapestry, and 
 his dazzling snowy head looked over earth, and seemed to 
 lean on heaven. Arrived at Ouchy, on the lake (at this 
 place Lord Byron wrote, in two days, the "Prisoner of 
 Chillon,") we took passage thence iu an omnibus, which 
 bore us, by a long way leading up a hill, by a road enclosed 
 by high walls bounding grape plantations, to the very 
 beautiful, but rather Italian-looking city of Lausanne, 
 where, at the large but indifferently-kept Hotel Gibbon so- 
 called because it is on the site of Gibbon's house and 
 garden, in which he wrote the " Decline and Fall of the 
 Roman Empire," we rested a day.
 
 LAUSANNE. 85 
 
 LAUSANNE. 
 
 Lausanne has about fifteen thousand inhabitants, and is 
 probably the most pleasant of all the cities of Switzerland, 
 for sojourning in. The old Cathedral with its nine hundred 
 years of age, its four hundred and seventy-two columns, its 
 tombs, (one of them to Lady Canning, by Canova,) its 
 fine situation, the museum, which is really extensive in 
 the geological, mineralogical, and zoological departments, 
 containing some interesting relics of the first Napoleon, 
 his maps, and some observations in his own handwriting; 
 the singular-looking old streets, with their numerous stone 
 stair-cases, the city being built on three hills and their 
 intervening deep valleys, the stone fountains, with the 
 bright, clear, sparkling, ice-cold water leaping out; the 
 somewhat singular costumes of the peasantry ; their settled, 
 satisfied, unambitious appearance, so different from our in- 
 cessant American onwardness; all these, together with a 
 cloudless sky above, a blue, heavenly-looking lake below, 
 and eternally snow-mantled and glaciered mountains across, 
 give the traveler, in his sojourn here, a constant feast 
 addressed to his intellect or his eye. From Lausanne we 
 departed, by a Swiss railway, through a beautiful vine and 
 grass country, to Yverdon on Lake Neufchatcl. Up this 
 lake, some twenty-seven miles long, five or six wide, with 
 its banks vine-clad, and pretty and neat-looking villages 
 sitting on the slopes, with ruins, castles, churches, we sailed 
 in a steamer to Neufchatel. The waters of the lake are as 
 blue as those of Lake Leman ; the scenery is not so bold, 
 but prettier and softer. Neufchatel contains about seven thou- 
 sand inhabitants, who, as in many of the other Swiss cities, 
 are engaged in manufacturing watches, teeth, ornaments in 
 gold and silver, carved wooden-work, etc. Beautiful as 
 are the situations of many of these towns, on their hills and 
 with their ivy -clad churches and ruins, the traveler who 
 
 H
 
 86 BEKNE. 
 
 examines them in detail must not expect the gratification 
 of all the senses; the sense of smell is frequently 'violently 
 offended ; and while the eye or the mind may be in rapture 
 over a ravishing scene, it protests that Europe does not 
 smell well. 
 
 Leaving Neufchatel. which belongs to Prussia, in a Dili- 
 gence, we earne some twenty-eight miles to 
 
 BERNE, 
 
 passing over, perhaps, the finest part of Switzerland, agri- 
 culturally considered ; with fine views of lakes (in one of 
 which is an island, in which Rousseau spent many days of 
 exile); and we also saw the sunset rays disporting themselves 
 on the summits of far-off glaciers, where they linger longest 
 in prismatic loveliness, as if to console them for the moving 
 trees, the green, living grass, which their cold bosoms must 
 bear never. How beautiful those far-off snowy mountains 
 in this old land, their surfaces covered with glaciers at all 
 degrees of inclination, and clad in colors of unpictured love- 
 liness! It is Europe the old, historical, and lovely and 
 not America great, progressive, young and ardent, but 
 without the dying, dreaming beauty of a historical, cele- 
 brated past. Town-lots, and new cities and railroads, and 
 steamboats and reaping-machines and sewing-machines, are 
 our mercenary, mechanical pursuits; and the great, old, 
 quiet contemplations of nature, by which genius and art 
 are born, are sacrificed to the modern gods of physical com- 
 fort and utility. We are an unquiet, restless, agonized 
 people, repeating with less art and genius experiments 
 of human nature, the falseness and vanity of which are seen 
 in old Europe. But we intend to do it, and resolve to 
 repeat them often often. These people have a kind of ex- 
 perimental, practical knowledge of man and of men, due to 
 the constant attrition of an overcrowded continent, that we 
 in our sparsedly settled country have not. 'Ve read, but
 
 FREIBURG. 87 
 
 they learn and see. Thinking is scarcely so common in 
 Europe as with us; but there is more perception, and more 
 knowledge with less theory. 
 
 FRSIBURO. 
 
 But we are off in the Diligence to Freiburg, this glorious 
 Saturday evening. We pass out of the gates of Berne, 
 guarded l>y two enormous bears in stone, which look at us 
 fiercely funny. During this day we have visited the Baren- 
 graben. The good Bernese not contenting themselves with 
 plaster and bronze bears, have constructed a large, walled 
 courtyard, in which are several live specimens of their 
 favorite animal. They seem to lead an easy, careless 
 existence, and look like impersonations of fat easy, well- 
 to-do bearhood happy in the happiness they give to the 
 Bernese. You throw to them apples, and you take a slice 
 of enjoyment yourself, in watching their movements. Of 
 course there would be a fine opening for you to say that the 
 lions of Berne are all bears: but don't you do it. We also 
 visited the interior of the Cathedral, and were led about by 
 an old lady, the curiosity-keeper of the place. It is truly a 
 splendid Gothic edifice : its organ is one of the finest in the 
 world ; and in the church are several remains of the old 
 Catholic times ; tombs, monuments, etc., with inscriptions 
 in Latin, French, German ; and there are busts of the apos- 
 tles and prophets ; and relics of the grand times, far more 
 interesting than the present, when all things in these 
 churches were in keeping with the ascendancy of a gorge- 
 ous superstition. But though the Canton of Berne is Pro- 
 testantized, on our way to Freiburg we see the large, wooden 
 crosses erected on the roadside, to revive and encourage 
 Catholic feelings in the bosom of the traveler, and are con- 
 vinced that Catholicism is yet in the world, and that we are 
 now entering one of the Catholic Cantons again. The in- 
 habitants in these vales seem devoted principally to the
 
 88 FREIBURG. 
 
 raising of grain, clover, hay and, but that the houses are 
 not so good, nor the people so intelligent, one might fancy 
 himself gazing on one of the fertile valleys among the 
 mountains of the Middle States. But here is that hideous 
 goitre again, an immense protuberance or swelling in the 
 neck; and here are poor, miserable people collecting the 
 manure falling on the road, in baskets, and selling it : thus 
 demonstrating that there are many ways of making a living 
 in this world. Poor Europe ! she has her millions of hard 
 livers and low livers filthy wretches, in whom humanity is 
 distorted ; and between whom and what might be called 
 ordinary comfort, is an immeasurable ascent. But afar oft' 
 .rise the snowy Alps, gilt by the resplendent sunset. Their 
 multiform peaks look like giants supporting the earth, 
 hoary with age, and weary. They have sat there in frozen, 
 changeless majesty, for thousands of years, addressing the 
 sublime feeling in man, and trophying the greatness of their 
 Creator. 
 
 While in Berne, we called on the resident Minister of the 
 American Legation, who is more than a mere minister a 
 good author and poet; and more than either minister or 
 poet a Christian and good man. We were much pleased 
 with his acquaintance. The representatives of our country 
 in Europe, whom we have seen, are very fair and able 
 men ; and the doctrine of rotation in office might be far 
 more beautifully applied in rotating those persons about 
 their business, who are so anxious to dispossess those from 
 offices, which require the tact and knowledge which only 
 the experience of years can give, than in ousting experi- 
 enced possessors. 
 
 But here, underneath this mellow August moon, you 
 enter the old, picturesque town of Freiburg. You see first 
 the high tower of the Cathedral, two hundred and fifty feet 
 high; you pass over an immense suspension-bridge; you 
 stop at a hotel bearing the name of one of the renowned
 
 PKEIBUBG. 89 
 
 chiefs of the middle ages (Zaehringen Hof). From your 
 window you can see several old towers rising in the midst 
 of the half-decayed walls which once surrounded the town. 
 The town itself looks obsolete, mysterious, and visionary. 
 On a high point of a mountain near, stands a solitary square 
 feudal watch-tower, with numerous portholes, with the walls 
 decayed all around, the tower itself impregnable to time. 
 You then cross a wire suspension-bridge thrown over a deep 
 gorge: the bridge is six hundred and forty feet long, and 
 three hundred and seventeen feet high. Then comes another 
 feudal stone tower, around which cling fragments of walls; 
 then there is the longest suspension-bridge in Europe for 
 these people are great on suspension-bridges. It is nine 
 hundred and forty-one feet long and one hundred and eighty 
 feet high, and extends across the river Savine. This tower 
 is a stronghold of Catholicism. The Jesuits are here in 
 great power ; and here the suspected were tortured into Ca- 
 tholicism. We go to church here, truly indeed " not for the 
 doctrines, but the music there," for the organ is said to be 
 one of the grandest in the world. Its voice is like the 
 mighty utterance of hitherto mute Nature. It is said to be 
 the richest toned organ in the world. You see the church 
 crowded, and the gorgeous mummery of Catholicism going 
 on for it is much easier to act devotion than to feel it. 
 Catholicism here seems to be dramatic devotion. The 
 Catholic church is the most splendid and powerful institu- 
 tion which has ever existed in the world. The empires of 
 Assyria and Home are not to be compared to it in power, 
 magnificence, or influence over the feelings. Its grand, 
 stately music ; its imposing ceremonies ; its sculptures ; its 
 paintings ; even its candles burning in mid-day ; -the myste- 
 rious order of unmarried men devoted to it alone; its saints, 
 legends, purgatory; its Pope; its crosses all powerfully 
 brand into the heart of humanity. 
 
 The old wall of Freiburg yet surrounds the town, and is 
 
 H2
 
 90 FREIBURG. 
 
 said to be the most nearly perfect of all the fortifications of 
 the middle ages. The present city was founded about six 
 hundred years ago, by the father of him who founded Berne. 
 The present wall appears to have been built on a more 
 ancient one; the gray, time-eaten stones of which underneath, 
 present a very ancient appearance. The wall varies in 
 height. Where a huge gorge alongside rendered an attack 
 almost useless, it is much lower. In other places it is forty 
 or fifty feet high, and seven or eight broad. I counted fif- 
 teen or twenty towers of various shapes and heights, some 
 at least one hundred feet high. They are built of large 
 square masses of stone; have numerous windows; different 
 stories or compartments ; would contain hundreds of soldiers ; 
 and seem not only able to withstand the material enemies 
 that assaulted them, but also the great enemy of all things, 
 terrestrial Time himself, who devours his own offspring. 
 Of course these fortifications are utterly useless in modern 
 warfare, since the invention of cannons and bombs ; but in 
 the ages when battles were fought, the soldiers grappling 
 hand to hand or hurling lances, this place must have been 
 almost impregnable, the city having been built on a succes- 
 sion of precipices. 
 
 Sunday, that calm and blessed institution, whose influence 
 on the heart of man is soothing as music, does not exist 
 here; is not in Europe unless in England or Scotland at 
 least as it is seen in America. Humankind require a Sun-' 
 day, and will deteriorate without it. It is the resting of 
 part of our nature and the action of another part; the rest 
 of earth and the action of heaven. But these wretched 
 people carry a lowness in their countenances. Europe has 
 produced greater men than America ; greater individuals ; 
 greater cities, churches, intellectual works, but in no 
 instance a greater people. That is the mission of America. 
 There man is magnified. The tyranny of superstition, 
 under the name of Religion, worse than any political
 
 FBKIBUBO. 91 
 
 tyranny, is not on him there the air is uncursed by this 
 damning, contracting, soul- withering thing, that delights 
 the eye and fancy, and pleases the ear, but shrivels up the 
 soul called the Church of Rome. Here man lives and 
 breathes, but hardly, for centuries of inherited unprogres- 
 siveness cling around him. Tradition and custom tyrannize 
 over him ; and the what has been precludes any thing better 
 to be. 
 
 But here is the old Jesuits 1 convent, immense and mean- 
 looking, with its high wall around the courtyard to keep in 
 due bounds young inclinations, and to keep out young 
 lovers. Adjoining is a high, iron-grated tower, now used 
 as a prison. In old times it was the place where the Jesuits 
 applied the rack. It is even yet called "LeMauvaise 
 Tour," the bad tower. It has indeed a bad, wicked, heart- 
 less look. In both of these, human nature has been 
 crushed out, and the Devil rejoiced in his great, strong 
 power, and in his fit agents. The oppressor and the 
 oppressed are now alike in the dust of three hundred 
 years. 
 
 But the organ. We heard it to-night in all its glory 
 of sound. We entered the church and walked through its 
 piles of columns. It was dark, except far in the choir end 
 was a dim light. A corpse, by a Catholic custom, lays in 
 its coffin in the church all night. One was in the church 
 with its black covering, pictured with death-heads and death 
 mottos. But the organ began. It was such music as stirs 
 the infinite deep within us. It stormed, it raved, it wept, 
 it howled, it growled, it prayed, it expostulated, it despaired, 
 it died, it was damned; it entered into sorrow inconceiv- 
 able a mute memory that would not down, clinging in 
 wordless melancholy : it rose again ; it suffered ; it reached 
 out into far years of the future away, away, away; a 
 heart wailing, it went into dust, lifeless; was lonely as 
 eternity; had no God ; then came upon new worlds; dis-
 
 92 FREIBURG. 
 
 covered the shores of the Hope-land ; attempted the utter- 
 ance of the unutterable : it was a poem a life an agony. 
 It ceased, and you were not sad, or glad, or sordid, but 
 comforted, for a mighty utterance of mute meaning was 
 drawn out of your soul, and you had fathomed your heart 
 more deeply, and out of it had come memories that had 
 slept like stratified rocks. It was one of the gigantic, 
 mysterious compositions of the unfathomable-souled Carl 
 Maria Von Weber. The effect of all was heightened by 
 the darkness, and the fitful shadows flitting like spectres 
 along old and gray columns. The organist is said to have 
 no superior. The concert was gotten up by the travelers 
 at the hotel. 
 
 But the four old, gray towers rise up in the moonlight, 
 each on its separate hill. The walls and warlike builders 
 sleep in the dust together. On them these towers have 
 looked down for ages. But they too will moulder the 
 ruin to the ruin. Above both, however, looks down an 
 everlasting star, like the great purpose of each life, which 
 God alone knows, and which he can keep working on from 
 generation to generation. Below, in the narrow gorge, 
 sings out the voice of the cataract to the hoar ruin above, 
 itself fresh and joyous and un weakened and unworn by 
 age. 
 
 In the principal square in Freiburg, there is shown a 
 linden or lime tree, three and a half centuries old. Its 
 heavy branches are propped up by stone walls. It is 
 viewed with great veneration, as it was a twig in the hands 
 of a brave Swiss soldier, who, returning from the battle 
 of Morat, near this, in which his countrymen were victori- 
 ous, was only able to say, " Rejoice, the victory is ours !" 
 when he fell and expired. The twig was planted on the 
 spot, and has overshadowed it for more than three hun- 
 dred years.
 
 (NTERLAKIN. 93 
 
 IN'TERLAKBN. 
 
 are now at luterlaken, near and under the Alps, 
 of whose snow heads, dreadful and strange, look out 
 underneath their cap of clouds. This is a pretty place, 
 any good hotels and boarding-houses in it. It is situated 
 in a gorge of the Alps, near Lake Thun, a lovely, blue sheet 
 of water, some ten miles long, and two or three broad, a 
 child of the Alps, laving the feet of its mighty parent. We 
 led Freiburg this morning at five o'clock, in the Diligence, 
 returned to Berne, thence by Diligence through a lovely 
 and well-cultivated region to Thun, drawing nearer to the 
 monster Alps the fertile vale of the Aar on our right. At 
 Thun, situated where the Aar rushes out of the lake, we 
 dined and rambled through the narrow, winding streets. 
 and explored a very grotesque and picturesque-looking old 
 castle built of stone, on an arm of the mountain. It has 
 singular turrets; the view from the top is impressive; and 
 the rooms, hangings, armor, courtyard, prison, winding, 
 stone stairways, terraces, chapels, seem to tell of the strong 
 old times of chivalrous courtesy, power, pride, and posses- 
 sion. At Thun, which is larger than Interlaken, with other 
 travelers, got into a little steamer, which bore us on its blue 
 waters, the mirrors of the mighty Alps above, to Newhaus. 
 a small place at the extremity of the lake, whence an omni- 
 bus brought us three miles further to the town. This name. 
 Interlaken, signifies " between the lakes," as it is situated 
 between Lakes Thun and Brienne, the latter immediately 
 above. It is the most pleasant and agreeable little place we 
 have yet seen. The blue Aar, a creation of the glaciers 
 above, disports itself in splendid waterfalls, then expands 
 into mirrory lakes ; then, as if dissatisfied with an inactive 
 life, rushes with great rapidity out of one lake, a let-loose 
 Alpine torrent then rests itself meditatingly, forming Lake 
 Thun as if struck by awe at the hugely raachiolated walls
 
 94 WEtfGERN ALPS. 
 
 of mighty Alps above it; then, concluding to be useful, it 
 leaves Lake Thun, and fertilizes a great extent of country. 
 
 We are in the midst of the fruit-season here : plums, apri- 
 cots, peaches, pears, are quite abundant; strawberries and 
 blackberries are offered you everywhere. In passing through 
 these fertile Swiss vales, we see the industrious peasantry, 
 women as well as men, at laborious work in the fields. 
 Some were threshing with the flail, that labor-saving instru- 
 ment, the American threshing-machine, being unknown. 
 We are about to take, on foot, the excursion through the 
 Bernese Oberland Alps, the finest that can be taken among 
 the Alps, after that of Chamouni. 
 
 WENGERN ALPS. 
 
 We are now at Grindelwalder, this evening, September 
 1st, right among the high Alps. Around us are the Great 
 Eigher, thirteen thousand feet high ; Le Monch ; the 
 Schrekhorn, or Terrible Peak; the Wetterhorn, or Tem- 
 pest Peak, and others, which it is a glory to see, all covered 
 with snow which has lain there for a thousand years. 
 Their craggy, awful, precipitous summits have light clouds 
 dangling around them. The valley in which we are, is 
 green and fertile. Small, square wheat-fields, rich and yel- 
 low, look out from green pastures, and wooden, Swiss cot- 
 tages, of fantastic shapes, cling to the mountain-sides, each 
 house with its little specialty of humanity within. The 
 sun has set behind Alpine mountains, and in a great gorge, 
 high up between two giant mountains, peers the moon. 
 We left Interlaken this morning at eight o'clock, hired a 
 guide for several days, at seven francs a day ($1.40). He 
 speaks French and German, no English. We came by car- 
 riage six miles, to the village of Lauterbrunnen, where the 
 ascent commences. We passed some Swiss cottages, looking 
 comfortable and neat,, with orchard-grounds around. Soon, 
 on our right, we sawaii ancient ruin almost surrounded and
 
 WKNQERN ALPS. 95 
 
 surmounted by dense vegetation, situated at the foot of a 
 mountain ; and in front of it are grand views of the snowy 
 Alps. It is the Castle of Ounspunnen, the former resi- 
 dence of a noble but now extinct family, but it generally 
 goes by the name of Manfred's Castle, from a supposition 
 that Lord Byron had it in bis eye when mentally arranging 
 the scenes of his most sublime poem, " Manfred." We now 
 passed into a narrow valley between lofty mountains, from 
 which leaps bright, fairy waterfalls, the grand peak of the 
 Jungfrau in sight, snowy and bold. Soon we passed a 
 dreary place, of very ill repute; a rock, on which it is said 
 the Lord of Rothenflue murdered his brother, after which 
 deed he became a miserable wanderer over the earth, like 
 Cain. Lauterbrunnen, or Fountain Vale, is a small Swiss 
 village; one or two hotels; guides here pester you to em- 
 ploy them or their mules. It is situated in a deep valley, 
 into which the sun is late coming, and from which he dis- 
 appears at two or three o'clock in the afternoon ; yet it is 
 fertile, and though quite a narrow valley, has pleasant pas- 
 ture-fields, and some grain-fields. Thirty waterfalls, born 
 from the high mountains above, leap out into the valley. 
 One of these, the Staubach, or Dust Stream, is cele- 
 brated in glowing terms by Lord Byron, Wordsworth, and 
 others. It is nine hundred feet high. Two rapid torrents 
 leap first in angry foam from the rocks, descend several 
 hundred feet, then are apparently lost in rainbows blown 
 about by the wind : the cataract is no more, it has died in 
 glory. A projecting rock, a hundred feet or more below, 
 condenses again the vapor, which now laughs down its 
 sides, rejoicing in its new resurrection after its desperate 
 leap and death. It is beautiful as an avalanche of inno- 
 cent lightning. Its beauty is perfect. We now began by 
 a steep, zigzag course, the ascent of the Wengern Alps. 
 The scene is highly picturesque; lourists, like ourselves, on 
 foot, each with Alpine stock, and with guides carrying bag-
 
 96 WENGERN ALPS. 
 
 gage, consisting of a knapsack to each person; ladies as- 
 cending on mules or horses ; some carried up, seated on a 
 chaise made for that purpose, supported by two men all 
 these winding around the mountain, the valley below grad- 
 ually narrowing, till at length it is hidden, and the higher 
 regions come into view. Little girls offer you pretty, wild 
 Alpine flowers, which you can purchase for a few sous; 
 beggars beg on various pretenses. At some places your 
 toilsome ascent can be enlivened by strawberries and cream, 
 offered you by Swiss girls, generally seated near some 
 spring fed by cold glaciers ; some blow on the Alpine horn 
 as you approach, and are answered from distant rocks, high 
 up in the mountains, by the sweetest echoes ever heard ; 
 some fire off small cannon, whose echoes growl along miles 
 of mountains. Wherever it is possible there are pretty 
 little fields of grain, grass, or pasturage for life must be 
 borne, and its support wrenched out of these granite hills 
 in some way. But our course is still upward. We wind 
 around the mountain, having in one place a most mag- 
 nificent view of that wind-tossed cataract, the Staubach. 
 We attain an elevation of five thousand feet, and the great 
 Jungfrau the "Young Girl Mountain" so called on 
 account of the purity of its snow, comes fully into view. 
 It is a grand sight rising ou your right, like a separate 
 world of snow its peaks invading the cloud-lands. It 
 seems near, though in reality afar off. It has been very 
 rarely ascended, being considered utterly inaccessible till 
 within the last few years. Its point is thirteen thousand 
 feet high. Other snowy peaks and glaciers rise in congre- 
 gated sublimity afar off. The mountain we were ascending. 
 on account of its southern exposure, was green and beau- 
 tiful, contrasting admirably with the snows and awful deso- 
 lation of the Jungfrau. Fierce torrents, rushing out of 
 glaciers, make tremendous leaps, which reverberate from 
 mountain to vale. Here is where avalanches are most fro-
 
 WENOERN ALPS. 97 
 
 quently seen. We heard their thundering noise as we as- 
 cended, rising from different and invisible parts of the 
 mountain, and we saw several on the side next to us. A 
 small quantity of snow, in appearance, from the great dis- 
 tance, but in reality a ponderous mass, is detached by the 
 action of the wind or sun ; and accumulating as it descends 
 with great velocity into the valley, makes a noise like a dis- 
 charge of a whole park of artillery. Near the summit of 
 our ascent we found a small lake multiplying and reflecting 
 the form of the mighty Jungfrau. On the summit of the 
 mountain we ascended, (the Wengern Alp,) is a hotel, six 
 thousand six hundred and ninety feet above the sea. Here 
 many travelers, like ourselves, Jjad arrived. Our dinner 
 was soon served, consisting in part of roasted chamois- 
 flesh, which, though rather black looking, was not unpalat- 
 able after our great climb. We then began the descent 
 into the Valley of Grindelwald passing down into a region 
 of pines, and having on our side the great Snowy Eigher, 
 or "Giant Mountain," almost as high as the Jungfrau. 
 To our left rose the Foulhorn, of a conical shape, at a great 
 distance; also the Wetterhorn and Schrekhorn on our 
 right. The descent was by an extremely steep and terribly 
 rough path. The vale and village before us looked most 
 charming as we descended gems of Swiss chalets in emer- 
 ald settings of meadows. Approaching one of the latter, 
 two Swiss girls raised the song of Ran/, dea Vaches one 
 of them accompanying her voice on an instrument. The 
 t'lYect in this unworldly glacier-environed vale, was fine. 
 Other .songs were also sung this being their way of levy, 
 ing a contribution on the stranger who penetrates into their 
 valley. We at length reached a comfortable hotel in the 
 village, where good tea and honey the latter is very good 
 here repaired our exhausted frames, preparatory to another 
 day of mountain-climbing. There are two great glaciers in 
 this valley, coining out between the Eigher and Wettec* 
 7 I
 
 98 THE GREAT SCHEIDEGG. 
 
 horn, so low down as to touch the wheat and clover patches. 
 They have their green and blue ice, and their fountains, 
 quitting the fixedness of ages for the fluidity of life-lea.p- 
 ing gladly out like a long pent-up child. They form the 
 sources of the Black Luischine, which roars through this 
 vale. We have come in all twenty-four miles to-day. 
 
 This morning, Wednesday, September 2d, our guide, who 
 is polite and attentive as Swiss guides generally are 
 called us up at an early hour, and soon after breakfast we 
 began the ascent of 
 
 THE GREAT SCHEIDEGG. 
 
 We left the Valley of Grindelwald, making a detour to the 
 right by a most dreadful path, and explored part of a vast 
 glacier, entering by an enormous fissure in it the green 
 ice hanging overhead. We descended to a rapid stream, 
 which flows underneath the glacier. We were in a house 
 of Alpine ice, and heard the crashing and washing of the 
 stream in the invisible depths of the cold ice monster glacier. 
 Afterward, ascending, we made an excursion on the sur- 
 face, passing by some steps cut into the ice, our Alpine 
 stick being of great service in enabling us to avoid slipping 
 down into the caverns and chasms. Resuming our journey, 
 we continued for some hours ascending up, up the giant 
 Wetterhorn peak, on our right, rising almost perpendicu- 
 larly thousands of feet his summit held fast in chains of 
 many-ribbed ice, the melting of which caused numerous 
 torrents, which fell in cascades, some of them more than a 
 hundred feet in descent. Here is Nature, grand, sublime, and 
 mighty Nature! here are the Alps, in their fearful majesty, 
 with their glaciers, like suddenly solidified seas, when tem- 
 pest-tost! About noon we reached the summit, seven thou- 
 sand feet high, and a single step left the green Swiss Vale of 
 Grindelwald, with the two great, aged, yawning glaciers be- 
 hind. We now 'descended again snow mountains still on
 
 THE GREAT SCHKIDEGG. 99 
 
 our right one very high, called the Monch, or Monk, from 
 its resembling the apparition of a vast white-cowled or 
 hooded priest. There are numerous cascades in this place. 
 I counted nine from one mountain. We soon came to 
 another glacier the Rosenlaui Glacier, so called from the 
 flushed, sunset rose-color of the ice. It is regarded as the 
 finest in Switzerland. Near this is the Hotel Rosenlaui, 
 where we dined. It is in the midst of a scene of wild sub- 
 limitycascades, torrents, and bald, bare limestone moun- 
 tains ; all of which continue visible for some time as one 
 descends and new beauties unfold themselves. A cascade, 
 called the " Cord," has a descent of more than five hundred 
 feet. It is first a playful scrambler from rock to rock. It 
 is lost in air; it reappears on another rock; it makes a 
 leap shivers, expands, condenses; and after performing 
 other evolutions, it disappears altogether in an abyss, like 
 the ghost of a glacier. All the falls, however, which we 
 have yet seen are eclipsed by the Beiohenbach, which we 
 snw this evening. It is a most attractive "thing of beauty." 
 You linger near it, as if some portion of God's own love- 
 liness were in it It is more beautiful than Niagara, 
 because smaller and more comprehensible by the mind. 
 Niagara is too grand and mighty: it requires days to be- 
 gin to feel it. The Keichenbach consists of six distinct 
 falls, descending in all more than six hundred feet. A con- 
 stant shower of mist envelopes the spaces around, and the 
 vegetation is remarkably rich in consequence a young, 
 playful tornado, engendered by the rapidly rushing waters, 
 being perpetually entangled among the branches. It is 
 situated among and partly surrounded by high rocka.''"! 
 stood and looked at the fearfully beautiful and endlessly 
 varied scene of rushing, frothing, Alpine -waters. It seemed 
 as if Nature herself was proud of this her work, and 
 cherished it in her bosom ; for some of the finest views of it 
 are almost inaccessible. The Book of Nature has many
 
 100 GRIMSEL. 
 
 uncut leaves in it, yet a single cataract like this is exhaust- 
 less in its impressions. It is perpetually changing; and 
 from whatever point of view contemplated is a new thing, 
 all a delight. It has its dome of rocks, its hair of rainbows, 
 its drapery of misty and dancing clouds. As you descend 
 into the sweet and lovely Swiss vale in which Meyringen is 
 situated, the views are of the finest kind imaginable the 
 sublime and the lovely : the snowy, hoary, everlasting 
 heights above; the great cataracts all around; the chequered 
 wheat-fields; the peculiar costumes; the carved gables of 
 the old wooden houses, thoroughly Swiss in appearance, 
 with extensive eaves ; the travelers arriving at the hotels, 
 with couriers and guides for travel here is the principal 
 institution of the country these all form a panorama of 
 beauty. We reached .Meyringen at six o'clock, having 
 traveled twenty miles. 
 
 But at length, this evening, Thursday, September 3d, we 
 
 have reached 
 
 % 
 
 THE GRIMSEL HOSPICE, 
 
 having completed our day's allotment of twenty miles of 
 mountains of almost continuous ascent, having made one of 
 the grandest, most sublime, and rugged passes in the Alps. 
 The hotel, or hospice, consists of a single, large, low, thick- 
 walled stone building, in a scene of tremendous desolation 
 apparently in the utmost limits of vegetation. Formerly it 
 was a place where monks, who now keep it as a hotel, kept 
 open house and hospitality to relieve the poor peasants 
 whose necessities obliged them to make this pass in winter. 
 Several dogs being maintained here to perambulate the 
 snow-drifts, these met us with their wild, uncouth welcome 
 as we arrived. The monks do all the service of the hotel, 
 apparelled in black gowns and devotional with beads. They 
 are kind and accommodating now for the money. My win- 
 dow looks out on a black, deep, still unfrozen lake it
 
 GRIMSEL. 101 
 
 being fed by a warm spring. Around it are rocks, or 
 rather mountains, hundreds of feet high, bare and bald 
 except where the hardy moss has found a footing of green- 
 ness. A torrent from the glacier comes down from the top 
 of the mountain along a crevice in the rocks whitening 
 and foaming till it falls into the lake. Beyond the summits 
 of the mountains are great glaciers, jungles of ice, forests of 
 icicles, far down in whose depths is no change of climate 
 forever. One of these that in which the River Aar, 
 which foamed along our course for the entire day, origin- 
 ates is eighteen miles long. Here the iron hand of Winter 
 rests forever. The fir-tree and the Alpine rhododendron 
 became smaller as we ascended, and then ceased altogether. 
 A few rich, red, yellow, and blue flowers continued with 
 us: these, during a few weeks in the year, live their life of 
 beauty, where even the hardy oak and pine cannot subsist, 
 and diffuse a loveliness around bleak and bare desolation. 
 We left Meyringen this morning at eight o'clock. The 
 scenery all day has been very grand. Meyringen is in a 
 fertile valley, and the inhabitants look better and the women 
 are prettier than in other valleys. It is almost surrounded 
 by water-falls, whose cold glacier-mothers look awfully 
 down from vast heights on their playful, runaway, leaping 
 children. Near the town rises a single old gray tower, the 
 relic of a castle belonging once to a powerful family all of 
 whom are long since extinct. It stands as their solitary 
 memento, and trees and shrubs are growing on it. The 
 Reichenbach Cascade continues in sight for some time 
 along our route. The upper chute is three hundred feet 
 high a vision of beauty. Our course lay along the Aar, 
 which foamed furiously far below us in the deep, wild valley, 
 till we traced its course up to its birth-place in the Aar 
 Glacier. We passed many peasants with pack-mules each 
 mule having a large wooden vessel full of wine strapped on 
 each side of him. These are the ships of the Alps, convey- 
 
 12
 
 102 GEIMSEL. 
 
 ing the produce of some of the fertile mountain slopes 
 toward Italy into other regions; also supplies for almost 
 inaccessible hotels for travelers must go everywhere 
 and the more difficult the more certainly visited. As we 
 entered more deeply into the pass, we observed a change for 
 the worse in the appearance of the peasants; more disease 
 almost every one appearing to have some personal de- 
 fect these valleys not admitting that due admixture of 
 sunlight and shade which is necessary for the perfection of 
 the human physique. They grow too much in the shade. 
 Yet they love their poor, rough, sublime country. We 
 passed through a most lonesome village in a retired part of 
 the valley. Nothing seemed to be there but goitre, priests, 
 and Catholicism. They were all at a funeral. I stood still 
 and saw the long, dreary procession pass by me. In another 
 place near I could see the sexton digging the grave throw- 
 ing up with the clay numerous skulls and human bones 
 the ground having been perhaps very often reburied in. 
 The women looked like dejected hags. A church bell from 
 the Cathedral sent up a dismal toll through the retired and 
 lonely valley. Ascending, it was interesting to notice how 
 vegetation became thinner as we rose into the awful regions 
 of bald rocks, where avalanches of mountains had come 
 down, and where earth's past throes were written in the 
 upheaving of the solid crust of granite to the light of day. 
 But the Cataract of Haridek, or the chute of the Aar 
 surely it is the eldest daughter of Niagara, with grander 
 surroundings than its parent! On each side rise, for thou- 
 sands of feet, bold, bare, precipitous, almost perpendicular 
 walls of mountains, whose tops are incessantly snowed 
 upon, and all the gulches and crevices of which are mantled 
 with the hoar of winter. The limits of vegetation are 
 reached here, and firs and ferns brave the sterile scene. On 
 one side comes down the great volumed, white, and furious 
 Aar. From the Mettleback Mountain comes down a lovely,
 
 QBIMSKL. 103 
 
 clear stream, born in an enormous glacier, which is in 
 sight. Both tend toward the same terrific precipice, more 
 than two hundred feet high. Both make the plunge, some 
 twenty yards apart, meet, and intermarry about half way 
 down the one clear and blue: the other white and rugged. 
 They plunge into an awful, invisible chasm, and rise in 
 mists and rainbows. The scene is terribly beautiful the 
 aged glaciers above; the descending wind-torn waters; the 
 great elevation above the sea of the whole scene; the 
 dreariness, remoteness, apparent sadness of all made this 
 place highly interesting. Not far from this is a hotel, 
 where wo dined, or rather breakfasted coffee being our first 
 meal before we start; breakfast dejeuner d la, fourcJictte 
 being taking about twelve o'clock, and dinner in the even- 
 ing, about six when we have "done our due" for the day. 
 At this place, as at most other places to which travelers 
 resort in Switzerland, are exposed for sale all kinds of 
 carious mementoes of the place consisting of beautifully 
 carved designs in cedar and other kinds of wood the work 
 of the Alpine dwellers during their dreary winter. Further 
 on our course we seemed to be entering the secret recesses 
 of Nature, the great magazines of her mountains, where in 
 snows and ice she stores up the sources of the great rivers 
 of Europe. We ascended enormous rocks by steps cut into 
 them. Cataracts dangle from the mountain-sides all around ; 
 one of which the Erlach though small, is beautiful as a 
 creation of fairy land domains: bursting from an inaccessi- 
 ble glacier, it runs down the mountain slope about fourteen 
 hundred feet ; occasionally taking a leap into the air, as if 
 from exuberant spirits, it seems to pause till it regathers its 
 waters on a rock below. We crossed numerous antique, 
 arched stone bridges over the Aar. The air became icy, 
 the glacier of the Aar came into view, and at length, after a 
 great ascent, the grim stone hotel of the Gri nisei came into 
 view. The Grimsel is historic. This being the pass com-
 
 104 FURKA. 
 
 inanding access to the Valley of the Khone, was held by the 
 Austrjans in the time of Napoleon I. and deemed impreg- 
 nable. A guide from Guttanen on the terms of a large 
 reward, if successful, and death if not conducted a French 
 force of four hundred men, by a path known but to him, 
 along the extreme summits of these mountains a number 
 of bayonets being held at his heart during the whole route 
 the path at various places presenting the appearance of utter 
 inaccessibility, and apparently leading to an ambuscade 
 surrounded by pathless snows and fearful precipices. They 
 succeeded, however, in reaching a point, and attacking the 
 Austrians from an unexpected position, routed them. The 
 hotel is deserted in winter, except one servant, who takes 
 provisions to last till the return of spring keeping also 
 two large dogs, which he sends out to scour the mountains, 
 to relieve those who may be perishing in the snow. In the 
 dark lake here no fish live ; nor does it ever freeze, being 
 fed by a warm spring. Many goats are dwellers amidst 
 these scenes. But perhaps the fittest dweller would be one 
 in whom the well-springs of life were dried up, and who 
 lingered on in 'the weariness of hope and the wretchedness 
 of memory. 
 
 This morning, Friday, September 4th, at eight o'clock, 
 we left the gloomy Grimsel. We ascended to the summit 
 of the pass, seven hundred and sixty feet higher than the 
 hotel. Here are grand views of the great, hatchet-shaped 
 Finster-Aar-Horn, rising fourteen thousand, seven hundred 
 and twenty feet high, one of the four highest mountains in 
 Europe. We now passed several lakes on the summit, very 
 deep and dreary-looking, called "Todten See," or Lakes of 
 the Dead, surrounded by utter savageness and desolation. 
 Descending the sunny side of the mountain, which the short 
 summer had clad in a carpet of moss and blue flowers, we 
 saw in a vast valley, the Rhone glacier, consisting of an 
 upper ocean of ice, extending many miles over the summits
 
 LUCERNE. 105 
 
 of the Galenstock and other mountains then a tremendous 
 declivity greater than n frozen Niagara then a solid lake 
 of ice cradled in the vale, out of which rises the Rhone, one 
 of the largest rivers in Europe. All around are grandeur 
 and granite ice, snow, and sublimity. But above all is 
 heaven the soft, sweet, blue sunlit air of summer, calling 
 up to life the beautiful Alpine rhododendron to cheer scenes 
 of utter desolation, while near to it is the glacier which no 
 summer's sun can ever melt. The soft tinkling of bells 
 from the herds in the valley far below, comes pleasantly up, 
 mingling with the voice of the cascades heard all around. 
 The pastoral and patriarchal life of Asia of four thousand 
 years ago, the dream-time of history, exists here as a reality. 
 Thus have we traced the Rhone, which we first saw as a 
 rapid river at Seyssel, in France, to its source in this gla- 
 cier, which, with its high tops, simulating mountain peaks, 
 its yawning seams, its murmuring little rills, seems like a 
 vast white throne, where Nature sits in lofty majesty, work- 
 ing and decomposing among her cold, material laws. These 
 glaciers are not useless; they are the great regulators of cli- 
 mate; in intense summer heats absorbing caloric; in rigor- 
 ous winter, giving it out by their condensation. We reached 
 the summit of the Furka, after a very laborious climb, about 
 mid-day. It is eight thousand, one hundred and fifty feet 
 above the sea-level, the highest we have yet attained, except 
 the J'irdin on Mont Blanc. Vast mountain peaks, Alps on 
 Alps, covered with snow, rugged and rigid and reddish, 
 standing afar off as the eye can reach, seem climbing into 
 heaven. The air on the summit was keen and icy, and 
 some snow fell. A hotel is erected here, of whose cheer we 
 partook, and then prepared for the descent into the valley. 
 Our dinner, at the Lone Mountain Hotel, was of the black 
 flesh of the wild chamois. 
 
 We are now, this pleasant Saturday evening, September 
 5th, in the beautiful Swiss town of Lucerne. It is with a
 
 106 LUCERNE. 
 
 decided feeling of relief, that we enter again the more civil- 
 ized scenes of life, having for some days been traversing 
 the dark and gloomy mountains. Our trip to the Bernese 
 Oberland was completed to-day. It seems almost like a 
 retrospect of another world, so different is it from a city. 
 The waterfalls no longer meet the eye on every mountain 
 side, and the stern granite rocks, old and gray, are not now 
 intruding on the eye, nor the little, lonely Swiss villages, 
 with their projecting eaves, and their carved gables, nor the 
 miserable population of beggars. Our trip was performed 
 principally on foot, through narrow, winding mule-paths. 
 We crossed four passes of the higher Alps, the Wengern 
 Alp, the Great Scheidelc, the Grimsel, and the Furka. 
 Yesterday evening we began the descent of the Furka. De- 
 scending from the region of snows, our course lay along 
 the sunny side of a mountain, which, as we got further 
 down, became clothed with verdure. We saw some Swiss, 
 at great heights, mowing the grass on mountains inclined 
 at an angle of eighty degrees. Others were watching their 
 cattle on the mountain sides. No houses or trees, not even 
 a pine was insight. Higher up on the mountains extended 
 glaciers, each of which sent down a roaring torrent. The 
 scene was savagely beautiful. Further down, we entered a 
 green valley, in the centre of which stood a small, neat 
 Catholic village, over which seemed to impend an enormous 
 glacier, like the sword of Damocles, which might come 
 down at any time, and bring ruin to the peaceful, remote 
 Alpine cottagers. We saw some thick sod cut in small 
 squares and laid out to dry, which our guide informed us 
 was for fuel in winter. How they keep themselves warm 
 in these regions in winter is a mystery, no trees being here 
 to produce wood, nor have these mountains any coal. 
 Wood seems to be almost as scarce as the precious metals. 
 The houses were roofed with stone. A large and beautiful 
 Btream flowed through the valley, receiving constant acces-
 
 LUCERNE. 107 
 
 aions from the cascades on each side. Some of these cas- 
 cades were wondrously beautiful, the water descending iu 
 blotches of spray. Some looked like a large, white towel, 
 with the lower part torn and uneven, as the wind dallied 
 with the waters. At length we emerged from the moun- 
 tain and came upon the great St. Gothard route into Italy, 
 at Hospenthal, a small Swiss village, near to which is an 
 ancient, ruined castle, constructed on a high rock, looking 
 very old, dating back perhaps one thousand years. The 
 sight of this splendid road, one of the works of Napoleon, 
 after so many miles of dreary mountain path, was cheering. 
 We hired a return carriage to convey us the next morning 
 to Fluellen, on Lake Lucerne. We passed the small village 
 of Andermatt, above which, on the steep mountain slope, is 
 a triangular forest of firs, the only trees visible ; these serve 
 to protect the village from a grim, white-looking glacier on 
 the mountain-top. Then we entered a tunnel, cut into the 
 solid granite, admitting the road into a pass, which for soli* 
 tary and savage sublimity, surpasses, for some miles, any 
 thing we have yet seen. This is the place of the " Devil's 
 Bridge," over which we passed. It seemed to be one 
 of those gloomy, desolate spaces, into which his Satanic 
 majesty might have retired when expelled from heaven. 
 The bridge is built on the top of a more ancient one. Gray 
 and naked granite rocks rise into snow regions on each 
 side, their awful heights rent and jagged as if tempest- 
 scarred. A foaming torrent roars and rushes at their base, 
 by the side of which, descending in numerous zigzags, 
 passes the route, the road being characteristic of him who 
 despised impossibility; and the scene, for miles, stamped 
 with gloomy savageness and sublimity characteristic of the 
 Devil, who is the hero of the whole pass, and next after 
 him Napoleon, whose name I had almost written Apollyon. 
 In one place is a vast isolated rock, the " Devil's Stone," he 
 having dropped it out of his claws, when rather hotly pur-
 
 108 LAKE LUCERNE. 
 
 sued. But at length we came into a pleasant valley, the 
 country of Tell. Here are the mountains on which he 
 taught his son to scan a thousand fathoms depth of nether 
 air, where he " was trained to hear the thunder talk, and 
 meet the lightning eye to eye." Here is a chapel erected 
 near the spot where the noble Swiss hero lost his life in 
 attempting to save a child from drowning in the stream, 
 neither of them being ever afterward seen; there is Altorf, 
 old and quaint; the town in which he lived; and a monu- 
 ment and statue, very old, in the market-place, indicate the 
 spot where he shot the apple from his son's head. Some 
 skeptical, contemptible scribbler, who wants to apply mathe- 
 matical demonstrations to historical declarations, asserts 
 Tell to be a myth, as if national traditions were ever, or 
 could be, entirely truthless. But the blue and lovely 
 
 LAKE LUCERNE 
 
 is in sight. In one of the fairy steamers plying on its 
 smooth surface, we pass by scenery which seerns chief of all 
 the lovely creations of God. Mountains begin in verdure, 
 the little waves kissing their feet, corn and wine grow 
 around the base. You see the wheat, and oats, and grass 
 regions higher up ; then comes the oak, the pine ; then 
 mosses; higher comes the bleak and jagged granite; and be- 
 yond all is a throne of glaciers and snow, where the clouds 
 rest. Childhood, youthhood, manhood, hoary age. simul- 
 taneously stand before you. Every part of the slope of the 
 mountains, in which cultivation is possible, is ornamented 
 with a little cottage, a square of wheat, or a meadow. Little 
 villages, apparently the abodes of happy contentment, rejoic- 
 ing in the delicious climate; the blue lake, the sheltering 
 mountains, look at you from among flower-gardens, as you 
 pass. Here is a pretty, little, fairy-like chapel, commemora- 
 ting the spot where Tell rowed Gessler's vessel to the shore 
 in a terrific storm, then shot the tyrant, and freed his
 
 LUCERNK. 109 
 
 country. The hills all look romantic, and seem to breathe 
 of happiness, freedom, and Tell. Grandeur and beauty, 
 sublimity and repose, seem here to meet and infngle. You 
 are silent from heart-fullness, at the completeness of beauty: 
 and if the Grimsel would seem a fit place for one whose last 
 hope was shivered, here would be the place to feel the first 
 impulses of reviving hope, and pronounce that this 
 chequered world-scene works itself on to beauty and har- 
 mony. 
 
 Lucerne, September 5th. But before me now rise four 
 old towers, high in air, connected by the huge stone wall, 
 yet in a perfect state, surrounding the land side of Lucerne. 
 The deep-toned bells of the Cathedral are ringing out their 
 evening chimes, as they have done daily for many years, to 
 the many snow-capped peaks of the Alps visible in the dis- 
 tance, and to the listening, throbbing waves of the lake, the 
 sweet child of the mountains. Near the town, on the north, 
 is the forlorn-looking, many-pointed, and lofty Mount Pila- 
 tus, on which an angry cloud is ever resting. Here, local 
 history says, Pilate, the wicked governor of Judea, retired 
 in remorse, after permitting the legal murder of Jesus 
 Christ, till life becoming intolerable, he threw himself into 
 a lake on its summit, and left his name and evil aspect to it 
 forever. On the southeast is Mont Righi, as cheerful and 
 pleasant-looking as Pilatus is dark and sad. The hotel on 
 the summit of Righi is clearly seen, and the sides of this 
 high, isolated mountain are cultivated and humanized. 
 Pilatus is a mountain of bad reputation ; out of it come 
 storms and tempests, and there ghosts and magicians abide; 
 but Righi has a good reputation among his fellow-mountains. 
 Between them lie many peaks that have the snow-shroud on 
 them. The environs of Lucerne are very lovely: there are 
 meadows, wheat and vine-fields. The town and Canton are 
 Catholic ; the former contains about nine thousand inhabit- 
 ants. There is a very pretty monument here to the mem-
 
 110 LUCERNE. 
 
 ory of the brave Swiss guards of Louis XVI., who fell at 
 the Tuilleries, defending the French monarchy, in 1792. 
 The design is a lion, cut in a solid rock in a mountain side ; 
 wounded to death, yet grasping the French colors. The 
 design is Thorwaldsen's, the great Swedish sculptor. 
 Switzerland consists of twenty-five Cantons, or States, some 
 of which consist of a single city. There are, in all, about 
 two million, five hundred thousand souls, of whom about 
 one million are Catholics, the remainder Protestants. Ger- 
 man is more generally spoken than French. There is 
 scarcely any nobility, as a class, in Switzerland. The gov- 
 ernment is not unlike our own. There is a new election 
 of Deputies every three years, one Deputy for every twenty 
 thousand persons ; there are a President and Vice-President : 
 a Council of State, three members from each Canton ; a 
 Federal Council of one hundred and twenty members, simi- 
 lar to our House of Representatives. The regular army of 
 the Swiss Confederation consists of about seventy-two thou- 
 sand men, with a reserve corps, to be called out when neces- 
 sary, of thirty-six thousand men. Switzerland, though a 
 republic and free, is in many parts greatly tyrannized over 
 by superstition. Still, many of the cities, as Berne, Zurich, 
 Geneva, Lucerne, Lausanne, etc., present a prosperous ap- 
 pearance. But the age of great peoples is not thoroughly 
 established yet. 
 
 September 6th. But 'tis a morn of exceeding richness 
 and loveliness, and we are off for one of the finest views in 
 Europe, if not in the world. The light clouds are rising 
 from the bases of the mountains, and show underneath the 
 extreme greenness and beauty of the vegetation. Mount 
 Pilatus is as usual robed in dark clouds, like the thoughts 
 that must have haunted the heart of him who " found no 
 evil in that just man," yet permitted his execution. On our 
 left, as we glide along in the light, pretty, little steamer, 
 rises a gray tower, so old, a contrast to the rich, luxuriant
 
 MOUNT RIGHI. Ill 
 
 cultivation of the lake side. See bow shrubs of annually 
 reviving Nature are mucking it, marking the fragility of the 
 proudest, not self-renewing works of man, growing on it 
 and out of it. But we land at Weggis, on the shores of Lake 
 Lucerne, and prepare for our last Alpine climb. We arc 
 assailed by ft numerous crowd, proffering their services as 
 guides up the mountain, their prices gradually diminishing 
 is our disinclination to employ them becomes apparent. 
 We go on by a narrow mule-path, through little green 
 meadows, and under apple and pear-trees. Nine weary 
 miles are before us, up a steep mountain. Many persons 
 are ascending and descending, some on foot, some on mules, 
 some borne on a chaise, or char-d-banc, with handles, carried 
 by four stout porters. The path winds round hither and 
 thither. ' Here are immense rocks, formed of many smaller 
 pieces, cemented together apparently by melted matter, giv- 
 ing evidence that these are not their original places. The 
 view becomes Alpine and old as we ascend and come to 
 pastures on the hill-sides, where tinkling cattle feed. Many 
 places show evidences that powerful agencies have heaved 
 up these rocks from the boiling regions below the earth's 
 crust. Half-way up, we come to a little, rustic stone chapel, 
 a pleasant, peaceful sort of place, where are most lovely 
 views of the lake below us. 
 
 MOUNT RIGHI. 
 
 By a Catholic fiction the ascent is likened to that up 
 Calvary, and is divided into twelve stations, representing 
 different assumed events of the Saviour's passage up 
 that mount a cross and picture marking each station. 
 Rising higher, the pine trees, whose rich aroma scented the 
 air below, disappear : the Alpine pastures alone are around 
 us. Passing several hotels on various slopes and points of 
 view, we attain the summit-*-the Righi Kulm when a scene 
 appears which it were folly to attempt to describe, or paint,
 
 112 MOUNT RIGHT. 
 
 or even imagine. The height is about six thousand feet. 
 Twelve or thirteen blue lakes are in the horizon each one 
 with neat, little Swiss villages, with church spires rising- 
 high in air, on their banks. East, extends a vast country, 
 far below, cultivated to the highest degree with white 
 houses, towns, fields, forests. West, rise hundreds of Alpine 
 mountains snowy, and cold, and grand like an army oi' 
 gigantic white monsters, that had sat in frozen embalmment 
 for ages. The scene is humbling, tranquillizing and devo- 
 tional. There is God in all grandeur and beauty ; and this 
 scene raises the soul to him in adoration. The bells of that old 
 church in the quiet village below are ringing. How grandly 
 comes the sound up here, like an anthem from Nature her- 
 self in praise of her Creator. The scene is truly one of 
 extreme interest. You stand on the highest point of the 
 mountain, on which is a raised platform, and by its side a 
 cross. Just before you rises the monster hotel, the three 
 lower stories of which are of stone, the three next of wood. 
 Here many persons of various nations English, French. 
 Germans, Americans, are constantly arriving and depart- 
 ing their costumes as various as their climes. Around 
 you, on the summit, is collected a crowd of ladies and gen- 
 tlementheir guides pointing out the mountains or lakes- 
 some one reading the infallible Murray, the English guide 
 book others are talking and amidst all rises the wail of 
 music: a violinist is discoursing in old German airs hand- 
 ing round the hat occasionally for voluntary contributions. 
 The ragged clouds of mist are rising out of the valley, 
 hanging over the lakes, and gradually revealing, as they 
 rise higher, the vast snow monsters of mountains, cradling 
 in their cold hearts, glaciers, savage and grand- looking. 
 But the great event is about to take place the sunset, tin- 
 glorious sun-death on the mountains. How he wraps him- 
 self in his finest tapestry of clouds, which are gilded In- 
 even his death-beams. 'Tis beautiful, wondrous no hurry.
 
 MOUNT BIOHI. 113 
 
 no noise, no excitement all calm, grand, and god-like. 
 There even the cold glaciers in the desolate sides of the 
 mountain -passes, afar off, seem lit up by loveliness. There, 
 where no flower ever blooms: where no tree grows; where 
 no bird sings ; where no man is or can come ; where is but 
 everlasting winter dance the golden rays from ice peak to 
 ice-peak, and blushes come upon the face of desolation. 
 About two hundred mountains are visible; some of them 
 the highest Alps the Engelbergen, Finater-Aar-Honi, 
 Schrekhorn, Jungfrau, Blumlis-Alpe, Gallenstock, &c. The 
 view extends into Italy, France, Germany, Austria, and 
 over near twenty of the Swiss cantons. But here is that 
 mysterious, miserable French invention to dine scientifi 
 cally table d'hote which is a fleeting panorama of dishes 
 and servants soup, fish, potatoes, mutton, beef, chicken - 
 salad, pudding, cakes, fruits all accompanied with wine. 
 Certainly eating makes "a full man" as well as reading. 
 There is a sentimental German opposite me, who looked as 
 if he might have written the "Sorrows of Werter," until 
 wine unloosed his tongue. Now ho\v he can talk ; what a 
 profusion of Yahs! yahs! What work it is to talk German ! 
 what a strong constitution it must require! whereas French 
 is as easy as circulating one's blood. And here is a big 
 Englishman, beset with a conviction of his own importance. 
 It would seem as if he thought he carried the spheres on 
 his shoulders. And here is an American, anxious to have 
 it known that he is one, and looking any thing but well at 
 ease till he produces a proper awe on his hearers by an- 
 nouncing it. Some people are never at ease till others are 
 not at ease. And here comes forth a Tyrolese, in regular 
 costume hat, feathers, stockings with his guitar ; and he 
 sings to us diners, Ranz des Vaches and many other airs. 
 A plate, however, is immediately handed round to the two 
 hundred diners by his rather pretty wife; on which the 
 guests may deposit something, to show their appreciation- 
 8 K2
 
 114 MOUNT BIGHI. 
 
 of music. In the midst of the splendors of sunset, several 
 small balloons, inflated with smoke, were let off. Imme- 
 diately came the inevitable plate, which in Europe follows 
 the slightest contribution to public gratification. The won- 
 der is that a plate was not handed around in behalf of the 
 sunset. 
 
 But out from this scene of humanity to the regal mag- 
 nificence of Nature. The moon is up, and the lovely laud- 
 scape is underneath its milder beams. There are the great 
 snow-shining mountains that ice world, so solemn, so soft, 
 so silent just touching heaven. Mount Eighi stands as the 
 advance guard of the army of the Alps ; and though not so 
 high as some other mountains, affords probably, on the 
 whole, the finest landscape view in the world. The many 
 and lofty snow-mountains, with their glaciers and granite 
 peaks; the numerous blue lakes; the rich and beautiful 
 country to the east all afford a combination of the beauti- 
 ful and sublime nowhere else paralleled. Such a scene of 
 beauty imprinted on the heart is almost sufficient to redeem 
 all its sorrows. But the next morning your memory may 
 be busy in dreams with its youth, or fancy revelling in soft 
 dreams of a future, when a vast, and yet soft sound, invades 
 the entire premises of the Righi Kulin. It is the horn of the 
 Tyrolean, which is sounded till every rag, and shred, and 
 tatter of sleep is torn from the eyelids of all the guests, 
 urging them to get up and see the liighi sunrise the finest 
 sunrise in any country. You get up from the land of 
 dreams, and walk to the summit, a short distance above the 
 hotel. There is the moon, preceded by Jupiter, and suc- 
 ceeded by the morning star. Crowds of ladies and gentle- 
 men are hurrying like yourself (and they have not all of 
 them quite finished their toilet duties) in the dim, cold, 
 dawn-light, up to the height. You get up and look around; 
 and there is the holy morning in the east, flushing and 
 blushing with the glory underneath. Two strata of clouds
 
 MOUNT R1QUI. 116 
 
 are gilded curtains stretched across the couch of the sun. 
 Par below you are many lakes those of Zurich, Zug, 
 Lucerne, bathe the foot of Righi ; the little, neat Swiss vil- 
 lages of Immensee, Schyss, Kussnacht, and others; the 
 larger town of Lucerne, with its walls and towers; the 
 innumerable white houses and over all rests a surf-like 
 rnist, a spectral sea of fog. The morning is marvellously 
 and unusually favorable. West and north of you, including 
 the entire semi- horizon, are the mountains, looking singu- 
 larly near and distinct, white and grand in the multitude 
 of sno w-peaks and glaciers. Look ! the monster of them 
 all, the Pinster-Aar-Iiorn, has caught upon his giant sides an 
 unwonted glistening. One by one, they seem to dip them- 
 selves upward that congregation of mountains with a new 
 glory. You turn around to the east. There, between two moun- 
 tain peaks, glitters what is like a star, but brighter and 
 more powerful than any star the first upward segment of 
 the sun. The great mountains which are higher than the 
 Righi have caught his beams first. They were the last to 
 relinquish and the first to regain : and they give back in 
 beauty what they get. The peculiar, rosy, Alpine glowing 
 is on them. The Tyrolese winds his horn, and collects 
 francs, semi-francs, and sous therefore; the big Englishman 
 explains the mountains; the ladies listen to him and try to 
 talk learnedly. One of them thinks she will not ascend the 
 Foulhorn. After this scene, the German gets into raptures, 
 and wants to quote Goethe; and the soft sunlight gradually 
 comes around all : and the whole immense panorama of three 
 hundred miles is bathed in light and color. The church- 
 spires, far below you, catch the beams the Jungfrau, the 
 Eigher, the Monch, the Schrekhorn, the Wetterhorn, the 
 Blumlis Alp, the Tetlia all stand up in their snow-gar- 
 ments of a thousand years, and each lone, old gray peak is 
 kissed by the young morning. They are like a city of vast 
 cathedrals, ever pointing heavenward all appealing to the
 
 116 ZURICH. 
 
 feeling of devotion and sublimity in man as an altar appeals 
 to its God. Lake Zurich, a large expanse of blue water, 
 bathes the foot of Righi, four thousand feet below, and on 
 its further side you see a lacerated looking mountain, which 
 seems, like Mount Pilatus, to have incurred a savage des- 
 tiny. It is the Berg Fall all that is left of Mount Sf. 
 Rosenberg a large part of which fell down in 1806, filling 
 up a third part of one of the lakes, destroying several vil- 
 lages, and causing the destruction of more than four hundred 
 and fifty persons, five hundred cattle and mules, and trans- 
 formed a flourishing country into a desert. The like event 
 will some day happen to the Righi being of the same 
 formation geologically and it has already tottered : 
 
 "Mountains have fallen 
 
 Leaving a gap in the clouds, and with the shock 
 Rocking their Alpine brethren, filling up 
 The ripe, green valley with destruction's splinters ! 
 Damming the rivers with a sullen dash, 
 Which crushed the waters into mist, and made 
 Their fountains find another channel this, 
 This, in its old age, did Mount Rosenberg 
 Why stood I not beneath it ?" 
 
 But we do not wish to predict such a calamity may befall 
 Mount Righi. May it have a thousand years of glorious 
 sunrises and sunsets on its green, grassy summit. Were 
 there a sea-view here, it would be indisputably the finest 
 view afforded on earth. 
 
 But changes again. We are now at 
 
 ZURICH, 
 
 on the " margin of its fair waters." This is one of the plea- 
 santest places we have yet seen. We have descended into 
 the region of the vine again. Yesterday morning we left 
 the Righi Kulm, taking one last look at ita fair and grand 
 .panorama, which we hope will remain on mind and heart
 
 ZURICH. 117 
 
 forever. We took the route to Kussnacht, on Lake Lucerne. 
 By an ingenious fiction of the Catholics, this route as well 
 as the one from Weggis, is supposed to be the aisle of a 
 church; and at different stations are pictures on crosses 
 representing scenes in the ascent to Calvary, which may 
 emcourage the devotion of the worshipers; and at some 
 points are placed very old-looking stone crosses. The 
 morning was most lovely, and the vegetation here, in Sop* 
 tember, is as rich and green -look ing as in one of June's 
 finest mornings in America. The snowy Alps were visible 
 almost the whole way down; and at length we arrived at 
 Kussnacht, a quiet, pleasant old village, where Catholicism 
 is as strongly entrenched as if Luther had never blown the 
 bugle blast of reformation. The population were celebrat- 
 ing the feast of St. Mary. In the Diligence, through a 
 lovely orchard country, we now passed to Immensee, on 
 Lake Zug, where, on a pretty little stream, we sailed to the 
 town of Zug, old, walled, castellated and quiet, situated in 
 full view of Kighi and the white-garmented Alps beyond. 
 At Zug we got into a Diligence, and passed over the beau- 
 tiful and finely cultivated country seen to the east of Righi. 
 It is almost a constant succession of orchards, gardens, 
 pretty and comfortable, though plain residences. The views 
 of snow mountains were fine, in various directions afar. 
 This is regarded as one of the best-cultivated parts of 
 Switzerland. At Ilorgen, on Lake Zurich, where we ar- 
 rived in the evening, we took the steamer to Zurich. The 
 view of the lake, bursting at once on the eye, is truly lovely. 
 The banks of the lake are a continued village ; and above 
 the houses on the slopes, grows the vine " that chcrisheth 
 the heart of god and man." The waters of all these lakes 
 are singularly blue, to account for which, many theories have 
 been invented. Perhaps they have so long gazed on the 
 tranquil blue of their skies, that they cannot reflect any 
 other color. A glance of the eye along the shores, em-
 
 118 SCHAFFHAUSEN. 
 
 braces one of the finest scenes imaginable : the sloping banks 
 covered with vine-plantations, and the numberless villages 
 sitting on the blue borders of the lake. We are now in a 
 Protestant Canton, where the Keformation took earliest and 
 deepest root; where the first edition of the Bible in English 
 was printed; where Protestant exiles found a home; and 
 where Zwingle lived and preached. I saw the Cathedral 
 in which he held forth. The situation of the town is charm- 
 ing. There are old towers and ancient walls, which latter 
 are about being demolished. The promenades are fine 
 along the river Limrnat, which here passes into the lake. 
 On the banks of this river is a splendid old grove, in which 
 are some fine monuments: one to Gessner, the author of the 
 ''Death of Abel." The tomb of Lavater is also here. The 
 population is about sixteen thousand. There are many be- 
 nevolent and useful societies here, and the whole place pre- 
 sents a more progressive and onward appearance than the 
 dull Catholic towns \ve have lately seen. The situation 
 of the hotel at which we stop, " Baur-du-lac," is very fine. 
 It is in an elegant garden, on the banks of the lake, and 
 from it rise, in distinct view, the great, craggy, precipitous, 
 snowy Alps. 
 
 But this rainy, dismal evening, we left the Protestant 
 Zurichers to their quiet, honest life, by their lake, and came 
 by railway, through a lovely, well cultivated country, to 
 this old, towered town of 
 
 SCHAFFHAUSEN, ON THE RHINE. 
 
 We have seen the Rhine, the kingly Rhine the word 
 Rhine meaning King. We saw the noisy falls of the 
 river, two or three miles from the town, which, with its 
 gray, high stone towers, seems to be sepulchring up its own 
 past. The country through which we passed seemed to be 
 losing some of the characteristics of Switzerland the 
 houses with enormous eaves, built of pine plank several
 
 SCHAFFHAOSEN. 119 
 
 inches thick, and with quaint carvings in front and on the 
 gables, in which the Swiss so much delight and to be 
 assuming more of that heavy, square, dauby sort of style 
 like the (Jermans. This town, however, seems rather more 
 French than Zurich. Everywhere the French is the travel 
 language the language of courtesy, of the dining-room, 
 and of the first address. If any one is in doubt a? to your 
 vernacular, he always begins by addressing you in French, 
 as the assumed common language of Europe. One scarcely 
 realizes that the world is old, in fresh, young, joyous, on- 
 ward and upward America; but in these cities the hand of 
 Time has written age on every thing. The population 
 of these cities is generally stationary or retrogressive ; the 
 energy of old has departed ; few houses are newly reared ; and 
 the object of the people seems to be to live merely, and 
 not to make the most of life, and urge it to its utmost ten- 
 sion as in America. " Sufficient to each day is the evil 
 thereof," is a saying in practice exemplified. 
 
 We visited at leisure the Falls of the Rhine, this morn- 
 ing, September 10th, having had but a slight view of them 
 when passing near in the railway last evening. We went 
 down the river about two and a half miles below Schaft- 
 hausen ; saw the Cataract from the right side ; then crossed 
 in a skiff below the Falls, and in full view of them ; ascended 
 a steep hill laid out in walks, and deeply shaded with trees; 
 entered the Castle of Lauffen, built on a rock, almost over- 
 hanging the Falls. In a room in the castle, we saW beauti- 
 ful drawings of the cascades, and fine natural scenery of 
 Switzerland, and the well-executed carved-work in wood, 
 representing houses, castles, and many articles of domestic 
 use and ornament. We saw the Cataract from three favor- 
 able points of view in the castle, and saw the rainbows 
 sporting like troops of spirits above it. It does not com- 
 pare with Niagara, being only about one-third as high, and 
 the water rushing down an exceedingly steep declivity, in
 
 120 SCHAFFHAUSEN. 
 
 stead of leaping over projecting rocks, as Niagara. Yet 
 the scene is most beautiful, and there gradually grows on 
 one a feeling of sublimity. The quantity of water is very 
 great, the Rhine being a large and noble river. The vine-clad 
 hills around ; the two castles, one on each side of the Falls ; 
 the three massive, mossy rocks, rising high in and near the 
 centre of the Falls ; the very beautiful little bay below the 
 Falls, in which the river seems to roll round and round, as 
 if to see how the coming-down waters looked, and admire 
 the descent; then the historical feelings connected with the 
 old, fabled, castellated Ehine the knight among rivers 
 make this Fall one of the most interesting in the world. 
 Including the rapids above, the fall is about one hundred feet ; 
 without them, on one side sixty feet ; on the other, forty -five. 
 Indeed, it is a nucleus, an assemblage of waterfalls, a crowd of 
 waterfalls collected at one place, each with an independent 
 beauty. We returned to Sohaffhausen, and strolled through 
 this town of the middle ages. Much of the wall, and some 
 of the gates, flanked with enormous towers, are entire. The 
 gates are massive arches of stone-work supporting lofty 
 stone towers, completely fortified ; some capable of contain- 
 ing one hundred soldiers ; some square, others round ; and 
 many of them one hundred feet high. They seem strangely 
 out of character with the wants of the present age, but indi- 
 cate a great age in the past of time. The middle ages are 
 too much decried. Religion occupied more of man's atten- 
 tion than at present, as is evidenced by almost all the 
 massive churches of Europe belonging to that period. 
 Superstition makes men strong sometimes. On one of the 
 gates I noticed a very old inscription in Latin, on the inside, 
 "Safety to the outgoing;" on the outside, "Peace to those 
 entering." Time is dealing rapidly with these lofty towers; 
 and where they are not preserved for prisons or arsenals, or 
 objects of curiosity, there are great fissures in them, through 
 which one can see into the deep dungeons beneath. We
 
 UNOTH. 121 
 
 came to one of these, the largest, almost a town in itself, 
 the 
 
 "UNOTH," OB "MUNNOTH," 
 
 a vast stone-pile on a hill, to which I ascended by a narrow, 
 covered stairway of hundreds of steps. I met a great many 
 very well dressed little boys, attended by grave, good- 
 humored looking priests, part of the castle being now used 
 us schools, which are tiie modern defenses and fortifications. 
 Arrived at the end of this corridor, I saw a notice in 
 French, to travelers, importing that whoever wishes to 
 enter should pull the rope. I saw a rope attached to the 
 door then, extending upward more than one hundred and 
 fifty feet to the top of the highest tower. One or two 
 vigorous pulls at this produced a loud " Yah ! yah !" at the 
 other end; and, on looking up, I saw a woman leaning out 
 of one of the portholes, and immediately a large key slid 
 down to me on the rope, with which opening the massive 
 door, I entered, and found myself in a tower like a tube 
 with a winding, stone staircase. The door closed behind 
 me, and I was locked up in the Castle of Unoth. Round 
 and round the staircase in the tower I went, and up and up. 
 The walls of the tower are eighteen feet thick ; in the walls 
 are port, or airholes, long and narrow, for the admission of 
 a little gray light. Arrived at the top of the tower, 1 found 
 it expanded into several large rooms, in one of which I 
 found the family of the guardian of the tower, consisting 
 of himself a large and most diabolical-looking Dutchman 
 his wife, an intelligent-looking woman, and their daugh- 
 ter, really an interesting, pretty, and well-formed young 
 lady, occupying these elevated and neatly-kept rooms. 
 From the portholes they showed me glorious views of the 
 old town underneath, with its tiled roofs, and the blue 
 Rhine, young as it was a thousand years ago, running 
 through the town. The tower in which I stood issued out 
 
 L
 
 122 UNOTH. 
 
 of a vast circular building of stone, the principal part of the 
 fortification, and all around it was a deep ditch or moat. 
 The old lady showed me these various things. She speak- 
 ing German, of which I understood but little, and I answer- 
 ing in French, of which she understood none. So the 
 conversation was not mutually edifying. The grim, old 
 father glared at me, and the old lady now handed the pon- 
 derous bunch of keys to her daughter, and I was about to 
 explore this old creation of Feudalism with the fair daughter 
 of the castle. We descended the stone steps, she preceding, 
 the old people remaining above. We came to several side- 
 doors, one of which was unlocked by the lady of the tower. 
 We entered a lofty room floored with small pebble-stones, 
 the windows were very small and high. Here was a vast 
 collection of arms, armor, battle-axes, lances, and all kinds 
 of warlike implements used in the middle ages, hanging 
 and lying around in the grirn apartment, in disused and 
 gory grandeur. From this a door opened on the roof of the 
 castle. This roof was of stone, on which much grass had 
 grown, and it was surmounted by a high wall in old, war- 
 like times, the soldiers standing on the roof of the castle, 
 and being defended, to some extent, by the wall. Through 
 the roof were several circular openings, through which we 
 could look down into an apparently deep dungeon under- 
 neath. Descending lower, we entered this dark, immense 
 apartment. It was circular, and had numerous columns 
 supporting the thick, stone- vaulted roof, from which con- 
 tinually fell drops of dampness, rendering the stone floor 
 quite wet. Very little light, and that thin, gray, unhappy 
 sort of light, came in from the holes above. The room was 
 vacant, though large enough to contain, with ease, one 
 thousand soldiers. Half of it was under ground. A side-door, 
 which I had not observed before, was opened by lock and key, 
 revealing a staircase leading much lower down, and appar- 
 ently into dark immensity. A lantern hung on one side
 
 UNOTH. 123 
 
 of tbe narrow stone descent. With a match, which I had 
 not noticed she carried, my guide lit the candle, and we de- 
 scended a great distance into the earth, and came at length 
 to a narrow, winding avenue between the foundation-walls 
 of the castle, leading on on, I knew not whither. The 
 darkness was dense, and the walls were damp 'and cold. 
 My slightly-formed, fair, young guide led the way, how- 
 ever, and I followed her into this dark, subterraneous 
 chamber. We walked some minutes, I not knowing whether 
 her father, the beetle-browed Dutchman, might not have 
 used her as a decoy to introduce travelers into this place, 
 that he might deal death or robbery on unknown individuals, 
 a deed so easily committed by the powerful resources he 
 had at his command in these subterranean galleries. I had 
 observed my guide grow somewhat pale, and that her hands 
 trembled when we were about descending to this place, in- 
 somuch that she was at first quite unable to unlock the 
 door of the staircase. Most of the Rhine castles, in their 
 long lives of a thousand years, have been stained with blood 
 from "turret to foundation-stone;" and the facilities for 
 secret murders in these dark passages, which lead into each 
 other, and lead no one knows where, are very great. 
 Besides, the disappearance of a simple traveler, who has 
 only registered his name at a hotel, who never comes back, 
 would excite but few inquiries, in a strange country where 
 he is utterly unknown, and he would soon be forgotten 
 the landlord would keep his baggage the robber his money 
 hide his bones, and " there an end." Threading this long 
 avenue thus in the dark, it is not to be wondered at that I 
 observed every appearance, trod my way cautiously, and 
 felt resolved, if necessary, to sell my life not cheaply. But 
 my guide was true. To my inquiries as to where we were 
 going, she returned no intelligible answer. But at length 
 she led me to another staircase where I saw a glimmer of 
 the light of heaven, and we soon emerged from the dark
 
 124 BALE. 
 
 gallery. I gave ner a fee, she unlocked the castle door, and 
 it was with a sensation of relief that I found myself out into 
 the fresh, loving air and sunshine, after exploring the 
 damp, dark dungeons of the Castle of Unoth. In this castle 
 a Pope was secreted, during the middle ages, by some of his 
 friends, ahd the Council of Constance (who demanded him) 
 defied, and no doubt dark and horrid crimes committed 
 which none but God could see. Schaffhausen is in the 
 dominions of the sovereign Prince of Wurtemburg. It has 
 near seven thousand inhabitants. 
 
 But we are now in the old Roman town of 
 
 BASLE (OR BALE) ON THE RHINE. 
 
 "Pis a dull, sad, and rainy evening. From my window I 
 look out on a strong, old wall, over which the green ivy 
 has grown. The Rhine, almost as majestic as the Missis- 
 sippi, flows \)y in historic majesty. Here the old walls 
 encircling the city and their numerous towers are almost 
 entire. The place of the moat, or wide, deep ditch, which 
 could, in time of a siege, be filled with water, is now 
 converted into a green, pleasant, fruitful garden. In some 
 places the towers have inscriptions on them, indicating them 
 to be the work of the sixth or seventh century. The war- 
 like works of the Romans outlived the Roman Empire. We 
 have visited the old, red-looking Cathedral, built of red 
 sandstone, in the year 1010 ; have been in the room where 
 a General Council sat, and where a Pope was elected ; and 
 have seen the red marble tomb erected to the learned 
 Erasmus ; and have been also in the deep crypt under the 
 church, where repose the remains of the royal family of 
 Baden. This is one of the small city Cantons of Switzer- 
 land. It is Protestant, and the splendid churches erected 
 by the gorgeous religion of the Catholics, are now devoted 
 to strict Calvinism, which worships among tombs and van- 
 ished glories of a past age. The church, internally and
 
 BALE. 125 
 
 externally, is a splendid triumph of tbe noble science 
 of architecture. 
 
 We left Schaffhausen, yesterday, at two o'clock by Dili- 
 gence, passing over -the fine, hard, smooth roads of this 
 country, at rather a slow rate. The country was well culti- 
 vated, abounding in meadows, clover, and grain. In some 
 places we saw tbe oats yet unharvested in the fields. 
 Women were at work in the fields as well as men, and 
 their appearance was somewhat suggestive of the slaves on 
 a cotton plantation. Whether their condition was better 
 than that of the slaves, in being lords of the liberty to toil 
 for an uncertain subsistence, rather than in toiling without 
 any anxiety for the morrow, with the certainty of plenty for 
 life, we shall not here discuss. As usual in this country, 
 there were no fences, and but few hedges, all the fields 
 being open and exposed, and not otherwise distinguished 
 from each other, except by the various crops in them. 
 There were few isolated houses ; but in the distant valleys 
 we saw numerous villages, the abodes of the agricultur- 
 alists, and occasionally tall, old turrets, which marked 
 where a warlike castle had been, would rise to view, telling 
 that the past of those fertile valleys had been very different 
 from their present. The usual Catholic crosses of stone 
 stood on the roadside, some with the spear and sponge. 
 After four hours and a half riding in the Diligence, we came 
 to the village of Waldshut, on the Rhine, where we left the 
 Diligence and took the cars for Bale. This village is on 
 the borders of the Black Forest of Germany. The walls, 
 and gates, and towers in that place looked very old; in some 
 instances utterly fallen down, or incorporated into more 
 modern buildings, and all appearing desolate in their great 
 age. Vines and fruits of all kinds are here cultivated. We 
 at this place crossed the Rhine and re-entered Switzer- 
 land, our baggage being previously subjected to an exam 
 ination. 
 
 L2
 
 126 BALE. 
 
 Bale has about twenty-seven thousand inhabitants, and 
 consists of two parts, divided by the Rhine, but connected 
 by a wooden bridge. It is principally Protestant, who, as 
 in other European towns, are engaged in a multitude of 
 little manufactures ribbons, watches, pictures, carved- 
 works in wood, keep restaurants, cafes. Each profession that 
 in America is managed by one man, is here subdivided into a 
 multitude of minor ones, the greater population in Europe 
 rendering every distinct part of any thing a sort of specialty, 
 by which means works of those kinds are generally better 
 than with us. In the city, and near it, are many remains 
 of the old Roman dominion along the Rhine. The view 
 from a terrace planted with trees, back of the Cathedral, 
 and immediately over the Rhine, is beautiful, embracing a 
 part of the Black Forest. Near the Cathedral, or Minster, 
 as it is called, are the cloisters, covered and enclosed places 
 for the monks to walk in and study, in the old times when 
 there was a monastery attached to each church now used 
 as burial-places for the dead, and also then dead men's 
 bones and graves being important adjuncts to the Catholic 
 religion. The stone slabs, with the inscriptions in various 
 languages, form the floors, and are placed along the walls, 
 and have dates back for many hundreds of years, and have 
 curious carvings and armorial bearings, telling of dust that 
 was once high in rank. 'Tis a humiliating sight to the 
 vainglorious and proud, and a place of instruction to all. 
 Nowhere has the stern reality, to which we all must come, 
 of rottenness and corruption, the decay and oblivion that 
 must enwrap all, been so forcibly impressed on the mind, as 
 by these failures in attempts to preserve a slight memento 
 which soon becomes mute, mouthless, and meaningless. Let 
 me die and go regularly into dust, and become vegetables, 
 trees, animals, grass, or beer-barrels, and not have the 
 mockery of a monument. But alongside this Campo Santo 
 flows the Rhine, regardless of human excellence or decay.
 
 BALE. 127 
 
 
 
 I also visited the Museum, which is quite interesting, 
 having many fine paintings of the Dutch school, as well as 
 many Egyptian and Eastern antiquities; poisoned arrows; 
 mummies, rolled and unrolled, glaring at you from sockets 
 sightless for four thousand years. Two paintings seemed 
 especially striking: one, a dead Christ, which is truly re- 
 markable there is the vividness, the reality, the life-death 
 before you; it represents him lying extended, awfully 
 dead, just before the entombment. The other painting is 
 the deploring of the women at the death of Christ, a paint- 
 ing of high merit, on which mind and genius are stamped 
 on canvas for the admiration of a thousand generations. 
 
 But for several days during our stay in Bale I have been 
 quarrelling extensively with the Swiss government, espe- 
 cially the Postal department. I have not indeed been 
 reforming Switzerland, as a certain ambitious young Amer- 
 ican, who undertook, not long since, to reform Austria 
 the consequence of which was he became acquainted with 
 the interior walls of a prison but I have been making 
 attempts to recover my baggage, entrusted to the Post 
 department at Berne, to be conveyed to this point that, 
 returning from the trip to the Bernese Oberland, I might 
 meet it here. Generally the Postal departments in Europe 
 are thoroughly reliable, especially in France. The trunk 
 being valuable, and having paid for its safe delivery hold- 
 ing a receipt from the department they bestir themselves 
 very much. There is much talk in various languages, espe- 
 cially in that unknown tongue which persons use who un- 
 dertake any other language than their vernacular. Tele- 
 graphic dispatches, letters, &c., are sent to Berne, but in 
 vain ; the baggage is stolen by some one, misplaced, lost, or 
 gone traveling on its own responsibility. Nobody is to 
 blame of course : accidents will happen; the fault must be 
 at Berne, &c. At length I determined to return to Berne. 
 Passing first out of the old feudal gates in the walls of the
 
 128 BALE. 
 
 
 
 city by a Diligence to a depot outside the walls; then by one 
 of the slow Swiss railways, that scarcely average twelve 
 miles an hour, I arrived near the chain of the Jura Moun- 
 tains, through which the tunnel not being completed, I 
 cross in another slow Diligence, wending up and down the 
 mountains, affording fine views ; thence by railway to Berne 
 arriving at four o'clock in the evening the whole distance 
 being only sixty miles. Here nearly the same exercises 
 were enacted as at Bale ; the baggage had been sent ; some- 
 body was in fault ; the fault must be at Bale. 
 
 But who could discern 
 Whether at Bale or at Berue, 
 Or at Berne or at Bale, 
 Was the fault of the mail ? 
 
 The practical conclusion to be drawn from all this is 
 to carry, no other baggage when traveling except a purse 
 and a tooth-brush ; or if any other be taken, never to entrust 
 it to the Postal departments on the Khine. In both cities I 
 had the assistance of the American representatives, who 
 exerted themselves very promptly, but without effect the 
 trunk being so skillfully and ingeniously lost that no trace, 
 no sign remained behind. Returning to Bale I had glorious 
 views of the great Alps mountains, in their cold clothing 
 of snows and glaciers, through which I had wandered since 
 leaving Berne the previous time. Some of the views in the 
 peaceful valleys of the Jura Mountains were lovely, and we 
 passed many little old stone villages, nestled for many hun- 
 dred years in their green solitudes. The scenes were in- 
 finitely various itself a proof that nature belongs to a sys- 
 tem which has eternity for one of its ideas. 
 
 In Switzerland, that land of snow mountains, and for 
 playthings cascades and waterfalls, we have been above n 
 month. Its different valleys and mountains, grow very 
 different kinds of peoples as well as plants, Centuries of
 
 STRASBOURG. 129 
 
 the same kind of influences of soil, air, climate and sun 
 have wrought a diseased degeneracy in some of the Alpine 
 valleys which it is painful to contemplate. A continua- 
 tion of the same kind of influences will infallibly de< 
 generate man. lie requires variety. Not useless, therefore, 
 are wars and those great convulsions of the social system. 
 The object of the world is to develope the entire suscepti- 
 bilities of human nature. So long as we in America con- 
 tinue a restless, roving, migratory sort of people, occupied 
 in settling new lands and territories, and agitated about the 
 respective interests of our various sections, our elections, 
 our parties, we shall continue a great people. So long HH 
 the Swiss, the Italians, some portions of New England 
 whether from love of country, or indolence, or prejudice 
 are surrounded by a continuation of the same kind of influ- 
 ences, their nature will narrow. Mankind had, long ago, been 
 extinct but for the confusion of tongues, which obliged them 
 to separate into other regions, and form new communities, 
 where the action of new influences might exercise and de- 
 velope new principles, and renew man himself. 
 But the great, deep-toned bell of the Cathedral of 
 
 STRASBOURG 
 
 ia sounding out its burden of hours gone to the night air. 
 How grand a creation is that pile of net-looking carved 
 stone-work. It should stand in the midst of an American 
 prairie, as a thing silent, grand, eloquent, and unapproach- 
 able this great cathedral of the eleventh century, that was 
 four hundred and twenty-four years in building, and the 
 spire of which reaches higher toward heaven than any other 
 in the world being four hundred and seventy-four feet 
 high from the pavement. 
 
 We left Bale, Tuesday, September 14, at one o'clock, on 
 the railway, for Strasbourg. The day was pleasant, an<J 
 our course lay along the lovely, level, fertile Valley of th 
 9
 
 130 STEASBOURG. 
 
 Rhine. On our left rose the Jura and Vosges Mountains, 
 from many. of whose conical and dome-like peaks looked 
 down ruins of castles, many of them highly picturesque. 
 I noticed four gray, grim, towers, in one place, standing 
 around the fallen-down walls of the central building. Many 
 of them stand on projecting capes of red sandstone, which 
 slope down from the mountains toward the level Rhine 
 valley. There is along here a curious wall of unknown 
 origin, made of unhewn stones, without cement, called the 
 Wall of the Pagans. Remains of this kind were quite nu- 
 merous almost every hill of difficult access having a tower, 
 or a wall, indicating where a castle had been ; and at the 
 base of the hill is generally a small village. We are now 
 in La Belle France, having entered it a mile or two from 
 Bale, at a small place called St. Louis, where our baggage 
 was examined and our passports demanded. The latter 
 were not altogether in form ; but after a little inspection 
 of them and us, they were vised by a special commissioner 
 of police for the United States, and we were courteously per- 
 mitted to pass. The country around our route looked very 
 beautiful indeed. Long avenues of the graceful poplar and 
 the green willow met the eye. Tobacco flourished finely the 
 sugar-beet, also, and fine fields of clover and grass, in square 
 plats, were interspersed with fields whence the golden wheat 
 had been lately reaped. In some of the towns were manu- 
 factures of cotton prints and stained papers for rooms. We 
 are now in the Rhine Valley, with its glory and its garni- 
 ture of castles, furnishing a gallery of antiquity and feudal 
 association unsurpassed anywhere on the earth. 
 
 This morning, September 15th, which is a delicious and 
 lovely day, we employed a guide in order "to do Stras- 
 bourg." These guides are generally, or very often, idle 
 individuals "loafing" about interesting places in the travel- 
 ing season, and very ready, if they see an individual gazing 
 at any thing curiously, to proffer him some information ex-
 
 STRASBOURG. 131 
 
 peeling to be employed as guides. Often they are drunken, 
 ignorant and unreliable; but they know the localities. 
 We went into the great cathedral, and saw its forest of 
 stately Gothic pillars some of them as large as an ordinary 
 sized church rising high and supporting the roof and 
 tower, like giant oaks, on which rests heaven. Here Cathol- 
 icism yet worships in all its glory. At one end is the 
 great clock, which can do almost any thing. It calculates 
 eclipses; gives the equation of time; shows the motions 
 and appearances of the planets; has a perpetual almanac; 
 shows all the holy days of the Catholic Church; makes 
 many moral and religious suggestions by means of an 
 automaton : and, in short, is a wonder, almost a miracle, of 
 machinery. 
 
 At twelve o'clock, a large brazen cock, near the top of 
 the vast establishment, flaps his wings and crows thrice, 
 heard all over the church ; the figures of the Twelve Apos- 
 tles march around in a circuit; the figure of Death strikes 
 the hours; and the whole clock becomes almost animated. 
 I ascended the tower of the Cathedral to the platform, more 
 than three hundred feet high. The great spire, visible as a 
 thing of beauty, " cleaving the sky," long before one reaches 
 Strasbourg, extends like a woven work of stone and iron, 
 .gradually tapering to the top, where it terminates in a 
 cross about one hundred and seventy-four feet higher. The 
 ascent can be made by a slender stairway of stone and iron 
 nearly to the top ; but it is a feat more to be admired than 
 imitated, as several persons have fallen down, and some 
 have precipitated themselves, overpowered by that singular 
 feeling that impels one to leap down when one is at a great 
 height It is the highest church spire in the world, prob- 
 ably also the grandest and in the most perfect taste. The 
 view from the platform is truly grand ; the city with its 
 two walls, one of square stone, the other inside wall of 
 earth, terraced and planted with trees ; the houses red-tiled;
 
 132 STRASBOURG. 
 
 the streets ; the throbbing human life below ; the level 
 valley of the Rhine ; the hills of the Vosges ; the Black 
 Forest, all in sight. But chief of all is the wonderful poem 
 of a church below, a lace- work in stone, with its infinite 
 forms of columns, its numerous statues of different ceDturies, 
 and the complete combination in a whole of exquisite beauty 
 and grandeur. The church enjoys the unusual distinction 
 among European churches, of having one family of artists, 
 under whose superintendence the works were carried on. 
 Erivin of Steinbach, his son, and afterward his daughter 
 Sabina, whose remains are interred within the church. 
 The nave of the church was begun in A. D. 1015. In a 
 chapel adjoining the church, we saw many most ingeniously 
 carved works formerly belonging to the church, but some 
 of which were broken at the time of the first French revo- 
 lution, when the brass of churches was used to make 
 cannon, and the iron was melted to form balls, when all 
 churches were desecrated and worship ceased. There is 
 here also an old plaster-cast of the architect of the church, 
 in a posture delightful to persons phrenologically given, as 
 it represents him standing erect, looking up, as if watching 
 each stone as it was placed on the edifice, in profound 
 thought, and with his finger on the organ of constructive- 
 ness. I saw, also, the inside of the ancient clock, the. 
 present one in the Cathedral being made in imitation of the 
 old one. The old bronze cock of great size is here. It had 
 done duty as crower on the top of the clock for three hun- 
 dred years. It will never crow or flap its wings again. It 
 is of very singular and ingenious mechanism. In another 
 church, now used by the Protestants, we saw the beautiful 
 tomb of Marshal Saxe, the great hero warrior of the reign 
 of Louis XV., the work of twenty-five years, by the French 
 sculptor Pigolle. It is very expressive find grand, and, in 
 some respects, rather better than that of Napoleon at Paris. 
 There is a fine figure of the Marshal in the most command-
 
 STRASBOURG. 133 
 
 ing attitude, descending to the tomb; the coffin is repre- 
 sented in black marble ; Death is at one end, a bony, 
 horrid figure, opening the lid ; France is represented by a 
 i'emale figure weeping and attempting to drive death away; 
 the symbols of the defeated nations, Austria represented by 
 the eagle, England by the lion ; and others also are cower- 
 ing and shrinking beneath his glance; all in immense, mas- 
 sive marble, and wonderfully expressive. In the same 
 church we saw also an embalmed body, in excellent preser- 
 vation, of a celebrated knight of the middle ages, which, 
 with the body of his daughter, also embalmed, though not 
 so well preserved, had been found in the crypt of this 
 church, where they had lain four hundred years. 
 
 Strasbourg is very strongly fortified, and contains a garri- 
 son of six thousand soldiers. The population is about 
 seventy thousand. The walls are modern, and some of them 
 are mounted with cannon ; and alongside of them are the 
 artillery corps, going through, all day, with the process of 
 loading and discharging their pieces so as to give them 
 skill. Soldiers, in armed bodies, are constantly met in all 
 the streets and hotels. They are the finest and largest- 
 formed and bodied part of the people, and probably tend to 
 perpetuate the race physically, and keep the nation from de- 
 generating. We were in the arsenal, which contains fire- 
 arms for one hundred and fifty-five thousand men, and nine 
 hundred and fifty-two pieces of cannon; also in the cannon, 
 bomb, and mortar foundry, which all looked as if the ex- 
 termination of mankind was a flourishing business. The 
 letter "N," for Napoleon, is stamped on every thing gun, 
 cannon, and bomb. The Emperor governs too much, he 
 lets the governing hand be too plainly, palpably, and fre- 
 quently seen. He not only has the French people in chains, 
 but he shows them the chains. He lays on the recollec- 
 tions of the first Napoleon too thick. The principle of belief 
 was astounded by the first Napoleon's actions: and as 
 
 H
 
 134 BADEN-BADEN. 
 
 actions in their effects, never die, his exploits seem to 
 require after ages for their full notoriety. 
 
 One of the streets here is called the " Fire street," in 
 consequence of a tremendous bonfire made here in 1318. 
 The Jews having been accused of poisoning the wells and 
 fountains, two thousand of them were burnt here at one 
 time. This was the terrible Christianity of the middle ages. 
 Though Strasbourg is in France, it seems to be rather more 
 of a German than French city. 
 
 But here we are this evening, Wednesday, September 
 16th, at 
 
 BADEN-BADEN, 
 
 one of the fashionable watering-places of Germany. It is a 
 pretty place, the houses, which are principally hotels, being 
 large. The city contains about six thousand inhabitants, 
 and is situated on the slope of hills descending from the 
 Black Forest. It is much cleaner than the abominable old 
 French and Swiss towns, in which thousands of noxious 
 scents, each one a distinct nasal horror, meet you at all 
 points. We left Strasbourg at two o'clock, in an omnibus 
 for Kiel, crossing the Rhine on a bridge of boats. Entering 
 the territories of the Granft Duke of Baden, our passports 
 were demanded and luggage examined. The officials are 
 instructed to do these things courteously, and there is little 
 or no trouble if they are met in a corresponding manner. 
 We got on the Duke of Baden's railway at Kiel, and arrived 
 here about five o'clock in the evening, passing over the fer- 
 tile valley of.the German side of the Khine. Much of the 
 land was in meadows ; and we saw the peasants, women as 
 well as men, the former in rather singular costumes, busily 
 employed in the fragrant haymaking. Tobacco, beets, cab- 
 bages, and even corn, though the latter is short in stature, 
 and small in production, are cultivated. Many of the 
 houses are almost covered with the vine, protruding its
 
 BADEN-BADEN. 135 
 
 rich products in red globules ; and the ivy, which is a great 
 institution in all this country, clasps all the old walls and 
 ruins, all fleetly passing before the vision as you flit rapidly 
 through the country. Baden-Baden, or the Place of Baths, 
 the name being repeated to distinguish it from another 
 Baden, is probably the pleasantest place in Europe, in sum- 
 mer. The railway comes up to it in a valley between two 
 high hills. The waters are thermal and have a slightly 
 acidulous taste. They are used both for bathing and drink- 
 ing. Promenades and carriage-drives are numerous among 
 the green, sloping, shady hills. The roads and streets are 
 kept remarkably clean. Large and elegant buildings, with 
 stately colonnades, in which are paintings, statuary, are 
 erected, in which to promenade, converse, drink of the 
 waters, look at the pretty and linely -dressed women, and 
 gamble. The latter is practiced to a faj greater extent than 
 I have ever seen anywhere. Two large faro-tables, also 
 rouge-tt-noir, are nightly crowded, both by men and women. 
 Splendid devils in the form of women, outside jewelry, dia- 
 monds, richness of all kinds; inside harlotry and unhappi- 
 ness, here congregate. I saw several women here exquisitely 
 beautiful, and with all the air and intellect and grace of 
 damned angels about them. Fine music, dancing, diversify 
 the scene; the air is soft, pure, exquisite; the scenery ro- 
 mantic; the views of castles, ruins, etc., interesting; the 
 waters invigorating; and Baden-Baden is a paradise for 
 lust. 
 
 But it is morning, one of the rich, clear mornings of mild 
 September. From one of the high hills or mountains of 
 Baden look down the valley, and on a past of more than a 
 thousand years, the old walls of a gray castle. We are on 
 our way to it by one of the winding roads through the 
 forest. How clear the air, and how green the fir forest, and 
 how the thick mosses carpet the entire earth, and the aroma 
 of the pines comes gratefully to the senses. Up, up through
 
 136 BADEN-BADEN. 
 
 a dense pine shade in the Black Forest of Germany. 
 English carriages, with pretty, unhappy, romantic-looking 
 ladies within, all going to see the old ruin der alien schloss. 
 We came at length near its gray, high walls looking down 
 on us from the garment of thick ivy, grown almost into a 
 tree. Its roof is all gone, and time has knocked down all 
 the upper parts of the walls. Yet more than a hundred 
 feet remains. You climb stone steps, and ascend walls 
 crumbling into decay ; you pass doors leading into subter- 
 raneous abysses. You get on the wall. Below you extends 
 a vast scene of forest and rock. But you are only one-third 
 of the way up. Here is another part of the castle attached 
 to the solid rock, you mount it, its walls twelve feet thick, 
 and you ascend the third or highest part, for it is equal to 
 three ordinary-sized castles, growing on the mountain rocks. 
 What a view ! Twenty or more of the villages of the Rhine 
 valley, with their red-tiled roofs; the great Rhine himself; 
 the Schartz Wald, or Black Forest, with its supernatural 
 associations, are before you ; and around are the vast walls, 
 halls, courtyards, reception-rooms, roofless, all ruin, and 
 nothing alive but the ivy now in bloom, on which the bees 
 are feeding; trees, pines, beeches, chestnuts, hundreds of 
 years old, growing out of the walls, and taking root in what 
 were the private rooms of feudal lords and royal ladies. 
 The elements have conquered what the battering-rams 
 could not. The slow march of time has humbled, leveled, 
 brought to dust, what the fierce tide of war essayed in vain. 
 From this ruin a path leads through the fir forest to high 
 rocks which look as if they were a castle petrified. They 
 are deep in the forest. Some of the rooms in the old ruin 
 have been roofed, and there is now kept in them a restau- 
 rant, in which the weary climbers, ladies and gentlemen, 
 may indulge in wine and eatables, on rustic seats under the 
 shades of the castle, and the pines. Little is known about 
 this castle, except that it was long the residence of the
 
 HEIDELBURG. 137 
 
 princes and margraves of the house of Baden. Nearer the 
 town, on a hill above it, in the new castle. This is cele- 
 brated for its horrid dungeons, oubliettes, or chambers of for- 
 getfulness; inquisitorial racks: images of the Virgin, which 
 condemned persons are required to kiss, and immediately 
 tind themselves grasped in the arms of a monster, with arms 
 of iron spikes, or else at once fall down into regions of 
 darkness, there to starve or drown. Having sufficiently 
 "supped full of horrors'* in the Castle of Unoth, I did not 
 care to explore those of this castle. The grounds around 
 are beautiful ; terraces and carved stone ascents ; aged trees, 
 and shady recesses among the vines and the dark ivy. But 
 the castle itself seems to charnel up a wordless past. 
 We are now in, 
 
 HEIDELBURG. 
 
 Yesterday we left Baden-Baden by railway for this place. 
 Our course lay along the level valley of the Rhine, which, 
 except in some portions, did not appear to be so fertile as 
 in the parts previously passed. It was chiefly in meadow, 
 but the grass was short and thin. Every effort appears to 
 be made by the farmer here to procure manure, which, with 
 skillful cultivation, is doubtless their principal reliance, as 
 the natural fertility of the soil has been exhausted for a 
 thousand years. 
 
 The hills of the Black Forest, where arable, were clad 
 with the vine, and occasionally surmounted by a picturesque 
 ruin, the tower of an old castle belonging to some of the 
 numerous old dynasties once reigning and warring in these 
 valleys, but long since extinct. Heidelburg has about six- 
 teen thousand inhabitants, near three times as many as 
 Baden-Baden, though not near so pleasant a place. Baden- 
 Baden has numerous promenades under shady, old trees, 
 and enjoys a fine, warm climate, and, by consequence, 
 great freshness and vigor of the vegetation, which are 
 
 H2
 
 138 HEIDELBURG. 
 
 thought to arise from the same causes that produce the six- 
 teen hot springs in that town. In these Heidelburg is 
 deficient. It is situated on the river Neckar, within a few 
 miles of its entrance into the Rhine. Heidelburg possesses 
 a great ruin, probably among the most remarkable of the 
 remains of the great, dead middle ages. I have been slowly 
 over, under, and through this majestic, kingly pile, which 
 now bears about the same relation to its past that a mould- 
 ering skeleton does to life. It is of immense extent, and 
 contains innumerable rooms of all sizes and shapes. It is 
 roofless, except in part. Ivy, of two hundred years growth, 
 (now in bloom) that lover of, and feeder on, ruin, clings in 
 luxuriant profusion around it, drawing its sustenance out 
 of the red sandstone rocks of which the castle is built. It 
 stands on the slope of a mountain, cut into numerous ter- 
 races, planted with rare old trees, and adorned with arbors. 
 Above and below the castle extends an old, thick wall, also 
 ivy-grown, in which are many secret caverns, and, in some 
 parts, concealed fountains, whose cheerful gurgle contrasts 
 strangely with the lonesomeness and decay of the present. 
 The garden is excellently kept, and mocks, with its annual 
 renovation, the grim, hoary ruin which looks down on it, 
 and which shall never again resound to the tread of lordly 
 knight or lofty dame. Arches and walls, towers and 
 statues, bearing dates of the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- 
 turies, look at you, eloquent with ruin ; carved images of 
 mail-clad heroes stare at you from walls open to the wind 
 and rain, and where trees have taken root and flourished. 
 It is too old even to be haunted ; and it has nothing to do 
 but await the leveler Time. The day was truly pleasant, 
 and over all the ruins rested the soft sunlight. Many per- 
 sons were wandering dreamily about the ruins, some sketch- 
 ing them with pencil seated in the shade. The French, 
 many years ago, bombarded this castle. General Tilley, in 
 the Thirty Years' War, reduced it. Its past is renown, its
 
 HBIDELBUKO. 
 
 future, decay. Each of these old castles is supposed to have 
 a quiet, melancholy, tutelar genius, who inhabits it, and pre- 
 serves it from further decay. Many of its walls are sixteen 
 feet thick. Winding, narrow roads ascend to it from Hei- 
 delburg, from which it is distant about fifteen minutes walk. 
 You go up a steep, stone-paved ascent, and soon come to a 
 terraced garden with many old pear and other fruit-trees, 
 and you enter the castle by what were perhaps formerly 
 subterranean passages, passing into large halls, floored with 
 pebbles. A lady who lives in, and lets out some rooms in 
 the castle to persons ambitious of such a ghostly residence, 
 takes you around, unlocks the gates, shows you the way up 
 the ruined tower, by dangerous staircases, and gives you the 
 names of the various apartments. It is all built of thick, 
 massive stones, some of which are cracked by the French 
 cannonading. It was struck by lightning about one hun- 
 dred years ago, and terribly damaged. In one of the cellars we 
 saw the great tun, the largest in the world, still entire, capa- 
 ble of containing two hundred and eighty-three thousand 
 bottles of wine. It is thirty-six feet long, and twenty-four 
 in diameter. By its side stands a dwarfish figure in wood, 
 the Count Palatine's jester, who, an inscription states, was 
 in the habit of drinking fifteen bottles of wine per diem. 
 This was in the days when high revel kept court in these 
 lofty halls. From the terrace, a large stone platform, ex- 
 tends a most superb view of Heidelburg, its old Cathedral, 
 also of red-sandstone, the bridge, the river Neckar, and the 
 high mountain on tlje opposite side of the river, on the top 
 of which stands also an old tower, and between which and 
 this castle, existed, in old times, a subterraneous communi- 
 cation, passing under the town and the river. This must 
 have been some five or six miles in length. I was assured 
 of this by a student here, who had explored it for some dis- 
 tance. It is certain that many of the hills on which these 
 old castles stood, had generally strange and remote passages,
 
 140 FRANKFORT-ON-THE-MAIN. 
 
 known only to the proprietor, by means of which escape 
 might be had, and relief obtained, in time of danger. Above 
 the tower extends a lofty mountain. Pursuing a path up, 
 I reached an eminence on which a Swiss cottage has been 
 erected, offering wine and other refreshments, and, at the 
 same time, one of the most enchanting prospects in Europe. 
 You look out from the narrow valley of the Neckar, and 
 the great, level Ehine valley, the river itself, and countless 
 villages and cities on its banks, among them Mayence, with 
 its towers and spires. Below you is the picturesque ruin, 
 and still lower, the old town and the river, and around are 
 mountains tower-crowned. It is almost as fine as the view 
 on the Righi, except that there are 'no snow mountains in 
 the landscape. 
 
 Heidelburg has the oldest college in Germany, and there 
 are many literary institutions and many students. The 
 Reformation here took root, and excited many contests with 
 the Catholics in regard to which party should possess the old 
 cathedral. It was at length settled that each should have 
 half. The cathedral was then divided by a large partition. 
 Protestantism worships at one end ; in the other Cathol- 
 icism the Protestants pitying the ignorance of the Catho- 
 lics: the Catholics decreeing that all heretics are damned 
 necessarily. On the door of the Catholic church of the city ) 
 Jerome of Prague afterward burnt for his faith at Con- 
 stance nailed his defense of Protestantism. What heroes 
 Protestantism had when it was young, and fresh, and new, 
 and its preachers had for their reward martyrdom and not 
 money ! 
 
 We are now off, however, on the railway, for 
 
 FRANKFORT-ON-THE-MAIN. 
 
 We are now in the Rhine valley, which, along .^ur route, 
 appears in good cultivation. The peasants are raking the 
 hay into rows; some gathering the blushing apples into
 
 FRANKFORT-ON-THE-MAIN. 14:1 
 
 bags; others denuding the tobacco stalk of its broad 
 leaves. On the right are hills and mountains, which are 
 covered with the vine, or where cultivation is inadmissible, 
 have a vesture of dark firs, above which rise frequently the 
 antique towers, telling of feudal chevaliers' domination 
 some of the views picturesque and striking in their mourn- 
 ful decay of ages. Unprogressive village after village is 
 passed for here population is stationary the old die, the 
 young enlist or go off; and perhaps no change takes place 
 for centuries, except what is old becomes older, the castles 
 grayer, the cathedrals more solemn-looking. But we enter 
 the city of Frankfort-on-the Main, thus called to distin- 
 guish it from Frankfort-on-the-Oder, in Prussia. It is a 
 free city, a small, independent republic, which, with three 
 other cities of Germany Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubec 
 procured, during the middle ages, the privilege of self- 
 government. Frankfort has about seventy thousand in- 
 habitants; and some streets have the bustle, life, activity, 
 and appearance of some American cities streets crowded, 
 houses large, well-built, and modern-looking. But what 
 a change on going into the Jews' Quarter. It looks like an 
 antique, oriental town narrow streets; houses with ends 
 on the streets, each story progressing over the other, so as 
 almost to arch the street; so strange with those curious 
 gables ; so old, so crowded with -people and at the same 
 time it must be confessed and admitted the scents have an 
 indescribable unpleasantness about them, reminding one of 
 New Orleans in June, where each precinct is instinct with a 
 distinct stink. 
 
 In a public square you see the statue representing 
 Goethe, the great, "all-sided Goethe;" and you are shown 
 the house in which he was born. The statue represents 
 him as a big-browed, big-headed, big-bodied Dutchman. 
 How he came to have such imagination, it would be difficult 
 to tell unless his liver was diseased. He was, however,
 
 142 FRANKFORT-ON-THE-MAIN. 
 
 sometimes right in his views ; and perhaps his errors have 
 'been a cause of others getting right. But his influence and 
 fame have been improperly great. His was an original 
 mind, however; and his works have been the fruitful 
 parents of numerous novels, poems, and those intellectual 
 reveries dignified by the name of metaphysics, in which 
 some complaisant, good-humored people in England and 
 America indulge, when one does not know whether they 
 really are wise or are only trying to be foolish. 
 
 Since entering Germany quite a decided difference is dis- 
 cernible in many things. The people are slower, surer, 
 more steady, and not so volatile as the French. There is 
 more honesty, too more steady, hopeless, hard-working- 
 ness. The French are quiet, rather light, but energetic 
 when humored with their own way. The Swiss are some- 
 what weak and thoughtful, but on the whole rather honest, 
 make good watches, are first-rate guides, and fight well too, 
 when fairly "in for it." The Germans are dull, grand, and 
 serviceable ; the French are quick, ingenious and vicious ; 
 the Swiss gentle, affectionate and weak ; the Americans are 
 immense at every thing in their own estimation. 
 
 Of course the computation of money is very different, 
 France and Switzerland have the same currency the prin- 
 cipal coins being Napoleons, which are of gold, and worth 
 three dollars and eighty cents; the franc of silver, worth 
 nineteen cents, twenty of which of course make a Napo- 
 leon ; and the centime, worth near two mills or one-fifth of 
 a cent, one hundred of which make a franc. The sou is 
 of copper, and worth about an American cent. In Germany 
 the silver coins are guilders, or florins both the same 
 value; and kreutzers, sixty of which make a guilder, which 
 is worth about forty-two cents ; the kreutzer worth about 
 seven or eight mills. French Napoleons are, however, 
 taken all over Europe, and the smaller coins of each coun- 
 try given in change.
 
 FRANKFORT-ON-THE-MA1N. 143 
 
 < v t entered the Stadel Museum, which has very many 
 splendid paintings and some fine statuary plaster casts 
 also of originals elsewhere, most of the latter being in an 
 undesirable state of nudity for a mixed company to visit. 
 The City Hall contains portraits of all the German empe- 
 rors, in full length, and in the costume of each period, for 
 the last eight hundred years. They look very imposing in 
 that dark old hall those shadows coming down to us along 
 the corridors of time those shadows now who were form- 
 erly actors of the things of history. They were formerly 
 crowned in this city, which then was and perhaps now may 
 be considered as the capital of Germany the Diet, or 
 general Congress to settle the politics of Germany, being still 
 held in this city. Frankfort, in territory, is one of the 
 smallest states of the Germanic confederation, yet is one 
 of the richest cities in the world. The head-quarters of the 
 Rothschilds are here. They were born here and the old 
 house, in the Jewish Quarter, with its peaking, projecting 
 cornices, in which they were born, and from which their 
 mother would never remove, is shown. The population 
 of the city is about seventy thousand, of whom ten thousand 
 are Jews, whose grotesquely old part of the city is food for 
 the gazer for hours. These peculiar, extraordinary people, 
 the only example of a preserved nationality in a despised 
 people, seem to be waiting, still strong in the one hope of 
 the coming man; which hope itself preserves them, and 
 gives them that continuity of purpose and oneness of direc- 
 tion that makes them so successful in amassing wealth. 
 
 Germany is an instructive lesson to the United States. 
 She could be the strongest power in Europe, if the various 
 thirty-five states, of which she consists, were united under a 
 central government as ours. They are all independent of 
 each other, and a union prevails for political purposes only. 
 As they are never really united on any point, and have no 
 compelling head, they have no influence in the affairs of
 
 144: FBANKFORT-ON-THE MAIN. 
 
 Europe. There is no nobility in Frankfort ; the Burgo- 
 master is the principal person in the state. Some of these 
 small German states are able to maintain only six horsemen. 
 Nevertheless, each has an independent prince, who rules and 
 keeps a court with the attributes of royalty. These families 
 that govern are those who yet keep above the sea of Time, 
 which has engulfed the proprietors of these numerous feudal 
 castles which remain in decay in Germany, the owners of 
 which becoming too poor to maintain their dignity, in con- 
 sequence of modern changes, enlisted in the Austrian army, 
 or in that of neighboring powers, and gradually became 
 estranged and extinct, leaving their castles to lapse or 
 decay. The soil is now possessed by numerous small pro- 
 prietors, who reside in the villages, seldom on their land, 
 the villages being chiefly agricultural, seldom a shop, unless 
 for retailing tobacco, or cigars, in this part of Germany, 
 being found in them. The inhabitants, in addition to their 
 own maintenance, must support the military, who are the 
 instruments of the sovereign in keeping them in a state 
 of subjection. 
 
 On the 25t,h of this month there is to be a meeting of the 
 Emperors of France and Russia, at Stuttgard, the capital of 
 Wirtemburg, not far from the route over which we have 
 gone, llod their majesties consulted our convenience in 
 regard to time, we should probably have been present also, 
 and assisted their deliberations. One object of the meeting 
 is stated to be to agree on a simultaneous reduction in the 
 standing army of each state in Europe. This would be 
 vastly advantageous to Germany and France both, as large 
 armies necessitate the withdrawal of many persons from 
 agriculture and other employments, and those who would, 
 if they were not in the army, support themselves, are thus 
 supported by others. But Europe is over-peopled now, 
 and the various kinds of employment are already filled, and 
 it would seem as if a standing army were necessary in order
 
 WIESBADEN. 145 
 
 to take off and kill the surplus population. Emigration to 
 America is a natural and benevolent necessity. Few of these 
 towns increase in population. The surplus enlist in the 
 army, or go off to America or other countries, which thus 
 bexjome peopled with the most enterprising, energetic, and 
 self-improving part of the population, and this country re- 
 mains peopled by the old, and those who are wedded to 
 "things as they were." Nothing, however, is an unmixed 
 good, or unmixed evil. Convulsion and innovation are 
 often the cradles of improvement. There will be changes 
 effected in the conditions of the peoples of Europe soon. 
 Life is too hard for them. To be able merely to make a 
 support and have no surplus left; to make life one long labor, 
 to have nothing left for soul or self- improvement, do not 
 fill the requirements of an awakening mind. But it will be 
 a silent, bloodless change for the better, effected by the 
 rulers themselves, especially by the French Emperor, who, 
 if events do not hurry him too much, will be the father 
 of governmental reform in Europe. Most of the old mon- 
 archies of Europe are chained by the precedents of their 
 antecedents. He is not ; he uses precedents and antecedents 
 to rule others, not himself. He rules people through their 
 weaknesses. 
 
 We have at length arrived at 
 
 WIESBADEN, 
 
 one of the best of the. German watering-places. It is a clean, 
 pretty place, and its appearance prepossessing like Baden- 
 Baden. The hotels are all good ; it is a city of hotels ; the 
 servants speak a mysterious sort of language intended for 
 English, very good French, but their German is still better. 
 The names of the hotels are always written in these three 
 languages. Strangers are always addressed, in the first 
 place, in French. Wiesbaden has a number of hot springs, 
 over which hovers a cloud of steam. It has numerous 
 10 N
 
 146 WIESBADEN. 
 
 avenues, public walks, covered promenades, and about six- 
 teen thousand inhabitants. Near it, on one side, are the 
 sloping, dark-wooded Taurius mountains. Outside the city 
 about three miles, by a beautiful road, are some very old 
 ruins, and near them a small, stationary village. These 
 ruins, whose proprietors, in former days, perhaps oppressed 
 the villagers, are a blessing now to the poor inhabitants. 
 English and Americans go there to survey the ruins; spend 
 money there is generally a cafe and restaurant in an arbor 
 erected near, sometimes in one of the old rooms you drink 
 wine there, sip coffee, and your fancy can people the gray, 
 grim, ivy-clad walls around you, with whatever scenes you 
 please. Large pines have grown around and on the thick walls 
 of this castle ; its name is only known inasmuch as it was the 
 possession of the Count Sounenberg, who, according to an 
 Englishman present with me, " went out" about eight hun- 
 dred years ago. Of course, he also said, the village below 
 was "primitive," which is a favorite word with the travel- 
 ing English. Of course, he also said, "he had done all 
 those villages," meaning he had walked through them and 
 stared at every thing. The Grand Duke of Nassau, within 
 whose territories Wiesbaden is situated, is at present here, 
 and we had the honor of looking at him last night at a con- 
 cert. He wore no ornaments of any kind ; seemed to be a 
 quiet sort of gentleman, who had nothing else to do but to 
 be Grand Duke of Nassau all the days of his life, and lea,ve 
 a son who could be Grand Duke of Nassau after him, so that 
 these people might have some one to govern them. He was 
 accompanied by his wife and family the daughters short 
 and stout, and not near so good-looking as may be seen in 
 many a Pennsylvania farm-house. There was also a pro- 
 digiously bedizened individual, probably general of ten 
 horsemen, who procured seats for the ducal family, and 
 guarded them generally. The loyally-minded persons pres- 
 ent rose at their entrance and exit.
 
 MAYENCE. 147 
 
 The population of Wiesbaden is about sixteen thousand. 
 It has a newer appearance than most European towns. 
 There are sixteen hot springs. The water is salt, hot, and 
 unpleasant to the taste. It bubbles up from the earth in 
 abundance and violence, filling a large reservoir, where it 
 is handed out in glasses by pretty girls, free of charge, to 
 the drinkers, who drink in silence and disgust, as they walk 
 in an extensive, covered avenue or arcade, the roof of which 
 is supported by iron columns. Every thing is done to ren- 
 der this place attractively beautiful; walks, gardens, gam- 
 bling, music, theatres, restaurants, artificial lakes, shops for 
 the sale of ingenious articles of workmanship in shells, glass, 
 coral, wood, ivory, pictures, etc. The Duke's palace, on a 
 hill, is surrounded by tastefully laid-out grounds, and sur- 
 mounted by awkward-looking statues, and around it prome- 
 nade his guards with guns. Who wants to hurt the Grand 
 Duke of Nassau, and thus endanger the repose of Europe? 
 Not we, certainly ! 
 
 But this clear and pleasant morning we leave Wiesbaden, 
 by railway, and, after a little more than an hour, we see 
 rising in the air the Cathedral and towers of old 
 
 MAYBNCE, ON THE RHINE, 
 
 where we begin our trip down the river. We arrive at 
 Castel opposite, and cross the Rhine on a bridge of boats, 
 the same way that Julius Caesar did two thousand years ago, 
 and we are in the ancient city said to have been- founded by 
 Drusus, in the year A. D. 18. Alongside of the town flows, 
 in grand proportions, the noble river. Now 'tis night. How 
 grand the view from my window, which looks out on the 
 river, mystic, silent; the antique bridge, semicircular, gas- 
 lit ; and the nobler stars of God above all ! The wind of 
 coming autumn, however, sighs and thrills along the waters. 
 To-day we strolled through the town of Mayence. It has 
 about fifty thousand inhabitants, and a strong garrison of
 
 148 MAYENCE. 
 
 five thousand Austrian soldiers, and about the same num- 
 ber of Russians, it being on the frontiers of both those 
 dominions. The Cathedral is a very noble building. The 
 east part is of the architecture of the year 1000, the west 
 of the fifteenth century, and has four towers. Its great 
 spire; its vast flank; its numerous tombs inside, with their 
 long slabs of stone, forming part of the floor, having sculp- 
 tured figures of the deceased, and their names and inscrip- 
 tions, some in Latin, some in German, half obliterated by the 
 tread of the walkers; the stained-glass windows, through 
 which the light comes, shattered into numerous colors, shed- 
 ding rainbows on the graves, all these render it an interest- 
 ing object. In it are the tombs of Fastrada, the beloved 
 wife of Charlemagne, and also of Frauenlob the woman- 
 loved, a sort of poet, or troubadour of the middle ages who 
 was borne to his grave by the women of Mayence. 
 
 There we saw, also, the stone of Drusus, the beloved 
 Roman General, an immense assemblage or pile of rude 
 masonry, erected, it is said, over his remains. He conquered 
 in these parts in the days when the Roman eagle spread far 
 and wide over the earth, and built, it is said, fifty castles on 
 the Rhine to protect his conquests. In the Museum of this 
 town, which I also visited, are many Roman remains : por- 
 tions of marble images of Jupiter and Apollo, and other 
 ornaments of Pagan temples, which have been found near 
 this place. There is here a splendid statue of Guttenberg, 
 the inventor of the art of printing, who was born here, 
 though the discovery was made at Strasbourg. The statue 
 is by Thorwaldsen. There are, in this building, some very 
 splendid rooms, with fine portraits of dead heroes, this 
 palace being the former residence of the Count Palatine. 
 The chief attraction of the Museum (many of the paintings 
 being rather inferior,) is the astronomical clock. This ex- 
 traordinary work of mechanism is by Nicholas Alexius 
 Johann, and occupied him seven yeara. It represents all
 
 THE RHINE. 149 
 
 the planetary bodies then discovered ; all the stars visible to 
 (he naked eye (more than a thousand); the exact motions 
 of the sun and moon as they occur in the firmament, and 
 this so exactly as not to vary half a degree in a thousand 
 years. The revolutions of all the planets are represented ; 
 their distance ; size; the revolutions and phases of the moon ; 
 days of the month; motions of the earth; the synodic, peri- 
 odic, anomalistic motions; nodes; in short, it is a kind of 
 miniature universe. There is here also the original model 
 of a peculiar bridge, which, it is said, Napoleon intended to 
 erect over the Rhine, at this place, instead of the present 
 one of boats to be sixteen hundred and sixty-six feet in 
 length ; but which, with many other objects of utility, were 
 not carried into effect in consequence of his numerous wars, 
 and eventual downfall. At Mayence are manufactured the 
 fine Hockheimer wines, the best wines the writer has drunk 
 in Europe. This city has fine promenades around it. which 
 are extremely interesting, on account of the numerous 
 towers, churches, and ancient streets one meets with. 
 
 But this night, Thursday, September 24th, my head is 
 full of Rhine ruins. This morning, at ten o'clock, we 
 stepped aboard one of the gracefully-built steamers on this 
 river, came as far as Bingen, where we stopped some hours; 
 starting at three o'clock, we arrived at Coblcntz, where we 
 now are. at half-past five, passing through the midst of a 
 portion of the scenic, historic, and romantic Rhine. The 
 mountain scenery, through which the river flows, would 
 almost vie with that of Switzerland, only that cultivation 
 has hung over these terraced mountains the clustering vine. 
 The castles also, on every rock almost, are strong works 
 of taste and grandeur, on which a thousand years have 
 wrought a history of war, greatness, and decay ; and fancy, 
 after their fall, has peopled them with legendary heroes 
 the gnome, the fairy, ghost or ghoul; and the ivy has 
 sought to bind them up again, but in vain. Many of them 
 
 N2
 
 150 THE RHINE. 
 
 belong to the King of Prussia, who has partially restored 
 some, filling up with new masonry the parts fallen down. 
 Some are black with age and neglect, and all are mournful. 
 The Rhine has a glory of the present and a dream of the 
 past. Thousands yearly go up and down its broad bosom, gaze 
 on these scenes, where the beauty of Nature combines with 
 the mellow hues of long ago, and receive impressions on their 
 hearts as if they were unfolding the leaves of some strange, 
 lost volume of heart history. At Bieberich, just below 
 Mayence, is a very beautiful palace in modern style, some- 
 what like the western front of the Tuilleries. It is the sum- 
 mer residence of the Duke of Nassau, who owns a consider- 
 able portion of the right bank of the Rhine in descending. 
 Lower down we saw Johannisberg, the celebrated vine-clad 
 hill, surmounted by a castle. This was presented to Prince 
 Metternich, in 1816, as a reward for his political skill in 
 partially bringing about the downfall of Napoleon. Its 
 wines are considered the best of all the Rhenish wines, and 
 the value of the product is about $40,000 per annum. It is 
 an extensive, dome-like hill, the vines growing close up to 
 the basement of the castle. The Rhine near this is two 
 thousand feet wide. At Bingen, which is a town of about 
 five thousand inhabitants, situated at the confluence of an- 
 other stream with the Rhine, many old towers and castles 
 are visible. Above it, in a beautiful garden, is the Chateau 
 of Kloph. To this I ascended the view of terraced moun- 
 tains, the Rhine valley, the ruins, is highly interesting. In 
 the middle of the river is the Mouse Tower. The story 
 goes, how the lord of these parts was cruel to the poor 
 they were starving, he would sell them no corn though his 
 barns were full of it how when the ragged, starving 
 wretches entreated and begged him, he at last told them to 
 go into a large, empty barn, and he would supply them. 
 How they went, but then their lord commanded all the 
 tloors to be shut, and fire put to the barn, and they were all
 
 THE RHINE. 151 
 
 burnt up; but immediately issued from the ashes a vast 
 army of rats, who marched in a straight line to the resi- 
 dence of their master. How these rats were the ghosts of 
 the poor people. How they entered the lord's house and 
 began to devour him alive ; how they got into his bed ; 
 crawled down the chimneys; entered every open window; 
 and how the wicked lord had to employ all his servants to 
 keep the rats off. After ratiocinating awhile, he built a 
 tower on an island in the river, to which he retired. How 
 the rats swam the stream, and on the lord's raising the win- 
 dow, surprised at some noise he heard, a sturdy rat got 
 under it, and before assistance could be called, the lord was 
 entirely devoured, nothing left but his skull. Thus far is 
 this story ratified. 
 
 Nearly opposite Bingen is Rudesheim, around which are 
 made fine wines, and in it stand several old towers; one of a 
 most graceful shape overlooks the river. You want to hear 
 the story of Gisela. Well? How John Bromser went to 
 the Holy Land, in the middle ages, to fight the Infidels, and 
 was taken prisoner while watching to fight a fearful dragon. 
 Whereupon John Bromser made a vow to devote his only 
 daughter to a nunnery, if he should escape. How he soon 
 after did escape, and returning, attempted to offer up his only 
 daughter Gisela. How she was engaged to a gallant young 
 knight, and would not go into a convent, and, agitated 
 finally by conflicting emotions, lost her reason, leaped from 
 the castle into the river and how her ghost, thin as a 
 moonbeam, and pale as a mountain-mist, still haunts the 
 scene. Take pity maidens for, and take warning, fathers, 
 by the fate of Gisela. Below Rudesheim is the Niederwald, 
 a terraced mountain, and on it, near the river, is the singu- 
 lar-looking ruin Ehrenfels, and on the opposite side, the 
 irregular and picturesque castle Rheinstein. The beautiful 
 little village of Assmanshausen, celebrated for the fine red 
 vines growing on the hills above, is just below Bingen.
 
 J52 THE RHINE. 
 
 Below Bingen these picturesque remains of the old, iron 
 times, when princely robbers dwelt in them, become more 
 numerous. The slopes of the mountains are covered with 
 the vine, wherever vegetation is possible. Walls are built 
 to render the ground supported by them more level. In 
 some steep places, I noticed at least twenty terraces, built 
 up the steep ascent of the mountain, one over the other, 
 presenting the appearance of a giant staircase. 
 
 The villages close to the river are as numerous as the 
 castles above them. We passed Lorch, behind which is the 
 Weisser Thai the Whispering Vale whence a wind issues, 
 a singular phenomenon, and goes on till it reaches Bingen. 
 Then we come to the Seven Sisters seven rocks in the 
 Ehine. The tradition is, that there were seven beautiful 
 countesses, who dwelt in the Castle of Schoneberg; they 
 were surrounded by lovers, who long submitted to their 
 tyranny and caprice, but at length determined to force 
 them to choose husbands among them. The girls agreed to 
 have it decided by lot ; and on the day appointed they fell 
 to the seven ugliest cavaliers, who afterward coming to 
 claim them, found only their pictures, but heard a loud 
 laughing in a boat on the river, where they saw the seven 
 faithless ladies, who had again deceived them. Whereupon 
 the god of the river, thinking it a fine opening to punish 
 coquetry, metamorphosed them into seven rocks. Coquets, 
 beware! It means, if you keep on refusing, your hearts 
 are turned to stone! At Lorely, the scenery of the Ehine is 
 most grand. Black rocks rise to a great height, almost per- 
 pendicular, and the river rushes on like a water storm. 
 Above, on the rocks, dwelt, in old times, the beautiful 
 water-spirit, Lore to hear whose song omened impending 
 destruction. Ages have gone, however, since she disap- 
 peared. The son of the great Palatine of the Rhine was 
 bathing in the river. She saw him, and was about to sing 
 -he fatal song which would lure him to destruction, when a
 
 THK KlliNK. 153 
 
 new and unknown sensation seized her. She fell in love 
 with him ; and then for a long time she disappeared from 
 the heights; and it was conjectured she had sought the 
 banks of the distant Danube. But in the mean time the 
 young count progressed wonderfully in all his under- 
 takings, hunting, fishing, &c. Unseen hands seemed to 
 carry him over stony fissures over which no huntsman 
 would ever venture; his arrows overtook the eagle in its 
 flight. But at length, climbing up a rugged precipice, 
 be saw the beautiful water-sprite. As he was about to 
 approach her he thought of Lore, crossed himself, and drew 
 back. Afterward nothing could divert his mind from the 
 beautiful vision. Mysterious musical sounds haunted him, 
 and seemed to allure him to the rocks. At length, in com- 
 pany with his preceptor, who in vain attempted to dissuade 
 him. he approached the rocks. Lore appeared in her daz- 
 zling beauty; both together leaped into the waves; since 
 which time neither has been seen. The line of the Palatine 
 became extinct, the castle a ruin, and Lore has no more 
 been seen on the cliffs. There is on the rocks, however, 
 an echo which repeats a word five times. Further down 
 we came to two lofty and singular-looking ruins on two 
 very high rocks, separated by a vast chasm. They are the 
 Brothers. They look story-full. The names of the castles 
 are Sternfels and Liebenstein ; and many centuries past they 
 belonged to the noble Count Bezer Von Boppart, who 
 adopted and brought up with his two sons, Heinrich and 
 Conrad, a relative, a beautiful young girl, an orphan con- 
 nected with the noble house of Rudesheira. Both the 
 young men, of course, fell in love with their cousin; but 
 Heinrich, the elder, perceiving that she preferred his younger 
 brother, nobly waived all claim, went off to Palestine, and 
 achieved great renown by fighting against the Turks; 
 which his younger brother hearing, became inflamed with 
 love of glory and the tears of his betrothed and commands
 
 154 THE RHINE. 
 
 of his father having proved unavailing, he was soon on his 
 way to Palestine. His father soon after died; and his 
 affianced spent many days in grief and solitude. The elder 
 brother returned, and after some time the younger also, but 
 accompanied with a Grecian bride, whom he had wooed and 
 won at Constantinople. Thereupon the elder brother s.ent 
 him a challenge ; but, as they stood face to face, about to 
 imbrue their hands in each other's blood, a white veiled 
 figure rushed between their cousin Hildebrande who, by 
 frantic expostulations, adjured them to stop. She retired 
 then to the Convent of Marienburg, and was never after- 
 ward seen or heard of in the world. The brothers, residing 
 in the opposite castles, held no intercourse; but, after a year 
 had passed, the younger brother appeared suddenly before 
 Heinrich, pale and in deep grief. His Eastern bride had 
 fled with his false friend a young knight. Thereafter he 
 never crossed the threshold of his castle; and over both of 
 them the gray hand of ruin now lies heavily and their 
 ruined, venerable towers are-prostrated. The two brothers 
 the last of their race spent their days in lamenting the fate 
 of Hildebrande. The whole scene along here is a panorama 
 of ruin. Boppard, lower down, is a town founded by 
 Drusus, about the time of the birth of Christ. 
 
 Coblentz, where we no\v are, is a pleasant town, with 
 about twenty-five thousand inhabitants. It has a very sin- 
 gular bridge of boats, connecting it with the strong fortress 
 of Ehrenbreitstein, on a mountain opposite, which is a very 
 large and picturesque-looking fortification. This city is the 
 capital of the King of Prussia's Rhenish provinces. There 
 are many soldiers here the fortress having four thousand 
 soldiers. The city is situated at the junction of the Moselle 
 with the Rhine: whence its name, Coblentz the German 
 of the Latin confluentes. I visited the old church near the 
 junction of the two rivers Church of St. Castel built 
 about the year A. D. 836, where the sons of Charlemagne
 
 THE RHINE. 155 
 
 met to divide his great empire into Germany, France, and 
 Italy. It bears the marks of extreme age. In front of it 
 stands a monument erected by the French as they passed 
 through the city on their way to Russia in 1812 ; on which 
 they carved these words, in French : " The year 1812, 
 memorable by the invasion of Russia." A Russian general, 
 in 1814, placed underneath the French inscription: "Seen 
 and approved by the Russian commander of the city 
 of Coblentz." The old bridge over the Moselle is a 
 very peculiar old bridge of stone, in the Roman style. 
 That over the Rhine is of boats. We crossed the latter, 
 and, having procured a written ticket of admission, as- 
 cended to the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein. It stands on a 
 perpendicular rock, four hundred and eighty feet above the 
 river, by which, as well as by its numerous walls and de- 
 fenses, and its four hundred cannon, and its garrison of six- 
 teen hundred men, it is rendered very strong. We saw 
 some of the cannon taken from the French at Waterloo, on 
 which are indented the marks of many a ball. It is said 
 the fortress could sustain a siege of ten years, and would 
 contain ten thousand soldiers. The view from the top of the 
 fort embraces a most lovely prospect the town of Coblentz, 
 in front ; the River and Valley of the Moselle ; old castles 
 on the Rhine; four or five forts around Coblentz; numer- 
 ous villages, and distant mountains, clad with the vine, and 
 the great sunny river laving their base. The view is truly 
 superb. The road up to the castle winds around the enor- 
 mous rock. Coblentz, as well as many others of these 
 towns, has manufactories of watches, jewelry, linen, glass, 
 snuff; also trades in wines, tobacco-pipes, millstones for 
 making cement. The latter is sent to Holland, to be used 
 in the construction of hydraulic works, dykes, &c. 
 
 We lea Coblentz to day, at twelve o'clock, by steamer 
 for Cologne, and passed through the long gallery of ancient 
 ruins, obsolete towns, and castle-crowned hills its fine,
 
 156 THE RHINE. 
 
 grand, and old scenery, on which the eye loves to gaze, and 
 the heart to dream. Very many of the mountains below 
 Coblentz appear cut into steps or terraces, supported by 
 walls, forming small plats of ground, planted with the vine. 
 The crop this year is excellent ; no season having been so 
 favorable for many years. Old churches; others recently 
 restored ; convents, monasteries in ruins ; towers ; cities 
 with high walls, crumbling into decay some built by the 
 Komans look down on you as you continue your course 
 on the silent, mysterious river. Each had a history of 
 humanity, passions, affections the diversified drama of 
 life went on in them and was no more. Doubtless in the 
 olden time these castles were the seats of robber-chieftains, 
 waging war against each other; robbing vessels on the 
 Rhine; making prisoners taken in war perform vast labors; 
 excavating subterraneous apartments under churches, by 
 means of which they could arrange artificial machinery for 
 the appearance of assumed spectres employing all agencies 
 and instruments to accomplish their ends. Further down, 
 the Seven Mountains came into view. We landed at Kon- 
 igswinter, intending to make the ascent of the Drachenfels, 
 one of the Seven. We procured a guide one who stated 
 he had acted as guide to the Prince of Wales, who had 
 spent, during the summer, seven weeks in this village, 
 making the ascent of the mountain every day. The " Cas- 
 tled Crag of Drachenfels." being ten hundred and fifty-five 
 feet above the river, can be seen for a long distance. Its 
 height above the sea is fourteen hundred feet. Our path at 
 first wound among vine fields of the red and white grape ; 
 but, rising higher, these ceased, and we came to extensive 
 stone quarries, furnishing the stone used in building the 
 Cathedral of Cologne. Peasant girls met us, offering pretty 
 blue flowers. At length we stood on the top, among the 
 black and grim walls. The view is immense, almost bound- 
 less in its beauty. It is regarded as the finest on the Rhine.
 
 THE RHINE. 157 
 
 The winding river, for many miles; the gray, picturesque 
 ruin of Godesburg on a singular conical hill in the Rhine 
 Valley opposite; many fields of vines on the hill slopes; 
 fields of wheat, oats, &c., in the valley, and the towers and 
 spires of Cologne and Bonn ; while around on the summits 
 of the six other mountains on several of which may be 
 seen through the trees some remnants of the castle-age of 
 the Rhine. Around are the thick walls of the Dragon 
 Castle its prisons its one tall tower. The history has all 
 perished; and nothing is known except that for ages it has 
 frowned over the Rhine Valley, like a vast mountain tooth. 
 A tradition, however, reports that in old Pagan times a fearful 
 dragon dwelt in a cave here, to which human victims were 
 sacrificed. He was the deity to the surrounding heathens, 
 who waged incessant war with the inhabitants of the Asso- 
 nate Valley, who had embraced Christianity; and in the 
 course of one of their excursions they took prisoner a beau- 
 tiful Christian girl, whose loveliness inflamed the hearts 
 of two of the most powerful of the heathen chiefs they 
 waging a war of extermination against each other for the 
 possession of her hand. She, however, heeded neither. At 
 length the Ancients among them stated the gods had forbid- 
 den this unnatural contest, and that the beautiful virgin 
 must be decreed to the dragon ; that the next day, at early 
 dawn, he claimed his prey : and from their decision there was 
 no appeal. She was led the next morning to the rock over- 
 hanging the dragon's noisome den, and there secured. The 
 dragon awoke at sunrise, and advanced with flaming eyes 
 Vo seize his victim when she drew from her bosom the 
 cross, the emblem of her faith; upon which the monster 
 recoiled with awe, and, uttering a fearful roar, sprang head- 
 long over the rocks into the flood, whose waters closed on 
 him forever. The Pagan multitude were awe-struck. But 
 Rinbad, the noblest of her lovers, bounded forward, and 
 threw himself at her feet, acknowledging himself a Chris- 
 

 
 158 COLOGNE. 
 
 tian. The people followed his example ; and, ere long, the 
 tumult of war was hushed, and Christianity prevailed 
 among all the inhabitants of the Seven Mountains. Rinbad 
 married the fair virgin, and built the castle on the summit 
 of the mountain, where they lived long and happily. There 
 is, near the summit, at present, a modern monument, 
 erected to the King of Prussia. We now descended the 
 winding but excellent road to the village; drank a bottle of 
 the fine wine of this region, (the Steinberger is the best,) 
 in the hotel overlooking the Rhine ; then crossed the Rhine 
 in a ferry boat to the village of Mehlen, where we -took pas- 
 sage in the cars to Cologne, having passed over the most 
 interesting portions of the river, the portion above Ma- 
 yence and below Cologne being but little attractive. 
 
 This morning, September 26th, we hired a guide to ex- 
 plore the city of 
 
 COLOGNE, 
 
 the oldest town on the Rhine, having been founded by the 
 Romans. The guide conducted us first to the great Cathe- 
 dral, a perfect wilderness of beautiful Gothic German tow- 
 ers, there being five thousand small towers around it ; and, 
 when finished, there will be one immense central tower, 
 rising five hundred and thirty feet high. In the inside there 
 are one hundred lofty, large Gothic columns; and the whole 
 edifice will be, when finished, a creation of the marvellously 
 beautiful. It reminds one of some fairy creation of frost- 
 work, so light, perfect, and correct does the whole appear. 
 We heard the great organ, rumbling its ancient music among 
 the numerous Gothic pillars. The music here is celebrated 
 throughout Europe. We entered the "Chapel of the Three 
 Kings," and saw their skulls and remains, which are kept 
 in coffins blazing with gold and gems; and are supposed 
 to be endowed with miraculous powers. These are the 
 " Three Wise Men of the East," which, by a Catholic legend,
 
 COLOGNE. 159 
 
 are transformed into three kings, and they assert these are 
 their veritable remains. The inhabitants here are great on 
 Eau-de-Cologne and bones. We also saw paying therefor 
 a small consideration to the sexton the treasury, a collec- 
 tion of splendid silver and gold crosses, historical and 
 sacred, presents from various popes and kings, and used by 
 various saints. This cathedral was begun in 1249, six 
 hundred years ago, and is only half completed. The mid- 
 dle ages have passed away since then; the Reformation 
 inaugurated and grown old; America discovered, and our 
 young, new empire arisen. The King of Prussia gives an- 
 nually forty thousand dollars to aid in its work. The peo- 
 ple of Cologne raise about the same amount. From this we 
 went to the ancient Church of St. Ursula, where in some of 
 the chapels we were admitted to a view of the skulls of no 
 less than eleven thousand virgins; and also that of St. 
 Ursula herself. The skulls are in glass ca.se*, on shelves, 
 around the walls, and lie on tables under glass covers. 
 There are many of th.em beautifully ornamented with 
 needle-work, corals, beads, &c., by the nuns. The other 
 bones of the bodies are also exhibited ; and we were shown 
 the skull of St. James the Apostle. These objects are all 
 held in the most devout reverence. The eleven thousand 
 virgin story is very romantic. How that in the year A. D. 
 274 they made a pilgrimage to Rome, were baptized, and, 
 on their return here, the Huns, having taken possession of 
 the city, massacred them all, for two reasons: first, they 
 would not abjure Christianity; and secondly, they would 
 not marry the aforesaid Huns ; and how their bones were 
 all found on the spot where this church was afterward built, 
 and miraculously distinguished, and are now placed on the 
 walls of the church for the edification of the " faithful," on 
 their paying one franc. I asked the guide whether they 
 had not a small bottleful of Egyptian darkness bottled 
 up it being for exhibition in some of these old cities.
 
 160 COLOGNE. 
 
 These things, to Protestant enlightenment, may seem ridic- 
 ulous; yet there is a study of the workings and attach- 
 ments of human nature connected with all these things 
 which is interesting; and he is too grand a man for the 
 world who looks with utter contempt on beautiful error, 
 when the intellect and the heart have clothed it with storied 
 legend, and the lapse of years has given to venerable delu- 
 sion the mellow sadness of a thousand associations. Naked, 
 cold, undiluted truth, is unlovely, and is not the order of 
 this world either in nature or religion. There must be 
 something human about it in order to attract regard. 
 Angels may be very admirable things ; but the instinct of 
 the human heart is to prefer something that it can invest 
 with something of its own feelings and frailties. AVhy 
 should not those nations that have a past render it profita- 
 ble ? What is the propriety of applying mathematical de- 
 monstration to a tradition ? The legend exists for the sake 
 of the legendary-inclined, and it has its own loveliness. 
 The whole man is not reason ; the. whole tree is riot fruit 
 it has its leaves and flowers. If people have a taste for 
 bones; if their devotion is increased by a relic, it shows 
 their personal attachment to and their credence in the 
 person and principles connected therewith. Religion is a 
 creation of the Deity; but the mind of man is also a creation 
 of the same divine power, and the two modify each other. 
 Protestantism has never flourished among southern nations, 
 nor Catholicism in northern ones ; and where a form of it, 
 as in Russia, prevails, it is divested of its imagery. Southern 
 nations invest religion with a drama, a drapery of its ideas, 
 which is Catholicism. It is not so learned, but is more 
 affecting and effecting. We also saw in the Church of 
 St. Peter what was really worth seeing the original 
 painting by Rubens, a native of thia city, of the Crucifixion 
 of St. Peter with his head downward a great work by a 
 great master. The scene is so life-like that it haunts you
 
 COLOGNE. 16t 
 
 afterward, as a view of the reality would have done. The 
 expression in the face of Peter is lofty and heroic, but 
 unimpassioned fortitude; a grand old man, suffering and 
 enduring with hope and without hate. This painting is 
 about two hundred and fifty years old. Rubens was born 
 in this city in 1577. Our guide would now have taken us 
 to the Church of St. Gereon, where are the skulls of the six 
 thousand Christian soldiers, massacred at St. Maurice, in 
 Switzerland, by command of the Roman emperor, because 
 they would not sacrifice to Jupiter. We declined, how- 
 ever, having had enough of bones for one session in the 
 sepulchrally, ancient-looking Church of St. Ursula. Here, 
 however, we saw a genuine Roman tower in the heart of 
 the city ; the upper part all fallen down, but the lower yet 
 strong. It is constructed of small stones, forming circles 
 and other figures. And near it is a portion of the original 
 wall of the city; all of it as hard as one solid rock. A man 
 M at work on the mortar with a pickaxe, cutting down the 
 work that has stood and solidified for two thousand years. 
 The term Cologne is derived from the Latin colonia this 
 having been a Roman colony. Notwithstanding it produces 
 the most celebrated of perfumes, it is supposed to be the 
 most offensive town in Germany to the olfactory arrange- 
 ments. It is said the Rhine washes it. Whereupon one 
 wishes to know 
 
 ' What power divine 
 Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?" 
 
 Coleridge asserts he counted three hundred and aixty-two 
 distinct abominable scents in its streets. But here we bid 
 adieu to the Rhine 
 
 " Adieu to thee again, a vain adieu, 
 There can be no farewell to a scene like thine." 
 
 11 02
 
 162 BRUSSELS. 
 
 We leave on the railway for 
 
 BRUSSELS, 
 
 passing first through a level and admirably cultivated por- 
 tion of the Rhine valley, with occasionally an old German 
 or Gothic castle telling its own tale of ruin ; then we arrive 
 at a mountain region, where are iron foundries and where 
 coal is extracted. We pass through the old cities of Aix- 
 la-Chapelle, where the Emperor Charlemagne is buried, and 
 Liege. We go through more than twenty tunnels in all, 
 and numerous deep cuttings; we enter the flat regions 
 of Belgium, the battle-field of Europe ; our passports and 
 luggage are examined and restored to us; and after one 
 hundred and fifty miles of slow, careful, continental railway- 
 ing, we arrive at the pleasant, clean, and beautiful city of 
 Brussels, capital of the kingdom of Belgium, looking like 
 Paris, but in general cleaner and more airy. We seem to 
 have left behind the old ruined castles and mouldering 
 cities of Germany and the Rhine, and to be getting into the 
 West of Europe, where mankind are more progressive. It 
 is pleasant, at times, to decline from the stern present and 
 wander dreamily among ruins ourself a ruin. It is plea- 
 sant to let memory repeople the past, and in old, strange- 
 looking cities, or hoary cathedrals, or among ruined castles 
 on the Rhine, surrender the heart to its dreamings. But 
 life is effort, motion, and the present is as good as any past 
 and even better. The past has had its day, its action, and 
 it should be buried. Countries like France, England, or 
 America, that are active in the present, will leave a mighty 
 past behind ; but those countries, as Italy, Greece, or those 
 individuals who dream too much over the past, will leave 
 no past. 
 
 Brussels is a sort of miniature Paris. We have been here 
 for several days. As a place of residence, it is probably prefer- 
 able to any other city on the continent. Every thing is French
 
 BRUSSELS. 163 
 
 again; the harsh German, with its black letters, is gone. 
 The society here is polished, elegant, refined, and enjoyable; 
 the wit, elegance, and agreeableness of Paris without the 
 expense. The hotels are good. The one we stopped at, 
 Hotel Bellevue, Place Royale, is deserving its recommenda- 
 tions. The city consists of two portions, the upper and 
 lower towns: the upper contains the most beautiful streets, 
 the park, the king's palace, the best hotels, the Place 
 Royale; the lower contains the fine ancient churches, an- 
 tique buildings, Hotel de Ville, narrow old streets, and has 
 the general appearance of an old Flemish town. Much 
 French is spoken in the upper town. The government is 
 one of the progressive monarchies of Europe, diluted with a 
 portion of the popular element. There are, indeed, but few 
 of the governments of Europe that do not listen occasion- 
 ally to that small, still undertone, but mighty voice of the 
 people at times. The best government is that which is the 
 best administered. But I hear a flourish of trumpets, mili- 
 tary music, etc., and behold, there rides out in a splendid 
 coach drawn by four black horses, the Duke of Brabant, 
 heir of the king, with his wife. Her bosom is blazing with 
 diamonds. He looks like a well-to-do, shallow young man, 
 with practical sense enough to get along with a career started 
 for him, and satisfied with "letting well enough alone," 
 though not remarkably gifted. He has the royal air of 
 seeming deep, but is only deceptious, but is not wise 
 enough to be bad. Brussels has, in its centre, a fine park, 
 surrounded by a high iron railing, and admirably laid out 
 in walks planted with fine old elm-trees, and adorned with 
 beautiful fountains coquetting with rainbows when the sun 
 shines. Here are also many statues; and in the evening 
 there is military music, and it is pleasant to walk on the 
 smooth gravel-walks amidst these surroundings. We visited 
 the old cathedral church of St. Gudule, containing the most 
 richly -painted glass window in Europe, almost a glory to
 
 164 WATEELOO. 
 
 look at it, as the dim, shivered light comes through it ; also 
 there is a very splendidly-carved pulpit of wood, the carv- 
 ing of which is admirable, representing the expulsion of 
 Adam and Eve all in wood, and wondrous ; there are also 
 old graves and monuments. We also visited the Museum, 
 which contains a great number of very interesting paintings, 
 chiefly modern, but no great works. There is a splendid 
 statue of Godfrey of Bouillon, the great crusader and first 
 king of Jerusalem, representing him in the mailed costume 
 of the middle ages and mounted on horseback. Brussels 
 has extensive manufactories of lace, teeth, and also numer- 
 ous publishing-houses. It has, in imitation of Paris, fine 
 Boulevards extending around the city, planted with trees, 
 and occupying the place of the old fortifications. It has also 
 fine botanic and zoological gardens. The king is at present 
 absent in Germany. The population of Brussels is about 
 one hundred and fifty thousand. 
 
 THE FIELD OF WATERLOO. 
 
 To-day we have been over the celebrated battle-ground 
 of Waterloo, where Napoleon entered on and went down in 
 his last dreadful battle, and where the Duke of Wellington 
 won a victory to his own astonishment. The distance is 
 about twelve miles from Brussels. Coaches, with four 
 Jiorses each, leave Brussels several times a day, during the 
 summer, for the battle-field. The charge is seven francs, 
 including the carriage-service around the field of battle, and 
 the fee to the guide. The road is paved the whole distance 
 (and probably all the way to Paris, distant one hundred 
 and fifty miles), and passes through a beautiful, undu- 
 lating country, with numerous avenues of elms and pop- 
 lars, and occasionally small, brick villages. The country 
 looks like a garden on the left you have the Forest of 
 Soignes. At length you enter the small village of Waterloo, 
 and, further on, that of Mont St, Jean, and you are in the
 
 WATERLOO. 165 
 
 rear of the ground occupied by the Allied Army, and the 
 coachman shows you the brick building where were the 
 Duke of Wellington's head -quarters. But a gray-headed 
 and gray-bearded man, with erect step and military cap, 
 conies out of one of the houses. This is Sergeant Munday, 
 the only guide who was actually in the battle, and he will 
 fight it over again for your instruction. He was three 
 times wounded, and lay all night in an unconscious state, on 
 the field of battle. He shows his scars. He is a thorough 
 British soldier, but probably impartial, and his accounts 
 seem a verisimilitude of fact. Here we are on the field 
 of battle then. It is a beautiful and well-cultivated region, 
 of slight undulations, long depressions and elevations, and 
 about midway between hill and prairie. 
 
 The Belgian is sowing wheat there. Some are plowing, 
 some harrowing ; women are spreading manure ; there are 
 green hedges, a few rows of young trees, a few clusters of 
 woods, one or two farm-houses, some few monuments to 
 mark where some distinguished English officers fell ; a very 
 large artificial elevation, two hundred and forty feet high, 
 on the summit of which is a statue of the Belgic Lion the 
 elevation being very much like a large Indian mound in an 
 American forest. And this is Waterloo now, where Lord 
 Wellington, knowing it would be glory for him to come in 
 contact with Napoleon, either for defeat or victory, stood on 
 the defensive, with the view of protecting Brussels behind 
 him, and met the attack of one whose star went out here, 
 because it is not given to man to be successful beyond a 
 certain point, and because other destinies were waiting to 
 have scope. The guide now shows us where the British line 
 was placed, and where the artillery were stationed ; and 
 where the French were, and where the Prussians came up, 
 on the British left (of course, on the French right), and 
 shows how Napoleon was obliged to extend his line of battle 
 to meet the Prussians, thereby withdrawing troops from, and
 
 166 WATERLOO. 
 
 weakening his centre. And then he says he wishes to cor- 
 rect an impression, which some have, "that the Prussians 
 were of no use to them." He says, impressively, "they 
 were of use," and that " he is the last man on earth to de- 
 tract from the French, for no troops ever fought more 
 bravely." The Duke had most clearly the advantage of 
 position having selected his own ground ; and he had 
 previously been heard to say, that if he ever met the French, 
 he would like to meet them here. The French being the 
 attacking party, were thus obliged to yield great advantages 
 of locality ; and the English infantry, when obliged to re- 
 treat, could occupy a position in a hollow, which the Duke 
 called his "friendly hollow way," while his artillery fired 
 over their heads, at the pursuing French. This battle has 
 been so often described, and the British have so repeatedly 
 won the battle on paper, that it would seem consummate 
 folly to say any thing further about it ; their writers having 
 every thing their own way, Britain has covered herself with 
 glory in consequence. But how the British could have won 
 the battle does not clearly appear, since they admit having 
 only twenty-three thousand British soldiers on the field, the 
 rest of the Duke's army being composed of continental 
 troops, who, according to the guide's declaration, corrobo- 
 rated by Lord Wellington's dispatches, were running away 
 every half hour. That the British troops behaved with 
 most admirable and indomitable bravery, there can be no 
 doubt. In the history of the world, there never were 
 braver troops at defense than the British, except the 
 Komans; the French are best at an attack; Americans are 
 best at a tremendous, exciting charge, or onslaught. It is 
 said, during the battle the brave conduct of the British 
 troops frequently extorted the involuntary approbation of 
 the Emperor, who knew what bravery was, and who knew 
 that it was requisite to sustain the terrible attacks he 
 ordered. The guide declared in answer to a question, that
 
 WATERLOO. 167 
 
 up to half-past four o'clock Lord Wellington's whole army 
 seemed in process toward an irretrievable and appalling 
 overthrow; that the French army had advanced, the En- 
 glish fallen back, and he showed us Napoleon's three posi- 
 tions, or head-quarters; first, when the battle began, which 
 was at nine o'clock ; secondly, about two in the afternoon, 
 nearly a mile in front of the former ; thirdly, a half a mile 
 or more, nearer the British ranks. At half-past four o'clock 
 Bulow, with thirty thousand men, the advanced corps of 
 Prince Bluchers army, made his appearance on the French 
 right, and began to plow the ground with cannon. This 
 division of the Prussians was repulsed, and obliged to fly 
 into the woods, by a detachment sent against them ; and at 
 the same time, Napoleon extended the French line so as to 
 embrace their operations, thus weakening his centre it be- 
 \ng his object to make the old Imperial Guard to advance 
 there. Yet, the arrival of the Prussians had the same effect 
 on the English army, as if, according to the words of the 
 guide, each man had received a "stiff glass of grog." The 
 Duke, at this time, had all his reserves in action. But up 
 to this time, the reserve of the Emperor had not drawn a 
 trigger, and were fresh and impatient as pawing steeds. 
 This shows where the advantage was at this time, and jus- 
 tifies the declaration which it is said burst from Napoleon, 
 that despite the whole Prussian array and Lord Wellington 
 united, he had sixty chances in his favor to thirty against 
 him. The Old Guard never had been beaten, and wherever 
 and whenever they moved in battle, had carried irresistible 
 victory. Napoleon caused them to pass before him, 
 harangued them coolly in the moment of battle, in a small 
 hollow, told them they carried the Empire with them, and 
 would have led the charge himself but for the vehement 
 dissuasions of Ney. This unconquerable body of men 
 the Old Guard advanced to the long eminence on which 
 the British line was placed, when the sudden apparition
 
 168 WATERLOO. 
 
 of an armed body of men, rising apparently out of the 
 ground, where they had hitherto seen nothing, threw them 
 into a panic, and was the true cause of Napoleon's losing 
 the battle. It is true they partially recovered, fought 
 bravely, and even made an impression on the British line, 
 and nearly all perished in battle ; but their useless heroic 
 bravery was wasted in individual effort and disorganized 
 attack. The guide showed us where the charge was made, 
 and where the Duke ordered his men to lie down flat on 
 the ground, and thus, concealed by the eminence and smoke 
 of battle, await their coming. As to the Duke's giving the 
 celebrated order, " Up guards, and at them !" in those precise 
 unmilitary words, the guide manifested considerable in- 
 credulity. A successful attack at this point would doubt- 
 less have retrieved, as Napoleon intended it should, the 
 discouragement resulting from the arrival of the Prussians. 
 The Old Guard died on the place where they made their 
 first error ; and having gained most of Napoleon's battles 
 by attacking in the crisis, they now lost him his most im- 
 portant one. They died with the Empire they established. 
 "The Old Guard die, but surrender never!" was their reply 
 to Lord Wellington's almost entreaty to surrender. One of 
 their number, in revisiting the scene in years afterward, 
 stated to the guide that the sudden appearance of the En- 
 glish affected them as if they had been supernatural phan- 
 toms. Yet the glory of the Old Guard was full. From the 
 lips of the Emperor was never heard a syllable of blame. 
 They disappeared from among men ; but often, in countries 
 far remote, would sit clown, and with flashing eye and heav- 
 ing bosom, tell of the deeds of him so long a captive at St. 
 Helena, till only death freed him. Murat asserted the 
 result of Waterloo would have been different, had he com- 
 manded the Old Guard. The guide now showed us the 
 road, up and down which the Duke rode all day, under fire 
 ; all the time of the French artillery. That part of the
 
 WATERLOO. 169 
 
 ground, however, has been greatly changed, in consequence 
 of the soil having been carried to erect the great mound on 
 the field of battle, which is surmounted by the Belgic Lion. 
 There is, near this, a Waterloo Museum, consisting of 
 numerous swords, pistols, cannon balls, coats, and many 
 other things found on the field of battle some belonging 
 to Napoleon. These are for inspection, but not for sale. 
 The guide now led us along the British right, where we 
 crossed a depression in the ground, and entered the orchard 
 and gardens of Ilogoumont, the possession of which was of 
 the most vital advantage to the Duke. It consists of an 
 ancient brick castle, built more than two hundred years 
 ago ; its garden is surrounded by a strong brick wall, in 
 which the Duke caused holes to be made for the muskets, 
 his men being protected by the walls. This was a strong 
 position. On account of a forest being in front of the wall, 
 the French were not able to bring their artillery to play 
 against it The guide asserted that here the French fought 
 most bravely. They rushed up to the port-holes, and 
 attempted to pull the muskets of the British out of their 
 hands, through the holes; and the marks of balls every- 
 where on the walls attested the murderous nature of the 
 conflict. The disputed possession of these grounds was the 
 only real advantage the Duke had, up to the time of the 
 arrival of the Prussians. The French at one time got pos- 
 session of the chateau, and set it on fire, though part of it 
 had served as a hospital for many wounded persons, whose 
 shrieks ascended above the roar of the battle; a chapel 
 adjoining was also on fire, and we saw a crucifix with the 
 lower part burnt off. Near this were several black marble 
 monuments, erected to the memory of some who wished to 
 be buried near the place they had so well defended among 
 whom was Major Cotton, the brother-in-law of the guide. 
 But for the strength of this position, it is probable the bat- 
 tle would have been terminated before the arrival of the
 
 170 WATERLOO. 
 
 Prussians. Its possession would have enabled Napoleon to 
 outflank the English. The English, even when partially 
 dislodged from it, could retire into an adjacent valley, and 
 permit their artillery to fire over their heads. Here then, 
 on this field, went down the Empire of the first Napoleon. 
 The dynasty and the man were conquered for forty years, 
 and he was caged and starved in St. Helena. But though 
 a troop overcame him then and there, he has overcome them 
 at the last. The Duke of Wellington led a life afterward of 
 glorious ease and inaction, and finally died, leaving no 
 results of policy or government behind him nothing but 
 the reputation of a brave, skillful, and fortunate General, 
 and a doubtful victory at Waterloo. Napoleon died, assas- 
 sinated by a climate in a hot, unhealthy island, and left re- 
 sults a dynasty and its ideas that now rule more potently 
 than if he had conquered on this ground. The man and 
 the army were conquered, but the dynasty has arisen out of 
 their ruin, greater than if the Napoleonic destiny were 
 littered out by the descendant of the Hapsburghs. The old 
 Napoleon abused and exhausted his destiny. So confident 
 was he of success in this battle, that he never ordered 
 Marshal Grouchy to meet him, because he judged it unne- 
 cessary. The guide stated that the Emperor's force con- 
 sisted of seventy-one thousand men, all veterans, and near 
 three hundred pieces of cannon a force amply sufficient, in 
 Napoleon's estimation, to beat Lord Wellington's ninety 
 thousand. All he required Grouchy to do, was to keep 
 Blucher beaten Napoleon having defeated him on the 16th. 
 To Grouchy was assigned the hard task of following 
 Blucher (the old devil, as Napoleon called him), who was 
 probably, after the Emperor, the first General of the age. 
 Napoleon had accomplished two of his three principal ob- 
 jects to get between the Prussian and English armies, 
 and to beat the former. It appears there was an under- 
 standing between Wellington and Blucher, that the latter
 
 ANTWERP 171 
 
 was to be on the ground at two o'clock. Having out-gen- 
 eraled Grouchy, he was, however, kept back by the badness 
 of the roads till half-past four. Napoleon had no time for 
 maneuvering in this battle, nor did he attempt any. But 
 adieu to Waterloo, and all its beggar bullet-venders. We 
 return through the old Belgic villages, the ragged, cheerful 
 beggar boy* of which, as the coach passes, perform all 
 kinds of upturnings, and evolutions, and exposures, for a 
 sou, and thus passes the glory of the world. The battle 
 of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, the 18th of June, 
 1815. 
 
 But this pleasant morning we leave Brussels, the cars 
 flitting rapidly through green, unenclosed, level fields, cul- 
 tivated to their utmost power; villages with spires of 
 ohurches mounting high in air; here are also small stone or 
 brick towers, around which fly the great and singular-look- 
 ing windmills, the motive-power to raise water or grind 
 wheat, in this level country. We are in 
 
 ANTWERP, 
 
 the old, Flemish, declining town on the Scheldt, once with 
 two hundred thousand inhabitants, now about ninety thou- 
 sand,, celebrated for its fine docks and fortifications, con- 
 structed when it was an appanage of the Napoleonic empire, 
 he intending to make it the rival m commerce of London, 
 to which we expect soon to embark. But first a walk of a 
 few hours through this old town of the fifteenth century. 
 Here our guide shows us one of the gloomy, ugly-looking 
 prison convents of the Jesuits; here are the inquisition- 
 rooms, with the iron collars on the walls, that were thrust 
 around the necks of the unfortunates; here are also the beds 
 on which they were stretched and tortured. Things are 
 changed now. Belgium is a Catholic kingdom, but in no 
 place in Europe is there to be found the Catholicism we 
 read about in the middle ages. What singular, old-looking,
 
 1 72 ANTWERP. 
 
 Flemish houses these are, with the ends toward the streets, 
 tapering upward toward the roof, and with high, narrow, 
 numerous windows. Some of the ends are of wood, and 
 quaintly carved. Here also is the many-storied palace of 
 Charles V., Emperor of Germany and King of Spain, when 
 the latter kingdom embraced also these provinces. It is 
 black and strange-looking, with its carvings and projections 
 and gables of a quaint age and style of architecture 
 Moorish, Spanish, and Gothic. Near it is, in modern style, 
 one of the palaces of the present king of the Belgians, that 
 fortunate, unfortunate man, who married the only daughter 
 of George IV., King of England. She died. He was elected 
 King of Belgium, when the Allied Powers reconstructed 
 Europe at the downfall of Napoleon, married an arch- 
 duchess of Austria; she died in 1850, leaving a son (Duke 
 of Brabant,) and two other children. But here we, enter a 
 back court-yard, surrounded by walls, of an old church, 
 and what a scene it is of sculptured saints and prophets 
 standing all around, gazing in devotion on a tomb further 
 on, cut out of solid rock. You look through an iron grating 
 and you perceive the fac simile of a body dressed for the 
 grave. It is called Calvary, the exact representation, it is 
 said, of the reputed sepulchre of Christ, at Jerusalem. But 
 here is another place, no less than Purgatory, representing 
 the departed, surrounded and devoured by flames in agony, 
 they raise their eyes and hands beseeching the prayers 
 of the church. It is all carved in wood, and is truly strik- 
 ing. The walls around, and the pedestals on which the 
 statues stand, are of cinders cemented together. Near this 
 is the Cathedral church, with its spire rising more than four 
 hundred and sixty feet high, a wonder and a miracle of 
 beauty. This is probably the most beautiful spire in the 
 world. There are its singular chimes, consisting, it is said, 
 of ninety-nine bells, playing a mournful, religious air, high 
 above, yet heard amidst the din of human life below. We
 
 ANTWERP. 178 
 
 visited some of the numerous and splendid churches of 
 Antwerp, with their fine paintings by renowned masters 
 Rubens, Vandyck, and others. Whole pulpits of extraor- 
 dinary carved work, with great adornings of saints, birds, 
 fishes these, in some cases, represented as listening with 
 devout and ludicrous attention to the speaker nets ; also 
 statues, all carved out of oak, and exceedingly beautiful 
 and perfect in attitude and expression ; also finely-carved 
 marble allegoric scenes, tombs, etc., where repose the dead 
 amidst glorious surroundings. The views, in some of these 
 churches, are of the most splendid and beautiful character, 
 and well calculated to impress the mind strongly. The 
 lofty columns that support the immense vault or nave (all 
 being in the form of a Latin cross); the richness of the 
 paintings; the numerous side-chapels, with their tombs; the 
 carved columns of marble ; the stone floors, (there being no 
 pews or seats,) on each slab of which are engraved the 
 name and epitaph of the deceased who slumbers in the 
 vault below; all are in the highest degree interesting to one 
 that reflects on the messages of the eye to the mind. But 
 the chief attraction of all is the canvas where Rubens has 
 stamped the immortality of his genius. He died in this 
 city, and we saw his tomb, with one of his paintings, which 
 he painted for that purpose, hanging over it. He died in 
 1640. It is surprising what great-hearted men the four 
 great painters, Raphael, Michael Angelo Buonarotti, Rubens, 
 and Murillo, were. But great genius is always god-like 
 and noble. Rubeng, the warm-hearted and friendly ; Ra- 
 phael, the divine and elevated, who seems to have dwelt 
 with Madonnas ; and Michael Angelo, the universal- 
 minded; and Murillo, the simply great and soul-like, were 
 all great men. Rubens' works are more numerous in Ant- 
 werp than any other place. The " Descent from the Cross,'' 
 in the Cathedral, is regarded as his greatest. The "Eleva- 
 tion of the Cross," and the ' Assumption of the Virgin," and 
 
 P2
 
 174: LONDON. 
 
 the "Scourging of Christ," are paintings over which the 
 eye and mind long linger, being most extraordinary deline- 
 ations, and startlingly real-like. The body of the Saviour, 
 in the " Descent from the Cross," the face and expression 
 of Mary in the " Assumption," and the face of Peter, (in the 
 painting at Cologne,) have probably never been surpassed. 
 They dwell on the mind like a solemn, intense memory, 
 which time has rendered painless, and we at once recognize 
 the unfathomable depth of the genius which depicted the 
 scenes. 
 
 Antwerp has considerable commerce, manufactories of 
 black lace, bleaching and the embroidery of lace. The long 
 duration of the Spanish domination here, has left traces in 
 the dark beauty and grace of the women. The great Bourse 
 is a modern building in the Moorish style. 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 But changes again. It is the evening of October 1st, and 
 I am one of the two millions and a half of human beings 
 whose hearts are now beating in London. High in the air 
 shines the moon over the great city of multitudinous streets 
 and palaces, where human life goes on, and there rolls the 
 Thames as it has done since the world began, with its artifi- 
 cial forest of masts. Humanity is a great thing, and man 
 is mighty. In the course of our ramblings we have come 
 hither also. Yesterday, at one o'clock, we left Antwerp, 
 stepped off the continent of Europe, and descended the 
 broad Scheldt in the good steamer Baron Osy. The great 
 spire of the Cathedral, that pretty, mathematical thing of 
 stone, columns, fret-work, tapering upward till lost in the 
 clouds, was the last thing visible, fading underneath the 
 horizon, as we passed seaward. The country around the 
 Scheldt is level and marshy, but high embankments protect 
 it from overflow, and several old, Dutch cities, unaltered for 
 centuries, may be seen on and near its banks, and the
 
 LONDON. 175 
 
 ancient-looking windmills are flapping their broad wings in 
 the wind in all directions. For here air is not to breathe 
 merely, but to turn windmills. But the Scheldt expands 
 into the North Sea, and we lose sight of the continent 
 of Europe, and our course is westward toward our native 
 land, and the sea is around us with its white waves again. 
 About two o'clock this morning, we entered the mouth 
 of the Thames. But soon a fog came over all things, and 
 forbade our further progress. This was a peculiarly English 
 fog, dense, awful, damp, and execrable. "England, with 
 all thy faults, I love thee still," but certainly not with all 
 thy " fogs." Our vessel had many English on board, and 
 it was pleasant to hear again the accents of our native land. 
 Englishmen speak English, but with not the same accent 
 Americans do, or rather, we speak English, but with very 
 little accent* When we sat down to table on the steamer, 
 behold, tables d'hote were no morel There are lacking, 
 however, the continental ease and politeness on the part 
 of the servants. John Bull is awkward and unpolished, 
 though a good fellow at bottom. But instead of being 
 polite himself, he will unfold to you a lecture on politeness. 
 You miss French everywhere, and it is, indeed, a sort 
 of returning home to come to England. The language and 
 intellect are the same, the literature is common to both, and 
 there is a home feeling in the hearts of true Americans for 
 England. They are not, in general, so quick and active as 
 we, nor can they accomplish so much in so short a time; 
 they are slower and more old world-like, but more fixed 
 and steady, and not so wild and reckless. American as I 
 am, "and a quarter over," I think England is the most 
 respectable nation on earth, in all past or present time. 
 The feeling they have for us is somewhat similar to that a 
 parent has for a wild, successful, irreverent boy ; they rather 
 take pride in our success, though they do not admire the 
 means. There is a warm place in the heart of Old England
 
 176 LONDON. 
 
 for us yet. Blood is thicker than water. We have taught 
 them to respect us, however, but yet, like the aforesaid 
 parent with his boy, they do not know exactly what to 
 make of us, and are willing to own us if we act creditably, 
 and reject us at once if not. 
 
 After awhile the fog cleared off, and we began to see the 
 level, green banks of the Thames, with the hills in the dis- 
 tance, and on them many home-like English houses. We 
 passed numerous ships we saw the yet unlaunched Levia- 
 than, the monster among vessels, lying on the stocks close 
 to the river. At Gravesend the custom-house officers came 
 on board, examined every particle of baggage, lest articles 
 forbidden by law might be smuggled into the country ; but 
 not a word was said about passports, which are not required 
 in England. This was done very courteously, and the bag- 
 gage continued in possession of the officers till we landed, 
 when it was delivered to us. We passed Greenwich, the 
 celebrated hospital for disabled seamen, and we now entered 
 a second fog worse than the first the peculiar fog smoke 
 of London. We were gliding through a multitude of ves- 
 sels of all nations, on a something called the Thames, 
 presumed to be water, yet yellowish, and unlike any other 
 water. The intense human life of a vast city began to 
 appear on the shore. We at length landed near the histori- 
 cal, white-looking Tower of London, going back for its origin 
 into dim ages. We drove through the winding, crowded 
 streets, to Morley's Hotel on Trafalgar Square, which, hav- 
 ing a central situation, is convenient for travelers. In front 
 are several fine fountains, several lofty monuments, one to 
 Lord Nelson. Of course it is useless to attempt a descrip- 
 tion of London. It produces the impression on one of a 
 silent yet busy power. British energy sets in motion a vast 
 and varied life here. Our ride was through what is called 
 the city toward the West End, passing under the Temple 
 Bar a huge, old gate across the street the only gate re-
 
 LONDON. 177 
 
 niaining of the old fortifications, then along the Strand. It 
 is a human living ocean of individual souls in action. 
 There is the intense but more sustained and less speculative 
 American energy; there are the palatial streets; the river, 
 half sea and half river, with its ships; tbt memories of the 
 by-gone, and more than all, the historical associations that 
 link it with such men as Newton, Scott, Byron, Shakspeare 
 men who belong to no clime, but are the common prop- 
 erty of man who once trod these streets and gazed on these 
 scenes. The city, however, is somewhat dingy, and does 
 not present the lightsome, gay, and elegant and rather 
 enjoyable appearance that some cities, Paris for instance, 
 have. The people all seem workers, intense workers, as if 
 life were made for labor, and as if money-getting were the 
 necessity and condition of existence. 
 
 To-day, October 2d, I walked about this great astonish- 
 ment London. I entered Si. Paul's Church, the largest 
 Protestant church in the world, and only exceeded by the 
 Catholic church of St. Peter, at Rome. It is the best place 
 to visit first, in order to ascend to its summit, so as to have 
 a view over the whole of London. It covers near three 
 acres. In the interior it is of course immense, but neither 
 so strikingly beautiful, nor so interesting as many Catholic 
 churches which we have seen. The service, which is read 
 three times every day in the year, is in a chapel, occupying 
 but a small part of the interior. There are no paintings, 
 nor any ornament but tombs. That of John Howard, the 
 Philanthropist, seems in the best taste. We ascended to 
 the Whispering Gallery in the dome, where the slightest 
 whisper at one side is heard on the opposite side ; then to 
 the Golden Gallery, three hundred feet high, requiring five 
 hundred and thirty-four steps, whence the view embraces 
 the whole city and the hills around London; the Crystal 
 Palace, twenty miles off; the Thames, advancing and re- 
 ceding with the tide; its numerous bridges and boats; the 
 12
 
 178 LONDON. 
 
 mammoth city, with its streets, squares, large churches, etc. 
 We descended into the crypt underneath the church, and 
 saw the grave of Benjamin West, the eminent painter, a 
 native of our own country, and also that of Sir Christopher 
 Wren, the architect of this church. The epitaph on the 
 latter is an instance of the ridiculous closely following the 
 sublime. "Keader, he is the builder of this church, and 
 lived more than ninety years, not for his own, but others' 
 good. If you seek his monument, look around you ; and 
 go and see Sir J.Sloane's Museum, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, 
 where his watch and other relics may be seen." The re- 
 mains of Lord Nelson are here also, with the simple inscrip- 
 tion, "Horatio Viscount Nelson." The body of Lord 
 Wellington lies here also, enclosed in wooden coffins, the 
 tomb, which is to be a very splendid one of red granite, not 
 being yet prepared. It has not been the custom to bury 
 " any man of blood," or any soldier, in Westminster Abbey 
 for some hundreds of years, or else the noble Duke's re- 
 mains would have rested there. I had seen, only a few 
 days before, the battle-ground of the Duke's glory, and how 
 great the contrast of the life there, to the death here. The 
 two that warred on that field, now sleep quietly enough. 
 The feelings inspired by St. Paul's Church are very impres- 
 sive. It is in the heart of the great, noisy, busy city. 
 Without is the world within are repose, and death, and 
 silence. This great church cost near eight million dollars, 
 and was seven years in building. As a whole, however, 
 this church is not beautiful. The British can write and 
 fight, but neither build nor paint; and in beauty, taste, and 
 elegance, St. Paul's, notwithstanding the impression pro- 
 duced by its great size, is inferior to many churches on the 
 Continent. 
 
 In the course of the day, some business carried me to the 
 West End of London. Here are few or no shops, not much 
 noise; the grand and stately residences of the English
 
 LONDON. 179 
 
 nobility the finest nobility in the world are here; and 
 the general air and appearance of every thing is so in- 
 tensely aristocratic, as almost to devour one's breath. Here 
 wealth is entrenched, enshrined, and worshiped birth, 
 breeding, and Norman descent. Here family dignity must 
 be kept up ; marriages are but a method of doing it, and 
 the inner heart-world supplies a dole of human sorrow 
 more severe than the necessity of daily toil imposes on the 
 lower classes. Here tamely and regularly-begotten families 
 live and prosper, on such places as Grosvenor and Berkely 
 Squares large spaces, five or six acres in extent, embel- 
 lished with trees and fountains and statues have houses, 
 looking out on the square, all of brick, with steps descend- 
 ing from the street into the basement story, which is also 
 well lighted. To be begotten and born, and of Norman 
 descent these constitute all in life desirable in these 
 regions. Money will come by inheritance, marriage, or a 
 pension. 
 
 The excursion of William the Conqueror, and his sixty 
 thousand robbers, in the year 1066, has been one of the 
 most successful filibustering expeditions on record. Seeing 
 a fine opening in the disorganized state of England, they 
 came over from Normandy, founded the present dynasty, 
 and the principal English families. A titled nobility will, 
 however, ere long, become one of the obsolete ideas of the 
 middle ages unless civilization should retrograde, and new 
 dark ages arise. There is scarcely any nobility in France ; 
 the new dynasty there looks with an evil eye on hereditary 
 pretensions older than itself. The day will come, if it have 
 not already, when monarchy and its correlative, a titled 
 aristocracy, will exist in England only on sufferance. We 
 have, however, in America, a curious, contemptible thing, 
 called aristocracy, existing neither on blood, birth, or breed- 
 ing but often on bacon whereby it appears that some- 
 body, or some bodies, are better somehow than others
 
 180 LONDON. 
 
 though how it came about, does not distinctly appear. 
 There is, in America, the finest opening the world has ever 
 seen for the creation of an aristocracy founded on moral 
 conduct, refinement, and manliness of manners, intellect, 
 etc., for the simple reason that, historically, we can have no 
 other foundation. The Puritans were never any great things, 
 except religiously, at any rate, in regard to blood ; and as 
 to the cavaliers and adventurers generally, who settled in 
 other regions, the less investigation into their origin and 
 causes of emigration, probably the better. Honor should 
 be individual, necessarily ; and ascending to a renowned an- 
 cestor to find it, is a confession of the absence of personal, 
 or at least unassorted claims. There is, doubtless, an 
 attraction of mind or feeling to body, and the physical 
 organization may carry with it some portion of the mental 
 or moral qualities. But American aristocracy is a weak, 
 lame, puny thing. We should respect our grandfathers 
 while they live, and when they die, write Requiescat in pace 
 on their tombs ; and as to any thing further back than a 
 grandfather, few, except most rash and reckless persons, 
 admit of their ever having existed, except inferentially. 
 " I am the Hapsburgh of my family !" said Napoleon to the 
 Austrians, who wanted to find a princely ancestry for him. 
 If every man in America were to aspire to be the founder 
 of a family, instead of the scion of one, we would indeed 
 be a race of heroes ; and as for ladies, it is better to be the 
 mother of a hero, than the descendant of a Howard. " It 
 is more blessed to give than to receive." 
 
 To-day (October 3d), I have further been an atom on this 
 great fevered sea of London this monument of man, de- 
 veloping all the susceptibilities of human life. "We went 
 through the two Houses of Parliament which are not yet 
 fully finished passing along the grand staircases, lobby- 
 rooms, princes' apartments, etc. The work is all of the 
 most -exquisite, intricate, and rather delicate Gothic work-
 
 LONDON. 181 
 
 raanship, adorned with all that intellect can conceive or 
 wealth furnish. The House of Lords is probably one of the 
 most splendid rooms in Europe. Here meet the great, dull, 
 proud men, and say little or nothing. What occasion have 
 they for the effort of greatness? They have it already. 
 They can only be dull, and keep what they have. The 
 carved work, the painted, historical windows, illustrating 
 scenes in the deep mine of English history, are exquisite. 
 The Chair of State for Victoria, with that of her son, the 
 Prince of Wales, on the right, that of her husband, Prince 
 Albert, on the left, are of the most gorgeous description. 
 The House of Commons, in the same building, is larger, 
 and adorned in almost as rich a manner. Altogether, these 
 houses are far more splendid, intricate, and beautiful, than 
 our Houses of Congress; but the style is not so massive, 
 large, and endurable. The delicate Gothic is used here, ad- 
 mitting of ornamental profusion. The stone of which these 
 palaces are built, is, exteriorly, English stone interiorly, 
 Caen stone, from France ; the latter being easy to carve in, 
 and durable. The chapel of St. Stephen and the old Hall of 
 Westminster were also visited. The latter is a splendid old 
 room, of the eleventh or twelfth centuries, with a most sin- 
 gular and ancient ceiling, supported without pillars. It has 
 witnessed some of the most remarkable scenes in English 
 history. Cromwell was here installed as Lord Protector, 
 Sir Thomas More condemned to die, the Regicides sat in 
 judgment on Charles I., Earl of Stafford condemned, War- 
 ren Hastings tried, etc. These buildings, all included, 
 occupy near eight acres. The front on the Thames is nine 
 hundred and forty feet long, and is extremely beautiful. 
 The old Parliament Houses were destroyed by lire in 1834, 
 and these erected on their site. The largest square tower 
 in the world, called Victoria Tower, arises from these build- 
 ings. It does not appear to be in very good taste, however. 
 We also entered Westminster Abbey, which is near the new 
 
 Q
 
 182 LONDON. 
 
 Parliament Houses, and is the great burial-place of En- 
 gland's great men and old kings, whose tombs here are so 
 numerous, elegant, eloquent, and ancient, that they neutral- 
 ize the effect produced by each other. It is England's 
 history embalmed, and its greatness enshrined. The im- 
 mense size of this building, the great height, the numerous 
 lofty old columns, like a forest of stone, the dim and high 
 painted windows, the numerous, ancient, mouldering tombs 
 of kings, queens, princes, dukes, lords of all kinds and 
 ages, with effigies, inscriptions, armorial bearings, attest the 
 greatness, weakness, nothingness, vanity, of man's efforts 
 to extenuate death. It is in the pure, heavy, religious, 
 Gothic style of the twelfth century, and is in the form of a 
 long cross: greatest length, four hundred and eighty-nine 
 feet; length of the cross aisle, or transept, one hundred a-id 
 eighty-nine feet. Here the kings were crowned, and here 
 buried. 
 
 To-day, I also went through the Tower of London. Its 
 position is close to the river. It seems to be used princi- 
 pally now as an armory, and place for military supplies and 
 stores. One of the guards about, takes you through the 
 Tower. We were shown into a vast hall, containing heroes 
 on horseback, clad in the mailed armor of past ages ; all in 
 plaster, however, except the armor, which was the original 
 armor worn by the kings and princes represented by the 
 statues. Here were all kinds of warlike implements, lances, 
 pikes, maces, used in the middle ages. We saw the cham- 
 ber, or dungeon, in which Sir Walter Raleigh was confined 
 twelve years, the execution block on which royal blood has 
 flowed ; also, the mask used by the executioner, when de- 
 capitating one. We also saw the crown of Victoria, that 
 of the Prince of Wales, and other crowns worn by the 
 kings of England beautiful, all of massy gold, and glow- 
 ing with gems ; the table-service, also of gold ; the baptis- 
 mal font, several maces and walking staffs of gold, used by
 
 LONDON. f 188 
 
 various kings all beautiful, expensive, useless; but they 
 do well enough to keep up the fiction of a kingly govern- 
 ment, with its splendors and proprieties. This Tower has 
 been used as much as an engine of tyranny as the French 
 Bastile was. But it stands strongly and firmly, while the 
 French could not endure tiieir State prison. We were 
 shown into one of the prisons, where we saw much carving 
 and writing on the walls of stone, probably done with a 
 rusty nail, wherewith captives had wearily waned out the 
 hours of imprisonment, leaving melancholy mementoes of 
 days that would not pass away. English history is all 
 stained with blood and cruelty. Yet the people are com- 
 fortable under their government at present, arid attached, 
 with a home feeling, to the Royal Family. In matters of 
 government^ the Bnglish people of the present day are 
 " slow to wrath," and they are wedded to ancient ideas. 
 Were it not for these considerations, they would escape from 
 the thraldom of a dull, ancient, useless monarchy, suited 
 well enough to the middle ages, when the right had to be 
 enforced by might. Their monarchy, peerage, and old 
 things generally, will run themselves out soon. The age 
 demands less government and rn'ore work, and begins to ask, 
 what is the use of a Royal Family, and all the cumbrous, 
 expensive machinery of such a government? This is not 
 from any default in the government, for it is, perhaps, bet- 
 ter than any they would establish, but from a tendency in 
 human nature to get tired .of one set of things, and wish for 
 something newly energetic. We were shown the White 
 Tower, which was built by William the Conqueror, about 
 1079. The flooring of many rooms is hard, polished, gray 
 cement. In some apartments, there is much massive timber, 
 and there are some oak carvings, indicative of high an- 
 tiquity. One of the towers is called the Bloody Tower, 
 because the two sons of Edward IV. were smothered, or 
 murdered in some way, in it. Devereux Tower is where
 
 184 LONDON. 
 
 the brilliant Earl of Essex was privately beheaded. The 
 walls here are eleven feet in thickness. In a gloomy cham- 
 ber of the Bowyer Tower is the place where the Duke of 
 Clarence was drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. In the 
 Brick Tower was the prison of Lady Jane Grey. In the 
 Beauchamp Tower are numerous records, made by prisoners 
 some of the Dudley family imprisoned here as state 
 prisoners. The inscriptions are in the English of three or 
 four hundred years ago. Some are in Latin. Lady Jane 
 Grey is said to have written these words in the room in 
 which she was immured 
 
 "To mortals common fate thy mind resign 
 My lot to-day, to-morrow may be thine ;" 
 
 but they could not be found. In one place are some old 
 cannon, out of which it was customary to shoot stones. 
 There is a great deal of armor here of various ages. Some 
 kinds are made of small pieces of leather, in the form of 
 fish-scales, or flat rings of steel, sowed to cloth or deer-skin. 
 There is also chain mail introduced by the crusaders 
 consisting of a number of little rings, which interlace each 
 other, forming a connected" garment. Some of the suits of 
 armor were very splendid and costly, so that knights were 
 often killed for the sake of their armor. A battle scene, in 
 which all were mail-clad, even the horses, must have been 
 a grand affair. The plate or flexible armor, composed of 
 steel or iron plates moving on pivots, adapted to the mo- 
 tions of the body. There are also specimens of the fluted 
 kind of armor. There is armor here also of movable 
 splints, and some kinds overlaid with gold. There are full 
 suits of tilting armor. There are also specimens of the 
 various kinds of arms halberds, lances, battle-axes all 
 showing what a different thing war then was from what it 
 is now. There are also, in the Tower, secret passages, tor- 
 ture-rooms, dungeons, etc. The fatal block and axe are
 
 LONDON. 186 
 
 here. Many great men and kings Irish, Welsh, and 
 Scotch heroes, have been imprisoned here. The noble 
 Wallace ; Queen Anne Boleyn, and other wives of Henry 
 VIII., imprisoned here and beheaded. The last of the 
 Plantagenets of whole blood here perished the daughter 
 of the murdered Clarence. Brought to the scaftbld, she 
 refused to lay her head on it : "So do traitors use to do, 
 and I am no traitor!" said she. The executioner dragged 
 the gray-haired, noble lady to the block by her hair. St. 
 Peter's Chapel, built about the year 1100, is the place where 
 the remains of these unfortunate prisoners beautiful ladies, 
 lovely queens, and noble men all lie mouldering name- 
 lessly away. The records of the Tower of London are, 
 without doubt, darker than those of the Bastile. The 
 Tower has also been used as a Royal residence, and 
 splendid Tournaments were held here in the chivalrous 
 ages of Europe. Nuptial celebrations of great queens 
 were held here, who afterward were captives in its dun- 
 geons, and died upon the block in its courts. The whole 
 space within the bastion walls of the Tower is about twelve 
 acres. 
 
 To-day, Sunday, October 4th, we have partially lost sight 
 of the continental Sunday. Some of the shops are open 
 the omnibusses all run many of the railways but in gen- 
 eral the day is kept as in the United States. On the Conti- 
 nent, that country of crucifixes and the Virgin Mary, there 
 are very many fine churohes, much church-going, great 
 devotion, some honesty, but no Sunday, except at Geneva, 
 Zurich, and a few other places. In very many towns on 
 the Continent, in all, probably, where an English consul or 
 minister is resident, there is a clergyman who performs the 
 service and reads a sermon, being supported by English 
 residents at the place, and partly by English or American 
 travelers. In some cases you are obliged to pay before you 
 have the preach payment, generally about twenty-five or 
 
 Q2
 
 186 LONDON. 
 
 thirty cents, being demanded at the door. This hearing the 
 English service in remote places is a great gratification to 
 the traveler, reminding him of the scenes of home. To-day 
 I attended service in Westminster Abbey, that " place of a 
 thousand tombs." I heard a sermon on humility. It is the 
 very place for such a discourse, amongst the monuments, 
 effigies, and splendid mausoleums of those who lived in 
 pride and moulder in magnificence. The music sounds 
 well among the stately columns, but the preacher's voice is 
 almost inaudible at a short distance, owing to the vast size, 
 height, and numerous columns. The sermon did not indi- 
 cate any great ability, but the grand, old English service 
 seemed in keeping with the surroundings. The service is 
 held in one of the chapels. I saw some tombs of old monks, 
 in some of the side cloisters, eight hundred years old. 
 Their manes do not listen now to the masses of old, the 
 Abbey having been originally a Catholic church. I ob- 
 served a tomb here to the memory of Major Andre, of our 
 revolutionary history. To-day, also, I heard Dr. Cum- 
 mings, one of the most able preachers in London, and the 
 author of some valuable works. Many go to hear, to 
 laugh at and with the renowned Spurgeon. I did not. 
 The last laughable thing recorded of him is, that his wife 
 having brought him twins, he gravely remarked 
 
 " Not more than others I deserve, 
 Yet God has given me more." 
 
 Though the evening was rainy, the house, which is not a 
 large one, was crowded. The doctor administered some 
 heavy blows to the Romanists and Unitarians, but gave, 
 also, a most impressive and plain, practical elucidation of 
 " Christ and him crucified," which, he said, was Paul's one 
 idea and he took occasion to eulogize men of one idea, 
 when the idea is a magnificent one said they are the great 
 successful men of the world. The doctor uses plain Ian-
 
 LONDON. 187 
 
 guage, and is doubtless an able, good, and useful man. 
 His style is plain and strong. 
 
 To-day, Monday, October 6th, we leave London to visit 
 Windsor Castle, the winter residence of the Queen. It is 
 twenty-five miles from London. We pass by railway up 
 the river, starting from the station at Waterloo Bridge. 
 The land on our route is well cultivated; nearly level; has 
 numerous villages, orchards, and market-gardens. Women 
 are at work in the fields ; and the general appearance of the 
 country and houses is old, comfortable, and pleasant. We 
 cross the Thames, which, when the tide is down, appears 
 but an inconsiderable stream. Here are some pleasant vil- 
 lages, such as Twickenham, long the residence of Pope, the 
 poet ; and Richmond, with a royal palace, with which many 
 historical associations are connected. Queen Elizabeth died 
 there in 1603. At length we arrive at the old castle, part 
 of which was built by William the Conqueror, and it has 
 been the residence of the Royal Family ever since, a period 
 of eight hundred years. It stands on a hill, with the village 
 of Windsor at the base of the hill. As usual, we are im- 
 mediately beset with guides, who want to show us the 
 grounds and point out the different parts of the castle. 
 Having procured a ticket of admission in London, from 
 persons authorized to grant it, immediate entrance is given 
 The Queen is absent now in Scotland, being expected here, 
 however, on the 14th of this month. We enter the chapel 
 of St. George which belongs to the castle. We are shown, 
 as usual, many graves some six hundred years old monu- 
 ments also which are very beautiful those of the Duke of 
 Beaufort, and that of the Princess Charlotte, daughter of 
 George IV.; the vaults, also, where repose the ashes of 
 George III. and George IV., and other kings. There are 
 some very exquisite paintings here, a fine organ, and the 
 old, carved wood-work appears the best and most intricate 
 we have seen These productions of art are, many of them,
 
 188 LONDON. 
 
 from Italy. We were shown where the Queen and Eoyal 
 Family sit during service, having a private passage from 
 the castle to the chapel. From this we went through many 
 apartments of the castle one of the Queen's servants, in 
 grand livery, conducting us. These rooms are very splen- 
 did, though not near equal to those of Versailles, or the 
 Tuilleries. They have, however, some very fine paintings, 
 principally portraits. The audience-chamber is a very 
 large, fine room. We also ascended the tower, and saw 
 below, near the village of Windsor, on the green banks of 
 the Thames, Eton College, "whose distant spires and an- 
 tique towers crown the watery glade." 
 
 " From the stately brow 
 
 Of Windsor's heights the expanse below 
 Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey, 
 
 Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among 
 
 Wanders the hoary Thames along 
 His silver-winding way." 
 
 All the scene is very suggestive of Gray, the poet. Buried 
 among the trees, in the distance, is half-seen the spires of 
 the church of Stoke Pogis, where he is buried, and where 
 he wrote the "Elegy in a Country Church Yard," which 
 has wreathed immortality with his name, and his " Ode on 
 a Distant Prospect of Eton College" is so admirably descrip- 
 tive of the scene as to be immediately recalled to mind. 
 Harrow on the Hill, where Lord Byron and Sir Robert Peel 
 were educated, is also clearly seen; the Crystal Palace, 
 that creation of iron and glass, sparkles in the sunlight more 
 than twenty miles off; the large park, also, of four thousand 
 acres, where are, it is said, ten thousand deer ; the meadow 
 of Eunnymede, where the " barons bolde" compelled King- 
 John to sign the Magna Charta all are visible. Indeed 
 the scene on a fine day is wondrously beautiful, and histori- 
 cally interesting. Windsor Castle is not so high as some 
 castles we have seen; yet the buildings extend over a great 
 space of ground, and the part built by William the Con-
 
 LONDON. 189 
 
 queror looks very old. There are state dungeons here as 
 well as in the Tower, which are not shown to the public. 
 We saw also the Queen and Prince Albert's, and the Prince 
 of Wales's horses, which are a collection of small but appa- 
 rently high-blooded animals, better lodged infinitely than 
 many of their subjects. The state-carriages are of many 
 different kinds, but are plain. We saw the place for the 
 riding-school of the younger children of the queen. One 
 cannot much admire royalty on this view of it in its sur- 
 roundings. The mind must dwarf when it has nothing to 
 do when every thing is done for it. The glorious satisfac- 
 tion of self-labor for one's-self is taken away. Every thing 
 is already done for them, and life must often seem monoto- 
 nous, and weary, and useless. The outside glitter is often 
 at the expense of the inside peace. It is said when the 
 queen is here three hundred and twenty-five domestics are 
 required in the castle. The queen's mother the Duchess 
 of Kent lives in a place within sight, rejoicing in the 
 uneuphonious name of Frogmore. To see the castle and 
 also to see the horses requires a special ticket of admission. 
 Whether the latter feel themselves honored by being objects 
 of curiosity we did not inquire perhaps because their 
 answer would certainly have been Neigh. 
 
 I have also visited Thames Tunnel, whicli is a mile or 
 two below the city. You descend by a long, winding stair- 
 case, into a deep crypt in the river, and you see the vast gas- 
 lit tuunel before you, with its shops, .music, promenaders. 
 You pass entirely under the river to the other side, and as- 
 cend by a similar winding staircase. This subaqueous pas- 
 sage is lined with shops of all kinds, and resembles one of 
 the low, narrow, arched streets to be seen in some European 
 cities. The air, however, seems close and unpleasant. It 
 is well lit with gas, day and night, and forms a very pleasant 
 promenade. The charge for passing through is only one 
 penny, or two cents. It consists of two walls or arohes,
 
 190 LONDON. 
 
 both alike : one for carriages (which are let down by ma- 
 chinery) to pass by ; and the other, by which to return 
 alongside of which are raised places for foot passengers. 
 There are about fifteen feet between the bed of the river and 
 the top of the arches. 
 
 The form of London is nearly an ellipse. It is said to 
 contain two hundred and fifty thousand houses, thirteen 
 thousand streets, squares, etc., and more than two million 
 five hundred thousand inhabitants. The distance around 
 the city is thirty miles. It is probably not so large as 
 Home in the days of Augustus or Trajan or ancient Baby- 
 lon and Nineveh. The origin of London is by some traced 
 to gods and demigods to one Brote, a descendant of Eneas, 
 eleven hundred and eight years before the Christian era, 
 which of course is absurd. Laertius mentions it under the 
 name of Londinium. King Lud is said to have repaired it; 
 from which it was called Ludstown; which name became 
 London. Others derive it from Lun, which, in the old 
 Scandinavian language, means a grove and Den, a town. 
 London has about five hundred churches at present.- There 
 are six or seven bridges across the Thames. Over one of 
 them the Blackfriars there have been counted, in one 
 day, in summer, passing, one hundred and twenty-five 
 thousand persons. There are four or five great parks; 
 some of which contain five hundred or six hundred acres, 
 beautfully embellished with promenades, drives, fountains, 
 statues, columns. There are more than thirty hospitals, ex- 
 clusively for old women ; more than one hundred for old 
 persons of both sexes. It is calculated there are expended 
 in charity, in this way, nearly four million dollars annually 
 in this city. About fifteen thousand vessels arrive each 
 year in the port of London. London alone employs about 
 five thousand ; and there are at least twelve hundred found 
 always on the Thames. London is truly a vast place. 
 You will pass through streets in which there is a surfeit of
 
 EDINBURGH. 191 
 
 splendor; and strong, stately, and substantial wealth has 
 left its trace on every thing. You will continue your walk 
 and encounter scenes of entire and squalid wretchedness, 
 where humanity lives in filth, and breathes in noxious air. 
 You will then come upon streets full of commercial life and 
 business shops blazing with jewelry and works of art; 
 then you will come upon streets, quiet and silent, as if in 
 the country. In some places the heart of London seems 
 throbbing, in others it is silent. Within a stone's throw of 
 where religious service has been celebrated, twice a day, for 
 a thousand years, you will find heathendom, Sabbath- 
 breaking, and utter godlessness. You will be accosted in 
 the streets by prostitutes, who excuse themselves on the 
 plea of bitter necessity, for bread. An aged, starving pros- 
 titute, begs a penny for bread of you when the next per- 
 son you meet spends one hundred dollars per day; or the 
 next person, perhaps, is a lady, over the refined glass of 
 whose face never, perhaps, passed a troublous thought of 
 the base pottery of humanity about her. She is porcelain- 
 china and they are dull, earthen clay. But it takes all 
 sorts of people to make up a world ; and there are varieties 
 enough in this great, old, noble, but withal a little slow and 
 cautious nation. 
 But we are now in 
 
 EDINBURGH, 
 
 the capital of Scotland. It is a holiday, or rather a fast 
 day, a day of humiliation and prayer, on account of what 
 they call the " Mutiny in India." The great British Empire 
 would seem to be crumbling away there is not enough 
 centre power. The streets here are full of promenaders, 
 and seekers after amusements. The churches are all open, 
 however, and I have, to-day, heard a good old Scotch ser- 
 mon, from the pulpit in which John Knox formerly held 
 forth. From the hotel at which I am staying (McGregor's
 
 192 EDINBURGH. 
 
 Hotel, Princes' street), the view is fine. From an immense 
 rock, three hundred and eighty-three feet high, looks down 
 the great Edinburgh Castle of Scotch history, now a strong 
 fortification. It is a highly picturesque object, in this pic- 
 turesque, uneven city of hills and hollows. Holyrood 
 Palace, I have also seen ; and how many memories of the 
 past, of Scotch history, are therewith entwined ! how much 
 of the beautiful, unfortunate Mary, daughter, wife, and 
 mother of kings ! This city is interesting, old, and remark- 
 able. The uneven appearance of the ground in some 
 places, high, abrupt, precipitous admits of great variety in 
 the aspect and height of the buildings. The hill on which 
 Lord Nelson's monument is placed, affords a most enchant- 
 ing prospect of the wide frith, its solitary isle, its antique 
 fort, and then the hills beyond, among which, though invis- 
 ible generally, is Loch Leven and its Castle. The popula- 
 tion of this literary city is about one hundred and sixty 
 thousand. But I must go back a little, and say how I got 
 here, for though I was not spirited away from London by 
 magic power, I came by means that the dark ages would 
 have regarded as stranger than either magic or fiction. 
 
 We left London yesterday, at half- past seven o'clock, on 
 the Great Northern Railway, departing from King's Cross 
 Station. The weathe*r was truly pleasant, and we passed 
 over the beautiful and well cultivated scenes of "green and 
 merrie England" with great rapidity. The railway fares 
 are much higher than on the Continent, over six cents per 
 mile, first-class, which are the only cars fit to travel in the 
 second-class being worse than the continental third. The 
 land prospect was agreeably diversified, and pleasantly in- 
 terspersed with woods, hedges, and cultivated ground. 
 Much of it was almost as level as an American prairie. 
 The scenes had an indescribable appearance of comfortable 
 age, repose, and tranquillity, that I never saw anywhere 
 else ; an old English feeling arose in the mind when con-
 
 EDINBURGH. 198 
 
 templating it. There is something in the solid comfort one 
 sees here, of which Old England may well be proud. There 
 are churches, mansions, villas, and gardens ; all look settled, 
 comfortable, established, and old. Many of the places we 
 passed are renowned among the annals of England's great 
 men, among which are the residence of Sir Bulwer Lytton, 
 the former residence of Dr. Young, Lord Holland's seat, etc. 
 Part of the route was through the fenny districts of Hunt- 
 ingdonshire, where of late years an extensive system of 
 drainage has been adopted. The process of mixing the 
 under clay soil with the top soil has been found of great 
 advantage. This is the region where the Stilton cheese is 
 manufactured. Passing Huntingdon and Peterborough, we 
 entered Lincolnshire, much of the land of which is on a 
 dead level, and was formerly boggy, though now the most 
 productive land in the kingdom. We then passed Boston, 
 a company from which settled Boston in the United States, 
 saw the Ouse and Trent rivers, entered Nottinghamshire, 
 where the climate is drier and the face of the country more 
 elevated ; much clover and wheat are raised. We then en- 
 tered Yorkshire, the scenery becoming wilder, and arrived 
 at the ancient town of York, distant two hundred miles 
 from London, in five hours after leaving the latter place. 
 York has attractions in its ancient walls, gates, Roman in- 
 scriptions, and its fine Cathedral ; yet, being indifferent to 
 exploring them at present, we continued our route. We 
 then entered the County of Durham, more bleak and barren, 
 yet with pleasant hills and vales, appropriated to the growth 
 of corn and pasturage. Many of the hills being composed 
 of the blue or mountain limestone ; parts also being cele- 
 brated for coal mines, some of which extend twelve hun- 
 dred feet below the surface, the seams or strata of coal 
 extending, horizontally, for many miles each stratum from 
 three to eight feet thick. Many places have also lead works. 
 One of the old towns through which we passed is called 
 13 R
 
 194 EDINBURGH. 
 
 Washington, that family having originated in this part of 
 England. We then entered Northumberland, the most 
 northern county of England, once a distinct kingdom, par- 
 ticularly distinguished for its agriculture and its coal mines 
 the latter were first worked in A. D. 1260; but only 
 since the invention of the steam-engine, by which the water 
 is pumped out of the mines, have the strata been rendered 
 thoroughly available. Some of the shafts are eighteen 
 hundred feet in depth. We reached Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
 about sunset. This is a remarkably black-looking place, 
 of large size (eighty-eight thousand inhabitants). It has a 
 large Castle, standing near the line of railway. The latter 
 crosses the Tyne over a splendid viaduct of iron, fourteen 
 hundred feet long; thirty-two feet below it, there is a com- 
 mon roadway or bridge. The Tyne is navigable to the 
 German Ocean ; the coal-fields around are, by some, regarded 
 as the richest in the world. Within the town are many re- 
 mains of the old Roman wall, which was built to connect the 
 two seas, and protect England from the attacks of the Scots. 
 The country now appeared more hilly, especially on the 
 side next to the North Sea. About dark, we entered Scot- 
 land at the town of Berwick-on-Tweed, glimmering in the 
 gas-light, and disclosing a fine view of the broad Forth, 
 looking like a sea, over which lay the white moon-light. 
 Near this is the scene of part of Scott's Marmion, and 
 others of his works. The shimmering, creeping sea, ap- 
 peared frequently in view among the high hills, as we 
 passed along. Many beautiful seats, ruins of castles, etc., are 
 along the route ; the country becomes more hilly and rocky ; 
 and at length, after a ride of four hundred miles through En- 
 gland and Scotland, we entered Edinburgh, in about eleven 
 hours after leaving London. 
 
 Few sights could be really more beautiful than the appear- 
 ance of the opposite side of the city and Castle, when seen 
 at night, from Princes' street. The gas-lit dwellings rise one
 
 EDINBURGH. 195 
 
 above the other, like an amphitheatre of houses. Some of 
 them are twelve stories high. All sorts of historical asso- 
 ciations cluster in this city things of kings and great men, 
 and famous writers, lords, and earls. The monument to 
 Scott is very fine. It rises two hundred feet high, occu- 
 pies a conspicuous situation, and underneath it (it has some- 
 what the appearance of a continental church spire) there 
 is a fine statue of him and his dog the latter looking up 
 affectionately to his face. Scott is the great interpreter of 
 those feelings which arise, naturally, in the mind when sur- 
 veying the scenery of Scotland with a poetic imagination, 
 full of the memories of the past. It is somewhat like a 
 pyramid, and has niches in it for statues, illustrating his 
 works. One, in looking at it, feels the great power of 
 genius over man, and how it extends down the corridors of 
 time, like a mighty twilight, when its day of life is past. 
 There is now, out in the street, a regular old Highlander, 
 in full costume, with his plaid and gown, playing on that 
 old, droning instrument, the bagpipe. It would seem here 
 as if it was a ragged, torn leaf, out of the days of Wallace 
 and Bruce. But no ! the old times are gone ; this is the age 
 of railways, and commerce, and manufactures; the old 
 castles are curiosities, the abbeys are antique, the monks 
 have mouldered, and the grand times of lords and ladies 
 and knights, and high chivalrous feelings, are over and 
 "done gone." 
 
 To-day, Friday, October 9th, I made the ascent of Arthur's 
 Seat, near Edinburgh, from which there is one of the finest 
 views in Great Britain. The height is eight hundred and 
 twenty-two feet, and the view comprehends the city, castle, 
 sea, and a grand view of cultivated land, and sea-dashed 
 rocks. Much of the view, while I was there, was obscured 
 by a fog, driven by a wind rushing through the valley, be- 
 tween the summit and Salisbury crags, like an upward 
 cntarnct. Near this is the scene of part of Scott's "Heart
 
 196 EDINBURGH. 
 
 of Mid-Lothian." Ascending the hill, I passed near an 
 ancient ruin called St. Anthony's Chapel. We also entered 
 to-day, Holyrood Palace, so closely entwined with Scotch 
 history and Scotch romance. The building is old-looking 
 and partly empty, and would seem to be an excellent open- 
 ing for ghosts. One large room contains the portraits of 
 one hundred and ten manufactured likenesses of Scotch 
 sovereigns. But the rooms of chief interest are small, old- 
 looking rooms, connected with Queen Mary, Lord Darnley, 
 her husband, and Rizzio the Italian. We saw her dress- 
 ing-room, needle-work done by her when a happy girl in a 
 French convent, her bed also, and other things, unchanged 
 for several hundred years, all looking very, very old, and 
 the rooms very dull and dusty. Lord Darnley's armor and 
 boots were also shown ; his dressing-room ; the room in 
 which Queen Mary with Rizzio and others were at supper, 
 and from whence Rizzio was dragged, while clinging to 
 her garments and imploring her protection, and murdered. 
 The place in which he was finally dispatched with fifty-six 
 wounds, and the floor, evidently deeply discolored, or de- 
 stained by something said to be his blood, is shown ; and 
 the partition, also, which Queen Mary caused to be made 
 in order to conceal the ineffaceable blood. The guide who 
 conducted us seemed to believe the story about its being 
 impossible to remove the blood. It is a historical problem 
 as to whether Queen Mary was accessory to the death of 
 Darnley, which happened soon after that of Rizzio. Rizzio 
 was probably in the employ of the Pope, and may have 
 been Mary's confessor, in the disguise of a musician ; but 
 the absurd jealousy of Lord Darnley had probably no real 
 foundation. When informed of Rizzio's death, she said she 
 would now dry her tears and study revenge. This, with 
 her subsequent marriage to Earl Bothwell, the instigator of 
 Darnley's murder, have been thought strong evidence 
 against her. But if she were guilty, her crime is almost
 
 EDINBURGH. 197 
 
 lost in the magnitude of her misfortunes. Darnley was a 
 weak, unenergetic character, and probably his conduct at the 
 murder of Rizzio, lost all her affection for him, and perhaps 
 others chose to act for her and interpret her wish by action 
 without any direct agency of hers. The evidence for and 
 against her is nicely balanced. Miss Strickland, in her 
 "Lives of the Queens of England," is thought to have 
 proved her innocence. But, like most historical puzzles, 
 the doubt remains after the proof is clear. We also saw 
 the ruined Abbey of Holyrood, close adjoining, and much 
 older than the palace. This is indeed a royal ruin. The 
 roof is all gone, some columns of the aisle yet remain, and 
 many old, ecclesiastical grave-stones, some of which are 
 utterly undecipherable from age. 'Tis a sad place now, yet 
 it had a past of glory in old days. We saw the place where 
 Queen Mary knelt at the gorgeous ceremony of her marriage 
 to Lord Darnley. We also saw the apartments of Lord 
 Breadalbane, where are some splendid rooms and fine 
 paintings, amongst them a Satyr, by Rubens. Lord B. is 
 the principal officer of the Queen's household. She is ex- 
 pected here in a few days, and preparations are making to 
 receive her in this palace. I also visited, to-day, (having a 
 ticket of admission for that purpose,) the interior of the 
 great Castle the ascent being a long one up the mountain 
 rock. There I saw in a small room without windows, in the 
 centre of the rocky building, the regalia of Scotland, the 
 crown, sword of state, sceptre, etc. These have no wearer 
 now, the crown of Scotland being merged in that of England. 
 It is a singular circumstance in history, that in the son of 
 the unfortunate Mary, James I. of England and VI. of Scot- 
 land, merged the three great dynasties of William the 
 Conqueror of the Norman line, originating in A. D. 1066 ; 
 also the Anglo-Saxon line of Egbert, originating A. D. 800; 
 and the Scottish line of kings originating from Alpin, A. D. 
 831, all concentrating in James I., and of course also in 
 
 R2
 
 198 EDINBURGH. 
 
 Queen Victoria. Several brilliant lamps, kept burning all 
 the time, cast a light over these valuable jewels of Scot- 
 land's old days of independence, and a guardian keeps 
 watch over them. The crown is of the purest gold, and 
 consists of two circles or rims the under one much the 
 broader and are surmounted with knobs or pinnacles of 
 gold, tipped with large pearls. The under rim is adorned 
 with twenty-two precious stones, between each of which is 
 interposed an oriental pearl ; the stones are topazes, ame- 
 thysts, emeralds, rubies, and jacinths; the smaller circle is 
 adorned with diamonds and sapphires alternately. Of course 
 the crown is hollow, like many of the heads that have worn 
 it. The various vicissitudes these regalia have undergone 
 are very interesting. There is said to be a subterraneous 
 passage extending from this strong, rocky fortress, under 
 the old town of Edinburgh, to Holyrood Palace. I saw 
 the room Queen Mary occupied in the Castle ; the small 
 room, not more than eight feet square, in which James I. 
 was born ; and the window from which he was let down in 
 a basket, from a great height, when only eight days old, to 
 escape the destruction intended for him in these violent 
 times, by the Scotch Puritans. The view from this window 
 is strange and beautiful ; the rock is, at this place, two hun- 
 dred and fifty feet high. There is here also a very fine 
 portrait of the Queen, that most beautiful woman in the 
 world. It indicates a kind of intellectual, affectionate soft- 
 ness, dignity, and refinement, one rarely sees in man or 
 woman, yet there is warm blood underneath. There is a 
 prayer here by Queen Mary, in black letter. I also saw, 
 on the top of the castle, the great, barrel-like cannon, Mons 
 Meg. It is made of strong iron staves or sections, hooped 
 in its entire length. It is thirteen feet long, and has a cali- 
 bre of twenty inches. Stone balls were shot from it to a 
 distance, it is said, of three miles. The view from the forti-
 
 EDINBURGH. 199 
 
 fications where MODS Meg is placed, is one of the finest the 
 eye ever feasted on. 
 
 To-day I have been over the domain of the great Magi- 
 cian. I have been at Melrose, Dry burgh Abbey, and Ab- 
 botsford. I left Edinburgh at seven-and-a-half o'clock, -by 
 the North British Railway, and proceeded thirty -seven 
 miles, to the village of Melrose, in the centre of which is 
 the ancient Abbey, which Sir Walter Scott has rendered 
 famous by the beautiful lines so well known. It is a mere 
 ruin, roofless and crumbling, and ivy-grown a place of an- 
 cient graves, six hundred years old, with exquisitely carved 
 work, some of which yet exists in a perfect state, only 
 rendered more haggardly life-like by time. There are 
 statues in stone of monks, prophets, apostles, and nuns, and 
 singular pieces of ancient carved work, representing vari- 
 ous devices some representing the ivy twining around a 
 column ; others, different kinds of vegetation blown about 
 by the wind. I noticed a cauliflower, in stone, of most 
 marvelous exactness. These sculptors of the old, monkish 
 times, must have been imported from Italy ; and some of 
 them were, perhaps, priests, who spent their lives on a single 
 work. The old guide of the ruins, who had been with Sir 
 Walter Scott, spoke Scotch with such intenseness as to be 
 almost unintelligible, pointed out every thing, and enlarged 
 on the beauties with all the ardor of one expecting a six- 
 pence. He showed us the grave of David I., the founder 
 of this Abbey, one of the kings of Scotland, who died 
 about 112-t, and was buried here; also, that of Michael 
 Scott, the great Magician of several centuries ago the slab 
 over his body, which was broken in the attempt to get at his 
 book of magic which had been buried with him. Some of 
 the tombs were of black marble, with old, singular, half- 
 obliterated inscriptions and warnings. Jackdaws in great 
 numbers flew around the ruin, which the guide said were 
 supposed to be the ghosts of the monks that still clung to
 
 200 EDINBURGH. 
 
 the ruined habitation, where they had their pleasures of old, 
 ere the zealous reformers battered down these Abbeys. He 
 showed where Cromwell's cannon had wrought destruction. 
 As a ruin, this Abbey is perfect. It seems to have been 
 built originally of red stone but now almost gray and in 
 some places black, and much of it in the embrace of the 
 ivy. It is the property of the Duke of Buccleuch, remark- 
 able for his wealth about half a million of dollars per 
 annum and his vices, which are as great in proportion. I 
 walked through the corridors and up the stone stairway, 
 and looked at the clearly and sharply-cut carvings the 
 windows arched and ornamented and the loveliness of the 
 whole pile of intellectual stone was superb in that clear, 
 autumn air. The gratitude of the guide was greatly 
 excited by a shilling, and I departed in a cab, which I 
 hired, to Dryburgh Abbey, four miles further along the 
 Tweed. Much of the scenery was very beautiful. The 
 three Eildon hills were on the right, in their garment of 
 heath, and the Tweed raved on the left. The hedges gave 
 place to strong stone fences. I passed several old villages 
 with their ivy-grown walls. The hills and vales seemed to 
 be rich and finely cultivated. Leaving the carriage, I was 
 ferried over the Tweed, and a short walk, following the di- 
 rections on several guide-boards, importing " To the Ruins 
 of Dryburgh Abbey," conducted me to a small lodge, or 
 cottage, where a placard informed me the keys of the Abbey 
 were kept. A bonnie Scotch lassie quite pretty, but rather 
 plump now came out, and led me through a park, or 
 orchard; and after following her some time under the trees, 
 through the park, I came upon the most extensive and 
 mournful ruin I have yet seen, except that of Heidelburg. 
 All was genius, destruction, and ruin. This Abbey is seven 
 hundred years old. At one side stands a yew tree, which 
 my guide said is supposed to be as old as the Abbey. It is 
 green and beautiful in its fadeless verdure; but the Abbey
 
 EDINBURGH. 201 
 
 moulders. We walked through the ruin, saw its fallen 
 down gateways, its dungeons, its broken statues, its urns 
 once supposed to have belonged to the Druids. Trees had 
 grown among and on the walls, instead of their old adorn- 
 ments of pillars. I never saw the ivy so luxuriant any- 
 where. The old Abbot's graves were all around, with their 
 effigies crumbling. The old Abbeys seem to have consisted, 
 generally, of a central and beautiful church, in the form of 
 a cross, and to it were attached buildings for the monks 
 dormitories, cells, refectories corridors and cloisters for the 
 monks to walk in, read and exercise, and also teach schools 
 in. Doubtless, they all deserve decay. At length we 
 stopped in a chapel, yet retaining part of its stone roof, and 
 stood before three graves, with monuments of red granite, 
 plain and strikingly simple. The ruin had come home to 
 the ruins, and slept among them. They were the graves of 
 Sir Walter Scott, his wife, and only son. Here rests a man 
 not inferior to Shakspeare, and consequently superior to all 
 the rest of the world, in the true delineation of character. 
 As people will read novels, they had better have good ones, 
 and those of Sir Walter Scott are creations of historical 
 human nature. The scene is most suitable and solemn. 
 Let him rest here on the Border, and let the pile crumble 
 about him. His genius, and its great gifts to mankind, 
 have more immortality than the walls that number centu- 
 ries of age. But we retrace our steps. Here are hedges of 
 the box-wood grown into trees, inside the church, and the 
 monks moulder away beneath the now nameless stones, de- 
 spite their whole array of stone-sculpture, saints, and epi- 
 taphs. Returning, we pass near the mansion of the present 
 Earl of Buchan, the Abbey belonging to a part of his 
 ancestral domains. We give the Scotch lassie the expected 
 fee, and return to Melrose. Our guide made a most serious 
 error in chronology, by informing us that a beautiful monu- 
 ment in sight, on the banks of the Tweed, was erected to
 
 202 EDINBURGH. 
 
 Sir William Wallace, " who fell in the battle of Waterloo." 
 We now visited Abbotsford, three miles from Melrose, in 
 the opposite direction. Arriving near it, we turn down a 
 road between walls, and all at once Abbotsford, that 
 " romance in stone," with its gardens, its walls, trees, ter- 
 races, and the Tweed flowing through a meadow, came in 
 sight. It is the shrine of genius. The family being absent 
 in the Highlands, the house is, on certain days, open to the 
 public. An old woman, one of the domestics, authorized 
 to show the house, is reading, in a small apartment in 
 which the path terminates, " Peveril of the Peak." The 
 building itself is Gothic, and is a sort of Mosaic of Scott's 
 favored memories, having in one place a carved stone, from 
 Melrose Abbey; in another, one from some old castle; in 
 another, a chimney-piece, an arch of a window, or some- 
 thing of the kind, from other places so that it is a memento 
 of many ruins, and of much history. We were shown into 
 Scott's armory, abounding in all sorts of armor some used 
 by Bruce, Wallace, and others presents to Scott. There were 
 several large two-handed swords relics of many old heroes 
 and battles all full of traditional history. In the midst of 
 this, an Englishman who accompanied me, demanded to 
 know how much this house cost whether it could not have 
 been built for thirty-five thousand pounds ? I could have 
 flayed him alive on the spot, and roasted him as a barbecue. 
 Sir Walter Scott had but to retire into this room, and be 
 with the most striking reminders of those persons and times 
 that he writes about. We were now shown into his study, 
 where he wrote those immortal works. It is "as in his 
 time," according to the old woman. Here is his chair, his 
 writing-desk ; here are his books, and many presents made 
 to him by those whom his works had delighted. A chair 
 we noticed most beautifully carved, made from the wood of 
 the chair on which Sir William Wallace " was done to 
 death, by felon hand." The next room is a large library
 
 EDINBURGH. 208 
 
 with some twenty thousand volumes, containing also many 
 fine presents. There was an immense writing-desk of 
 ebony, which, with six ebony chairs, were presented to 
 Scott by King George IV. Also, an Album, which had 
 belonged to Napoleon. Some fine busts are also here, by 
 Chantrey ; a fine one of Scott, and one of Wordsworth ; a 
 striking picture of the head of Mary Queen of Scots in a 
 charger ; also, a full-length portrait of Scott's only son, 
 who died a few years ago, returning from India, and with 
 whom died the title conferred by George IV. on Scott, there 
 being no male descendant to inherit it. The house and 
 grounds belong to Mr. Hope Scott, a wealthy barrister-at- 
 law, who married a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart 
 the latter a daughter of Sir Walter. There are about fif- 
 teen hundred acres in the plantation, five hundred of which 
 are in cultivation, the rest in woods and ornamental 
 grounds. On the side next to the Tweed the views are fine, 
 comprising a full view of that river, to which you descend 
 by a terraced hill, and then cross a fine meadow in which 
 the mowers are at present at work. There are also 
 meadows beyond the river, and then there are the Eske 
 hills. The produce of the estate is in oats, barley, beets, 
 turnips, hay, and is said not amount to more than five 
 thousand dollars, which scarcely pays the expense of keep- 
 ing up so large a house. The hedges around the house are 
 of blackthorn and holly; the latter is particularly fine. The 
 house is not built on any regular plan, or style, and thus is 
 interesting on account of its irregularity and the stones 
 built into the walls taken from various ruins thus render- 
 ing the walls chronicles of the predominant tastes of Scott. 
 Here he died in 1832, of partial paralysis, induced by his 
 superhuman intellectual exertions to pay off the indebted- 
 ness he had contracted as partner of a publishing house, 
 which became bankrupt. It is said, in the two years after 
 1827, he, by the sale of his " Life of Napoleon," and other
 
 204 EDINBURGH. 
 
 works, paid to his creditors the sum of two hundred thou- 
 sand dollars. After his death, the debts were all paid. But 
 Abbotsford itself would have been sacrificed, but for the 
 liberality of his creditors, who settled it on his descendants. 
 So that the fortune realized by the sale of his works, and 
 the title also, are both gone. Scott had sought to restore 
 his health in the mild climate of Italy a government 
 vessel having been chartered to convey him there. How- 
 ever, his mind became a wreck while away, and he returned 
 to Abbotsford only in time to die. When they brought 
 him in, a wandering consciousness returned to him. He 
 said, " I begin to be myself again ; I know I am at Abbots- 
 ford." He soon died. He was a great, good, kind gentle- 
 man. The domestic who attended us, spoke in the most 
 affectionate manner of his suavity and kindness to all sorts 
 of people. I returned to Edinburgh ; and when I got into 
 the double-sided city, perched on two hills, gas-lit and ter- 
 raced, with the great Gothic monument of Scott himself 
 (his dog by him looking affection), in marble, sitting like a 
 white ghost beneath it, between the two cities, I felt that 
 the life of Scott was not, after all, a failure, though the 
 fortune is gone and the title extinct. 
 
 One of the interesting places in Edinburgh is the Gray 
 Friars' Cemetery the oldest in the city having numerous 
 ancient monuments, where Time and Decay have mocked at 
 the efforts of man to perpetuate a name. Some of the 
 monuments have been gorgeous and grand, but all is oblit- 
 erated now. The American custom, in many places, of plac- 
 ing a simple marble grave-stone, is in much better taste, and 
 will last longer than these proud, intricate monuments. One 
 of the monuments commemorates, in bad poetry, the martyr- 
 dom, as they call it, of eighteen thousand Scotch Covenanters. 
 In this cemetery are buried the remains of some distin- 
 guished Scotch writers Eobertson, the historian; Allan 
 Ramsay, the poet Mackenzie, the author of the " Man of
 
 STIRLING. 205 
 
 Feeling." In the cemetery near Carlton Hill I saw the 
 monument over the remains of David Hume there being 
 evidently more Christian faith in his epitaph than in his 
 life. I also visited Leith, the port of Edinburgh, besides 
 many other places the capital of Scotland being really one 
 of the most interesting cities we have seen, and famous for 
 its literary and charitable institutions, as well as its histori- 
 cal associations of the past. 
 
 But we are off again. We are now at 
 
 STIRLING, 
 
 thirty-six miles west of Edinburgh ; which latter place we 
 left at four o'clock, passing over a well-cultivated, fertile, 
 and beautiful country ; and on our way we saw that great 
 battle-field of Scotch history, Bannookburn. The battle 
 was fought between King Robert Bruce and Edward King 
 of England, on the 24th of July, 1314, and resulted in the 
 defeat of the English. There is shown here a large lime- 
 stone, on which the Scotch king planted his standard in 
 this battle. Stirling was the ancient capital of the Scotch 
 kings, and is one of the oldest historical cities. It has a 
 population of about thirteen thousand. It is much asso- 
 ciated with the romantic days of Bruce and Wallace, who, 
 near seven hundred years ago, fought battles near its walls. 
 It has an ancient castle on a rock, three hundred and filly 
 feet high, which is kept in a state of defense, like that of 
 Edinburgh. From this castle which is famous for its past 
 history, and also from a high hill in the rear, on which 
 executions in old times took place, and near which is at 
 present a most gloomy and ancient cemetery a view is 
 obtained of most rare and singular beauty comprehending 
 the fertile vale of the river Forth, which stream makes 
 many windings through lovely nteadows; the dark, heathery 
 Grampian Hills are seen ; those of Ochil, in the distant, 
 and romantic Highlands ; the river Forth the scene is at 
 
 3
 
 206 ABERDEEN. 
 
 once imposing, picturesque, and splendid. The town has 
 some dirty, narrow, ancient streets others more modern. 
 John Knox's pulpit is shown here. Much of the architec- 
 ture here is in the quaint, monastic style. 
 But we are now at 
 
 ABERDEEN, 
 
 far in the northeast of Scotland, about latitude 55. Yet 
 the verdure of the fields and woods continues, and the 
 weather is nearly as mild as September in the Middle 
 States of the Union. We saw the haymakers at work in 
 the fields to-day, and many wood wild flowers yet stand up 
 in their loveliness. We have come from Stirling by rail- 
 way to-day ; distant one hundred and thirty-eight miles. 
 This is the first city I have ever seen built almost entirely 
 of granite, which is here extremely abundant, and of a 
 gray, hard, polishable quality. The views to-day have all 
 been very interesting. Our way lay along the Vale of 
 Strathmere, which lies between the Grampian Hills and the 
 sea. The frothy waves of the latter, whitening up to the 
 bold, bluff, rocky shore, are seen for many miles, as we 
 glided rapidly along in the cars ; and some sails were also 
 seen in the misty distance. The slopes and knolls of ground 
 were in fine cultivation grass, turnips, potatoes, beets 
 and the peasants, women as well as men, were profiting by 
 the pleasant weather to preserve the produce of their labor. 
 Several gloomy, massive, ivy-grown stone ruins, remnants 
 of the strong old war-times, were seen, roofless, and much 
 of the upper part of the walls fallen, contrasting with the 
 modern, tasteful residences of the gentry of the present 
 period. We passed through some villages and cities known 
 in history, romance, and song Perth, Montrose, Dundee. 
 
 We have been several days in Aberdeen. It consists of 
 Old and New Aberdeen : the former on the Don ; the latter 
 on the Dee near their entrance into the North Sea, about
 
 SCOTLAND. 207 
 
 a mile and a half apart. Union-street, in New Aberdeen, 
 has a handsome appearance. I have seen the tombs of 
 George Campbell and James Beattie, both distinguished and 
 learned men, who resided here : the latter a good poet ; the 
 former wrote a good translation of the Four Gospels. Old 
 Aberdeen has a singular and massive old cathedral, destitute 
 of ornament and architectural grace; and it is gloomy within 
 and without, in consequence of the numerous mouldering 
 tombs. The people here have a furor for church-going 
 are generally Presbyterians, which system is established in 
 Scotland. They appear to be a good, moral, mercantile sort 
 of people with miserable hotels, however, and many dirty, 
 filthy streets, defiling the air with stenches innumerable. 
 The sea views here are fine, with the vast, restless waves, 
 rolling on the Jong sand-beach, and the rough, coarse, 
 heathery hills near it are wild, beautiful, and romantic. 
 Over the Don extends a very old bridge Bridge of Bal- 
 gownie, Balgownie being the name of the laird on whose 
 lands it is placed said to have been constructed by Bruce. 
 Byron, who lived here with his mother in his youth, alludes 
 to it in " Don Juan :" that when a " wife's ane son and a 
 mare's own foal pass over, down ye shall fall" an old 
 prophecy concerning it. It is of a single arch, and the 
 waters below black as ink and the whole place very 
 dreary. This is near Old Aberdeen. The principal street 
 of New Aberdeen is more than a mile long has high, fine 
 granite bouses and some large churches on each side of it. 
 Other parts of the city are very uneven, the hills being con- 
 nected by bridges. There is a castle or garrison of armed 
 men; and the many -colored, many -coated Highland cos- 
 tume is very frequently met with in the streets, being worn 
 by many admirers and amateurs of ancient manners. 
 
 The language here, as also at Stirling, is strongly Scotch 
 in accent and phraseology, and not at first readily appre- 
 hended by an American ear. The Queen's summer resi-
 
 208 SCOTLAND. 
 
 dence, Balmoral, is about forty miles from this, toward the 
 source of the Dee. She is expected to be through this city 
 this week, on her way to Edinburgh, where she is to remain 
 one night at Holyrood Palace, then proceed to London. On 
 "Wednesday she visits Lord Aberdeen, lately prime minister, 
 whose Highland residence is about twenty miles from 
 
 V 
 
 Aberdeen. The Queen is much respected, as one who gov- 
 erns her own family well and economically, according as 
 economy is practiced among kings ; and nationally she has 
 the wisdom not to undertake innovations, but to adopt 
 them if insisted on by the people. Her daughters are said 
 to be all intelligent. Lady Alice, the second daughter, 
 speaks four languages fluently. The eldest son, the Prince 
 of Wales, is said to be a dull boy. The government of 
 England is essentially an aristocratic one. The monarchy 
 would be but a mockery without the concurrence of the 
 nobility. Aberdeen has about seventy-two thousand in- 
 habitants. 
 
 But \ve are off again "on our winding way." We left 
 Aberdeen at eleven o'clock, by the Great North of Scotland 
 Eailway, our course being toward Inverness. We rode 
 fifty-three miles to Keith, passing various castles and old 
 villages, and Highland residences of the English nobility. 
 The Queen is expected to pass this way on Thursday, on a 
 visit to the Earl of Aberdeen. As she has not excited our 
 curiosity very strongly, we decline stopping a day to see 
 her majesty. We saw some fine country in passing, and 
 some mountains covered with brown heath. Some of the 
 villages looked unprogressive enough, and primitive very, 
 with stately, towered castles in ruins. Occasionally we had 
 fine views of the North Sea. At Keith the railway ceased, 
 when we got into a coach, by which pleasant and rapid 
 conveyance we went to Nairn, having fine views of the 
 country. We passed through the extensive domains of the 
 Duke of Richmond, who inherited the possessions of the
 
 SLAVERY. 209 
 
 popular Duke of Gordon, having married his daughter ; the 
 Duke of Gordon having no male heirs, the title is extinct. 
 There is a fine monument in granite to the Duke of Gor- 
 don, in the principal square in Aberdeen. The view of the 
 ancient Scotch castle, with its high gate in front, is very 
 fine. It is surrounded by park-grounds, from the trees of 
 which it rises in turrets and battlements, a thing of old. 
 The villages through which we passed, on the Duke's place, 
 present an appearance of neatness and cleanliness to which 
 other villages which we have seen, are strangers. The 
 Duke's extensive grouse-hunting grounds, embracing the 
 slope of a heathery mountain, are visible for some miles. 
 In these regions many of the peasants have been, during 
 the last few years, transported to Canada and other regions, 
 to make room for the hunting-grounds and sheep-pastures 
 of the nobility. 
 
 "Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
 Where wealth accumulated and men decay." 
 
 The domains of the Earl of Fife were next entered, where 
 the villages tire much meaner and the population more 
 degraded. The houses were, in general, small, stone, 
 thatched cottages, having, in their appearance, some resem- 
 blance to American negro quarters, but not so comfortable- 
 looking, nor did the inhabitants appear so happy. In one 
 of the fields I noticed a gang of twenty-five women, hard 
 at work in the fields, when it was nearly dark, with a man 
 standing by, apparently an overseer. American slavery 
 elevates the subject of it from an inferior to a superior con- 
 dition. The slave is many degrees higher socially, intel- 
 lectually, morally, industrially than his ancestor in Africa, 
 but this kind of service perpetuates the degradation of a 
 class, who, in intellect and moral endowment, are perhaps 
 equal to their masters. This service degrades or continues 
 a career of degradation ; but American slavery elevates, by 
 14 32
 
 210 SLAVERY. 
 
 a practical impartation, by contact with a superior race, 
 who impart civilization to the blacks Christianity in 
 return for manual labor. It gives the results of centuries 
 of civilization; all the far reaches of great minds; all the 
 inventions of science; it places all these within the eventual 
 contact of a class, who otherwise had continued mere 
 human animals in Africa, insensible to the glorious privi- 
 lege of being a man. There is evidently a greater distance 
 between the peasants of these soils and the proprietor, than 
 there is between the master and his slave. Both give all 
 their labor; the former receives a miserable pittance, called 
 his wages, in return, and with it receives contempt, aver- 
 sion, neglect no further attention or interest all is done 
 when he gets his wages ; he may sicken, die it may be, un- 
 cared for; the duty of the master is done when ten cents a 
 day, and less to women, are paid. The slave receives no 
 immediate or stipulated or nominal wages, but gets protec- 
 tion, interested care, and familiar, kindly, benevolent support 
 in old age, infancy, sickness. His wants are all provided 
 and guaranteed to him. He has no thought for the mor- 
 row; what mind he has is free free from the tyrants of 
 want, debt, apprehension, poverty ; for no slave can be a 
 poor man having an assurance of an abundant support, no 
 matter what may befall his master who, if unable to keep 
 him, disposes of his right to his labor to another who can 
 keep him. He never can have any annoyance or uneasiness 
 about support for wife or child. His condition is the natu- 
 ral relation of a superior and inferior race, when in contact, 
 where both have found their level according to laws impressed 
 on their being. The system here is a political situation, 
 where two classes, inherently equal, are constrained by cir- 
 cumstances to exist in a condition foreign to the entire 
 nature of the one party, and only in harmony with the 
 worse part of the nature of the other. Some of our Ameri- 
 can editors who have for their stock in trade one fanatical
 
 SLAVERY. 211 
 
 idea; officious intermeddlere in the laws of other States ; 
 unprincipled politicians willing to get astride any idea, and 
 who have no rule of right or wrong, except the fleeting, 
 hasty opinion of the uninformed : to say nothing of down- 
 right abolitionists, who are the proper subjects of astonish- 
 ment and pity only; others whose real goodness and 
 benevolence of heart, magnify slavery into untold horrors 
 All these would do well to see in that system a progressive 
 and natural civilization and amelioration of a race which, 
 in two thousand years of trial, have shown themselves 
 insusceptible of improvement by any other means. Whereas 
 the European first, second, and third-class caste system of 
 individuals of the same race, separated by mutual aversion, 
 is an unnatural system, which can only continue by grind- 
 ing down the inferior till he become the moral and mental 
 slave of the superior a despotism more degrading than 
 the physical servitude of the South. The contact of the 
 white and black races, elevates and improves the latter, 
 when in a state of slavery only ; the contact of those races 
 in the North, does not improve the negro. A kind of com- 
 pulsory interest is felt for him by the master, when he is 
 his property. The distance between the great lord of the 
 manor, or the elegant and refined lady of the boudoir, and 
 the serfs on the soil, is so great, that an approximation is 
 regarded with horror on one side, and with cringing, 
 hypocritical sycophancy on the other. The slave has an 
 interest in his master, as the latter has also an interest in 
 him ; there ia a bridge of ownership, only repugnant in 
 name, on which both may meet; in the English system 
 there is no place of meeting, nothing in common, nothing 
 but rack-rent. But this is rather a digression. 
 
 After some miles, we entered the obscure, old-fashioned 
 Scotch town of Elgin, from which Lord Elgin derives his 
 title. He is understood to be a poor lord, who engages in 
 diplomacy, accepts foreign embassies, governor-general-
 
 212 INVERNESS. 
 
 ships a kind of graceful condescension on the part of 
 those whose acres are insufficient practiced in other lands, 
 not a thousand miles from the Federal City whereby the 
 government receives their elegant attention and delibera- 
 tion for a consideration. There is here a very ancient ruin, 
 formerly a Catholic priory. It is within five miles of the 
 North Sea, near the mouth of the river Lossie. Further 
 on, we come upon the reputed scenes of parts of Shak- 
 speare's "Macbeth," the town and Castle of Forres; the 
 place where Macbeth is supposed to have met the weird 
 sisters on the blasted heath near the sea ; and also the castle 
 in which King Duncan was murdered. The scene is of the 
 strange, somewhat dreary, dreamy order; surging waves, 
 bare, bald rocks, Scotch Highlands on the left, heathery 
 hills; furze, carse, moor. In this region there are many 
 curious, ancient, sometimes rudely-carved stones, called 
 Druid stones, on some of which they are supposed to have 
 offered human sacrifices. They have in them little channels 
 to collect the blood. There are stone piles or pillars, com- 
 memorating treaties with the Danes. We soon reached 
 Nairn, -where the railway is resumed, and we soon arrived 
 at 
 
 INVERNESS, 
 
 seventeen miles further, the capital of the Highlands, in the 
 back and north of Scotland. It is situated on Moray Frith, 
 an inlet from the North Sea, and also on the beautiful little 
 river Ness. This is the limit of our excursion north being 
 about latitude 57. Around are mountains, from some of 
 which are fine views. It is a lone region in the rear of 
 Scotland's Highlands, yet it is the scene of many inci- 
 dents in the real history of and also in the shadows of 
 history romance. There are about twelve thousand in- 
 habitants. 
 
 It has a good old Castle, picturesquely situated, on a high
 
 CULLODEN MOOR. 218 
 
 rock, near the river ; houses in which Cromwell. Duke of 
 Cumberland, and Charles Stuart, the Pretender, lodged ; a 
 Tolbooth or prison, in front of which is a stone called Clach- 
 na-Cudden a Druid stone, on which, in their solemn, fear- 
 ful rites, they sacrificed human beings ; the channels in the 
 stone, made to receive and collect the blood, still remain. 
 The history of all the horrors of this stone is mute as that 
 of an Indian mound in America, and very properly so. 
 The world can very well spare the dark, lost, ghostly legends 
 of Rhine Castles, the horrors of secret inquisitorial tribunals, 
 and the miserable details of Druidical superstition. This 
 place was formerly noted for its smuggling. 
 
 To-day I visited the celebrated battle-field that of Cul- 
 loden about five miles from Inverness, on a desolate moor, 
 nearly level, and admirably calculated for military evolu- 
 tions. The views around are lovely in the extreme. East, 
 rises a most desolate-looking, barren, heath-covered moun- 
 tain slope, to which the Pretender's army fled, after the 
 battle in which he lost his kingdom and crown. West, is 
 the Frith of Moray, extending till it is lost in the distant, 
 dim, cloudy North Sea, and heaven. It has numerous inlets 
 retiring among mountains little playthings of water as 
 if tired of a sea life, they had came out to look up and 
 reflect about sunny mountain sides, and set up for a sea of 
 their own. There are villages on the banks of the Firth, 
 and two forts one on an island, which protects the approach 
 to Inverness. There is Lake Beauly, a beautiful sheet of 
 water among the hills, connected to the Firth by a strait. 
 On its banks is the seat of Lord Lovat. But beyond the 
 Firth or Frith, and all around toward the West, rise the 
 great, diversified, and peaked Highlands, with vales innu- 
 merable. The long and narrow ones are Glens, the wider 
 ones Straths. I counted near one hundred distinct peaks, 
 of most picturesque shapes. On the moor where the young 
 Pretender, Charles Edward, stood, is a vast heap of stones,
 
 214 CULLODEN MOOR. 
 
 called Culloden Cairn, said to have been, formerly, one 
 hundred feet high, now about twenty. There is a large, 
 circular, turf wall, inside of which is a trench, in which the 
 killed were buried, and outside of which is a circle of pine 
 trees. The battle was fought on the 16th of May, 1746. It 
 is magnificently described by Campbell in " Lochiel's Warn- 
 ing." The young Pretender, after this defeat, died at Rome 
 in 1788. His brother, who assumed the plain name of 
 Henry Benedict, and was made Cardinal of York, being the 
 last male of the royal house of Stuart, died also at Rome, 
 in 1807. The present representative of the Stuarts is 
 Francis, hereditary Prince of Modena. Parts of their 
 bodies repose under the dome of St. Peter's Church, at 
 Rome. On this field, Catholicism and the Stuarts were for- 
 ever expelled from England, Protestantism and the heirs 
 of the Orange family firmly established to the present time. 
 The young Pretender was, to a great extent, ignorant of the 
 art of war ; or, at any rate, no match for the Duke of Cum- 
 berland, who led the army of the Protestants. The High- 
 landers, who were very good adherents to the Stuarts, 
 fought with gallantry. On the moor are several of the 
 miserable stone and turf huts of the Scotch peasants. The 
 inmate of one of these, a young man, showed me some 
 bullets, plowed out of the ground ; also, a map of the field 
 of battle. But my attention soon left the battle-field of 
 Culloden, and became fixed on the miserable dwelling and 
 the degraded, poor man before me. The cabin was very 
 low, built partly of stone, and roofed with turf, and looked 
 truly like an earth-hovel. The floor was of bare ground, 
 and every thing within looked utterly cheerless and comfort- 
 less. Many negro cabins are palaces compared to it ; and 
 there were many similar ones scattered over the desert 
 moor, whose dwellers extract a scanty support from, the thin 
 soil, for which they pay a pound, or five dollars, rent per 
 acre. The peasants in cheerfulness, apparent happiness,
 
 SCOTLAND. 215 
 
 intelligence, and capability to return intelligent answers 
 seem far below the generality of negroes. The negro is 
 happy, careless, and indifferent to the future. He has no 
 provision to make for himself. At worst, he has but inces- 
 sant toil. These have incessant toil, and all the anxiety of 
 the future of self-providing superadded. The negro is 
 always a large child, careless about the future, and confident 
 in it. America seems to these people a kind of far-off 
 blessing, not intended for them ; they have not the means, 
 or the energy, to go there. 
 
 There is a splendid mansion, the property of the Laird 
 of Culloden, proprietor of these grounds. Forbes is the 
 family name of the Laird. It has parks, lawns, flowers, 
 gardens, and the usual accompaniments of elegance and 
 wealth. In it Prince Charles rested the night before his 
 unfortunate battle. 
 
 We are now, this evening, October 14th, at Oban, an 
 almost classic spot, in the midst of the Scotch Highlands. 
 It is small, Scotch, romantic, and remote, with many lakes 
 near it, such as Loch Aven, Loch Oyle, and most irregular 
 and picturesque mountains around, heathery and rocky. 
 Around this was the home of Lochiel, whose family name 
 waft Cameron. Here might the muser and dreamer muse 
 and dream for many a day, amidst scenery infinitely varied, 
 bleak, bare, and almost grand as Switzerland lakes with 
 lovely, soft names glens, wild, savage, and sweet castles, 
 old, ruinous, legendary. 
 
 We left Inverness this morning, at seven o'clock, in a 
 pretty little steamer, to navigate the Caledonian Canal, and 
 the lakes which it connects, toward Glasgow. This is a 
 celebrated route; but, unfortunately, a Scotch mist and rain 
 enviously shrouded many of the beauties from our view, or 
 patched the mountains over with ragged shawls of semi- 
 transparent exhalations. The lakes are long, narrow, and 
 deep. From Inverness, a canal leads into Loch Ness, then
 
 216 SCOTLAND. 
 
 into Loch Oich, then into Loch Lochy, then into Loch 
 Linhee. Those who are courageous enough to undertake 
 the pronunciation of these names, had better first have their 
 jaws insured. The water in them is almost black, and on 
 each side rise high mountains, bleak, bare, rocky, mossy, 
 and covered with a thin, brown grass. Some are almost 
 sublime in their long and regular slopes. We passed Ben 
 Nevis, the highest mountain in Great Britain four thou- 
 sand four hundred and ninety feet high. We saw some 
 white, cloth-looking snow fields far up, and near his sum- 
 mit. The glens, leading up from the lakes, looked won- 
 drously green and lovely. We saw the walls of several 
 strong old castles that " seemed only not to fall," and the 
 Captain told horrid stories of the Earls of Glengarry, 
 Lochiel, and other strong, old marauders, hating and war- 
 ring against each other. One of these narratives was too 
 horrid to be made the capital stock-in-trade of a night- 
 mare manufactory. The scenes along these lakes are more 
 bleak and stern than those of Switzerland, but not so varied 
 and beautiful. In Switzerland, the lake water is a deep 
 blue, and the lower parts of the mountains there are ren- 
 dered fresh and verdant-looking by the vine; the higher 
 parts have the more useful grains and grapes, while their 
 tops rest in snows and glaciers, like youth, middle, prime, 
 and hoary age, all united in the same. Long reaches of 
 brown mountain slopes, almost bare, but yet on which a few 
 sheep were grazing; and some water-falls, but none like 
 those of Switzerland, and such scenery beheld at the close 
 of a fine day in Autumn, is well calculated to excite those 
 legendary impersonations with which Scott has fascinated 
 the world. 
 
 We are now in Glasgow, the fourth city in size in the 
 British Islands, containing three hundred and fifty thousand 
 busy, commercial, cotton-manufacturing inhabitants. We 
 staid at Oban, in the heart of the Highlands, last night. It
 
 SCOTLAND. 217 
 
 is on a pretty little bay, an indentation of one of the lakes. 
 We left it this morning in the steamer, and came down the 
 long, narrow, canal-connected lakes, barricaded by lofty 
 mountains, around which floated the dim drapery of the 
 mists. The country appeared wild, desolate, remote, and 
 old heath, and moor, and Scotch villages alternating in the 
 landscape long, bare ridges of rocks, against which the 
 deep waters war in vain all sad-looking in their realms of 
 vastness. The whole western coast of Scotland is a region 
 of lakes and numerous indentations of the Atlantic of 
 roughness, barrenness, and remote majesty. In some places 
 we emerged into the Atlantic, and saw its boundless, play- 
 ful waves ; some of which, in far distance, wash the shores 
 of our own native land. The Isles of Skye, of Mull, Jura 
 and Isluy were on our right. On some of the rocky points 
 are small villages, whose inhabitants are engaged in manu- 
 facturing slates. Scott's "Lord of the Isles" and some of 
 the wild weird descriptions of Ossian have their scenes on 
 this coast. We had quite a number of the Scotch nobility 
 on the steamer, returning from a summer visit to their 
 friends who have seats in the Highlands. Others had been 
 grouse-shooting and deer-stalking; others were tourists 
 generally. Lord B., who married a daughter of the Duke 
 of S M was on board with his family. By the Caledonian 
 Canal we entered Loch Fine. Then, by the Kyles-of-Bute, 
 with most enchanting scenery on each shore, re-entered the 
 Frith of Clyde. The blazing red of the night sky several 
 immensely tall chimneys of manufactories and chemical 
 works revealed our proximity to a large city; and at 
 length, after passing the- strong, rock-built Castle of Dum- 
 barton, of great strength and antiquity, and famous in his- 
 tory, we ascend the river Clyde, and moor our vessel in 
 the harbor of Glasgow. The season being rather late, 
 though the weather is yet warm, we postpone a trip we 
 
 T
 
 218 GLASGOW. 
 
 intended to make to the islands of Skye and also to Staffa 
 and Jura. 
 
 GLASGOW 
 
 we have rested several days. It is truly a large business 
 mart; but is not a very interesting city to the general 
 tourist. The West End, like that part of London, is the 
 residence of the wealthy and noble families ; and the West 
 End Park, with its numerous terraces, into which a sloping 
 hill has been cut, together with Kelvin Grove and Kelvin 
 River, included now in the Park, are all truly beautiful ; 
 and it is not to be wondered that the Scotch laddie sang to 
 his lassie, "Let us haste to Kelvin Grove," for all the scenes 
 and surroundings are of the soft, agreeable, and pleasant 
 character. Glasgow has a large, ancient, and glorious pile 
 of stone a Gothic cathedral of the twelfth' century. It has 
 very high, massive pillars, internally no paintings, how- 
 ever, or statuary, like the continental Catholic churches. 
 Doubtless it once had them ; but since the Reformation it 
 has been converted to the use of the Protestant service. 
 It has some monuments to the dead ; and its large yard is 
 almost paved with flat slab stones, telling for a few years 
 the names or virtues of those who moulder away below. 
 Underneath the cathedral are several crypts gloomy, 
 grand, and impressive with graves and haunted-looking- 
 like aisles and recesses, through which the dim light hovers 
 like a dangling shadow. Near the cathedral, on a hill, is 
 the populous many-monumented Necropolis the principal 
 burying-place. It is a sad place full of death, departed 
 affections, and hopeful regrets. There is a fine monument 
 here to that stern, uncompromising, useful, able man, John 
 Knox, who is deservedly a great favorite in all Scotland. 
 He was the man for the times, the occasion, and the work. 
 In Edinburgh I saw the room in which he is said to have 
 held an interview with Queen Mary, (at her request,) and
 
 GLASGOW. 219 
 
 to have threatened her with damnation if she did not 
 repent. The Scotch are probably the most moral, church- 
 going people in the world. They take the terror side of 
 religion. Like the Puritans, they would 
 
 " Hang the cat on Honda/ 
 For killing mice on Sunday." 
 
 I attended church three times on Sunday found their 
 large meeting-houses crowded many being unable to get 
 admission. The attention was very good ; and one of the 
 discourses, by Dr. McLeod, at the Barony Church, was most 
 able and eloquent, but somewhat encumbered with compari- 
 sons. Glasgow has about three hundred and fifty thousand 
 inhabitants. The motto of the city is, "Let Glasgow nourish 
 by the preaching of the Word." It was founded about the 
 year J 200. The great battle of Longside, which proved so 
 adverse to Queen Mary, was fought a mile and a half from 
 the city. The queen's army of six thousand strong was 
 defeated by the superior generalship of the Regent Murray, 
 who had only four thousand. The commercial prosperity 
 of Glasgow ia dated from its embarking in the Virginia 
 tobacco trade, and since then the manufacture of cotton. It 
 is said to consume forty-five million pounds of cotton. In 
 steamboat and ship-building it is largely engaged. The 
 " Persia" was built here. There are great iron mines near 
 Glasgow. Buchanan, Argyle and Queen-streets are splen- 
 did thoroughfares. Some of the streets leading from High- 
 street have most dingy and antique tenements, now the 
 abodes of squalid raggedness, wretchedness and vice. 
 George Square (in front of our hotel the George Hotel 
 a good one) has monuments to Sir Walter Scott, Sir John 
 Moore, and James Watt. One place in the old city, called 
 Rotten Row, looks as if it well deserved its name. The 
 The chimney of the St. Rollox Chemical Works is four 
 hundred and fifty feet high. Sanchie Hall street, in the
 
 220 BURNS. 
 
 West End, is a magnificent promenade. The Broomielaw 
 is also an interesting street. Glasgow has numerous docks. 
 Its harbor is almost entirely artificial. Many of its bridges 
 over the Clyde are noble structures. 
 
 We left Glasgow on Tuesday, October 20th, at half-past 
 ten o'clock, for Ireland, taking in our route, Ayrshire, the 
 classic land of Barns, passing through Paisley and other 
 manufacturing places. We reached Ayr, on the banks of 
 the Ayr River, about forty miles from Glasgow. In the car 
 in which I was seated with rny friend, were seven or eight 
 persons, one of whom began a game with cards, in which 
 all the persons joined except my friend and myself. Pres- 
 ently, in a remote part of the route, the cars stopped, and 
 the conductor, with scarcely a word of explanation, sum- 
 marily ejected them all ; the cars moved on ; there was 
 much cursing, and, without doubt, considerable bitterness 
 of feeling on the part of those left behind, judging from 
 the noise made. It proved, however, that gambling and 
 Scotch railways could not go on together. Ayr is a small, 
 old-looking place, the inhabitants being quaint-looking and 
 decidedly strongly grounded in their own peculiarities. It 
 was a fair-day, and the streets were crowded by persons 
 from the country. I understood servants are hired and 
 contracts made each half-year, and this was one of those 
 occasions. The population of the place is about seventeen 
 thousand. Burns is well remembered here. If you stop 
 and talk with any old man, he will repeat to you some 
 of his poetry from Tarn O'Shanter, or other pieces Burns' 
 poetry being so easily recollected and so naturally arranged. 
 But the young know but little about him, though his por- 
 trait adorns almost every public place. A. heaven-descended 
 star of genius came into this town and lost itself amidst its 
 mud and filth, in the person of Burns. The "twa brigs" 
 over the Ayr are here yet. You walk across them, think- 
 ing of the poem which has immortalized them to all ages.
 
 BURNS. 221 
 
 The old one is quite narrow. On it sit several beggars 
 old, blind, ragged muttering blessings on any passer-by 
 who bestows a half-penny in her small, covered tin cup, with 
 an aperture for the money to be put into. You put into it 
 a sixpence, an incredible amount for her. She is blind and 
 can neither see nor find it. The crowd of ragged children 
 around her say : " O, grannie, you have a sixpence 1" She 
 says: "No, no, only half-pennies are for the likes of her!" 
 She finds it, and puts it into her mouth for safe keeping. 
 It has given her more pleasure than a donation of a thou- 
 sand pounds would give some persons. She is happy for 
 that day, and it is a day to. be referred to in the future. 
 "God's blessing be on ye, and mine too be on ye, whoever 
 ye be, though I can never see yel" she mutters. The Ayr 
 here becomes the " lengthened, tumbling sea 1 ' of which 
 Burns speaks. But we hire a cab and proceed to the 
 cottage birthplace of Burns, three miles from Ayr. The 
 country is beautiful, well cultivated, with numerous small 
 fields enclosed by whitethorn hedges, and the whole slopes 
 to the Irish Sea, which is near, and presents its white waves 
 breaking on the shore, and its beyond of invisible distance. 
 But here is a low, one-story, straw, thatched, clay and 
 stone cottage, two rooms of which are in use for retailing 
 liquors, and the third is in use as a stable. A placard in 
 front informs you that here Robert Burns, the Ayrshire 
 Poet, was born, January 25th, 1759. You enter, and look 
 upon the early home of Burns. Here is a nook in which 
 stands a bed now, not ' the one on which he was born, but 
 which occupies its place. The old lady, who keeps the 
 shop or beer saloon neat and clean, shows you the locali- 
 ties, and you write your name in the visitors' book, where 
 you see the names of many Americans. You drink some 
 ale, and you look at the capacious fire-place, around which 
 sat Burns when a boy, and you think of the earnest, poor, 
 unfortunate, too much tempted, and genius-gifted Scotch 
 
 T2
 
 222 BURNS. 
 
 poet, whom his countrymen admired, courted, were proud 
 of, considered as an ornament and honor to their country, 
 and made an EXCISEMAN of him ; after his death and ruin, 
 built monuments all over the country to him, one-half of 
 the expense of which would have placed above the reach 
 of misfortune him whom they starved while living. The 
 diamond was lost in the dirt of the dunghill, where it was as 
 a lost star. Scott was honored, courted, knighted, enjoyed, 
 at one time, an income of 13,000 per annum ; he failed in 
 business ; he was honest, and undertook to pay the debt 
 with the hard- wrung blood of his brain ; he failed in this ; 
 his creditors settled the estate of Abbotsford on him and 
 his heirs. Scott was not the equal of Burns in natural 
 genius. Scott had fortune, genius, position, family, blood. 
 Burns was a plowman, yet " half dirt, half deity." But is 
 there not as much immortality in " Highland Mary," as in 
 "Ivanhoe"? as much in "Tarn O' Shanter," "To Mary 
 in Heaven," the " Cotter's Saturday Night," as in " Guy 
 Mannering," "Waverley," or "Rob Roy"? A little fur- 
 ther on the road, stands the old church, " Kirk Alloway," 
 "the haunted kirk." It is roofless; all the wood- work is 
 gone ; the strong, thick, old walls, with the old bell, the 
 home of the iron door, these are here yet. It is divided by 
 a wall into two apartments, each of which is tenanted by a 
 single grave, with moss-grown monuments above them. 
 Around, in the small, old church-yard, are many graves, 
 among them those of Burns' father and mother the stone 
 erected by Burns, the epitaph also by him. The old sexton, 
 more than eighty years old, leans on his staff and explains, 
 in almost unintelligible Gaelic, the various scenes around. 
 This is the scene of Tarn O'Shanter's witch dance, so 
 strangely and horribly described by Burns. Still further 
 on, is a small eminence, all beautified by rich and rare 
 flowers, shrubs, and gravel-walks, surrounded by an ivy- 
 grown wall. You are admitted through the gate by the
 
 BURNS. 223 
 
 gardener, and you walk to the centre of the garden, where 
 you find Burns' monument. It is a neat and chaste temple, 
 in the Corinthian style. Burns is not buried here, but at 
 Dumfries, where he died. In a glass case you see the 
 Bible he presented to "Highland Mary," who was the 
 daughter of the dairyman of Montgomery Castle, and 
 Burns' first love. She died young; the lines to "Mary in 
 Heaven," are to her. There are some Scripture verses 
 written on the fly-leaves, in the handwriting of Burns. 
 There are other mementos of her here. You are now in 
 sight of the great, old, disused, ivy-grown bridge of Bonny 
 Doon. You walk over it, and you rove by the banks of 
 the sweet and quiet little river. The bridge is more than 
 six hundred years old. It is an admirable place to go to 
 for quiet converse with one's own spirit. The ivy covers 
 the two sides of the bridge from one end to the other. You 
 pluck a few leaves of the ivy, and you carry away from the 
 monument, a fresh and beautiful " rose of Alloway," as me- 
 mentos. The scenery around is truly beautiful ; the sea ; a 
 frowning, old, knightly castle, whose walls have for ages 
 been looking into it; the well-cultivated grounds and gar- 
 dens, all doubtless contributed to fan the flame of poetic 
 fervor with which Burns was blessed, or rather cursed for 
 had the Ayrshire plowman had no such guest in his soul 
 Ml; genius, he had doubtless been more blest, or perhaps 
 more dully happy. But if the lightning sometimes scorches 
 and kills, yet how brilliantly beautiful it is; and if genius 
 renders its possessor unhappy, yet what a glory and a 
 grandeur it can give and create ! Though it dies, it dies in 
 light and beauty. Not far from this, resides the sister of 
 Burns. I called on her. She is past eighty. Burns was 
 thirteen years her senior. She, however, looks well, and 
 converses well. She resides with her daughter. I told her 
 I was happy to take the sister of Robert Burns by the 
 hand that he was highly appreciated in America. She
 
 224 IRELAND BELFAST. 
 
 seemed pleased ; said many Americans called on her, more 
 than of the English. She spoke of her brother; said he 
 was always strange not like other people but very kind 
 in his disposition : showed me some of his hand- writing in 
 the poem the "Cotter's Saturday Night," which she said 
 described her father and his family. It is certainly true 
 that genius is more appreciated in America than anywhere 
 else. Burns, Tom Moore, Lord Byron, Sir Walter Scott, 
 Charles Dickens, are perhaps more read in America than in 
 their own countries. After a short interview with the old 
 lady in her pretty, neut, quiet place, by the sea-side, we 
 departed by railway to the port of Ardrossan, some twenty 
 or thirty miles up the coast toward Glasgow, where, at one 
 o'clock at night, we started on the steamer across the Irish 
 Sea. The night was pleasant for crossing; and the huge 
 sea-rock " Ailsa Craig" the coast of Scotland, with its 
 numerous glaring iron-works and furnaces on the coast, 
 soon faded from view under the sea, and we set foot on Ire- 
 land, at Belfast, this morning at seven o'clock. 
 
 BELFAST 
 
 is a new, pleasant, and flourishing city. The morning is 
 clear and delicious, but somewhat cool, and the dying sum- 
 mer smiles mournfully as the glistening, dried leaves fall 
 around. Yet the general appearance of the country and 
 the fields is worthy the reputation of " Green Erin." In 
 walking through these wide, splendid, busy streets, I have 
 visited the Botanic Gardens a grand display of the beauties 
 and glories of the kingdom of plants many of them in full 
 bloom, soon, however, to struggle and die in the cold em- 
 brace of winter, and pine away in the absence of their sun- 
 father. The walks and grounds are in excellent taste, very 
 extensive, and exhibiting great variety many specimens 
 of plants being from other parts of the world ; some from 
 South America, than which no region appears more diversi-
 
 BELFAST. 226 
 
 fied in its botany. All of the grounds are gracefully inter- 
 spersed with the quiet, grand, aristocratic-looking Irish 
 yew, appearing dark and thoughtful, like an aged harper, 
 whose thoughts were of the olden time. The principal 
 conservatory is of iron, with arched roof. The arbutus and 
 cypress are here together, with a fine collection of all varie- 
 ties of wild flowers found in the British dominions, and all 
 the varieties of heaths found in the Irish bogs. I also 
 visited Queen's College, the building of which is in excel- 
 lent style, there being a judicious arrangement of brick, 
 bright and red, and polished stone. The officers are very 
 courteous ; rooms spacious some have paintings in them ; 
 and the Museum contains many objects of interest to the 
 medical student and the man *>f general research. I visited 
 also, to-day, one of those institutions from which Belfast 
 derives her glory and prosperity the flax mills of Messrs. 
 Mulholland, one of the most extensive manufactories in the 
 kingdom, employing fifteen hundred hands, principally 
 girls. The scene is almost terrific machinery, steam; 
 pretty, delicate, pale-looking young girls; old, horrid, and 
 hateful hags; spindles, noises all more like a fevered dream 
 than a fact. The women get wages ridiculously small; 
 scarce a dime a day, reminding one of Hood's " Song of the 
 Shirt." 
 
 " God ! that bread should be so dear, 
 And flesh and blood so cheap !" 
 
 It is said they have generally five hundred thousand dollars' 
 worth of flax in course of manipulation. The business is 
 conducted with the utmost regularity and system, each room 
 having a distinct department of the process. Belfast is 
 situated on territory belonging to the Marquis of Donegal, 
 to whom nearly all the town belongs, it having been granted 
 to his ancestor, Sir A. Chichester, in 1612, when an incon- 
 siderable place. Lord Donegal's income from it is estimated 
 at one million dollars per annum. In 1821 the population 
 15
 
 226 IRELAND. 
 
 was only thirty-seven thousand. It is now over one hundred 
 thousand ; so that other towns increase rapidly in popula- 
 tion as well as some of our American ones. It is on the 
 River Lagan, just before it flows into Belfast Lough, an 
 elongated bay. Much of the harbor is artificial. In Amer- 
 ica we rely too much on Nature to furnish us with harbors. 
 The difficulties of the port of New Orleans and other places 
 are not to be compared to those at Havre, Antwerp, Glas- 
 gow, Belfast, and other places, which have all been overcome 
 by the erection of splendid docks and wharves. 
 
 We left Belfast, to-day, at six o'clock, by rail, proceeding 
 toward the north of* Ireland, passing many towns, and 
 Lough Neagh, the largest lake in the three kingdoms, full 
 of legends, and with buried cities under its waves; which, 
 according to Tom Moore, are seen by the fisherman when 
 he strays in certain magical moments. We saw it lying 
 darkly under a dim fog. The shores around it are boggy. 
 Stumps of trees and pieces of timber falling into it become 
 petrified. Moore speaks of the "round towers of other 
 days" seen in it. Not far from it is the castle of the 
 O'Neills, now a ruin, only haunted by the banshee, whose 
 wails may be heard when any of the O'Neills die. The line 
 will soon be extinct, as there only now remain the old peer 
 and his brother, both old and unmarried. Their coat of 
 arms is a bloody hand, from a tradition that the first O'Neill 
 was one of a company whose leader promised the province 
 of Ulster to whoever first touched the land. O'Neill seeing 
 another boat ahead of his, took a sword, cut off his left 
 hand, and threw it ashore. There is a tradition also to 
 account for the lake. How that there was once here a deep 
 well, the mouth of which was never to be left uncovered. 
 How a woman, having left her child at home, and wishing 
 to return hastily, left the well uncovered : whereupon it 
 rose and drowned all the country and villages. The coun- 
 try around is in general well cultivated, farmed in potatoes
 
 GIANT'S CAUSEWAY. 227 
 
 and kitchen vegetables. We arrived at Portrush, situated 
 near the sea, and hired an Irish jaunting car to convey us 
 seven miles further to the Giant's Causeway. The Irish 
 jaunting car is an unutterable unique. Nothing on earth 
 shall induce us either to praise or dispraise it. The secret 
 of its ways, its conduct, and its peculiarities, must remain 
 unknown to pen, and paper, and people. The road lies 
 along the bold and strikingly romantic northern coast of 
 Ireland one of the most interesting places, geologically, in 
 Europe. The sea or ocean was very rough, and rolled in 
 vast waves to the shore, striking against the rough, basaltic 
 rocks, and ascending in a snow of spray through the aper- 
 tures. There are numerous great caverns along the sea 
 coast, into which the water rushes with great rapidity. 
 The Skerries, a series of elevated rocks, in a line, extending 
 some distance into the sea, a mile or two from the shore, 
 presented a grand sight the maddened waters breaking 
 against them and dashing to a great height. But, at length, 
 we came upon the extensive ruin of Dunluce Castle. This 
 hoary, naked, roofless pile of walls, towers, dungeons, and 
 halls, has gone into a grand decay. The gray old man of 
 the castle comes about to lead you through it. It appears, 
 from the walls and other ruins near, that a town stood here 
 in olden time, and such is the tradition. You are first led 
 among low walls, their upper parts having fallen down. 
 These, it is said, formed the barracks and hostelry con- 
 nected with the castle the castle being held by one of the 
 warlike, independent chiefs, who, of old, exercised kingly 
 power within their own dominions. From this you pass 
 over a narrow, arched wall, only eighteen inches thick, 
 extending over a vast chasm. This is the only entrance to 
 the great ruin. Only one person could pass at a time: 
 consequently, it could be most easily defended from attack 
 without the castle being built on an immense perpendicu- 
 lar rock, one hundred feet high, which is lashed by the sea,
 
 228 GIANT'S CAUSEWAY. 
 
 flowing under it through a cave. Here, then, are its walls 
 of basalt ; its tombs ; its sentry boxes ; its vast dining 
 apartment; its halls of judgment and audience: and here 
 is the dungeon, with its walls many feet thick, and whose 
 rock floor is kept ever swept clean by the banshee of the 
 Antrim family, (to whom the ruin belongs,) and which 
 wails whenever one of them dies a banshee, who is sup- 
 posed to be a little old-fashioned spirit, about two feet high, 
 that attaches herself to all families of respectable descent in 
 Ireland. "Pis a most dull, gloomy-looking dungeon, and 
 well might be supposed to be haunted: for, doubtless, 
 murders most foul have been committed in it. The old 
 gray man has himself heard the banshee; and he repeats, 
 like a parrot, dreadful stories which he has read in a book 
 about the McQuillans and McDonalds, who used to own the 
 castle ; and also about a beautiful young lady, " with eyes as 
 fair as yours, my girl," to whom it all descended. 'Tis a 
 strange and mournful ruin, whether Danish, Saxon, Gothic, 
 Norman, or Celtic, sitting on a high, gray sea rock. 
 
 But we go on to the hotel near the Causeway employ 
 a guide, and commence walking over the high heathery 
 bluff', the guide pointing out the different places on the 
 coast, and telling the names which have been given to them 
 according to imagination or caprice. The coast is four 
 hundred and twenty feet high is almost perpendicular, 
 and exposed on the bluff' bank toward the sea are discov- 
 ered, all along the shore, columns of basalt, a black, hard 
 stone ; each column separate from yet touching the next, 
 and all the columns with regular angles, tetragons, penta- 
 gons, or hexagons. They are generally so close that a 
 sheet of paper cannot be interposed between them. It is 
 said there are sixty thousand columns of basalt visible. 
 How far they may extend into the land, or how far into 
 the water, is unknown. It is calculated that ninety-nine 
 out of every hundred columns have five, six, or seven
 
 GIANTS CAUSEWAY. 
 
 sides. There is but one triangular pillar, and there are but 
 three of nine sides. In some places, along this Hsxtraordi- 
 nary coast, a bluff bank fronting the sea, near the water 
 are strata of red ochre, next unformed strata, then basaltio 
 pillars fifteen or twenty feet high, standing perpendicularly, 
 all in perfect regularity and fitness ; above this are other 
 unformed strata, then other columns of regular basalt pil 
 lure, thirty or forty feet in height generally, eight, ten, 
 or twelve inches in circumference. The Giant's Causeway 
 proper is a succession of these columns, extending out 
 from this coast toward the coast of Scotland. Thev stand 
 
 / 
 
 upright, and you walk on the ends of the columns, some of 
 which are covered by the surges of the sea. There appear 
 to be three different causeways near each other, separated 
 however by fallen, broken rocks. We descended and 
 walked on their irregular pavement, composed of the ends of 
 the basalt columns. No builder on earth, in one thousand 
 years, with all means and appliances demanded, could 
 sculpture the hard basalt into these regular-sided columns, 
 arrange them all in such juxtaposition, and place them 
 thus solidly in the sea, defying its rage for centuries. The 
 basalt, chemically, is said to be composed of about one 
 half flinty earth, one quarter iron, and one-quarter clay and 
 lime they are Plutonic in their origin, that is, the ingre- 
 dients have been perfectly melted, and in cooling have 
 crystallized into their present forms. The tradition on 
 the coast is, that a great giant lived on the opposite coast 
 of Scotland, who threatened to whip a great giant that 
 lived on the Irish coast, and said he would come over and 
 give him a regular pounding, but that he did not wish to 
 wet bis feet. Whereupon, the Irish giant built this great 
 causeway over to Scotland, and invited the Scotch giant to 
 step over, which he did, and they fought on the Irish coast. 
 The Irish giant proved the victor; but he invited, with 
 true Irish generosity, his now humbled antagonist to settle 
 
 U
 
 230 LONDONDERRY. 
 
 in Ireland, as he had now settled him, which he did. Much 
 of it has 'sunk under the sea ; but portions can be traced 
 all the way over to Scotland, where, on the island of Staffa, 
 it forms the magnificent cave of Fingal. On account of 
 the roughness of the sea we could not descend in a boat, 
 and explore any of the numerous caves which open into 
 the beach. The Scotch coast of Argyleshire, with its white 
 rock cliffs, the islands of Mull, and Islay, and Ilachlin the 
 latter a continuation of the Causeway are very distinctly 
 seen here. With the ocean view, the heath hills and the 
 distant slopes around, the pillared walls of basalt on the 
 beach, the numerous bays, all render the scenery here 
 truly grand and interesting, and no place could probably 
 be more attractive as a summer resort. The guide shows 
 you the giant's organ, the giant's gateway and loom, the 
 giant's chimney tops, the giant's pulpit, the giant's gran- 
 ary, the four sisters, and other places, which have received 
 those names in consequence of the singular arrangement 
 of the pillars. 
 
 Leaving the Causeway, we returned to the solitary but 
 very romantically situated hotel near it ; dined, and then 
 returned by carriage to Portrush, whence we hired a car 
 to Cdleraine, a pretty place on the Baun River, three miles 
 from the sea. There we took the cars for Londonderry 
 passing near the sea on one side, and a very high and 
 grand coast on the other. At Londonderry, which has a 
 population of about twenty thousand, we remained a night 
 and a part of a day. The town is situated on a slope de- 
 scending to the river Foyle, which is here a wide and 
 beautiful arm of the sea. There is a fine promenade, which 
 is on the top of the old thick walls, extending around the 
 city, the view from which is Irish and old. The town is 
 remarkable for the gallant defense which the citizens made 
 against James II., and the siege of one hundred and five 
 days which they sustained. The citizens were reduced to
 
 ENNISKILLKN. 231 
 
 shadows lived on dogs, tallow, vermin, hides twenty- five 
 hundred of them died by a famine. A noble ship, laden 
 with provisions, dashed with giant strength against a boom 
 which the besiegers had placed across the stream, but from 
 the impetus ran ashore among the besiegers, who, with 
 joy, were about to board her, when she fired u broadside, 
 the rebound from which extricated her from the sands, and 
 she floated on the other side to the relief of the citizens. 
 The Cathedral is a noble old Gothic building, and there are 
 some monuments to the memory of those who defended the 
 city. Protestantism prevails in all this portion of Ireland. 
 Leaving Londonderry at eleven o'clock, we arrived by rail- 
 way at 
 
 ENN1SKILLEX, 
 
 at two o'clock, passing on our route numerous bogs, on 
 which lay conical piles of cut peat to dry, and thus become 
 fit for use. The bogs appear to be vegetable matter or roots, 
 mingled with soil. The peat burns well, and is about as 
 cheap as coal. The bogs look like the bottoms of ancient 
 lakes and morasses. We saw many laborers at work on it 
 with spades cutting the peat, which is of various degrees 
 of excellence. It is not, in general, fit for use till after 
 an exposure to the sun of five or six months. The black 
 kinds are reputed the best. Enniskillen is rather a pleas- 
 ant place in regard to situation ; but is well supplied with 
 beggars, and not at all deficient in filthiness. It is between 
 two lakes, Upper and Lower Lough Erne. We hired a 
 boatman to row up one of the lakes, about three miles, to 
 the island of Devenish, one of the four hundred beautiful 
 islands in the lakes. This island consists of a gently slop- 
 ing hill, having about one hundred acres ; and on it are 
 two extensive ruins of abbeys and a round tower, one of 
 the curiosities of Ireland, in almost a perfect state, though 
 its history has altogether perished. The tower is near one
 
 232 ENNISKILLEN. 
 
 hundred feet high, has a conical stone roof, and is perhaps 
 fifteen feet in diameter. It is built without mortar, and 
 the walls are three feet thick. Inside there is a hollow nine 
 feet across at the base, gradually narrowing to the top ; there 
 is no staircase and no entrance, except an aperture ten or 
 twelve feet from the ground. Near it are walls, and ruins, 
 and graves, and broken stone coffins, tenantless of their 
 once-valued dust: also, many other grave-stones, moss- 
 grown, and meaningless in their obliterated lettering. On 
 the brow of the hill, and commanding a prospect of soft 
 and rich beauty is the other abbey ruin, one side of which is 
 all ivy-grown. Its tower stands yet, in part, with its stone 
 steps. The walls around, now nearly all fallen down, must 
 have enclosed an extensive space. What the round tow- 
 ers, most of which converge toward the top, were for, who 
 erected them, and when, are among the mysteries of Ireland's 
 past. There are many theories, the champions of which, 
 as has been remarked, would sooner " die on the floor" than 
 give them up, and would probably die of ennui, if the ques- 
 tion were at length set at rest. Some regard them as relics 
 of Pagan times, temples of the sun; others, as belfries, re- 
 servoirs for provisions, etc. From the hills are seen many 
 other islands, used as pastures, in this beautiful lake; also, 
 the undulations of many miles of surface, all as green now 
 as in June, in America; hedge-rows, remnants of gardens, 
 desolate rose-bushes, and mingled ruin and beauty gener- 
 ally. The places around these ruins are yet regarded as 
 holy ground. Passing along the lake we saw other ruins, 
 with ivy-grown walls, standing near the shore of the lake, 
 in exquisitely green pasturages, all with an air of mourn- 
 ful desolation. Truly Ireland, in soil, climate, and beauti- 
 ful, soft, and lovely scenery, appears to be as fine a country 
 as I have ever seen. But its common and lower classes 
 are degraded, ragged, mean, and groveling. We, in Amer- 
 ica, are clearly ahead of all other nations in those insti-
 
 K.N'NISKILLEN. 233 
 
 tutions which make for the good of the mass. Here gov- 
 ernment appears only as a means of advantaging the upper 
 classes. Very many of the common class, with whom one 
 meets and converses here, have relatives in America; their 
 heart is with us : it bounds more quickly at the name of 
 America; it is their land of promise. I have understood 
 the amount of money sent back to their poor relatives, 
 father or mother, by the emigrants in America, is enormous. 
 It is delightful to see an Irishman brightening up at the 
 mention of America. The angel comes upon his face. 
 He straightens himself up as if he heard sweet music from 
 afar, and begins to be aware that he has been, or will be a 
 man ; that he belongs to the human race. I have listened 
 to frothy Fourth of July orations, and read articles written 
 by weaklings, to be read by witlings, in our magazine lite- 
 rature I have never read or seen so great, or so eloquent 
 a compliment to my country, as I have seen in the expres- 
 sion of an Irishman's face at the thought of America. 
 Though he may never see it ; though he may live and die 
 in the island rimmed by the sea, yet the mere knowledge 
 there is such a country, doubtless, often in his hours of toil 
 brings the sun-light into his soul, and makes the verdureless 
 human ruin glow. Never have I seen any thing so remark- 
 able as the man coming on the face of an Irishman, when 
 he sees an American. The O'Donohue. booted and spurred, 
 and riding over the lake on his white-tailed war-horse a 
 king come back out of the olden to redeem them all is an 
 excitable and pleasurable fiction, that may or may not be, 
 but America is a dream and reality both. It gives them 
 just what they want now a little bread! The damnation 
 is sure of such persons, and hell is greedy for them, who 
 exclude foreigners from a little participation in the large 
 inheritance of American progression, and from " leave to 
 toil" on our broad lands, when these foreigners want to rise 
 from the degradation of despotism, and extract from our 
 
 U2
 
 234 ATHLONE. 
 
 otherwise useless and abundant soil, the mere subsistence 
 which legitimated tyranny refuses them in the land of their 
 birth. The world is la.rge enough for all persons except the 
 covetous. American Knovv-Nothingism is an unparalleled 
 atrociousness if it be less or more, longer, shorter, or in 
 diagnosis or prognosis, any thing else than a requirement 
 or enforcement of the intendments of the Constitution of 
 the United States. It is not desirable to have the lower 
 state of European morality superinduced on us; it is not 
 desirable to have them in our official positions if we are 
 to be mal-ruled, let it be by our own people with all their 
 romance of antiquity and art. We do not want old-world- 
 liness engrafted on the fresh and vigorous stock of America. 
 We want to educe our own distinct nationality ; but at the 
 same time in our plenty we are not going to look at their 
 penury with scorn; in our largeness we are not going to 
 turn aside the beseeching hands of lowness, and deny those 
 a home and subsistence who are what we were. 
 We are now at 
 
 ATHLONE, 
 
 in the centre of Ireland, and within hearing of the Falls of 
 the Shannon, whose grand expanse, being the largest river 
 in the three kingdoms, runs through the town. We left 
 Enniskillen yesterday, at one o'clock, by coach, having pre- 
 viously taken a stroll along Lough Erne ; the banks of 
 which are reckoned by some, a little too enthusiastic perhaps, 
 as second to none in Europe for beauty. There are views 
 in the distance of ivy-covered ruins, those grand marks of 
 Time's undoings, and of round towers, rising with peaked, 
 pointed tops starward, and a rich, green country, with hills 
 of meads and pastures. We also visited the Earl of Bel- 
 more's castle a large building in the modern style. At the 
 entrance to the grounds is a very pretty little cottage, ivy- 
 grown, the gate-keeper's lodge, who admits you through an
 
 JLTHLONK. 235 
 
 iron gate; and the view of lawn and artificial lake; rich 
 and rare shrubbery; carriage-drives and terraces, and deep, 
 dark parks, with the stately castle amidst all is very beau- 
 tiful. From Enniskillen our way lay along several beau- 
 tiful lakes ; also many bogs, and some fine plantations of 
 pasturage; and on the bog sides were many turf huts, 
 apparently dunghill heaps the most miserable places in 
 which a most miserable and abject race could be supposed 
 to live windowless, floorless, muddy the green grass 
 growing out of the old turf of which the house was built, 
 and whose slatternly, ragged inhabitants, looked as if they 
 only desired whiskey and only needed death. We also 
 crossed some dirty, mean, and peculiarly low Irish-looking 
 villages, where brawls, fighting, drinking, cursing, seemed 
 the natural ingredients of existence. The country itself, in 
 many parts, was of astonishing beauty, and only " man was 
 vile." Arriving at Cavan a place where filth was securely 
 entrenched we got into the cars, which took us through a 
 thinly-peopled country, the landlords having ejected the 
 poor inhabitants to make room for sheep pastures, to Mul- 
 lington ; where, resting an hour or two, we resumed our 
 course to Athlone passing some fine lakes, glimmering in 
 the moonbeams. Arrived at Athlone, we fortunately found 
 a clean hotel, rather a rarity in this part of Ireland, but truly 
 a luxury after seventy miles railwaying and coaching. The 
 towns through which we passed seem like a fever dream. 
 It is not a very daring presumption, perhaps, to assert posi- 
 tively they are human beings, and it is highly probable 
 they are alive; but how they live, or why they live, or 
 were born, do not clearly appear. 
 
 Yet there are many things in these old Irish towns that 
 may interest a thoughtful stranger as he strolls about. 
 Here are the raggedest people on earth ingenious, and gro- 
 tesque, many-colored raggedness out of which peers a 
 face with a countenance of sordid, mean, poverty-stamped
 
 236 ATHLONB. 
 
 expression. The phases of these faces are really curious. 
 Europe has the extremes of man. What wretchedness 
 apparently ; what shoeless women and children ! As to 
 their heads, they know nothing of such luxuries as hats or 
 bonnets ; and frequently there is nothing else but an old 
 torn cloak, half - concealing their shivering forms. Of 
 course you are begged of and you give; unless you are 
 like an English gentleman with whom I traveled, who 
 never gave any thing, as he said, " on principle" rather an 
 unprincipled principle! Tenantless and half-pulled down 
 houses are numerous, from which the people have been 
 ejected by the landlord, or his heartless under-lessee the 
 people wandering off' in search of employment, or, if able, 
 gone to America. 
 
 Athlone is an old and filthy place. No traveler covetous 
 of cleanliness should perambulate its streets. The Shannon 
 here is broad, and not much unlike the Ohio in appearance. 
 A splendid railway bridge here crosses it. There are ex- 
 tensive fortifications, and a very ancient, strongly -built 
 castle, with walls fourteen feet thick, surmounted with 
 many cannon. The castle is circular, and bears the marks 
 of great age. Other cannon are placed on various fortifica- 
 tions, connected by walls, which, with the river, enclose a 
 beautiful green promenade. Below the bridge, and near 
 the river, is the Abbey of St. Mary. The long side walls 
 of the chapel yet stand, rising from out the old graves 
 inside 'and outside the ruins. There are yew trees, ivy- 
 grown, gray old walls. On a corner-building, written in 
 stone, I read the inscription, "This abbey was founded in 
 1210." The ivy essays to bind up the old walls, and the 
 green grass springs luxuriantly over those who moulder in 
 the mildew of death. 
 
 We are in the centre of the bog region of Ireland, and 
 nothing is burnt here for fuel but peat. It makes a pleas- 
 ant fire, is cleaner than coal ; but does not throw out so
 
 THE SHANNON. 237 
 
 much heat. All the Irish here have some representative in 
 America. The condition of the country is said to be im- 
 proving, but it is still sufficiently horrid. The population 
 has diminished about two millions within a few years. It 
 is probable, however, that those who have been obliged to 
 leave their country by the tyranny and avarice of their land- 
 lords have, upon the whole, been much benefited. The lower 
 Irish cannot improve in Ireland. People and nations fre- 
 quently reach a point from which there is no improvement, 
 while they remain in these circumstances. The negroes in 
 Africa are unimprovable, except by slavery in America, a 
 course through which energizes the race. It requires a 
 new country, with new influences, to break the strong 
 chain which binds them to their old habits. But if they 
 exerted half the energy here which they are compelled to 
 exert in America, they might transform this fine island into 
 a paradise. The prosperity of a country depends on the 
 energy of the people. It is not the mere vassalage of this 
 island to England, nor the extreme heartlessness of the 
 landlords, that keeps Ireland in its present abject state. 
 Other causes, arising from the inertness of the people, have 
 their influence. A people thoroughly under the influence 
 of Catholicism rarely improve. Its effect is to merge this 
 world too much in the other. The Catholic religion has 
 too many worlds, heaven, hell, earth, and purgatory. The 
 Apostles were not merely devotional men, but eminently 
 practical, working spirits. 
 
 But this morning (Monday, October 26th,) is pleasant 
 and cool, and we are on our way in a steamer down the 
 Shannon. After leaving Athlone its banks are low, and 
 somewhat resemble those of the Mississippi, except that in 
 many places there are large quantities of black stones and 
 rocks. The land is in pasturage or meadow, and looks not 
 unlike an American prairie. But it has not the apparent 
 civilization of an American river-scene, though so much
 
 238 THE SHANNON". 
 
 older. Villages are fewer, and most of them look unpro- 
 gressively wretched. Twelve miles below Athlone we 
 came upon the ruins of Clonmacnoise, or the Seven 
 Churches. These are supposed by some to be the remains 
 of the " early Christianity" of Ireland. They are on a 
 slightly elevated plot of ground, between which and the 
 river extends a marsh or meadow. The ruins are most 
 picturesque and grand, reminding one by their size of those 
 on the Rhine. There are two round towers, one much 
 higher than the other; the higher one being overgrown 
 with ivy around is a large grave-yard, some of the tombs 
 bear date as old as A. D. 1153. There are many large 
 granite crosses black and gray with age. The corner 
 towers of some of the churches yet stand, and the whole 
 is a pile of majestic, monastic ruins. St. Kiernan is the 
 guardian saint of these ruins, and the little stone on which 
 it is believed his spirit still sits to cure diseases is shown. 
 He is said to have founded a seat of learning here in 548. 
 The inscriptions on the tombs are in the oldest form of 
 Irish letters. Behind it arise singular artificial earth- 
 mounds, possibly like the round towers, memorials of 
 Pagan times. Below these ruins are those of an immensely 
 strong old castle, in which the last of the regular old Irish 
 chiefs lived the Macloghlons. It is all in ruins, toppling 
 to decay ; nothing but massive, irregular thick stone walls, 
 fallen and falling. The old Irish chief was hospitable 
 always in debt, in fight, and in liquor house open to every 
 one, and nothing kept up but the dignity of the family. 
 On the opposite side of the river is a high mound, where 
 you are told at night the fairies dance, stepping gayly 
 on its green, grassy summit : and you will hear a legend 
 about it if you look encouragement. There are mournful 
 relics of the old Pagan and Christian times, and different 
 ages and religions, all mingled together. It is said the 
 early Christians here, as well as in other countries, built
 
 THE SHANNON. 239 
 
 their churches near places where Pagan rites had been 
 held. Around these extensive ruins was formerly a 
 large moat or ditch, part of which is still to be seen. Few 
 ruins that I have seen are so impressive, so desolate as this 
 collection of dilapidated churches on the low banks of the 
 Shannon. Further on you come to the ruins of the Castle 
 of Garry, with its dark ancient subterraneous fortress, into 
 which it is said no one can enter without being followed 
 by a curse; in confirmation of which I was told, three 
 brothers, allured by a report of money being buried there, 
 entered a few years ago two died immediately on return- 
 ing to the opening after being in it, the third became an 
 idiot, and can tell nothing of what he saw, and is yet a 
 wanderer about the ruins. One old and high tower is yet 
 standing. Near this I was shown the well of St. Kiernan, 
 with a single tree near it, and a stone written over with 
 unintelligible characters. The well is resorted to by the 
 inhabitants, having, as is asserted, miraculous powers in 
 the cure of diseases. Not far from this is a fine modern 
 bridge over the Shannon, connecting the opposite banks at 
 the antique mouldering town of Banagher, where are mod- 
 ern towers surmounted with cannon, commanding the river. 
 The banks of the river continue low, with numerous bogs, 
 on which we see piles of peat, which being generally cut 
 in May or June, is exposed during the summer to dry. 
 There are numerous boats laden with it, and many small 
 mules on land, with baskets of peat on each side, convey- 
 ing it for sale. Below Banagher are many Martello towers, 
 built in the time of Pitt, about 1805, when a French inva- 
 sion was expected. Below this we pass the picturesque, 
 ancient castles in ruins, some of which are nameless ; those 
 of Redwood and Torr are particularly noticeable, having 
 large fissures in the walls, over which the protecting ivy 
 casts its tendrils. On account of the lowness of the banks 
 the view extends to a great distance. There are numerous
 
 24:0 KILLALOE. 
 
 islands here, and at length the Shannon expands into the 
 Lake Derg, twenty-three miles long, and in some places 
 eleven broad, with numerous islands and high mountain 
 banks, wooded and castellated. At Portumna is one of 
 several locks on the Shannon, a Dublin Company having 
 expended, a few years ago, thirty-five thousand dollars to 
 improve the navigation. Here is the fine seat of Lord 
 Cranmore, fronting the lake, and surrounded by larch 
 groves. The brick castle of the Marquis Clanricarde is 
 just opposite, a mass of ruined walls. In various places 
 further down the banks of the lake into which the Shannon 
 has now expanded, are stately stone ruins, nameless and 
 noteless in history. On Holy Island are to be seen the 
 ruins of Seven Churches, like those of Clonmacnoise the 
 number seven being a favorite one in ecclesiastical affairs. 
 There is here also a very high round tower, which can be 
 seen many miles along the coast ; and here is also an ob- 
 scure cave, which is the entrance of St. Patrick's Purga- 
 tory, the saint having kindly consented to place it in Ire- 
 land, as a special favor. The mountain scenery here is very 
 fine the red and black bogs have disappeared, and the 
 wavy outline of the high mountains surrounds the horizon. 
 The "Devil's Bit" is a singular indentation in one of these 
 mountains. The lake then narrows to a river again ; the 
 mountains enclose it. There are numerous castles with soft 
 sounding Irish names one is called Killala, being that of 
 Brian Boroimhe, King of Munster. At Killaloe there is 
 an old bridge across the river, and the scenery surrounding 
 the old Irish town is truly beautiful. I visited the place 
 where Brian Boroimhe's castle stood. The adjoining seat 
 is now called Bally Vally. 
 
 You pass along a road from Killaloe, (where we left the 
 steamer,) on each side of which are high, stone walls; along 
 which extend rows of fine old trees, which, as well as the 
 walls, are covered with ivy. Passing through a pasturage
 
 K1LLALOK. 241 
 
 to a large grove of trees, you come to a high earth wall, 
 outside of which is a moat, and inside a vast hollow space. 
 This is all that is left of the old king's residence: he that 
 fought so valiantly against the Danes one thousand years 
 ago. The old guide tells you the marble and curiously 
 carved work have been carried oft'. The old guide says 
 that a sword has recently been found here, so large, that a 
 man of the present day can scarcely lift it. He shows, also? 
 where the king's kitchen was near half a mile from the 
 castle; and says the servants he had were so numerous, that 
 when the king dined, the servants stood in a row from 
 palace to kitchen passing the dishes along rapidly without 
 changing their postures. I entered the old Cathedral of 
 Ktllaloe. Adjoining it is the Oratory of St. Molua, said to 
 be one of the oldest buildings in Ireland. The cathedral is 
 almost covered with extremely luxuriant ivy, of the varie- 
 gated kind. In it, on one side, is a most curiously carved, 
 antique arch, black with age, which is over the resting place 
 of Brian Boroirahe's son. In the Oratory is a stone ceiling, 
 apparently close to the roof the latter being also of stone. 
 The guide showed me a passage, revealing an apartment 
 between them which no one would suspect, where the lovely 
 princess, daughter of the king, was concealed from the 
 Danes. The floor of this most singular looking building 
 resounds to the tread, revealing subterraneous passages be 
 neath, one of which led to the adjoining cathedral ; the now 
 walled-up entrance to which the guide showed by turning a 
 secret panel in the 'cathedral. Around the church are 
 numerous grave-stones, gray and black, long since unfaith- 
 ful to the trust of affection name, effigy, all obliterated, 
 and even the once hard blue limestone has crumbled. 
 Departing from Killaloe in an Irish jaunting car, we passed 
 along prospects of natural scenery of delicious loveliness 
 cultivated slopes of mountains; numerous hedges and earth 
 embankments, serving as fences ; numerous bogs, also, with 
 16 V
 
 242 IRELAND. 
 
 heaps of cut peat ; many houses or hovels of the poor Irish are 
 also along the road. The ordinary negro cabins in the south 
 are palaces compared to them. Turf, mud huts, with wet 
 earthen floors, on which stand sad, barefoot, slatternly women, 
 sickly, slovenly children, in squalid rags and wretchedness 
 dejected, atyect, hungry, hopeless ! Out of these misera- 
 ble hovels they are ejected by the rapacious landlords, who 
 pull down the houses to get rid of them, justly concerned 
 that such sights are a disgrace to their plantations, instead 
 of making efforts to rebuild the houses and ameliorate the 
 condition of the tenantry. Much of the country appears as 
 if it had been depopulated by violence. We met an Irish 
 family, who probably had just been ejected, carrying their 
 all on their backs young children strapped on their backs, 
 after the manner of the American Indians. Their appear- 
 ance was the most dejected of any human beings I have 
 ever seen. In this great, vast world, this plenteous, abun- 
 dant universe, there seemed to be no place for them. 
 Human effort seemed to have become extinct, and manly 
 spirit had become ashes. They seemed ashamed to be ; and 
 intruders in God's world, who had nothing except the air 
 to breathe and the wide, dusty road on which to go fur- 
 ther further ; on on ! A curse sink their heartless land- 
 lords into a resurrectionless damnation ! A recent law, 
 providing for the sale of encumbered estates, (to a great ex- 
 tent abolishing the law of entail,) on petition of the creditors 
 and proprietors, has brought much of the land of Ireland 
 into new hands principally English capital being at 
 present abundant in England ; and it is found that pas- 
 turage, the raising of fine beef and mutton for the English 
 nobility, is a better business than agriculture. But some- 
 times the old Celtic spirit is aroused. Only a few days 
 ago, in this region, a man who had bought some of these 
 lands, and evicted the tenants, was shot dead in his buggy ; 
 and many such cases have occurred. One of the landlords,
 
 IRELAND. 243 
 
 descending the Shannon in the steamer with us, had property 
 of this description, from which the tenants had been 
 ejected ; and it was very evident his feelings were not of 
 the most tranquil description. In a workhouse, among the 
 mountains, near the Shannon, I was assured that more peo- 
 ple had died from starvation, neglect, want, misery, sickness t 
 than had perished in the whole British army in the Crimea. 
 The poor go there only as a last resort ; the tyranny and 
 the life they are compelled to lead being only one degree 
 better than naked starvation in the open air. The poorer 
 class of Ireland must either emigrate or be exterminated- 
 Ireland can be their home no longer. I have understood 
 this is usually the conversation that takes place : " My 
 father, my grandfather, my great grandfather, lived on this 
 land paid you rent for it I am willing to pay as much, 
 or more; only let me stay." The landlord replies: "This 
 is my land. I paid my money for it. I choose to do with 
 it what I please. I want it. You must leave." " Well, 
 I'll hang for you," is generally muttered by the tenant, as 
 he leaves. The old Celtic blood does not always keep 
 down. It murders. 
 
 On our route were numerous bogs. I asked the guide 
 where he thought they came from. Ilis answer was "That 
 in old times they had moved in." Like many more learned 
 persons who make the deluge a scapegoat for every diffi- 
 culty, he enlarged further on the subject, by saying "That 
 at the time of the flood the bogs took to moving, and stop- 
 ped down here." In digging down, many roots or stumps 
 of trees are disclosed, apparently indicating that extensive 
 swamps or forests occupied these places. 
 
 On the road near the Shannon we came to an extensive, 
 ancient, massive ruin, on the top of a vast limestone rock. 
 This is Castle Connell, said also to have been a kingly resi- 
 dence in old of the chiefs of Munster. Many portions of the 
 thick walls, especially at the corners, where they are built
 
 244 IRELAND. 
 
 somewhat like towers, yet remain mortar and stone look- 
 ing as if all had petrified into one solid rock. When last be- 
 sieged and taken, the castle was blown up by gunpowder, 
 and part of it has rolled down into the plain. The Irish 
 ivy is all over the majestic, massive ruins, and the space 
 between the walls is green and lovely, with the perennial 
 vitality of Nature. It is here that the Falls of Dunoos, on 
 the Shannon, are. We hired a boat with the rower, who 
 took us over the safe portion of the rapids. We then 
 landed on the beautifully cultivated domains of Sir Dillon 
 Massey ; and passing an ancient-looking turret, most pic- 
 turesquely mantled with ivy to its summit, we came to a 
 place from which we had most splendid views of the roar- 
 ing waters. The rapids are more than a mile in length, 
 and the scene, taking it altogether, and abnegating all re- 
 collection of Niagara, is very fine. Around you, on that 
 side, are many walls and terraces, planted with beautiful 
 flowers. Opposite is "Hermitage," the elegant seat of 
 Lord Massey ; below you rage, roar and foam the waters 
 through massy, mighty rocks. Foreign rivers cannot, 
 however, move Americans. We deal in much mightier 
 articles at home. Descending to the bank of the Shannon, 
 MTG walked along a promenade rendered beautiful by artful 
 shrubbery; and at length came to an avenue of trees lead- 
 ing to the right, and encircling a small space like a shrine, 
 in the centre of which is the holy Irish well. It is a deep, 
 walled spring, whose waters are reckoned to possess mirac- 
 ulous healing powers. Here is heathendom in a Christian 
 land. It is a sort of Catholic chapel. Each tree around 
 has images, or sculptures, or crucifixes, and niches, for 
 ho.ly candles to burn at night. Around the spring is a 
 path on which the devout diseased crawl on their bare 
 knees. Each one who conies here is obliged to bring his 
 own bowl with which to drink, and which he must leave 
 when he departs. On the trees hang broken crutches,
 
 IRELAND. 246 
 
 which, as they are always cured, their faith being gtrong, 
 they leave behind. On the ground are shown the places 
 where they lie at night the places in summer being crowded. 
 The water is rather palatable. Near are the ruins of an 
 extremely ancient grave-yard and church. Our way to 
 Limerick passes through the beautifully cultivated grounds 
 of Lord Clare; but in immediate juxtaposition to the road 
 are the horrid tenements of the poor, who, with their 
 hogs, dwell in the same apartment the latter, doubtless, 
 feeling himself the most comfortable of the dwellers. 
 Other houses also, which appear to have been just pulled 
 down to get rid of the tenants, who wished to live a little 
 longer in their fatherland, Ireland being no longer the 
 place for the Irish. I understand the emigration, much 
 of it compulsory, from Ireland, at the present time, is 
 enormous. Cheap emigrant trains, crowded, leave every 
 morning from Limerick and other places, where are such 
 partings and weepings as are seen nowhere else on earth. 
 The landlord, if he can get rid of them in no other way, 
 proffers them a ticket to America for the unexpired inter- 
 est of their leases. Yet a more generous, warm-hearted 
 imaginative people nowhere else exists. The " finest 
 peasantry in the world," as O'Connell called them, have no 
 home in their own country. Limerick consists of Irish 
 and English town, and has a population of seventy thou- 
 sand. In Irish town are hovels and huts that look like 
 ulcers on the earth. You meet with the antagonism of 
 every pleasurable feeling, and every sense is outraged, and 
 each stink is a distinct undulation of olfactory horror. It 
 would be pleasanter to undertake a pass defended by artil- 
 lery, than one of these streets. The wild Irish, in the 
 heart of the city, look at you from their diseased and drink- 
 bleared eyes, with murderous meaning. The women in 
 tattered cloaks, the ragged imps of unhumanized children, 
 the stenches, the sights, the moving masses of living hu- 
 
 V2
 
 246 LIMERICK. 
 
 inanity, crushed hearts and demoralized bodies, where one 
 would think it agony to live ; these are the things within 
 five minutes' walk of the stately streets and princely houses 
 of English town. Limerick was the capital of the O'Briens, 
 who were kings of Munster : Smith O'Brien, who attempted 
 the insurrection of 1848, being their descendant. The 
 Marquis of Thomond was the recent representative of the 
 family ; but by his death, without direct descendants, the 
 title is extinct, and the fine estates of the marquis all sold 
 by the Encumbered Estates' Court. 
 
 The Cathedral is rather a heavy but still grand old building. 
 It was founded by the O'Briens, and is massive and almost 
 sublime in its proportions, though not elegant. The great 
 tower on the top was used as a fortress for cannonading, by 
 the Irish, when De Ginkel attacked the city. This was the 
 commander who, when attacking Athlone, and summoning 
 it to surrender, was replied to by Colonel Space, who held 
 it for the king (James II.), by firing his pistol into the air, 
 exclaiming : " These are my terms, and when my provisions 
 are gone I will eat my boots." The Cathedral was founded 
 nearly one thousand years ago. Around it are numerous 
 blank and noteless tombs, defaced by age. The trees 
 around are aged and grand. I stood and listened to its 
 chime of bells, consisting of four notes, sad as the wailing 
 of a banshee over an extinct family. I have seldom heard 
 any thing so simply and solely beautiful. It is an eloquent, 
 gentle pleading, a yielding affectionate remembrance- 
 dying dream-like; lonely, wild, and plaintive. The story 
 is told, that they are the treasured work of many years of 
 an Italian artist, from whose native village, where he had 
 them placed that he might listen to them in the evening, 
 they were stolen and carried to Ireland. The artist lost 
 wife, children, friends, all, and his home was devastated by 
 war. He followed his work to Ireland, and hearing their 
 familiar chime suddenly when sailing on the Shannon,
 
 LIMERICK. 247 
 
 the unexpected gush of memories of youth, and a happier 
 home and time, killed him. He fell back and died 
 while in an attitude of listening. The Cathedral is now 
 fitted up with pews in the Protestant style. Not far from 
 the church stands the moat massive, dark, and impregnable 
 looking castle I have yet seen. Many high and old towers, 
 out of which, as well as the church, grow grapes and plants 
 a botany out of ruinousness, all from very age giving an 
 impressive, antique appearance. The very long narrow 
 windows of the church its high, dark gray tower, on which 
 a cannon, mounted, did most destructive damage to the be- 
 siegers the black, grass-grown, ruined walls of St. Mary's 
 Abbey, seen in various streets, give this part of the town 
 an interesting appearance. Near all flows the Shannon, 
 across which is the Thomond bridge, an ancient structure, 
 at one end of which is a limestone rock shaped like a chair, 
 on which it is said the famous treaty by which, on condi- 
 tion of surrendering the city, the Catholics were guaran- 
 tied the free exercise of their religion, was signed, which 
 treaty was shamefully violated by the Protestant House of 
 Orange, who appear to have been rather more religious 
 than they were moral. The treaty stone may have been 
 glorious in another day ; but when I saw it, four dirty, hat- 
 less, ragged-scragged, shoeless, Irsh urchins were sitting on it, 
 and it was the indication to a grocery or drinking shop. 
 In this part of Ireland, the " chief end of man" seems to 
 be to drink. " Licensed by law to sell spirits," is seen on 
 many houses, as if, by a kind of "legal fiction," that which 
 is essentially injurious could be made right. Limerick 
 has some commerce fine lace is made here, gloves also 
 and fish-hooks ; but curious, interesting, antique wretched- 
 ness is more common than any thing else. In English 
 town there are several streets and places near Richmond 
 Square, that are really beautiful, and almost cleanly. But 
 W9 are off from Limerick. Station after station flies by
 
 248 KILLARNEY. 
 
 old stone, roofless and tenantless castles on high lonely hills 
 muddy, miserable, modern streets of Irish hovels, on bogs, 
 where immortal souls grovel earthward in slime and filth, 
 flit by there are miles of moor, heath, and bog, ridges of 
 mountain- then, each higher than the other, appearing in the 
 distance streams of black water, over which antique 
 bridges are seen. Depopulated, unhappy, beautiful, green, 
 desolate Ireland is seen everywhere, and at length we 
 stop in the midst of the Killarney scenery, naturally a 
 wonder, a glory, and a dream of embodied beauty, far in 
 the southwest of Ireland, one hundred and one miles from 
 Limerick. Killarney is the prettiest, little, glorious crea- 
 tion of lake, island, barren, bare, picturesque peak, water- 
 fall ruin in the whole world. There is a delicious little 
 completeness of beauty about here, which is suggestive of 
 the same kind of feelings as are induced by the sight of 
 some rarely beautiful woman, which almost every one may 
 remember to have seen somewhere. We arrived in the 
 evening, and I had a slight view of the principal lake, with 
 its islands and its mountain ramparts, from the windows of 
 my hotel, (the Lake Castle House,) in a mystic watery 
 moonlight. Next morning, in a walk along the shores of 
 the lake of a mile you meet with a grand ruin, and sur- 
 rounded by elegantly kept grounds. It is Muckross 
 Abbey, eight hundred years old, sitting in the splendor and 
 grandeur of ivy and a<re. Around are tombs, ancient and 
 modern ; some of the former being low mounds, covered 
 with ivy, said by the guide to be fourteen hundred years 
 old. Here is shown the grave of the last of the MacCarty 
 Mores, old chiefs of Ireland, who founded the abbey, and 
 whose possessions were confiscated in some Irish rebellion, 
 and the abbey itself suppressed in the times of Henry 
 VIII., since which it has remained a ruin. No tree can be 
 more grandly beautiful than the Irish yew. There are two 
 here, one on each side of the abbey, five hundred years old.
 
 KILLARNEY. 249 
 
 In the court-yard is one, said to be the finest tree in Great 
 Britain, planted by the early monks, and coeval with the 
 abbey. This is in the court-yard ; its large branches rest on 
 the ruin as if they protected it, and it supported them. It 
 is a silent, magnificent sight, in its stately darkness. The 
 abbey, where the fat, lazy monks, who made getting to the 
 other world their profession in this, lived ; the cloisters in 
 which they walked and read; the old church always the 
 principal building, with its form of a Latin cross, its col- 
 umns, and its crypts underneath, in which the monks were 
 buried, are all here in desolate ruin. The British Empire 
 has wisely thrown off Catholicism. These old churches, 
 priories, and abbeys, with their darkness and mystery 
 their secret passages, entered by a hidden spring, which 
 made certain massive stones revolve, and the secret of 
 which might be known only to some Jesuit in Italy, 
 who could thus send a minion into the house at any hour, 
 were unsuited to the progressive genius of the British 
 people. Catholicism looks back too much a healthy reli- 
 gion, as well as government, looks to the present and future. 
 But.we start on an excursion from our hotel in an Irish, 
 one-horse, two-wheeled, five-seated, possibly two actually, 
 vehicle, the jaunting car. We pass through the town 
 of Killarney, which is dirty as an uncovered corner of 
 hell, our hotel being some distance from it on the lake 
 shore. We pass bridges, ruined churches those of Ag- 
 hadoe on the right. We pass castles of the old times, and 
 Kate Kearney's grand-daughter of more modern times. She 
 offers us goat's milk well mixed with what she calls'' moun- 
 tain dew," or Irish whiskey. She is the grand-daughter of 
 the real Simon Pure, Kate Kearney, who dwelt by the 
 banks of Killarney. The mountain dew is perfectly exe- 
 crable; but Kate Kearney's grand-daughter, who is not 
 handsome at all, but an ugly old Irish witch -faced hag 
 notwithstanding her ancestor was remarkable for her beauty
 
 250 KILLARNEY. 
 
 persists in offering it to you. There are many guides prof- 
 ferring to conduct you through the Gap of Dunloe, which 
 you now enter. The car can proceed no further than a mile 
 or two within the Gap. The rest of the route through it 
 must be accomplished on foot. Having had the " political 
 driver" of the hotel, whom we found an intelligent man, 
 we amused ourselves by conversation with him. His ver- 
 nacular is the Irish language, as is the case with most of the 
 inhabitants of this part of the island. He says the heart of 
 the Irish people is in America ; and it is the place whither 
 they are all going. The mere mention of America stirs the 
 blood of an Irishman to an unwonted warmth, and his eye 
 brightens. Every person with whom I conversed has a 
 relative there; and nearly all have sent remittances home 
 to relieve the aged, who cannot leave, and assist those who 
 can. To raise Irishmen in Ireland to fight against America 
 in the British service is an utter impossibility. It would 
 be far easier to get them to fight against England. They 
 are the finest, best, most warm-hearted people on earth ; 
 and the brain ought to be turned to ashes and the heart 
 withered that would turn those generous people the only 
 friends we have in Europe from our rich and boundless 
 world-fields of the West. It is said they drink, are turbu- 
 lent and priest-ridden. But no people throw off the latter 
 influence more readily than the Irish ; and as to the former 
 things, other people drink a little too, and are also somewhat 
 turbulent ; and some of them do not live a thousand miles 
 from "Washington city. It is probable, however, that the 
 Irish- drink nearly as much as we do, when they can get it ; 
 but we drink much better liquor. The Gap of Dunloe is a 
 narrow pass between bare, rugged, mossy,, heathery lime- 
 stone mountains. The scene is savage, desolate, and almost 
 as sublime as the upper parts of the Grimsel Pass in Swit- 
 zerland, lacking, however, the enormous snows and glaciers 
 and the roaring Aar. Through the pass, which is four miles
 
 KILLARNEY. 251 
 
 long, runs a small stream, forming, in some places, black- 
 looking lakes, and occasionally waterfalls. The Purple 
 Mountain rises on the left, Magillicuddy's Bocks on the 
 right attaining a height of two thousand seven hundred 
 and three thousand four hundred feet the loftiest in Ire- 
 land. We ascend, in passing the Gap, for two miles, then 
 descend toward the three lakes of Killarney, having on our 
 right glimpses into the Black Valley a name quite appro- 
 priate to its appearance. Many of the lakes in the Gap have 
 legends attached to them. There is the Spirit Lake, in 
 which St. Patrick confined the last serpent in Ireland, in a 
 box, promising to let it out to-morrow, and where its wail- 
 ings may now be heard, as it exclaims, " Is to-morrow come 
 yet?" We were attended the whole of our course through 
 the Gap by Irish girls some of whom were pretty offering 
 us mountain dew and goat's milk. Their perseverance is 
 commendable, as they were poorly clad and barefoot, yet, 
 despite our repeated refusals, they followed us four miles, 
 having to walk the same distance back, in the hope of sell- 
 ing some. But let them not be despised. It is their only 
 means of making a living, and of getting to America, which 
 name is as sweet to their ears as Heaven. Descending into 
 the plain, we were met by another group of girls we 
 having, on the bestowment of a small gratuity, persuaded 
 the former group to go back. Those we now met were 
 more smiling in appearance, and somewhat better clad than 
 the former, who resigned only when we approached the 
 domain of the latter. These were really pleasant, graceful, 
 pretty Irish girls, who re-enforced their "mountain-dew" 
 with smiles, wit, and perseveringly followed us for miles, 
 till we drank the " dew," though with a wry face, probably 
 because it was made of rye. We now went through the 
 grounds adjoining Lord Brandon's cottage, a pretty place on 
 the lake. Lord Brandon is now dead, and the premises wear 
 an air of neglect. He came here to this solitary place with
 
 252 KILLLARNEY. 
 
 his beautiful wife from London. But it seems he did not 
 have her love. He was old. A manly cavalier appeared 
 under her window, whom she had loved. She eloped and 
 left Lord Brandon and his remote paradise. Our boatmen, 
 whom we had previously ordered at the hotel to meet us 
 here, were waiting for us. We. were now at the end of the 
 upper lake, and we had some ten or twelve miles to be 
 rowed in order to reach our hotel the ordinary way of 
 making the trip being to go by land and return by water. 
 The scene now presented was beautiful in the extreme, as 
 we were rowed along the smooth, deep waters of the lake 
 by the strong arms of two brawny, ardent Irishmen. The 
 mountains rose all around in immense masses of rocks, 
 brown with heather, as if bathed in perpetual sunshine. 
 The islands in the lakes being very numerous, are clad in 
 shrubbery of rare kinds the arbutus, the holly, the yew. 
 The lake appeared to be completely land locked a thing 
 of loveliness shut out from the world, and reflecting only 
 the skies above and the flowery creations of summer on its 
 sides. We landed on Arbutus Island, and partook of our 
 lunch. This is a sylvan rock in the waters, with walks 
 underneath the shrubbery of Nature's planting. An hour's 
 rowing brought us to a narrow, rapid river, connecting the 
 upper lake with Lake Muckross, the middle one of the 
 three sister lakes. Over the river to an ancient ivy-grown 
 bridge, erected by the Danes, consisting of one arch ; it is 
 of stone. Under this the water flows with great rapidity. 
 We were then on a fairy spot, called the " meeting of the 
 waters," there being openings from all the lakes into it. 
 On one side is Dinish Island, consisting of several acres, 
 overgrown with splendid vegetation the rich shrubbery 
 of this region and on it is also a beautiful cottage, sur- 
 rounded by pleasure walks and gardens. The arbutus, 
 even in winter, is a rich glossy green. The waxen, flesh- 
 like flowers, seem cradled in clusters of verdure. It grows
 
 KIU.AKNKY. 253 
 
 all along the rocky shores of the lake. We passed an awful 
 looking rock, almost perpendicular, two thousand feet above 
 the water, called the Eagle's Nest. The lower part is wooded, 
 but the upper is nearly bare. The nests are reached by men 
 let down by ropes, who deprive the parent birds, in their 
 absence, of their young, and fight dreadfully with the des- 
 poilers if they encounter them. Soon after we emerged 
 from the middle lake into the lower one, which is the largest, 
 across several miles of which we observed our hotel, which 
 we reached in the evening, passing nearly thirty islands, 
 some nearly an acre in size, others less. The mysterious, 
 supernatural spirit of one of the ancient Irish chiefs, rejoic- 
 ing in the simple and solemn cognomen of" The O'Donoghue," 
 is the presiding genius of all this region. Many of the boat- 
 men and guides would swear by all the holy saints and 
 gospels that they had seen him. He appears in various 
 characters sometimes walking on the waters, arrayed in 
 the ancient Irish costume, in solemn attitude, as if musing 
 on the wrongs of his conntry; at other times, on a great 
 white horse, making a furious onslaught on his enemies; 
 then again as a simple fisherman, with fishing basket and 
 pole swung over his shoulders. When discovered he creeps 
 into mist, and the lake becomes agitated and angry. All 
 Killarney is a loveliness, and " The O'Donoghue" its dweller. 
 Once every seven years he comes back to his ruined castle, 
 which, as he approaches, returns to its former magnificence. 
 All are reproduced, as in the olden library, prison-house, 
 kitchen, pigeon-house, leave their forms of rocks and re- 
 sume the appearance of a thousand years ago. Those who 
 have courage can follow him dry-footed over the deepest 
 parts of the lake to the mountains, where his treasures lie 
 concealed, which he bestows on them most liberally. When 
 the sun has risen, all vanishes away. "The O'Donoghue" 
 recrosses the waters, and vanishes amidst the returning ruins 
 of his own castle; and the library, the prison-house and all 
 
 w
 
 254 KILLARNEY. 
 
 become rocks. On the next day we took another excursion 
 by boat on the lower lake. We passed O'Donoghue's pul- 
 pit, O'Donoghue's table, O'Donoghue's hen and chickens, 
 O'Donoghue's library all these being rocks in the lake 
 which have a certain resemblance to the things after which 
 they are named. But we come at length to Koss Island. 
 This is a large island, having more than six hundred acres 
 all laid out in pleasure grounds, gardens, flower walks and 
 shrubbery ; and on one side stands a great high, green-gray 
 castle ruin Ross Castle, the residence of O'Donoghue him- 
 self in former times. It is entirely mantled with ivy, and 
 the crows and other birds fly around the high tower, and 
 build their nests thereon and rear their young. Great as 
 may have been the splendor and grandeur of these castles, 
 they come to the ivy and crow at last. As we came up to 
 the castle an Irish bagpipe player was sitting on the green, 
 who began some Irish airs as we approached. He played, 
 "The harp that once through Tara's halls," etc. These 
 grounds and ruins belong to Lord Kenmore, giving the 
 title of Lord Castle Ross to bis eldest son. I ascended the 
 tower to its top. The view of the old ruin below, with its 
 complete investiture of ivy, the waters of the lake with 
 the islands, the mountain boundaries, and the park around 
 the castle, is fine. From this, however, our boatman rows 
 us to a still lovelier island, a still more ancient ruin, and a 
 place of more historical interest Innisfallen, about three- 
 fourths of a mile from Ross Castle. On our way we passed 
 a huge rock, which is O'Donoghue's prison, which formerly 
 had in it a large cave, in which he confined his soldiers. 
 We landed on Innisfallen Island. It contains not more 
 than twenty acres. It is a sheep pasture ; and the soil is 
 of such exceeding richness, and produces grass so excellent, 
 that sheep die of fatness if allowed to remain longer than 
 three months. Every thing was green and beautiful, even 
 in the last days of October. The old ruin of the once
 
 KILLARNEY. 255 
 
 extensive abbey affected youth and prime under its garni- 
 ture of ivy. Rare evergreens of many kinds flourish. The 
 largest ash trees I have ever seen, one of which grows over 
 the walls that yet remain of St. Finian's tomb he having 
 been the founder of the abbey, which is said to be twelve 
 hundred years old nearly four hundred years older than 
 Ross Castle, the age of which, as stated by the caretaker of 
 the ruin, is seven hundred and ten years. Innisfallen is a 
 loveliness the soft waters, in dimply waves, encircle it; 
 the ruins of the monastery that singular idea of seclusion 
 in the middle ages choir, transept, aisle, refectory, dormi- 
 tory, oratory all are here in antique decay. 'Tis a spot 
 for unremorseful regret and tranquil submission. Moore 
 says: 
 
 "Sweet Innisfallen, fare thee well! 
 
 May calm and sunshine long be thine ; 
 How fair thou art, let others tell, 
 
 While bat to feel how fair be mine !" 
 
 On one end are some rocks, called the Bed of Honor, of 
 which the boatmen tell a legend about the Duke of North- 
 umberland and his wife. Passing about a mile of water, we 
 landed on the base of the " Tomies," as certain mountains 
 here are called, and saw a most beautiful cascade, called 
 O'Sullivan's, in a wooded and rocky seclusion, playing its 
 water-music to the spirits of the past. On another shore of 
 this lake are the beautiful demesnes of the Earl of Kenmare. 
 From the residence the ground slopes down toward the 
 lake; and the arrangements present every idea of taste, 
 art, and luxurious wealth. The flowers are of all varieties. 
 The gravel- walks are well-kept ; and one can be, in a few 
 minutes' walk, in lonely, shady, contemplative dells, or 
 rambling amongst flowers and rich evergreens ; or 011 the 
 lake side, surveying mountains, islands, and ruins.
 
 256 CORK. 
 
 But we are now in Dublin a day or two having passed. 
 We left Killarney, and proceeded to Cork, distant sixty- 
 four miles ; remaining there a day. Cork has one of the 
 finest harbors in the world ; and the shores alongside of it 
 present most interesting and beautiful scenery ruins, castles* 
 splendid modern country seats. In the city are some fine 
 streets and promenades ; and some streets, the dirtiest and 
 most diseased looking places in or out of Christendom, 
 where dwell, and drink, and die unhappy wretches, who, 
 perhaps, never once in their lives inhaled one mouthful of 
 the sweet, pure air of heaven. Humanity has got into a 
 terrible plight in some of these places, and looks as if it had 
 better fail and shut up shop, and stop business at once. 
 The city stands on the river Lee, near some marshes or 
 meadows, which the Irish name of the city (Coreagh) means. 
 Cork is said to have eighty-six thousand inhabitants. It 
 was founded on the site of a Pagan temple, by St. Fion Ban, 
 in the seventh century. Some of the Catholic churches are 
 fine rhave worshipers at all hours. Some have old statues 
 of the crucifix before them, to which, with the devotion of 
 ignorance, many were bowing. Some, as we passed, did 
 not know whether to pray or beg. The situation of the 
 city is partly in a pleasant vale, almost perpetually green ; 
 occasioned, perhaps, by Ireland's perpetual rain : for Ire- 
 land always drizzles. Within five miles is Blarney Castle, 
 ancient and strong-built, in the walls of which is the cele- 
 brated Blarney stone, the kissing of which is, from its posi- 
 tion in the wall, rather difficult. But it is said to give the 
 most miraculous powers of persuasion a sort of wheedling 
 eloquence. Having already told a great many things, we 
 shall not tell whether we kissed the stone or not ; and no 
 power on earth can make us tell allowing some scope for 
 imagination and conjecture. The following is one of the 
 eongs about it :
 
 CORK. 257 
 
 "The groTes of Blarney, 
 They look so charming, 
 Down by the pnrling 
 Of sweet, silent streams, 
 Being banked with posies 
 That spontaneous grow there, 
 Planted in order 
 Bj the sweet rook close. 
 There is a stone there 
 That whoever kisses 
 
 I he never misses 
 To grow eloquent. 
 'Tis he may clamber 
 To a lady's chamber 
 Or become a member 
 Of Parliament." 
 
 While quoting Irish poetry, I will refer to the latter rather 
 pretty lines about the chimes of Shandon Church in this 
 city: 
 
 " With deep affection 
 And recollection 
 
 1 often think on 
 Those Shandon bells, 
 Whose sound so wild would 
 In days of childhood 
 
 Fling round my cradle 
 
 Their magic spells. 
 
 I're heard bells chiming 
 
 Full many a clime in 
 
 Tolling sublime in 
 
 Cathedral shrine ; 
 
 While at a glib rate 
 
 Brass tongues would vibrate : 
 
 But all their music 
 
 Spoke nought like thine." 
 
 It is astonishing or else not how slightly poetry flour- 
 ishes in America. Perhaps if an action were brought by 
 America against the Muses to show cause why they had 
 not given us more of the poetic ability, they might rejoin 
 by finding some in the one twentieth part of what Willis 
 17 w2
 
 258 IRELAND. 
 
 calls his poems ; also find a few entire pieces perhaps three 
 or four of each in Longfellow, Bryant, and Whittier. 
 They could also allege the whole of Poe in extenuation. 
 Of him it may be said, he approaches more nearly the es- 
 sential feeling of the poetic than any other person inso- 
 much that he is a poet, even to a "t." But Longfellow's 
 wretched mass of diluted stuff in " Hiawatha" and " Miles 
 Standish's Courtship," where he tries to make the plain, 
 old, coarse Puritan court in hexameters, as well as the 
 entire train of "female contributors," would nonsuit the 
 Muses and clear the court, non die. Keats' observation is 
 both true and just, "that if poetry does not come as natur- 
 ally to one as the leaves on the trees, it had better not come 
 at all." Poetry doubtless will come to us after a while, 
 when our youthhood and our present shall have assumed 
 the mellow dignity of the past, and the mind, sated with 
 the present, requires the moonlight of memories the faded, 
 withered wreaths that grew carelessly and unheeded around 
 the soul as she grew up, and ere thought had succeeded 
 to action. When we cease to work and begin to feel, and 
 suffer, then poetry will come from the crushed, withered 
 heart, as the odor from the flower. 
 
 We arrived in Dublin last night at ten o'clock, by rail ; 
 this day being November 1st. The distance is one hun- 
 dred and sixty-four miles. The full moon was shining 
 brightly, and shedding her mysterious light on ivy-clasped 
 ruins of abbeys and castles given up to decay ; these be- 
 ing as numerous as waterfalls are in Switzerland. The 
 country presented the same succession of fine soil and vari- 
 egated scenery of hill, plain, bog, and moor and moun- 
 tain ; but the people were not. One would think the 
 country thinly peopled. A true census of Ireland would 
 probably show a reduction of the population by three or 
 four millions. 
 
 We saw a few villages all of which, no matter how
 
 IRELAND. 259 
 
 small, filthy or mean had many houses, on the doors of 
 which was inscribed " Licensed to sell spirits," as if they 
 were fully determined to be sure of that at all events, and 
 the condition of some way-passengers who got into the 
 cars occasionally, showed that the license was not in vain. 
 We saw, also, a continuation of those indescribably dirty, 
 and forlorn-looking hovels, in which the inhabitants seem 
 caricatures of human beings. Two of the unhappy towns 
 in the midst of the great bog of Allen, are spoken of thus : 
 
 14 Great bog of Allen swallow down, 
 That odious heap called Phillipstown, 
 And if thy maw can swallow more, 
 Pray take, and welcome, Tullangore." 
 
 Ireland, upon the whole one of the most beautiful coun- 
 tries in the world, is not a pleasant one to travel in. Even 
 the best towns have many parts appallingly dirty. It is true 
 a tourist is not obliged to go into these parts ; yet he 
 would see but little of a country, who confined himself to 
 the precincts of his hotel. But beseeching beggars are met 
 everywhere, and their condition is often more eloquent 
 than their words. Some have implored me to buy them a 
 piece of bread. "I'm real hungry," said one to me this 
 evening ; ' I have had no food since last night," and much 
 more of the same kind of talk. A sixpence astonished 
 her. Said she, " May the Lord bless your honor, and keep 
 your honor, and make your honor a happy man." The 
 beggars avail themselves of the whole storehouse of Heaven 
 to reward you. It is pleasant to give to those that know 
 you not, and whom you will never meet again. There is 
 a peculiar pleasure in bestowing a small gift on the ex- 
 tended palm of a blind man. Most Americans give ; but 
 Englishmen do not, lest, as they say, they would be en- 
 couraging beggary. This is absurd. Beggary is an insti- 
 tution, and charity is a principle in the heart, which, but
 
 260 DUBLIN. 
 
 for it, could have no operation. It is best, however, to be 
 one's own almoner, and give discerningly. There are 
 those in these countries that can live in no other way than 
 by beggary the old, the crippled, and the unfortunate. 
 Giving to them is its own " exceeding great reward," and 
 in bestowing a small donation from our superfluity, to 
 bring a smile into the face of the blind or the widow, or 
 render their wretched life a little more tolerable, the donor is 
 the donee. Some contemptible sap-headed simpleton, some 
 dog-hearted wretch, may say that beggary is the conse- 
 quence of actual or former vice ; that nobody in any coun- 
 try need be a beggar, and that what is bestowed on them 
 is spent in drink. He had better be sure he never spent 
 money himself for base and unworthy purposes, before 
 he censures a hungry beggar, who might spend a cent or 
 two in creating a little artificial happiness in the midst of 
 his misery and degradation. The excuses that are made 
 are only to conceal the close miserly grasping heart within. 
 Benevolence does not stop to investigate the causes of the 
 distress it sees in sufferance before it, and administer a 
 lecture on the relations of things. Every man has had 
 beggars in his ancestry, up to Adam. Some say, let them 
 go to the poor or work-house. The feeling of being 
 obliged to go to such places is no doubt more degrading, 
 more disgraceful, in the mind of a beggar, than to solicit 
 in person a little charity, or boldly to beg. It would be 
 better to be mistaken in four-fifths of our alms-giving than 
 never to give at all ; and some who refuse to give may be 
 denying a debt their ancestors owe to the beggars' ances- 
 tors. It is pleasant to the beggar to have a little money, 
 and to buy for oneself the bread one eats. The true 
 charity is to do good as one has opportunity. 
 
 Dublin is really a splendid city, almost worthy to be 
 the capital of an independent Irish kingdom. Many of 
 the streets look like some of the better parts of London,
 
 DUBLIN. 261 
 
 composed of regular, uniform, dark-looking brick edifices. 
 We have spent some days here Clontarf, is near the city, 
 next to the sea. Here Brien Boroimhe fought his last 
 battle against the Danes defeated them, and lost his life in 
 1014. No traces remain of the encounter. The sea views 
 here are splendid the hill of Howth projecting a long 
 way into the sea and the various ruins and bridges around. 
 The Phoenix Park is a very interesting place to make an 
 excursion to occupying an undulating eminence, planted 
 with trees, and having most rich and lovely prospects of 
 the gently sloping mountains of Wicklow on the south, em- 
 bracing the "Sweet vale of Avoca" in their bosom. The 
 park has an imposing monument to Lord Wellington. 
 The form of it is a quadrangular truncated obelisk of 
 Wicklow granite, on the four sides of which are inscribed 
 the names of all his victories, except Waterloo, as if the 
 duke's claims there admitted of some doubt. This is evi- 
 dently done with some design, as the names of some of the 
 duke's victories, which are only known to his admirers, 
 and probably were unknown to himself, are on it. The 
 grounds are extensive. There is a monument to Lord Ches- 
 terfield. There are many specimens of live animals ; there 
 are some white-tailed eagles. Moore's monument, recently 
 inaugurated, is on a low pedestal. The statue of the poet 
 on it represents him more as a heavy, well-fed Dutchman, 
 than any thing else. This is near Trinity College, and not 
 far distant is an equestrian statue of William III., Prince 
 of Orange, which looks like a crowned wild Indian. Trin- 
 ity College itself is one of the most interesting places in all 
 Ireland. The building itself is very extensive, and in ad- 
 mirable taste. It contains a museum, in which I noticed an 
 ancient Irish harp, said to have belonged to Briaft Boroimhe. 
 It is small, and some portions having been lost have been 
 awkwardly repaired. It is interesting on account of its 
 antiquity, and even the suspicion of having belonged to
 
 DUBLIN. 
 
 that stern old Irish king unlettered, but brave, generous, 
 and chivalrous-souled, gives it value. There are here some 
 of those very singular Druid stones, which are scattered 
 all over the three kingdoms. This one is in the form of a 
 column, two feet in diameter, and four or five feet high, 
 tapering toward the top, and on the corners are inscriptions 
 in the Ogham characters, which is a kind of alphabet of 
 straight lines in various attitudes, representing letters, 
 which some have thought they had deciphered. It is sup- 
 posed to have been used by the Druids prior to the intro- 
 duction of Christianity into Ireland. There are here some 
 "cromlechs," or sun-altars. It is undeniable that there was 
 a Christianity in Ireland prior to Catholicism and Protest- 
 antism, from some remains here. St. Patrick's Cathedral, 
 in the older part of the city, is one of the venerable build- 
 ings of Ireland, being some fourteen hundred years old. 
 One of the reasons why traveling in Europe is interesting, 
 is because you can trace the different and successive eras 
 and periods of religion and government. You can see how 
 and when they lived and died. In America there are as 
 yet few eras few revolutions. These grand old Gothic 
 churches belong to the period of Catholic domination, 
 though now used for Protestant service. Much of this 
 building seems a restoration on the old foundation. It is 
 grand as only Catholic churches can be, with its pillars, 
 towers, tombs, and general ghostliness. Sk Patrick founded 
 it on the preceding one, on the site of one of the holy Irish 
 wells, where he baptized his converts. Christ Church is 
 also a very extensive, but more modern building, with per- 
 ishing and dubious monuments to the memory of those 
 who were great, but now are dust. The Danes are said to 
 have built 4he vaults ; and St. Patrick, who seems to have 
 been a good kind of Saint generally, celebrated mass in 
 one of them. In the Exchange are some statues one, a 
 very impressive one of Daniel O'Connell, represented as
 
 DUBLIN. 263 
 
 delivering an oration, and holding a scroll in his hand on 
 which is inscribed " Repeal of the Union." Of late there 
 have been divers demonstrations, placards, and other things, 
 showing very clearly that Ireland I mean the Irish part 
 of it would enact the recent course of India, if there were 
 any hope of success. The Celt is not thoroughly united 
 to the English, and cannot be. They are a different people; 
 more fiery, and impulsive; they are quicker and warmer in 
 love and hate ; not so cold, calculating, persevering. Ire- 
 land groans in her vassalage yet, and clanks her chains as 
 her children are ousted from their soil ; but she can do 
 nothing, the fire of independence is burning out: and per- 
 haps it is better as it is. Ireland will become a pasture 
 ground to fatten sheep and cattle on for the English no- 
 bility. The Irish will recreate in a new soil what they 
 cannot originate in Ireland, they will find in progress in 
 America. From the Western coast of Ireland, (near Gal- 
 way,) may be seen at times (so they say) the Enchanted 
 Islands the Irish heaven where St. Patrick comes back 
 again, and the myth becomes a man. It is an allegory of 
 America, which shares the warmth of an Irishman's 
 heart with the O'Donoghue, the O'Brien, and the gloriousness 
 of the past. And it is a better and healthier feeling. Na- 
 tions decay and degrade on their own soil, after a term of 
 centuries, but are rarely regenerated thereon. Laborers can- 
 not and should not remain on a soil where they receive but 
 ten cents a day, the women seven and eight cents, (as was 
 the case in Ireland until recently, since which the great 
 emigration and reduction of population have nearly doubled 
 the above rates,) where life must live in filthy mud-huts, 
 and where utmost exertion is barely adequate to get bread, 
 and where the owners of the lands prefer sheep to men. 
 Let them go to the great West of America, where, what- 
 ever may be the conduct of unprincipled demagogues, is 
 the only place, either in earth's past or present, where the
 
 264 DUBLIN. 
 
 mind, the soul, and the efforts of man to better his condi- 
 tion are essentially free and successful. There they will 
 find an Enchanted Island, which does not disappear with 
 the mirage of the morning. The Law Courts of Dublin 
 are interesting to visit. The lawyers differ much in ap- 
 pearance from those of America having a peculiar cos- 
 tume, long gowns and gray wigs. The judges wear a gilt 
 uniform, and their gray wigs come down to their shoulders. 
 They sit in small rooms adjoining a large rotunda. The pres- 
 ence of so many snowy-looking gentlemen is an interesting 
 sight. The ermine on their wigs is intended to indicate 
 the purity of their intentions the lawyers being slightly 
 pure, and the judges a great deal more, having larger and 
 whiter wigs. Excepting the frequent recurrence of "My 
 lord," and " Your lordships," the method of procedure is 
 very similar to that in America. The judges, however, in 
 proceeding to their rooms, have a stately procession around 
 the rotunda. Dublin has about two hundred and fifty-four 
 thousand inhabitants, and is about eleven miles in circuit. 
 The finest view of it is that on Carlisle Bridge, which 
 spans the river LifFey, on which the city is built, the view 
 embracing the magnificent Sackville street, with its lofty 
 column to Lord Nelson, the quays of granite on the banks 
 of the river, and the thousands of masts seaward. There 
 is a long sea wall or pier extending three miles out to sea. 
 The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who resides in this city, 
 keeps up a kind of kingly court here. Some of the squares 
 in Dublin are beautiful those of St. Stephen's Green, and 
 the Duke of Rutland's Gardens in particular. 
 
 But adieu to old Ireland with her fertile soil, fine cli- 
 mate, and mournful ruins of the past. The old Irish Sea 
 is trembling beneath our vessel, as we start from Kings- 
 town, the port of Dublin, in a steamer for Holyhead, in 
 Wales, across these rough, narrow straits. There are the 
 hills of Wicklow on one side, and on the other the Hill of
 
 WALES. 265 
 
 Howth with its ruined abbey, and its Druid stones, and its 
 ruins of St. Fintin's church, old. But I have a specialty for 
 getting sea-sick, and these short English seas afford a fine 
 opening for its exercise. Four hours and a half of this 
 cumulation of all horrors are endured. The vessel heaves, 
 the sea heaves, and we all heave up. Some are lying on 
 the floor in unimaginable distress, the water dashes over 
 the deck, and all are miscellaneously miserable. But here 
 is the great, bluff, barren coast of Wales, and here is the 
 ancient town of Holyhead, with its piers, breakwaters, and 
 artificial harbor extending out to the sea, and there are 
 patches of sunlight lying on the hedged fields beyond. It 
 is sixty-four miles across the strait. One of the breakwater 
 piers here is five thousand feet long. Not far from this are 
 the Skerries, a light-house on a barren dreary rock, which, 
 on account of the enormous revenue derived from passing 
 ships, was sold by the private person to whom it belonged, 
 in 1835, for $2,300,000. We are now in Anglesea, in 
 North Wales. The Carnarvon mountains are visible. This 
 is honest, old-fashioned Wales, where the people rejoice in 
 a tremendously long ancestry; in a language without vow- 
 els, and in being the true real Britons, whom Julius Caesar 
 could not conquer. 
 
 We leave Holyhead by railway for Bangor. There are 
 Welsh mountains along the coast bare fields in the inte- 
 rior, or else covered with a coarse grass, called whinege. 
 Here and there rises a ruin, or we cross a lake, or rush 
 rapidly through a superannuated town. Then we approach 
 the Straits of Menai, which the railway crosses by what 
 is called the Britannia Tubular Bridge, a singular and 
 most ingenious construction. Telford's famous Suspension 
 Bridge is a mile or two further off; and then passing 
 through a tunnel we enter Bangor, a pleasant old Welsh 
 town on the straits, with good hotels, and celebrated as an 
 excellent bathing resort in summer. Ensconced in our
 
 266 WALES. 
 
 hotel we listen to the November winds November, the 
 most unpopular, best abused of all the months. It intro- 
 duces us here to firesides and old home associations, all of 
 which are pleasant after the rough sea voyage across the 
 Irish Sea. 
 
 I have spent a day in Bangor. The scenery here is very 
 fine the fields even yet green, and doubtless in summer 
 well cultivated. The Welsh mountains among them 
 Snowdon, the loftiest peak in Wales and England are in 
 view; the Straits of Menai also pass near the town. Here 
 is the fine modern castle of Colonel Pennant, called Penn- 
 rhyn Castle, with its elegant grounds, its parks, seven miles 
 in circuit, fenced with slates ; and near this are extensive 
 slate-quarries, owned by Colonel Pennant, whose income 
 from them is stated at $300,000 per annum. The slates 
 are of excellent quality some deeply blue, others light 
 purple, and the ordinary uses of marble are usurped by it 
 here tomb-stones, steps to houses, fences, roofs, are also 
 made of it. But Bangor is chiefly great on bridges Tel- 
 ford's Bridge, five hundred and fifty feet long, one hundred 
 and fifty-three feet high, and twenty broad, is a brilliant 
 iron creation, suspended in air. There are two carriage- 
 ways, paved, and a foot-path between them. The weight 
 of iron in the bridge is six hundred and fifty tons. Four 
 immense stone towers sustain the sixty-four tiers of iron 
 bars on which the bridge is suspended. The other bridge 
 carries the railway through a tube of wrought iron, made 
 of plates riveted together, self-sustaining, and the whole 
 fully as strong and much lighter than solid masses of iron. 
 A continuation of the riveted tubes is carried to a tower in 
 the middle of the strait ; thence to the other side. Sum- 
 mer heat lengthens the whole structure one foot. It is so 
 firm that a heavy railway train that I saw passing across 
 scarcely moved it. It is fifteen hundred and thirteen feet 
 long, fourteen wide (for two tracks), and one hundred and
 
 WALES. 267 
 
 four high. The total weight is eleven thousand four hundred 
 tons. The whole is regarded as one of the greatest triumphs 
 of architectural skill of any age. These two bridges in 
 the air the foaming angry straits below them, with its 
 rock islands, on which are humble but comfortable-looking 
 fishermen's huts the hedged fields around, the peaked 
 mountains of the Snowdon range, the bare barricades of 
 hills near Bangor all give to this scenery an aspect of 
 wild sublimity. In one of the houses here I was much 
 impressed by a singular portrait, a canvass painting, 
 of a man or boy in rags and tatters, and with unshorn 
 beard, and intensely occupied with a book. On inquiring 
 his history, I was told he was the son of parents in the 
 most limited circumstances had never been at school, nor 
 was taught any thing except the letters of the alphabet ; but 
 his passion and talent for the acquisition of learning, espe- 
 cially languages, became so remarkable, that in a few years 
 he was able to speak and read fourteen, and frequently at 
 Liverpool and other places, astonished foreigners by ad- 
 dressing them in their own tongues. He never acquired 
 any property, though some noblemen of the country inter- 
 ested themselves in his behalf; his associates were of the 
 lowest order, his only pleasure appearing to be to ramble 
 about the mountains intently absorbed in reading, books 
 being everywhere furnished him ; he did not become dissi- 
 pated ; considerable sums were offered him to locate in 
 respectable families all of which he declined, and finally 
 died in a ditch, about the age of fifty, his great talent for 
 learning languages being the only part of his mind that 
 was developed ; one of those rare instances which Nature 
 sometimes produces of a single talent in excess. 
 
 Leaving Bangor I proceeded through North Wales. On 
 the. right are the high, steep, bare mountains, those of 
 Penraaen-Mawr on the left is the sea, and the railway 
 passes over a most lovely and gently slope of cultivated
 
 268 LIVERPOOL. 
 
 land between, with neat houses, and some old towns. Here 
 is Con way, with its shattered, battered, ragged, but vener- 
 able castle, frowning over the angry flood. It is founded 
 on an enormous rock, and there are eight towers, and por- 
 tions of it are garmented with ivy. The walls of the city, 
 built A. D. 1284, are almost entire, with round massive 
 towers at various distances, rising grandly in their decay- 
 ing age. Then there is St. Asaph, with its cathedral, which 
 is cruciform, with a square embattled tower rising from the 
 intersection of the nave and transept ; and the whole has a 
 very Gothic and antique appearance. It was first built 
 A. D. 596. We next enter Chester a kind of remaining 
 Roman town, the railway terminus of which, built in the 
 Italian style, is the largest in England, and now the million 
 of gas-lit eyes of Liverpool glare at us in the misty darkness. 
 We cross the Mersey, and are in the midst of the streets 
 of the cotton commercial city. In old England again, 
 after having gazed on Scotch mists and lakes, and been 
 horrified and stupefied with filthy Irish towns and desolate 
 bogs, and lone hills, where mourned ivy clad ruins of old 
 years, and mute Druid stones. Liverpool is livelier than 
 all these it is of the busy, bustling present the healthy 
 human things of money-making and hoarding are here, 
 which are far better than the past things of a thousand 
 years of Time's cemetery. Some one says antiquarians 
 have heads in ruins like the things they contemplate. It is 
 doubtless true, a mental or moral ruin feels a sympathy 
 with a material one. 
 
 I have been in. Liverpool several days. It has about 
 three hundred and seventy-six thousand inhabitants, stand- 
 ing fronting the Irish Sea, near the mouth of the Mersey 
 River, and is said to be about in the centre of the British 
 Islands. The name is thought by some to be a corruption 
 of " Lower Pool." The site of the city is on a slope of 
 red sandstone. The docks are artificial harbors, extending
 
 LIVERPOOL. 269 
 
 five miles along the river. Some of them are five hundred 
 yards long, one hundred and sixty wide, and cover a space 
 of thirteen acres. There are also floating piers. There are 
 twenty-one docks; they will hold fifteen hundred sail, and 
 enclose two hundred acres of water. About two million 
 bales of raw cotton are imported here from America. The 
 city covers a space of seven or eight square miles. One of 
 the finest halls in all England, if not the finest, is here 
 St. George's Hall. It is six hundred feet long, one hundred 
 and seventy broad, and is surrounded by Grecian columns 
 of most magnificent proportions. The building cost 
 $1,000,000. I attended a concert here on the organ, which 
 was a poor affair, many thousand leagues behind that I 
 heard at Friburg. St. James' Cemetery, in the centre of 
 the city, in an old stone-quarry, is a very pretty and at- 
 tractive spot, with some monuments and some tombs in 
 the rocks. Lord Brougham, who is exceedingly popular 
 in this city, is here at present he delivered an address in 
 the Mechanics' Hall. He appears to be near eighty has a 
 noble, strong, not handsome Scotch face, and when enter- 
 ing the hall received the cheers with which he was met 
 with some embarrassment; perhaps he recollected that 
 Cicero says a good orator always feels embarrassed at the 
 commencement of his oration. We leave the peat fires of 
 Ireland and here have coal again, and we feel in a different 
 atmosphere a kind of coarse complaining British energy 
 is everywhere felt around one. They are a great people, 
 but not a lively or a polished people these English. 
 Their energy is not the impulsive kind of the Irish or 
 French, or of the Southern States of America, but is per- 
 severing, cold, effectual, firm. They are rough and self- 
 satisfied in theory, but never admit it. Living in a 
 detestable climate they have become detestable themselves. 
 Yet the Englishman always means well rudely. He is a 
 silent Yankee, who is too proud, sulky, and indifferent 
 
 x2
 
 270 CHESTER. 
 
 to interrogate you endlessly. He has plenty of blood 
 and beef, and though he is lower in the pleasing virtues 
 than some three or four of the nations of Europe, he is 
 higher in the substantial ones than all of them. 
 
 But adieu to Liverpool. We resume our route toward 
 London, but stop some hours in the old and singular town 
 of Chester, once a Roman station, or castrum, from whence 
 its name is derived. It has about one hundred and twenty- 
 eight thousand inhabitants, and gives one of his titles to the 
 Prince of Wales, who is Earl of Chester. It is on the river 
 Dee, thirteen miles from Liverpool. The pastures around 
 here are very fine. Here ae fed the cattle from which are 
 made the famous Cheshire cheese, which weigh from sixty 
 to one hundred and sixty pounds. The pastures were at 
 one time nearly worn out, but were renovated with bone 
 dust. I walked around the old walls, from some points of 
 which there are fine views into Wales. The top of the wall 
 on which you walk is near six feet broad, and it is said they 
 were built by the daughter of King Alfred. *Vhere the 
 cliff overhangs the river, the height is fifty or sixty feet. 
 I also entered the old Castle, now a place for barracks. It 
 was built by the nephew of William the Conqueror. There 
 is a very curious and interesting old chapel here, ivy-grown, 
 like that at Killaloe. The old guide took us around and 
 showed us the tombs, etc., and falsified history in the man- 
 ner the guides usually do, who confound various incidents 
 and chronologies. It is probable that ancient history is fully 
 as reliable as modern history. In this newspaper age the 
 accounts of a single recent transaction are often so numerous 
 and conflicting each person publishing a statement accord- 
 ing to his own impressions that one can scarcely weigh 
 their various verities. In earlier times there would proba- 
 bly be but one account, and that a true one. 
 
 We left Chester; and soon after the line enters Wales 
 again, and we pass by some of the loveliest scenery I ever
 
 ENGLAND. 271 
 
 saw: the Valley of the Dee, the Vale of Llangollen, in 
 Wales, the Trevor Hills, the distant retreating slopes, 
 must always be among the delicicc of memory. The view 
 from the great Viaduct embraces a slope of mountains dotted 
 with white cottages of Welsh peasants, with terraces also, 
 the tops of the mountains being serrated and wooded, and 
 sometimes castellated. The Viaduct consists of nineteen 
 arches, sixty feet span, one hundred and forty-eight feet 
 above the river Dee, and is fifteen hundred and thirty-two 
 feet long. The Vale of Llangollen is said to equal that of 
 the Rhine in beauty ; and, undoubtedly, some one or two 
 miles of it equals any thing on the Rhine. Some of the 
 names of churches here are not the most easy words in the 
 world to pronounce. The following is a specimen : " Collen 
 ap Givynnawg ap Llyddwg ap Couvrda ap Caradoc Treich- 
 fas ap Lleyn Merion ap Enion Yuth ap Cunedda Wle- 
 dig ! 1 1" The Vale of Langollen looks more like a " Ilappy 
 Valley" than any place I have seen. Our route proceeded 
 to Shrewsbury. Many of these places are interesting in 
 English history, and to us also; for we did not start up 
 fully grown on the 4th of July, 1776, and commence as- 
 serting that all "men had certain inalienable rights, amongst 
 which were life, liberty," etc. No; we had an ancestry 
 before that. The men of England Bacon, Shakspeare, 
 Addison, Pope, etc. the history of England, up to the time 
 of the Revolution, belongs as much to us as to Old England ; 
 and the sacred, classic, and historic regions of England, 
 and the events prior to 1776, are common property with 
 them and us. It is our own history we read before that 
 time, and America is but the culmination of what began in 
 England produced her revolutions, expelled Catholicism, 
 enacted Protestantism, and did high-handed and brave- 
 hearted things generally. The glory of England is ours 
 too; though within the last hundred years we have been 
 diverging and setting up for ourselves, by way of letting
 
 272 STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 
 
 our respected mother country "know we are out." She 
 was too slow for us. 
 
 Shrewsbury is a real old Welsh town. It has about 
 twenty thousand inhabitants. It is on the Severn Kiver. 
 The great Keep, or Castle, and part of the walls built by 
 an adherent of the Conqueror, yet remain. There are 
 numerous spires of churches; many picturesque old Eliza- 
 bethan buildings. Our route lay from this to Leamington, 
 a pleasant watering-place, where we abode for several days, 
 passing in our course a number of seats, and castles, in this 
 the finest part of England. Leamington is contiguous to 
 many interesting places. It has a population of sixteen 
 thousand. The shops are numerous and elegant, and the 
 waters have medicinal virtues. Warwick town and castle 
 the latter one of the most celebrated and best preserved 
 in England are within a mile. The castle is built on the 
 banks of the Avon is surrounded by a high, strong wall, 
 and is half hid in rich shrubbery and ivy, out of which its 
 towers rise in venerable aristocratic grandeur. The present 
 Earl of Warwick, who resides in the castle with his two 
 sisters, fair and elegant girls, whom I met riding out, are not 
 descendants of the famous king-making Warwick, whose 
 offspring are not now numbered among the nobility of 
 England. There are two towers, one called Grey's, and the 
 other Caesar's; a drawbridge, below which is the moat; 
 there are battlemented walls, large windows, Eoman sculp- 
 ture, ancient armor, and some fine paintings within the 
 castle. But within twelve miles of Leamington is Strat- 
 ford-on-Avon, the burial and birth-place of the greatest 
 uninspired genius of the Teutonic race. The road passes 
 through the town of Warwick, then over a most lovely 
 and green country in high cultivation; hedges, fields, 
 planted groves, and in some places glimpses of most beau- 
 tiful scenery ; the winding Avon tracked by the willows on 
 its banks, the Malvern hills in the distance forming a land-
 
 STRATFOBD-ON-AVON. 273 
 
 scape essentially English, and perhaps found in no other 
 country. At length we are in the town, a small one, about 
 four thousand inhabitants, in which Shakspeare was born, 
 April 23, 1564. A stroll along the street brings us to the 
 house a low two-story ancient-looking wooden tenement. 
 It is at present vacant, being undergoing what are called 
 restorations, that is bringing it back to its former appear- 
 ance as much as possible. It is a very irregular and ex- 
 ceedingly ugly house. It is understood it is to be enclosed 
 in a glass case, and preserved from further decay. The 
 old caretaker, living near, takes us through the principal 
 rooms some of which have the names of numerous visit- 
 ors, including kings as well as commoners, scribbled on 
 the walls and windows ; not a few of the names are Amer- 
 ican ones one or two of our Presidents, Washington Ir- 
 ving, N. P. Willis, Barnum, etc. The latter offered $10,000 
 for the house, intending to transport it to America, and 
 exhibit it as a speculation. This aroused all England, and 
 a company was formed who purchased it, one of their 
 number, Sir John Shakspeare, claiming collateral descent 
 from the poet, having bequeathed $10,000 for rescuing it 
 from decay. Formerly it had long been kept as a tavern. 
 There are about ten rooms in the house. The fire-places 
 are very large and old-fashioned, and by their side we may 
 imagine Shakspeare seated, when a boy, with the shadows 
 of ideas forming within him, which in after life were to 
 develop into glorious written realities. He was the oldest 
 of eight children. Of his early days very little is known, 
 less perhaps than of the early days of any one who has so 
 largely realized fame. His father was once sheriff of this 
 county. The greater part of his youth was perhaps spent 
 in roving, by which means he acquired his extraordinary 
 knowledge of human nature. His education was imper- 
 fect; he married young; he was accused of poaching deer 
 on the domains of Thomas Lucy, near Stratford; he re- 
 18
 
 274 SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 venged himself by a satire on Lucy, said to have been 
 mercilessly severe, (his first essay in the art poetic, per- 
 haps) ; he went to London, became a prompter at the 
 theatre, acted also. It was in London that his plays were 
 written and acted in his own theatre, and he became the 
 favorite of many wits, and his friends were amongst the 
 highest in rank, and even Queen Elizabeth noticed him 
 favorably. Acquiring considerable emoluments he returned 
 to his native place, and died on his fifty-third birth-day. 
 His wife, who was eight years older than he, survived him. 
 His regard for her does not appear to have been very great, 
 as she resided at Stratford during the long period of his 
 residence in London, and he mentions her only slightly in 
 his will. His goodness of heart and honesty were, it is 
 said, remarkable; he was of a handsome presence, and 
 very good company. Without doubt, his dramatic writ- 
 ings surpass those of all ages and countries, in thorough, 
 brief, and true, and consistent delineation of human char- 
 acter, as well as in variety and interest. That kind of 
 writing, however, is not the highest, but in it Shakspeare 
 stands unrivaled. His mother was of a much more ancient 
 family than his father, and was probably a lady of large 
 and varied mind and genuine heart. A walk of three 
 quarters of a mile, through the old village, brought us to 
 the church. This is a large and impressive-looking edifice. 
 Around it creeps the green ivy, and around are the dead 
 of all names and ages, sleeping, some of them, for several 
 hundreds of years, forgotten even by the unfaithful stone to 
 which their names and virtues were entrusted. A noble 
 avenue of elms, with their now fading foliage, leads up to 
 the church. At one end of it is the beautiful Avon, mur- 
 muring and meandering through meadows. The stones of 
 which the church is built are gray, and mossy with age. 
 Entering you discover a large interior, and it is well 
 lighted with narrow high windows, some of which have
 
 SHAKSPEAUE. 275 
 
 painted glass. You hasten on, walking on tombstones, flat 
 and smooth others with effigies and inscriptions, till you 
 enter the choir of this cruciform Gothic church. The sexton 
 unrolls a carpet on the floor, and you see a large, flat, old- 
 looking stone, under which rest the remains of Shakspeare. 
 His wife and two daughters are beside him. The singular 
 epitaph, in its old English spelling and style, carved on the 
 stone, meets your eye, as follows : 
 
 "Good frend, for Jeans' sake forbear* 
 To dig the dust encloased heare ; 
 Bleste bee y man y spares thes stones, 
 And curst be hee y* moves my bones." 
 
 At one end of the choir, near this stone, is a small mon- 
 ument to the poet, on which are some interesting lines by 
 Ben Jonson. Shakspeare died in 1616, more than two 
 hundred and forty years ago. The family in the direct line 
 were all extinct in the second generation. One loves to 
 linger around this place. There is a delicate tracery in the 
 old monkish windows, and a " dim religious light" on the 
 antique stained glass, and there is a strange charm in stand- 
 ing near the dust that contained such a mind as that which 
 composed Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, the Tem- 
 pest, with their wealth of wisdom and their world of living; 
 that mind which lived in nor was exhausted by so many 
 characters. The guide now shows you the Visitors' Book, 
 that you may add your name to the many, now filling sev- 
 eral volumes. You see some distinguished names Fill- 
 more, Van Buren, Irving, Willis, Bremer, and others. 
 But we pay our guide the expected fee, and depart from 
 the regions of the murmuring, meadow-bounded Avon, and 
 from the old church, where sleep the remains of him who 
 is more quoted perhaps than any other merely human 
 writer. We return through the scenes of peaceful, con- 
 tented, and rather dull and ancient England, to Warwick,
 
 276 KENILWORTH. 
 
 the old town with its gate, towers built on rock ; its grey 
 churches and remnants of old walls, and its grand castle 
 rising out of a sea of shrubbery like an isle of Time. An 
 organ-grinder is filling the streets with melody as we pass 
 in the dim dusk of the evening the old castle, burdened 
 with its past history, its present beauty and adornments, 
 realizing the heroic strains of music. 
 
 But to-day I have been over another scene of England 
 along the fine roads, each one having a fine foot-path bor- 
 dered with hedges and rows of stately elms the church 
 bells of Leamington melting into a mere echo behind all a 
 scene of England's green fields, and especially those lovely, 
 grassy lanes and old hills. It must be confessed that the 
 real Englishman, such as you meet him on the soil, in this 
 the centre of England, is a decidedly rough, boorish, and 
 rather insensate, beer-drinking, beefy specimen of humanity, 
 with but few ideas and no poetry whatever. But here is 
 indeed a grand ruin the Castle of Kenilworth. A high 
 wall, with several towers, outside of which is a large moat, 
 or ditch, appears to have surrounded the grounds ; near the 
 centre of which is another thick and lofty wall, which sur- 
 rounded the castle: which latter is a mass of walls and 
 stones, carved ceilings, ruined rooms, and ivy. The narrow, 
 arched stone window-frames are many of them entire ; and 
 gome of the rooms are still pointed out as those which 
 Queen Elizabeth occupied in the days when the Earl of 
 Leicester was in his greatness and magnificence, and thought 
 "his glory was arising." One is also shown as that in which 
 his wife, the unfortunate Amy Robsart, was murdered. The 
 mantle of past wickedness seems resting on the hoary ruin. 
 Yet it is grand in its decay. The walls are yet high, and 
 the court-yards, which the extensive wings of the castle 
 embrace, are large and grassy ; but trees grow among the 
 ruins, and grass has found a resting place on all the walls ; 
 and desolation and slow decay have intruded into the halls
 
 OXFORD. 277 
 
 where once all was gayety and royalty. The castle is un- 
 inhabited, though it has had a thousand years of history. 
 Small and mean farm houses are around it, in one of which 
 lives the dull old gatekeeper. In old times it had its chapel, 
 where burnt the perpetual torch lights over the remains of 
 its founder. The castle has been a royal residence a fort- 
 ress and has sustained a six months' siege. There is near it 
 a tilt and tournament yard, in which chivalrous games were 
 enacted in old. The expense of the entertainment which 
 the earl gave the queen, whom he hoped to marry, exceeded 
 five thousand dollars per day. The castle is situated on a rock, 
 and the circuit within its walls embraces seven acres. It was 
 all built of freestone, hewn and cut; walls in many places 
 fifteen feet thick ; and it was all covered with lead. Crom- 
 well gave it to some of his officers, who dismantled it and 
 reduced it to ruin. It now belongs to the Earl of Claren- 
 don. During Queen Elizabeth's visit to the castle, in 1575 
 the festivities lasted seventeen days. There were drunk 
 three hundred and twenty hogsheads of beer: the daily con- 
 sumption of wine was sixteen hogsheads, and forty hogs- 
 heads of beer ; and ten oxen were slaughtered every morn- 
 ing. The clock pointed always to two, the hour for dining; 
 and every hour had a new amusement, for the queen's 
 diversion. There was once a lake surrounding two sides 
 of the castle, which has long since been drained, and I 
 walked over the luxuriant meadows now on its site. 
 
 But the railway has now brought us some miles fur- 
 ther to Oxford, having sojourned in and near Leamington 
 some days. Oxford is a singular city the architecture of 
 each house indicating a different century ; each having its 
 own style. The projecting cornices and eaves of the old 
 cities of the Continent are here. It is the city of colleges, 
 and churches, and halls ; the stones of all which are in rags 
 and tatters, for Time has done his work on them. It is 
 indeed an interesting city. You walk among ancient build- 
 
 Y
 
 278 OXFORD. 
 
 ings ; streets of colleges, with grassy court-yards ; walks 
 and promenades, surrounded by thick, ivy-grown walls, 
 and laid out in avenues of elms. Here, in one street, is the 
 "Martyr's Memorial," a beautiful Gothic Monument, erected 
 to Bishops Latimer and Ridley and Archbishop Cranmer ; 
 and near it is the spot where they were burnt, in the days 
 of Catholic domination, under Queen Mary, when Cranmer 
 thrust the right hand with which he had, in the hope of 
 saving his life, signed a recantation of Protestantism, into 
 the fire and burnt it off) saying, " This hand has offended !" 
 I entered the Bodleian Library, one of the most celebrated 
 in England, having numerous old, new, and rare manu- 
 scripts. I saw the lantern of Guy Fawkes, conspirator; 
 the fac simile of the death warrant of King Charles I. ; a 
 most beautiful model of an East Indian under -ground 
 palace, intended for summer; many models of ancient tem- 
 ples; some fine portraits; writings in Sanscrit, Arabic, 
 Chinese, and many singular and ingenious works ; missals ; 
 rare copies of the Bible, ornamented by the monks with 
 illuminated margins. There are also here some rare works: 
 the famous Arundelian Marbles, brought from Athens, and 
 of vast use in chronology. Near this is the Hall, with its 
 historical associations, in which King Charles I. held his 
 Parliament. The antique glass of some of the churches is 
 almost equal in beauty to some on the Continent. Oxford 
 has nineteen colleges, about six halls, which are somewhat 
 similar to the colleges in their arrangements; and at present 
 there are about two thousand students, who are distin- 
 guished by their peculiar gowns and square caps. There 
 is more servility on the part of the people here to young 
 and spendthrift noblemen, whose extravagances and follies 
 almost support the town, than in any place I have ever 
 seen. The population of Oxjbrd is about twenty -six thou- 
 sand. The course of study is but little more extensive, and 
 probably not any more thorough, than in many of our
 
 LONDON. 279 
 
 American colleges. Poor scholars and charity students 
 have vast facilities in these magnificent surroundings, libra- 
 ries, etc. The wealthy and titled contrive to pass the awk- 
 ward years between boyhood and manhood here. The 
 Oxford divines are celebrated for their learning. I heard 
 one of them, who appeared to comprehend fully the learning 
 of the Bible without knowing much of its religion. 
 
 Back again in London, however, after an absence of 
 thirty-five days, in which, with regular American speed, we 
 have been almost over all England, Scotland, and Ireland 
 have been in the classic and romantic Edinburgh, among 
 the misty Scotch lakes and highlands, the surges that dash 
 around the Giant's Causeway, in the North of Ireland, and 
 among its bogs and miserable villages; and also in its 
 charmed scenery at the Lakes of Killarney, and among its 
 green and grass-grown ruins. With the facilities now 
 afforded by rapid railway traveling, and a skillful arrange- 
 ment of our time, we have had enough leisure to carry 
 away a distinct impression of each place. In London 
 again that city where are miles of prostitutes and leagues 
 of wretches in want, mothers who sit in the cold with their 
 almost naked babes, at the base of temples, palaces, and 
 banks costing millions. I left Oxford at twelve o'clock 
 yesterday. The railway lies through one of the best parts 
 of England passed the ancient town of Reading, saw its 
 ruins of walls, towers, churches, all of which fled by like 
 a dream " when one awaketh ;" also the many green fields, 
 parks, elegant, old, and in the centre of which stand the 
 stately, ancestral homes of comfortable England. Arriving 
 in London at half-past two o'clock, found it foggy, gas-lit, 
 and Lord Mayor's day, and there was a grand procession. 
 The millions of London were in the streets in all their 
 might. London is the most pitiable and affecting presenta- 
 tion of greatness in the world. In the procession were first 
 the Marine boys, then drummers, City Marshal, trumpet-
 
 280 CRYSTAL PALACE. 
 
 ers, Sheriff in his carriage and with out-riders ; then the 
 city flag, other carriages, footmen, men in armor in the 
 style of the olden, horsemen, ex Lord Mayor, soldiers, City 
 Chamberlain, servants, yeomen, sword-bearer, Lady May- 
 oress, men in armor, trumpeters, servants, and beef-eaters; 
 Lord Mayor in his state carriage, drawn by six horses. 
 This was the procession, besides the myriads who seemed 
 to have here nothing to eat, and the fog, which really 
 seemed an omnipresent, important personage ; it exceeded 
 all fogs in denseness, dreadfulness, dullness. The fogs on 
 the Mississippi River, into which one may drive a nail and 
 hang his hat thereon, are not to be compared to the poten- 
 tial fogdom of London. It is a fog that may be felt. Yet 
 the British seem to thrive on it to glorify and appetize on 
 it, drink beer in consequence, and consider it an established 
 institution. London is a great and astonishing fact an 
 immenseness. It is an epitome of all human nature in ac- 
 tion. I have been in it for a few days, revisiting some 
 places and visiting some new ones. The Crystal Palace, 
 which I have visited, is all a delight. It is about twenty 
 miles from London, at Sydenham. As you approach it by 
 railway, and the grand, extensive, but light and elegant 
 construction appears in sight, you are tempted into invol- 
 untary admiration. It is a structure of glass and iron a 
 frame of iron resting on a solid foundation. It is in length 
 eighteen hundred feet, width four hundred feet ; the centre 
 transept is one hundred and seventy-eight feet high, the tow- 
 ers two hundred and thirty-five feet high. You enter by a 
 flight of steps in the south wing, and when arrived at the 
 nave the view is unrivalled. It is a city in glass. When 
 within you are charmed by the variety and interest of its 
 presentations. It covers several acres, and a village may 
 be said to be employed, and derive subsistence within. 
 There are cotton manufactures in the basement. There are 
 all kinds of shops, retailing porcelain, jewels, pictures, and
 
 CRYSTAL PALACE. 281 
 
 industrial displays, insomuch that you seem walking 
 through a street in Paris or Brussels. There are trees and 
 plants of all kinds and climes; there are reservoirs of 
 water, in which aquatic plants survive; rare mosses; there 
 are giant specimens of trees from California, and flowers of 
 all hues of loveliness, the air here being at all times kept 
 at a uniform temperature. There are restaurants here for 
 first, second, and third classes of people elegant concerts 
 also, and theatrical rooms, in which fine bands perform 
 each day. I heard a splendid concert given the day I was 
 there. The productions of the vegetable kingdom to be 
 seen here are very beautiful and strange. You have summer 
 birds sporting and singing around on evergreen boughs. 
 You have lakes of water, specimens of mankind of all 
 races, Egyptian and Chinese halls, whose statuary, and in- 
 scriptions, and sphynxes, and numerous works of art, cop- 
 ies of old works, make you think you are in some restored 
 temple of the past. The statuary some copies, others 
 original are from all countries, as also paintings and draw- 
 ings, all of which are exhibited in the best light, in the long 
 and lofty avenues for promenading. The building itself is 
 almost as great a wonder as its contents. It is four or five 
 stories high, and seems a wondrous combination of iron 
 frames, into which are set long, narrow glass plates, more 
 than realizing an Eastern or Arabic dream of romance, 
 and uniting wondrous lightness and elegance with solidity 
 and strength. There are two towers of the same materials 
 as the palace some seven or eight stories high, which are 
 principally used as fountains to supply the jets of water 
 in the grounds around ; these latter are adorned with ter- 
 races and flights of steps, cascades and colonnades, shrub- 
 bery also, and miniature crystal palaces. The ancestors 
 of the British built massive towers and castles, with walls 
 twelve or eighteen feet thick, which descend to the present 
 age as objects of mouldering majesty and wonder. But 
 
 Y2
 
 282 
 
 here is a direct contrast, wonderful in its apparent unsubstan- 
 tially avast hot-house but no clangor of arms, no heavy 
 portcullis, no dungeon keeps are here. It is a scene of peace- 
 ful, elegant life ; crowds of ladies and gentlemen prome- 
 nade or listen to music, or admire statues all is practical, 
 modern, pounds, shillings, and pence, useful money invest- 
 ing. It is truly astonishing how much can be got for a 
 shilling, the price of admission. The world changes as it 
 grows older. The great old thing called earth casts up 
 things of many kinds as it progresses onward, and there is 
 a constant giving out from the womb of the unknown to 
 the world of the known. 
 
 I have revisited Westminster Abbey, that most impres- 
 sive monument of grand death, where the lofty windows 
 let in decomposed light that falls sadly on the gray and 
 antique monuments to the dead of renown. It is a sad 
 place, but death is probably less to the dead than to the 
 living. They may wonder at our regard for perishable 
 dust, and rejoice in the riddance of a body to us so dear, 
 even in death. The monuments in the Poets' Corner 
 those in the gorgeous chapel of Henry VII., where repose 
 the Kings and Queens of England, with their armorial en- 
 signs above them the long aisles, the "dim, religious 
 light," the air of solemnity, the silence so greatly con- 
 trasted with the noise outside all make Westminster 
 Abbey one of the most impressive places on earth. The 
 arches are all Gothic, like two raised hands clasped in 
 prayer. The old monks understood the power of external 
 surroundings as incentives to devotion, and the production 
 of that peculiar, grave, ghostly superstitious Virgin Mary 
 sort of feeling in which they indulged. 
 
 I also visited the Zoological Gardens, which are in Ee- 
 gent's Park, and which, besides the more common animals 
 of such places, contain some very rare ones. Some of the 
 animals are in rustic cottages, in the style of the countries
 
 LONDON. 283 
 
 they come from. Elephants and torrid-zone animals are 
 in cellars, which are kept warm. The birds are of very 
 numerous kinds ; the exotic plants are extremely interest- 
 ing, and a walk through it is almost like a rapid transit 
 over many countries. I also traversed Regent's Park, 
 Green Park, Hyde Park, St. James' Park, in which is all 
 the loveliness of greenness, even at this season of the year, 
 and in which are elegant equipages and promenades, and 
 along which are the palatial residences of England's nobil- 
 ity. Regent street, Oxford street, Pall Mall, Piccadilly, 
 are all splendid streets the Strand, Fleet, Cheapside, etc., 
 are partly in the city proper, and are streets of shop-keep- 
 ers. I also saw the numerous monuments those to Lord 
 Nelsop, the Duke of York, and others the Temple Bar or 
 Gate across the street, one of the relics of the old fortifica- 
 tions of London ; Newgate Prison, Old Bailey, Whitehall, 
 in the court-yard of which King Charles I. was beheaded; 
 Marlborough House also, in which is the Vernon collection 
 of paintings, and other pictures, the best by Italian mas- 
 ters. I also saw Northumberland House, Somerset House, 
 and other points of historical and ancestral celebrity. In one 
 of the apartments of Marlborough House is shown the im- 
 mense black-draped carriage in which the remains of the 
 Duke of Wellington were borne to their resting-place. It 
 is inscribed with the names of his victories, and there are 
 the statues of three black horses before it the whole being 
 a spectacle of stately death. Julien, the Magician of Musi- 
 cians, is in London now, with his fifty or sixty minor musi- 
 cians, all playing, pulling, drawing, beating, while he, the 
 most self-satisfied looking and complacent of mortals, 
 waves his wand like a king of sound, and music springs 
 forth as the waters when Moses smote the rock. The en- 
 tertainment always terminates with " God save the Queen," 
 when all the Englishmen rise for the Queen, personally 
 is more popular than the monarchy.
 
 284 LONDON. 
 
 London is emphatically the city of the unfortunate frail 
 sisters of humanity. Pleasure is a hard master, for her vo- 
 taries seem all the time on the verge of starvation. The 
 most Christian and Protestant city in the world has more of 
 them, relatively to population, than any other. Few things 
 are really more interesting to the sight than a fallen woman. 
 They accost you as you walk along the streets all guises 
 and colors of harlotry and whoredom plead with you, on 
 your refusal, for a glass of wine or a penny to buy a bis- 
 caiit. Many are from the country, and consider prostitution 
 a regular trade a means of living, they having no other. 
 Some are rather pretty, but all are horrid. The army of 
 street- walkers, passing up and down the pavements in the 
 gas-light, in gaudy colors, leering, looking, accosting men, 
 starving, utterly demoralized, with no maidenly female re- 
 serve, no heart, no refinement, animalized, short-lived, de- 
 based creatures in shape of women, is the most hideous 
 among the memories of London. No man of any sense will 
 think, however, that they are any worse than many others. 
 No man or woman either can tell what he would be in a 
 given train of circumstances, or, when involved in the ser- 
 pent coil of temptation, he or she would come out any 
 better than others. The most unsophisticated, and most 
 simple form of man or woman, is when such man or woman 
 thinks himself or herself any better, substantially and in- 
 herently, than any other person, even the vilest. The true 
 ground is compassion for all unfortunates, effort to ameli- 
 orate their condition, and hatred of the vice, and take heed 
 that one himself does not fall or do worse, comparatively, 
 than they. Many of the small creatures who criminate 
 others are negatively virtuous, because never tempted, or 
 whom it was not worth while for Satan to tempt, knowing 
 a conquest over them would be no glory even to the mean- 
 est devil in hell. Others may thank their circumstances 
 rather than their strength, that they are secure. But adieu
 
 HOLLAND. 285 
 
 to Great Britain forever, the fatherland of America, and 
 where the nation loves us yet. A thousand French alliances, 
 offensive and defensive, would not make them love the 
 French as much as they do us. "Tis true there are a thou- 
 sand leagues (of water) between us, and that may be one 
 reason. But blood is thicker than all that water. 
 
 But we are off again, for the Continent. Life is a travel 
 from one event to another from one feeling to another 
 from youth to age. We travel through our years we sail 
 from our present into our future. The parts of life are our 
 actions and their epochs. The Continent of Europe is far 
 more interesting to travelers than the British Islands. We 
 are now in Rotterdam in level Holland, which the Dutch 
 have in reality " taken" from the Sea. This is a city of 
 canals and commerce, and of high, cleanly -look ing brick 
 buildings. Its appearance from the water the river or 
 Strait Maas, a sort of frith of the North Sea is beautiful. 
 It is pleasant to stand on the solid Continent again, and 
 know you can take a morning walk in one direction at 
 least, without coming to the sea. The city is all level, 
 and below the surface of the sea. Canals are very numer- 
 ous in it, over which are very many bridges. The vernac- 
 ular here is again strange the regular old honest Dutch 
 is spoken, but French and English are used by those with 
 whom one comes in contact. The continental system of 
 examining passports and luggage has again to be submitted 
 to. Yesterday morning we left foggy, muggy, murky 
 London, in the steamer Fyenord. The fog prevented our 
 departure for some hours, and the great number of vessels 
 in the muddy Thames rendered our progress afterward very 
 slow. But at length we took our last look of the green, 
 well cultivated, and beautiful banks of the Thames passed 
 out of its mouth, and were rolling about in the North Sea, 
 under the influence of that sensation of unutterable nasti- 
 ness, sea-sickness. To-day at twelve, (Friday, Nov. 12th),
 
 286 HOLLAND. 
 
 we entered the river Maas; saw the low banks of Holland on 
 each side, with dikes or embankments, keeping out the sea, 
 planted with rows of trees, and furnishing pleasant walks ; 
 also saw numerous quiet-looking Dutch houses, pleasant 
 level meadows, pastures; and those strange features in a 
 landscape windmills even in the towns are numerous. 
 
 The Dutch are a great people. They have warred with 
 the sea, and conquered ; and the extensive sea-marsh is now 
 rendered, by their embankments, the home of millions. 
 
 Rotterdam is rather a strange-looking city, with its high, 
 narrow brick houses, many of which despise the perpendic- 
 ular, and lean at many angles, through defect of the founda- 
 tion, notwithstanding the piles driven into the sea-soil to 
 render their bases firmer. They have numerous and long 
 windows, which have mirrors on the outside, inclined so as 
 to show what is passing in the streets, or who is entering 
 the principal door. Many of the canals are bordered with 
 trees, and in some of the streets long rows of houses seem 
 to rise out of the water. The Museum of Paintings here is 
 very rich. One representing a dead Christ, struck me as 
 truly remarkable in its ghastly resemblance to death. The 
 Dutch school of painting seems to me to surpass very far all 
 I have yet seen in exact, minute, life-like resemblance. 
 Most of the merely British or American paintings I have 
 seen seem mere daubs in comparison. Those here have that 
 under expression, as it were the real mind and soul that 
 lies underneath the flesh stamped on them, and you read 
 it as if it were the outbreathing mind. The Dutch school 
 seems pre-eminent in the minute excellence of detail. "We 
 can conquer forests and subdue Nature, but we cannot paint 
 her. Rotterdam has about eighty thousand inhabitants. 
 The houses are nearly all of brick, and are five or six sto- 
 ries high. 
 
 The great Gothic church of St. Lawrence; the views 
 along the Boompjes; the commercial buildings of the Dutch
 
 HOLLAND. 287 
 
 * 
 
 East India Company; the singular scenes of the Dutch 
 markets; the numerous bridges over the canals; the fine 
 statue of Erasmus he having been a native of this city 
 are the principal scenes which interested me, besides the 
 Picture Gallery, in my promenades to-day. French and 
 English gold coins pass readily here, but the smaller coins 
 of this country are guilders and stivers. The water for 
 drinking is very bad. Travelers use English ale, or the 
 effervescing water of the Nassau Springs. 
 
 We are now in Hague, thirteen miles from Rotterdam. 
 This is certainly one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, 
 having numerous parks, or squares, with trees clad in the 
 now fading glory of autumn. There are canals also in 
 every part of the city, and also large lakes of water, sur- 
 rounded by trees and houses, which latter are elegant brick 
 residences, numerous windows, witb mirrors outside 
 every thing indicating wealth, cleanliness, and comfort. It 
 is the capital of Holland, and the residence of the king, one 
 of whose gorgeous brick palaces, with its painted cathedral, 
 its park and its pleasure-grounds, and fine shrubbery, I 
 have visited. The windmills here are numerous. These 
 are great towers of brick, about fifty feet high, with four- 
 angled wings or flappers of wood, flying around, communi- 
 cating a motive power, used in elevating the drowsy water 
 of the eanals for purposes of health, or irrigation, or drain- 
 ing, and also for grinding meal. The weather has become 
 clear and sunny at length quite a rarity, as we saw but 
 little of the sun in that kingdom of fog, England. There 
 is more ease of address, less pompous reserve, more gayety 
 and disposition to oblige; there are tables d'hote again and 
 French all of which make one feel he is on the Continent 
 once more. 
 
 In coming from Rotterdam here by rail, we passed Schei- 
 dam, best known in America by Wolfe's Schnapps; and 
 Delft, also celebrated in old times for its pottery ; the trade
 
 288 HOLLAND. 
 
 in which has now much declined. The country is all level, 
 and everywhere intersected by fine canals, which serve for 
 fences and divisions of all kinds each field being parted 
 by long, straight ditches the surface of the soil being but 
 a foot or two above the water. The land is black loam, of 
 great fertility, principally in meadows and pasturage fine 
 fat cattle, with blankets over them, grazing on the yet green 
 herbage. The canals are bordered with trees. The roads 
 are elevated several feet, and serve as embankments. Some 
 of the ditches, from lack of circulation, present the usual 
 appearances of stagnant water, being covered with a green 
 vegetable scum, by the side of which rises the Dutchman's 
 cottage, where he sits in perfect contentment, smoking his 
 pipe, deeming himself in Paradise. The gardens are very 
 fine, and the colors of the flowers peculiarly rich and gaudy. 
 No stones or rocks are to be seen. The government here is 
 a constitutional monarchy. The king shares the legislative 
 power with two chambers : the higher, consisting of sixty 
 members, nominated by him ; the lower, being deputies 
 elected by the people. The law refuses all relief from the 
 public funds to those who do not send their children to 
 school. The result is, education is nearly universal. The 
 religion is Protestant; there being about two and a half 
 millions of them, and about half that number of Catholics. 
 The army consists of about forty-eight thousand men. The 
 Dutch own or have possession of some of the most important 
 islands in the world Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes, etc., 
 as well as parts of South America. The present king is 
 William III., Prince of Orange. We had the honor, if 
 honor it be, to see the queen. She came in the same train 
 with us, there being royal cars expressly fitted and arranged 
 for her. She appeared to be nothing more than a large, 
 red-faced Dutch woman, very expensively dressed in pink 
 silk. There was no enthusiasm or shouting, but much 
 looking, of which she was the object. She bowed. Some
 
 HOLLAND. 289 
 
 bowed in return; some took off their hats; others, as if 
 petrified by the presence of royalty, remained motionless. 
 
 The Hague is a cleaner and better built city than Rotterdam. 
 It has about sixty-four thousand inhabitants. The English 
 have here, as in most other cities on the Continent, service 
 on Sunday in their own language. This I attended, as also 
 the German Protestant service in a very large and imposing 
 brick edifice ; part of which seemed very old, and the floor 
 was paved with half-obliterated tombstones. The numerous 
 and sweetly-chiming bells of the Continental Sunday ring 
 out their music constantly on the air over this level country 
 for many miles around. The collection of paintings in this 
 city is almost unrivalled in excellence, having the chief 
 works of the Dutch school, except those of Rubens at 
 Antwerp. Paul Potter's Bull is celebrated all over the 
 world. The painting represents a bull, as large as life, 
 a cow, some sheep, lambs, the shepherd, and some other 
 objects all of which Nature herself would scarcely scorn ? 
 so closely and deceptiously do they counterfeit her works. 
 Paul Potter was probably the best painter of animals in the 
 world. A divine painting evokes in ourselves a stronger 
 memory than our wont. The surgeon dissecting a dead 
 body is also very remarkable. The face of the dead is 
 dreadfully and fearfully death-like ; that of one of the stu- 
 dents expresses, in most amazing verisimilitude, his rapt 
 attention. This painting, which is more than two hundred 
 and forty years old, is by Rembrandt. The picture repre- 
 senting Prometheus the vulture devouring his continually 
 growing liver one of the finest illustrations of remorse 
 possible, is also a glorious transcript of art. A painting by 
 Rubens of one of his wives, is here also, and shows the 
 power of that great creator of life on canvas. There are 
 many other works here, in this the finest collection of paint- 
 ings in the Dutch school in the world, which produce the 
 gladdening effect of true art in the heart of the beholder, 
 19 z
 
 290 HOLLAND. 
 
 There is, in the same magnificent building, a grand collec- 
 tion of Japanese and Chinese Works of art; models of ships; 
 statues of gods and idols, some covered with gold and gems, 
 and perhaps thousands of years old, and which have received 
 in those eastern countries the adoration of millions for cen- 
 turies. There are here numerous vases, baskets of curious 
 workmanship in ivory, wood, pearls, demonstrating an in- 
 genuity in those nations little inferior to the vaunted excel- 
 lence of the highest civilization. North of The Hague extends 
 a very beautiful park of lime and elm trees, beginning with 
 numerous avenues, which lose themselves in a deep forest, 
 now gilded with the glory of autumn. There are numerous 
 drives, palatial houses, inclosures with antlered deer the 
 trees meeting and mingling overhead forming vistas of 
 arches, the effect of which is very fine. The Sunday of 
 England and Scotland, however, is not here; nor is there 
 so much comfort in the hotels, nor so much quiet, home 
 enjoyment ; but there is less dullness ; there are more variety, 
 more genius, more sunlight, more military appearances, 
 more soldiers. We cease to hear and read so much about 
 the " Mutiny in India" ; nor is there evident that desperate 
 attempt at recruiting, which did not scruple to take young 
 and drunken boys, which we noticed in the Island Empire. 
 The monarch's will is, however, much more sensibly felt 
 here than there Queen Victoria's absolute and controlling 
 power, except by moral feelings and established preju- 
 dices, being almost contemptible. Yet here appears to be 
 as much freedom, more wealth this being one of the 
 wealthiest countries in the world. There is also more gen- 
 eral education, and a better lower class than the lowest class 
 in England or Ireland ; and also more general equality ; as 
 much honesty, also, and fully as much goodness, generally, 
 as in the country of our ancestors. In most of the Eu- 
 ropean countries it is not the government alone that is
 
 HOLLAND. 291 
 
 hated, the rulers and the dynasty are personally abomi- 
 nated. 
 
 But we have left the beautiful city of The Hague, and 
 are now, Monday evening, November 1st, in that of Am- 
 sterdam. The day was lovely; one of the clear, sunny, 
 chilly days of autumn. We passed over the level, flat re- 
 gions of Holland, with ditches and canals separating the 
 fields; passed old Dutch villages; came through barren 
 sand hills along the sea; then the railway ran on one of the 
 dikes shutting out the North Sea; and, finally, saw the 
 twenty-six windmills flying and flapping about Amsterdam, 
 as if it were a winged town. It is an immense city popu- 
 lation two hundred and sixty thousand of canals, bridges, 
 narrow streets, with many-storied brick houses, with their 
 carved ends next the street ; the cornices of each story pro- 
 jecting over the other the whole built as if to show that 
 nothing is impossible to the Dutch. It is the most remark- 
 able looking city we have yet seen in Europe. The houses 
 are generally built of very small brick. Many of them 
 lean forward ; some affect the perpendicular ; others prefer 
 the oblique. This is in consequence of the unequal sub- 
 sidence of the foundation, the city being built on piles. 
 The bridges are only three hundred in number. Many of 
 the houses are built in the water their basements forming 
 the sides of the canals. Most of the brick walls present a 
 mottled appearance, being inlaid with white stones. Some 
 of the canals are very wide, others narrow; they traverse 
 and intersect all parts of the city ; have many boats on 
 them, in which whole families live all their lives. The city 
 is very compactly built and very densely peopled. 
 
 To-day we have spent in rambling about the city. We 
 visited the Picture Gallery, and looked over all its contents 
 till we were fatigued by their beauty. Certainly many of 
 them are most remarkable creations. The portraits seem 
 half alive. There is a beauty and variety in the living face
 
 292 HOLLAND. 
 
 which art cannot give to canvas : but there is also a beauty, 
 and repose, and a study, in the productions of art which the 
 living face has not. The "Evening School," the "Descent 
 from the Cross," and many others, small as well as large ; 
 also animals, birds, stags all better painted than any- 
 where else in the world the Dutch school of the sixteenth 
 century having had a specialty for painting animals. "We 
 also visited the palace. This is a grand building of stone, 
 built on fourteen thousand piles, driven seventy feet into 
 the ground, to give it a secure foundation. Here Joseph 
 Bonaparte lived, who was made King of Holland by his 
 brother. Many of the rooms are most splendid. We saw 
 the king's bed-room, the audience-chamber, dining-rooms, 
 tea-rooms, etc., many of them being hung with rich silk 
 curtains. We also saw a most gorgeous chair ; the throne, 
 in the reception-chamber, on which perplexed royalty had 
 no doubt often sat, less happy, perhaps, than many a cot- 
 tager on his stool. But the principal room is the ball-room, 
 one hundred feet high, the highest in Europe, without pil- 
 lars. This is truly a magnificent marble hall. In some of 
 these rooms are paintings so life-like as to seem starting 
 from the canvas. One of them represents Van Speyk, the 
 great Dutch admiral, in the act of applying the match to the 
 powder magazine on board his vessel, to blow it up, himself 
 and all his crew, to prevent falling into the hands of the 
 enemy. His cool resolution, the extreme interest and alarm 
 of the crew, are well delineated. Few nations have shown 
 more patriotism and bravery than the Dutch. More than 
 once they have opened the sluices and let in the North Sea, 
 drowning their country and the labors of centuries to drive 
 out their enemies. One of their generals, when besieged 
 and summoned to surrender, replied he would eat one 
 hand off, while he fought with the other, before he sur- 
 rendered. We ascended to the top of the palace, and saw 
 the grand prospect therefrom the singular city, with its
 
 HOLLAND. 298 
 
 canals, islands, bridges; the great ship canal, connecting 
 Amsterdam with Texel, fifty miles long ; The Zuyder Zee, 
 or Bay of Amsterdam; the great windmills around the 
 city ; in the distance, the village of Broeck, the inhabitants 
 of which are unhappy martyrs to cleanliness; and many 
 other things are all in view. But the great chime of bells 
 began. Amsterdam, like most of the cities on the Continent, 
 has very fine bells. The palace has a chime of forty -two 
 bells, which play a plaintive little air previous to striking 
 the hour. They began while we were among them, and 
 gave us an attack of music which which would have been 
 better appreciated at a greater distance. More than fifty 
 thousand of the inhabitants of Amsterdam are Jews, who 
 live in one quarter of the city, in narrow, high houses, 
 stenchy even at this season beyond all descriptive degrees. 
 Old clothes, hung on racks outside the windows; wretched 
 looking people, dwelling in cellars, filthy and damp, where 
 the human form meets you in all stages of degradation. 
 Amidst these scenes, however, were five square synagogues, 
 built with as little resemblance as possible to Christian 
 churches. Much of the wealth of this wealthy city is in 
 their hands. The atmosphere of Amsterdam is extremely 
 damp ; and though necessity obliges the utmost attention to 
 cleanliness, and the attempt is to a great extent successful, 
 yet the marshy nature of the soil, the lowness of the situa- 
 tion being almost on a level with the sea must render it, 
 on the whole, an unpleasant city to reside in, except to those 
 who are thoroughly devoted to money-making and com- 
 merce. 
 
 But we have left the lowlands, and are off to other regions. 
 Tuesday, at twelve, we left Amsterdam, passing the usual 
 sights low meadow lands, ditches, windmills, cattle feed- 
 ing with jackets on ; then sand-hills, the reduced and nar- 
 rowed Rhine, which divides into four streams as it ap- 
 proaches the sea, and loses its romantic interest; old villages 
 
 z2
 
 294 BRUNSWICK. 
 
 and towns on its banks ; then we entered a part of Prussia, 
 where our baggage was subjected to a vigorous but court- 
 eous examination. At twelve o'clock at night, fatigued with 
 our long railway ride, we stopped at the old town of Han- 
 over, remaining all night and part of next day. This is in 
 the Grand Duchy of Hanover ; one of the electors of which, 
 George I., became King of England, being descended from 
 James I., through the female line, who intermarried with 
 German princes. This is a peculiarly German place re- 
 mote, uniform, and dull. Most of the town consists of old 
 German houses, framed of wood, between the timbers of 
 which bricks are built. They have antique projecting bal- 
 conies, each story projecting over the other. Numerous 
 windows, carved gables next the streets, the appearance of 
 which, as one looks down the streets is singular in the ex- 
 treme irregular, peculiar, quaint. There are some splen- 
 did avenues of trees, extending from the city, and near the 
 railway are some massive modern buildings, which belong 
 to the age of railways and hotels. The population is about 
 forty thousand. We left this on our way, and arrived in an 
 hour and a half at the ancient city of Brunswick, about the 
 size of Hanover, and resembling it in its picturesque archi- 
 tecture. The country over which we passed being generally 
 level and well adapted for cultivation, the soil, however, 
 appearing to be worn out, and the country thinly peopled. 
 As in other parts of Europe, the people live in villages, 
 there being few or no houses iu the country. Brunswick 
 contains the splendid and large stone palace of the Grand 
 Duke. It has some fine monuments ; we noticed one to 
 Lessing, the German thinker; some pleasant avenues and 
 grounds; several massive, fortress -like, gray, old stone 
 churches, neither Gothic, nor Norman, nor Italian in style, 
 but German and grand ; and also a succession of old streets 
 and houses similar to those we saw in Hanover, only older, 
 more gable-ended and more antique-looking.
 
 BERLIN. 295 
 
 Every thing seems here as it has been for ages, and 
 human nature seems superannuated and gone to sleep, or 
 frittered away in forms and solemn nothings. Even the 
 locomotive has a sleepy, dull, safe, formal kind of move- 
 ment. Every thing seems impressed with its own propriety, 
 and the things that have been are those that shall be. The 
 great stone churches, with their monuments and grave- 
 stones outside, seem majestic in their time-worn appearance 
 and their heavy style of building. In one of them sleeps 
 Caroline of Brunswick, the unfortunate and ill-fated wife of 
 George IV. of England. The currency changes in every 
 little German state, making it necessary for travelers to 
 study the rules and rates of exchange. Prussian currency 
 seems, however, in good repute. Austrian in bad. The 
 hotels are grand and uncomfortable, the cafe and smoking 
 rooms being the only places in which a German condescends 
 to be comfortable. Finding but little of interest to the 
 general traveler in this city, we leave by railway for Prus- 
 sia. On our right rise, as we pass along the many-domed 
 Hartz Mountains, the Spectral Brocken over them, and the 
 slender young evening moon seems dancing on their sum- 
 mits; village after village gliding by; windmills flapping; 
 peasants plowing with wheel plows every thing old, change- 
 less, and adjusted. We pass Magdeburgh, the strong fort- 
 ress in part of which Baron Trenck was confined for being 
 loved by, it is said, and in love with, the Princess of Prussia; 
 then Potsdam, with its royal palace, and its lakes and gar- 
 dens; and at length we reach Berlin, passing along the beau- 
 tiful street Unter-den-Linden, (or under the Linden trees,) 
 wide, spacious, and adorned with royal palaces, residences, 
 universities, museums, statues, etc. Here every thing is Ger- 
 man, excepting what is French. Our passports are demanded. 
 How long we are going \to stay in the kingdom ; where we 
 are going; our status in our own country; what city we 
 live in: and all this important information is, with our
 
 296 BERLIN. 
 
 passports, sent to the police; the latter to be additionally 
 vised and subjected to the formal nothings which the mili- 
 tary governments of these countries establish to enhance 
 their own importance. No sensible American would at- 
 tempt to interfere with any of these regulations, or with the 
 governments, or undertake to reform any of them. 
 
 The hotel (the Victoria) is hung with paintings. Each 
 one takes his meals in his own room. The universal French 
 table d'hote is provided for those who wish to eat thus; 
 and is cheaper than an equal variety of dishes would be, if 
 called for privately. It is indeed the great event, the crisis 
 of the day. The hotels here are good. The weather is 
 lovely, though cool. The debilitated sun rises but a little 
 way at noon, as we are far to the north, being near latitude 
 53. The air of the country is far superior to that of Hol- 
 land. The military bands play here every day, at noon, in 
 the Lust-Garten, at change of guard. The music is perfect; 
 superior to any military music, perhaps, in Europe, or else- 
 where. There are crowds of tall grenadiers everywhere in 
 the streets and at all public places, this being, perhaps, the 
 most martially disposed nation in Europe ; a passionate 
 admiration for "the pomp and circumstance of glorious 
 war" being infused into them by Frederick the Great, as 
 into the French by Napoleon. Here are the Picture Gallery 
 and Museum, a grand building near the Spree, the small 
 stream on which the city lies, and the Unter-den-Linden. 
 There are fine statues and rare works of art in marble, 
 especially a vast vase, twenty-two feet in diameter, cut out 
 of one solid block of fine granite, adorned internally and 
 externally with sculptures, in front of the fine colonnade of 
 the Museum. Greater, however, is the genius displayed 
 within. Paintings by the first masters, arranged according 
 to the different schools and ages Flemish, Spanish, Italian, 
 old German, Byzantine or middle age, many of them very 
 good. 'Tis pleasant to roam at will through these galleries,
 
 BERLIN. 297 
 
 resplendent with the creations of geniuses who have, in an- 
 gelic moments, given permanency to most lovely faces, and 
 to ideas which speak from the cold canvas. The number 
 of paintings exceeds one thousand. On some of them the 
 eye might dwell for hours. The Italian and Spanish schools, 
 however, stand clearly pre-eminent for passionate strength 
 as well as softness of delineation ; the Flemish, or Dutch, 
 for minute matter-of-fact detail; and the Byzantine for holy, 
 religious, seraphic elevation. There is something wonder- 
 fully solemn in the Byzantine style. It is strange, weird, 
 supernatural, and ghostly. No painting, however, which I 
 have yet seen surpasses in thrilling, impressive execution, 
 two or three of Bubens that I saw at Antwerp the 
 "Descent from the Cross," the "Assumption of the Virgin," 
 and the " Crucifixion of St. Peter." There are faces in these 
 that haunt you like ghosts, and will not depart, but become 
 themselves a memory and a portion of our soul. The 
 Sculpture Gallery here is also very interesting, as also the 
 Egyptian Gallery. Berlin has very wide streets Frederic 
 the Great, who principally founded it, having inclosed A 
 wide space with low walls, which still exist, and then com- 
 manded it to be filled with houses. The street Unter-den- 
 Linden is one of the finest, if not for a short distance the 
 finest street in Europe. It has two avenues of lime trees, 
 with footpaths and carriage-ways. Many of the buildings, 
 hotels, etc., are of massive size, and stately architecture. 
 Standing on the square, before the king's palace or chateau, 
 one has a scene of great architectural beauty around him 
 the palace itself, of immense size, yet of simply grand style ; 
 the colonnaded Picture Gallery, and the Museum ; the domes 
 of various churches ; the groups of statues to distinguished 
 men, among them an equestrian statue of Frederic the 
 Great, reckoned the finest equestrian statue in the world ; 
 also one to Prince Blucher; various allegorical representa- 
 tions some angels, some women, some children, some half-
 
 298 BERLIN. 
 
 grown girls ; then the various palaces on the Unter-den- 
 Linden ; the street itself, wide, long, and planted with 
 trees; the Opera House, the Theatres, Guard House, Uni- 
 versity all these are in view ; while among them flows the 
 Spree, with its pleasure gardens, in which military bands 
 perform all these minister delight to the eye and ear. We 
 visited the Opera, the music at which is probably not sur- 
 passed, outside of Berlin, in Europe. The piece was the 
 "Daughter of the Kegiment," which was very effectively 
 performed. But a still higher musical entertainment was 
 had the next night in the " Symphonial Concerts," in which 
 it is reckoned the best interpretation of the old masters is 
 given. Some of the grand classic compositions of Beethoven 
 and Weber were given. One of Beethoven's symphonies 
 came like an appalling and tremendous oration of mighty 
 meaning, which it strove to utter in a wail of vast sensa- 
 tional power a mingling of music, memory, and things no 
 language could reach. It conjured up a succession of all things 
 stratified over by Time. You feel, resolve, are soul-stirred, and 
 fathomed more deeply than ever before, while it complained 
 like the sigh of all humanity, and thundered like Olympian 
 Jove. I strolled through some parts of the royal palace. 
 It is an immense quadrangle, inclosing several large court- 
 yards, in which an army might be reviewed. One entrance 
 to it from the court-yard is up a steep winding road, or in- 
 clined plane, up which a carriage might be driven. You 
 come upon corridors, and long halls, and dark places, out 
 of which little, diminutive forms, shrivelled up and small- 
 looking, in comparison with the great rooms, come and glide 
 by you. You are shown the rooms and clothes of Frederic 
 the Great. This great king had at times but two ragged 
 suits. The ghost of the White Lady inhabits some of the 
 rooms, and wails when any of the royal family die. Servants, 
 some of whom are antique specimens of woman kind, inhabit 
 many of the apartments ; and their sudden apparition out
 
 BERLIN. 299 
 
 of unnoticed side doors, as you thread with your guide, the 
 castellan, the long, dull galleries, might well make one 
 think of the White Lady. Some of the rooms are furnished 
 with extraordinary splendor. The building is of brick, 
 plastered, and many of the columns are of carved stone; 
 but the whole begins to wear the tattered garments of age. 
 Of course there are soldiers and sentinels promenading, or 
 standing in their sentry boxes, as is the case in all the royal 
 palaces of Europe. Part of the royal family reside at pres- 
 ent in this chateau. On Sunday I attended the Evangelical 
 service in the cathedral. The music was of the usual 
 German classic character, consisting of some of Mendels- 
 sohn's psalm tunes. Part of the royal family were present. 
 As they returned through the streets to the palace, in their 
 somewhat plain carriage, there was great respect shown 
 them, most of the men taking oft* their hats, which saluta- 
 tion was always graciously returned, for majesty is always 
 excellent at bowing. The king, who is now in his sixty- 
 second year, is in very reduced health of, it is thought, a 
 diseased brain. Berlin, like many European cities, has its 
 old and new cities. Here, in the old city, is the aged- 
 looking Catholic church of St. Nicholas. Though the reli- 
 gion of Prussia is a kind of Lutheran Protestantism, yet 
 certain people will always be Catholics. Outside and in it 
 is grand, ancient, and religious. It has ancient tombs, with 
 numerous dark-side crypts, opening by iron doors, in which 
 are the burial vaults. There are mouldering and mossy 
 effigies, death-heads, and all the grim paraphernalia and 
 tenantry of the charnel-house. The Catholics make much 
 capital out of death. All that stones, and memory, and 
 affection, and sculpture could do to perpetuate the dead, is 
 done ; but in vain. They had their day of life ; they must 
 be forgotten ; the rememberers themselves will be forgot- 
 ten. The droning old organ goes on, and dull death and 
 quick life here meet: the dead moulder in darkness and
 
 300 BERLIN. 
 
 grim silence, the living work away and pray around them; 
 but both shall meet in the dust again. In one of these 
 crypts repose the remains of Baron Von Puffendorf, an 
 eminent jurist to the King of Prussia, and one of the stand- 
 ard authors on the " Law of Nature and Nations." Berlin 
 now extends some distance outside of the old wall built by 
 Frederic. At certain places are gates or towers. One of 
 these, at the end of the Unter-den-Linden, is called the 
 Brandenburgh Gate, and is truly beautiful in appearance. 
 It is surmounted by several elegant figures in bronze, repre- 
 senting the chariot of the sun. This work of mechanism, 
 like many others of the fine works of art, especially paintings, 
 underwent a migration to Paris in the time of the first 
 Napoleon, whose object was to collect there all the rare 
 works of genius in the world. At his downfall they were 
 generally restored to their former places. I have also been 
 at Charlottenberg, three miles from Berlin, along a road 
 passing through a park of rare beauty ; there being a royal 
 palace there and some fine works of art. Berlin has about 
 four hundred and twenty-six thousand inhabitants. Its 
 manufactures consist of wool, cotton, silk, ribbons, porcelain 
 and stoneware, bronze, gold and silver ware, artificial flow- 
 ers, etc. There is a very marked difference between the 
 German and the Dutch: the latter are minute, plodding 
 industrious, contented, persevering. The Germans have 
 larger souls and minds, more elevated views, more general, 
 and capable of more intellectual works; but neither so 
 moral nor so happy a people as the Dutch. The latter are 
 contented with this world : the Germans with neither this 
 world nor the other. The Dutch are among the most re- 
 markable people in Europe. They live in perpetual warfare 
 with the sea, which they have conquered and vassalized. They 
 have not only " taken Holland," but made it. Americans 
 and other nations are prompted forward by their advantages 
 of position, climate, or soil: the Dutch are prompted by
 
 DRESDEN. 301 
 
 their disadvantages. As Lord Lansdowne defined a diffi- 
 culty to be a thing to be overcome, it well applies to them. 
 They have established fertility in the midst of the sea, and 
 prospered where other people would have drowned. Vol- 
 taire, after passing through their country, said of them, by 
 a free translation, "Adieu ducks, drakes, dogs." Voltaire 
 was incapable of comprehending such a people. In defend- 
 ing their country they have eclipsed all Spartan bravery. 
 In painting they have surpassed all nations except the 
 Italians. Rubens' "Descent from the Cross" is unsurpassed 
 and unsurpassable and incomparable. This they owe, not 
 to genius, but to mind; not to passion or feeling, but to 
 industry. The Germans have more poetry in them, more 
 versatility, more music, and more ponderous attention to 
 monsters of trifles. Prussia has in all a population of 
 more than seventeen millions, of which more than two mil- 
 lions are the military. The Protestants are nearly eleven 
 millions; Catholics, more than six millions; Jews, two 
 hundred and thirty-four thousand. The regular army con- 
 sists of about one hundred and sixty-one thousand men. 
 
 But we are now in Dresden, in the kingdom of Saxony. 
 It has about one hundred and eight thousand inhabitants, 
 and is one of the finest cities in Europe. It is about 
 one hundred and sixteen miles from Berlin, which we left; 
 yesterday, after spending three or four days there. The 
 houses here do not seem very old, yet many of them have 
 carvings and statues in stone, and quaint inscriptions. The 
 houses are generally of stone, or brick plastered so as to 
 resemble stone. Many of the streets are wide, regular, 
 planted with avenues of lime trees, which are the same as 
 linden trees, and lined with large, spacious houses, four or 
 five stories high. It stands on both sides of the Elbe, now 
 full of floating ice. This stream is scarcely as large as the 
 Ohio. Two fine bridges, one of them five hundred and 
 fifty -two yards long, with elegant iron railings, footpaths, 
 
 2 A
 
 302 DRESDEN. 
 
 etc.; the other, sustaining the railway to Vienna, connect 
 the two parts of the city. I have seen few or no beggars 
 since I have been in Germany and Holland. There are 
 very few in Scotland ; but most numerous in London and 
 Ireland England being a nation of lords, shopkeepers, and 
 beggars. In Saxony there are no beggars whatever. But 
 little either French or English is spoken here. "We are in 
 a large, splendid, comfortless German hotel, where every 
 one lives in his suite of apartments, and there are no 
 * tallies d'hote for reunions, every man's room being his 
 castle here. The railway stations over all Europe are 
 splendid, large, well-lighted and permanent erections, with 
 restaurants for first, second and third-class passengers 
 varying in price, cleanliness, and quality; book-stalls and 
 waiting-rooms for each class of passengers. The employees 
 about the cars are in uniform, very numerous, under mili- 
 tary discipline, and very courteous to first and second-class 
 passengers. In these latter most people travel, none riding 
 in the first class but fools and princes. The price and com- 
 forts vary but little. Hotels are also first, second and third 
 class. Being naturally fond of good eating, and having 
 also quite a partiality for sleeping in clean beds, we pa- 
 tronize first-class hotels, and advise all others to the like 
 course the others being often merely unendurable the 
 stenches striking, the beds, already densely peopled by a 
 class who do not flee away at your approach, and the eat- 
 ables not at all enticing. The guide-books sometimes make 
 mistakes in regard to their directions about the hotels, but 
 in general the last editions of Murray and Bradshaw are 
 quite correct. 
 
 But I have to-day seen the great attraction of Dresden 
 its renowned Picture Gallery the finest in Germany, and, 
 except those of Italy, in the world. You have above two 
 thousand paintings, which are in many grand and well- 
 lighted halls. They are in splendid gilt frames, and are of
 
 DRESDEN. 303 
 
 all ages, from over four hundred years down to the present 
 century. It is an interview with dead but self-monumented 
 genius to walk through these halls. The pictures are all 
 imposing triumphs, created by Art and Genius. You linger 
 with them as over gladdening beauties. You walk through 
 many halls, each with many paintings. You come to the 
 best and most gorgeous room of all, and you find a single 
 picture. But this one is the Madonna del Sisto of Raphael, 
 probably the grandest of all his Madonnas. It commands 
 and entrances at once. It is impossible to look at it as a 
 painting. The art is very great, but there is more than art 
 there. You go away and look at others: this mingles with 
 every thing. You return: it is alone, and glorious, and 
 tranquillizing, and lovely. The Virgin is standing holding 
 her child. The angels in the lower part of the picture are 
 wonderful in their contemplative innocence and reverential 
 intellect. The Virgin's eyes have all that the most lovely 
 female's eyes could express, when suffused with soul and 
 holy, sinless regard. Her attitude is simple and natural ; 
 her appearance that of human beauty, but of one who came 
 on earth to bear a God. You would think unexhausted 
 heaven breathed from those faces. There are many pictures 
 by Correggio ; some by Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens, Cre- 
 velli, Titian, Teniers, Holbein, Caranach, Matsys; some of 
 which look like sculpture standing out from the canvas or 
 wood on which they are painted. This collection, by the 
 Saxon kings, who were formerly more powerful than at 
 present, has been respected by all the conquerors in this 
 part of Europe. Frederick the Great, though he battered 
 down the churches, commanded that no cannon should be 
 turned toward the Picture Gallery ; and after having taken 
 the city, humbly requested of the queen, who was his pris- 
 oner, that he might visit the gallery as a private man. 
 Napoleon carried off none of them to Paris, through respect 
 to the King of Saxony, who was his personal friend, and
 
 304 DRESDEN. 
 
 fought for him at Leipsic, near this, though sixteen bat- 
 talions of his troops went over and joined the enemy, by 
 which means Napoleon lost the battle. Of the painters 
 mentioned above, Van Dyck was born 1599; died, 1641: 
 Jordasns, born, 1594 ; died, 1678: Paul Totter, born, 1625 
 died, 1654: Rembrandt Van Rhyn, born, 1606; died, 1674: 
 Rubens, born, 1577; died, 1640: Teniers, born, 1610; 
 died, 1694: Guido Reni, born, 1574; died, 1643: Murillo, 
 born, 1618; died, 1682: Holbein, born, 1498; died, 1554: 
 Raphael, born, 1483; died, 1520: Matsys, born, 1460: 
 died, 1530: Titian, born, 1477; died, 1576. The theatre: 
 the royal palace ; the singular looking church, with its 
 numerous sculptured statues on it and in it, its great organ 
 of near six thousand tubes, which melodizes an ocean of 
 air; the fine bridge over the Elbe, with its crowds .of 
 passers and its police; Briihl Terrace, with its prome- 
 nades: trees, cafes, and the fine view along the Elbe; fine 
 churches, all of cut stone, and without any wood whatever 
 are all near each other, and make a striking coup d'ceil of 
 stately splendor. On Briihl Terrace are given very fine 
 concerts, which we attended, and heard some rich old music 
 on the violin, with piano accompaniment. Almost all these 
 European cities are curiosities, and have accumulated in the 
 lapse of ages many things historically very remarkable. 
 Time, even in his ordinary course, casts carelessly on the 
 shore of being many things which grow interesting merely 
 by reason of their age. To-day we hired a commissionaire 
 with whom to "do Dresden." We first visited the Catholic 
 church. This, in its exterior, is surrounded by two rows 
 of statues ; one row on the first story, the second around the 
 highest part of the building. It is of stone, as are a major- 
 ity of the houses in Dresden. Within, the view is grand: 
 there are fine paintings, some on canvas, others in relief. 
 The royal palace is near it, being connected by a bridge 
 thrown over a street, by which means the royal family can
 
 TUB GREEN VAULTS. 805 
 
 PH to their pews without being seen. Exteriorly the palace 
 is only a large, common-looking stone building, with nu- 
 merous windows, but no architectural pretensions. The 
 royal family are Catholics, notwithstanding their subjects 
 are Protestants. They were formerly Protestants, and were 
 the earliest and firmest friends of Luther and the Reforma- 
 tion ; but one of the kings renounced Protestantism, in the 
 vain hope of being elected King of Poland. Under the 
 royal palace are the celebrated Green Vaults, into which we 
 now entered. The fee is one dollar and a half, admitting 
 from one to six persons. This secures the attendance of a 
 gentlemanly guide. These chambers are numerous, and con- 
 tain collections of works of art paintings, inlaid enamel, 
 and mosaic work of all kinds; most ingenious and skillful 
 specimens of work in ivory and marble: relics of old kings; 
 precious stones of all kinds, and of immense value the 
 accumulations of ages, and the productions of all climes 
 the whole valued at many millions of dollars, and not sur- 
 passed in Europe. Some of the rooms almost blaze with 
 diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and curiously wrought gold and 
 silver plates, baptismal fonts, and marriage presents of kings 
 and queens. Carved works in stone, marble, ivory, and 
 especially well done. Some contain many hundred figures, 
 cut out of a single stone. Curiosity becomes satiated, and 
 wonder ceases, overcome, when one is looking at these 
 things. Richly jewelled swords of state are here exposed ; 
 curious clocks, in all sorts of devices : in short, it is a vast 
 depository of the treasures of the mine and the works of the 
 hand all that it could do in bronze, in pearls, in ivory, in 
 Btone. The mosaic and inlaid tables are extraordinary. A 
 tableau representing the gorgeous court, palace, and throne 
 of Aurungzebe, King of Delhi, figures of bronze, gold and 
 gems, is especially admirable. It is resplendent with gems, 
 and all the attitudes of the figures are most life-like. The 
 artists were generally Germans and Flemish. The cave in 
 20 2 A 2
 
 306 THE ANCIENT ARMOR. 
 
 which Aladdin, according to Eastern story, met the Genius, 
 could scarcely be more splendid than 'these vaults. From 
 this we went into the curious and ancient armory, where a 
 similar fee is paid. The armory collections, which are in 
 many rooms, contain the identical suits of armor worn by 
 ancient heroes. There are statues mounted on mail-clad 
 horses; feudal heroes, on their gallant steeds, in deadly 
 combat, with fixed lances, and vizers down, in all the armor 
 and chivalry of six hundred years ago. There is also a com- 
 plete Turkish tent ; there is the armor of the great John 
 Sobieski, King of Poland, and defender of Christendom 
 against' the Turks, whom he conquered at the siege of 
 Vienna ; there are many war trophies taken from the Turks ; 
 there are also arms of various periods ; guns and cannons 
 in their rudest formation; there is a Colt's revolver, two 
 hundred years old an invention in all respects similar to 
 Mr. Colt's, except in the rotation of the barrel being effected 
 by hand instead of a spring, and which, the conductor 
 informed us, very much suprised Mr. Colt himself, when 
 he visited the Museum some years ago. There are some 
 relics of Napoleon I. his boots, worn at the battle of Dres- 
 den, and his slippers; and there is also the cast of his skull, 
 taken by Dr. Antommarchi, at St. Helena, just after his 
 death. This is probably the best representation of the em- 
 peror that now exists. The head and face are large ; the 
 cheek bones are high and prominent ; the cheeks very much 
 sunken, and there is an imperial, majestic resignation, indi- 
 cated by the mouth and general appearance. All the organs 
 of the head seem large ; those of memory and reflection ex- 
 tremely so, and the general appearance of the head is that 
 of great power to resolve and accomplish. This is the 
 original. There is a copy in Paris, which I saw there; 
 and beside it is a splendid bust of the emperor in marble, 
 as he was in the days of his greatness ; and nothing could 
 be more pitiable than the contrast. The difference is
 
 NAPOLEON VON WEBER. 307 
 
 triking; and, allowing considerable for flattery on the part 
 of the sculptor who took the bust, one cannot but see that 
 the imprisonment at St. Helena lessened greatly the size of 
 the head, and benumbed and paralyzed all his faculties ; so 
 that it was true, as he said, " Once I was Napoleon : now I 
 am no longer any thing." There could have been no greater 
 punishment on earth than to condemn a brain that had 
 known such activity to such nonentity. When the alliance 
 with England ceases to be useful to cement his throne; 
 when the ennuied French army demands action ; when the 
 emperor wants an Austerlitz in his reign; when the old 
 Bonaparte associations begin to be worn out; the present 
 French emperor will refresh them all by a real Napoleonic war 
 on England, in which their conduct at St. Helena will come 
 up for vengeance. He that is so miserly hoarding up associa- 
 tions of his uncle, does not forget St. Helena and Waterloo. 
 The military music here is truly magnificent. It dis- 
 courses at each change of the guard, at noon, under the 
 queen's windows. In a music hall near this we were shown 
 many different kinds of automaton musical instruments, 
 which go because wound up. They are remarkably inge- 
 nious; play well: but, after all, the best music is that which 
 has a human head or hand directly producing it. From 
 this we strolled along Frederick street to the Catholic 
 Cemetery, where, among humble graves, marked with 
 crosses, and around which are high walls, shutting out the 
 world, and inclosing a quiet, calm, tranquil spot, we read 
 on a slab the single words, " Carl Maria Von Weber," the 
 great deep-souled and plaintive German composer, second to 
 none, lies buried. He was a native of this city, but died in 
 London, whence his remains were removed by his son. 
 Artificial wreaths of flowers immortelles lay on his grave- 
 stone: he has been dead about thirty-six years showing 
 that some at least remember him besides those who take 
 selfish pleasure in his immortal music. Here he sleeps;
 
 308 GENERAL MOREAU DRESDEN. 
 
 but "La Derniere Pensee" will wail his memory forever. 
 From this we advance near two miles from the city, through 
 farms of fine and well-cultivated soil, where, on an eminence 
 commanding a most lovely view of the Vale of the Elbe, 
 and the many-spired and domed city, we found three young 
 oak trees, one of which was planted by the Emperor 
 Alexander II. of Eussia ; another, by the King of Prussia ; 
 and the third, by the Crown Prince ; and beside them is a 
 large granite block, surmounted by a military cast-iron cap. 
 This is General Moreau's monument; and his legs, taken 
 off' by a cannon ball, fired in Dresden, two thousand yards 
 off, are buried here. An inscription in German reads, 
 " The hero Moreau fell here by the side of Alexander." It 
 was in 1813, when the reverses of Napoleon induced the 
 hope in the monarchs of Europe that their oft-shaken and 
 tottering thrones might yet be saved. The Emperor of 
 Russia, the King of Prussia, and General Moreau were 
 reconuoitering the French position in Dresden ; when Na- 
 poleon, perceiving a group of horsemen, ordered a shot to 
 be thrown among them. " Which of them shall I take, 
 sire ?" said the gunner. " The middle one : he is my great- 
 est enemy." It was necessary to amputate the legs of 
 Moreau, during which operation he calmly smoked a pipe. 
 He died twelve hours afterward. Napoleon did not know 
 the middle one was Moreau. In returning to the city we 
 saw, in a garden, the place whence the shot was fired. The 
 environs of Dresden are beautiful. Portions of the old walls 
 remain ; and the pools and baths of Augustus the Strong, 
 and some of the houses of his seventy-two concubines, exist. 
 The army of Saxony consists of more than twenty-five 
 thousand men, larger than that of the United States, though 
 Saxony is not as large as the State of New York. These 
 troops are simply to keep the king on his throne these 
 people being strongly inclined to a revolution. There 
 appears to be here a better middling class than in England,
 
 DRESDEN. 309 
 
 and this class are in favor of a republic. In the military, 
 all over Europe, the governments possess a power to keep 
 themselves up and the people down. The soldier can do 
 nothing without the officer. The officers are nearly all 
 noblemen consequently attached to royalty from interest, 
 education, and feeling. But it is very evident the govern- 
 ment is one of force and restraint ; that it requires an army 
 to keep it up. Our government is just the reverse. It 
 needs no defense. It stands supported by the consent of the 
 governed. Here the government is antagonistic to the will 
 of the people, and requires these strong armies to keep them 
 secure from enemies without and subjects within. 
 
 This evening we visited the Opera, and had the pleasure 
 of hearing "Der Freyschutz," or "The Huntsman," by Von 
 Weber, in this his native town. It is a grand opera, and 
 the music is far superior to the acting and to the words. It 
 should be performed without any other exposition than 
 itself. Next day I revisited the Picture Gallery, and gazed 
 long on Raphael's sublime creation. I also visited what is 
 called the Japanese Palace, where one sees more than three 
 hundred thousand volumes, one of the most extensive libra- 
 ries in Europe the literature of each nation arranged in 
 compartments: French, English, Russian, all the German 
 states, ancient Greece and Rome, and also American litera- 
 ture. Conspicuous among the last I noticed a fine copy of 
 the "Writings of Washington," and an embellished copy of 
 his " Farewell Address." It is he who first gave to America 
 its great name and reputation in Europe. He has the heart- 
 felt respect of all Europe. He is the focus through which 
 they view America. Yet such a man was such a novelty 
 to them successful without being selfishly ambitious, and 
 who chose rather to found a government than a dynasty ; 
 who only accepted office on account of patriotism, and 
 resigned the command of armies to become gladly a private 
 citizen. Such a man comes not twice on the arena of time.
 
 310 PRAGUE. 
 
 His greatness excites no jealousy, and commands without 
 demanding the admiration of the world. He is dead long 
 since; but moral, and unpretending, and sublime virtue and 
 patriotism have nothing of the tomb about them. There 
 are here also many manuscripts of Martin Luther on the 
 Bible ; ancient Bibles, when the art of printing was young ; 
 and ancient missals, and things that would make a paradise 
 for an antiquarian ; undeciphered Mexican, Sanscrit and 
 Arabic writings. In the visitor's books you write your 
 name; and in it you are shown the names of Napoleon, 
 (date 1807,) Schiller, Goethe, Henri Duke de Chambord, 
 Koskiusco, Lord Nelson, his paramour Lady Hamilton, 
 and others, written by their own hands. 
 
 We left Dresden after several days sojourn, and proceeded 
 in the direction of Prague, one hundred and sixteen miles 
 distant. The railway lies mainly along the Valley of the 
 Elbe, whose banks rise into perpendicular cliffs and massive 
 mountain rocks of great majesty ; while in some places 
 there are terraces, or steps, ascending the mountains, or small 
 plantations, giving us memories of the Rhine. This is the 
 Saxon Switzerland, and in fine weather must afford ex- 
 tremely pleasant excursions. Some of the rocks stand up 
 like mighty Gothic columns in a church. There are old, 
 arched stone bridges connecting elevated peaks, while be- 
 low are little white houses, or remote, old, and quiet Ger- 
 man villages, in which the peasants reside who quarry out 
 the stone from the mountains, which is conveyed in steamers 
 to Dresden for building purposes. On many of these scenes 
 the eye loves to linger. Beyond Dresden, toward Berlin, 
 the country over which we traveled consisted of an undu- 
 lating plain, soil rather sandy, and frequently covered with 
 young pine forests, presenting evidences of rather a sparse 
 population. At length we arrived at the ancient capital of 
 Bohemia, Prague, on the Moldau, where we spend a day or 
 two. Entering Austria from Saxony, we begin to notice
 
 PRAGUE. 311 
 
 the old, peculiar stone crosses, at many places, proving our 
 being in the domains of another religion, Austria being a 
 Catholic power. At Badenach, on the frontiers, our pass- 
 ports were demanded, and, being found regular, were re- 
 turned on personal application, the train delaying one hour. 
 In Prague our baggage was searched ; the officers, however, 
 were civil. Having gotten to our hotel a very dirty one 
 "Zum Schwartzen Ross," a printed paper was presented to us, 
 in German, which we were obliged to fill up, stating our 
 name, age, religion, profession, where going to, whence 
 coming, whether alone, or attended by any one. These 
 things being all duly attended to and they are not much 
 trouble after all, and would greatly facilitate inquiries 
 should one meet with accident the police rested quietly. 
 In Prague, the summer and autumn, which had both been 
 protracted into winter, at length gave way to the stormy 
 season, and it rained and snowed furiously, as if to make 
 amends. Despite the weather, I walked about the old 
 and interesting city, so peculiarly and inveterately Bohe- 
 mian and German. Prague is surrounded by a most rich 
 and beautiful country. The hills are high and the soil very 
 fertile. A very thick wall, outside of which is a deep, wide 
 ditch, surrounds the town. The wall has on it roads and 
 promenades, which are planted with avenues of trees. From 
 the wall a splendid view may be had of the hills, with their 
 garniture of castle, church, or monastery. At certain places 
 are splendid arched gateways, or passages, to and from the 
 city, which are guarded by soldiers. Many of the streets 
 are wide, and furnished with fine buildings, except in the 
 old town, where they are narrow, winding, antique and odd. 
 The inhabitants of Prague are one hundred and thirty 
 thousand, of whom twenty or thirty thousand are Jews. 
 Here is the old Jews' town without streets only narrow 
 passes, between old lofty houses, and here is a strange 
 mournful-looking old brick building of oriental style,
 
 312 PRAGUE. 
 
 peaked-pointed, gabled, and irregular. You enter it is 
 dull, dreamy, dreary, has high vaulted roof, strange seats ; 
 old men, long-bearded and serious, earnest-looking, move 
 about in the lamp-lit darkness ; and here is a large book in 
 the Hebrew character, an old Testament without any new 
 this world without another. It is the place of an extinct 
 religion, which was once glorious and imposing in Asiatic 
 lands and old days a religion which had God for its 
 author and destroyer, yet to which its adherents cling with 
 uuperished ardor, though the glory has departed from 
 Israel, and the Ark of God no longer rests among them. 
 And here is the old Jews' Cemetery, full of plain monu- 
 ments, strewn thick as leaves in Autumn, and as dreary. 
 There is no hope here through Jesus Christ, no resurrec- 
 tion of the just and unjust, none of the new world of liv- 
 ing hope which Christianity has thrown around death. 
 The Jews are obstinate infidels, but where are there more 
 industrious, sober, virtuous people more quiet, orderly, 
 and law-abiding, though oppressed and down-trodden ? But 
 I am on the great stone bridge across the wide Moldau, in 
 the vale and heights around which the city is built. This 
 bridge has numerous piles of statues on each sides, and at 
 regular distances, representing historical and Catholic le- 
 gends, the numerous figures occupying impressive attitudes. 
 The chief group represents the life and death of St. John 
 of Nepomuk the patron saint, or household god of this 
 city. For each Catholic city, in Europe, has a little, deli- 
 cate, chaste, lire-side saint or patron, pure, ideal, and le- 
 gendary, to whom their heart affections turn, and who is 
 always ready to assist them. Now St. John of Nepomuk 
 is very old. He was confessor to the beautiful Queen of 
 Bohemia, and her lord and master suspecting her fidelity 
 ordered the priest to disclose the secrets of the confessional, 
 which he refusing, the king hurled him off the bridge into 
 the river. St. John of Nepomuk was no more, and the
 
 PRAGUE. 813 
 
 people of the town wondered what had become of the 
 pious and benevolent father. But behold, in passing the 
 river, there was always a bright lambent flame hovering 
 on the wavy water, and on searching there they found his 
 body; and the late remorse of the king, the sorrow of the 
 queen, and the regard of the people, have preserved his 
 remains for centuries in the principal church, in a vast 
 silver coffin. On the other side of the river is the grand 
 palace of the great rebel chief Wallenstein a hero of the 
 Thirty Years' War, so well depicted by Schiller, whose work 
 is so well translated by Coleridge. It has three tiers 
 twenty windows in each tier, and its gardens are kept in 
 fine style. On the top of a high hill in that part of the 
 city is a collection of magnificent buildings, called the 
 Hradschin. There is the Imperial palace, that of the arch- 
 bishop ; the Museum, with its paintings and Bohemian cu- 
 riosities ; and here in the dull mysterious light of the even- 
 ing we enter the Gothic cathedral, with its numerous inter- 
 nal columns, old, gray and massive, and around each one 
 of which are numerous statues, and the grand, thrilling 
 music of the organ utters itself among the tombs and old 
 columns. A mausoleum here contains the ashes of thirteen 
 princes and princesses, and here is the silver coffin of St. 
 John of Nepomuk, their household word god. St. John 
 has many images angels, figured ideas, &c., of the same 
 metal, and of immense value. The church itself is truly 
 a most magnificent architectural idea in stone. From the 
 hill you see the sixty church spires of Prague, the vale of 
 the river, the long wide stone bridge, the hilly and now 
 snow-mantled country around, with many villas, churches, 
 monasteries, castles, crowning them ; the sixty clock and 
 twenty-two other old towers of the city, presenting an as- 
 pect peculiar, imposing, and regarded as the most beautiful 
 of the German towns, and has the most antique and unique 
 character. Few places have struck me as being so agree- 
 
 2B
 
 314 VIENNA. 
 
 able, and nowhere have I seen so much beauty in the 
 common classes of the people, especially among the young 
 girls who preside in the shops with grace and unconscious 
 dignity. Yon may see them ply their work at night to 
 eke out their little living, totally unmindful how hard their 
 sisters in other lands belabor the piano, battling out the 
 " Battle of Prague" a battle fought about one hundred 
 years ago. There is certainly more enjoyment in many of 
 these European cities than those of America. The English 
 and ourselves are the most matter-of-fact business people 
 on earth. In these countries, all that music, painting, sculp- 
 ture, architecture, fine scenery, and works of taste, can do 
 to develop the lighter, the agreeable, the most pleasant and 
 social qualities of the heart, is done ; whereas we pass our 
 lives in the mighty, the serious, the awful business of money- 
 making as if instead of letting life live, we were fully 
 determined to have always more than enough. This indeed 
 is our greatness mere enjoyment is too little a thing for 
 us. Here the people, having been born, take it for granted 
 they will live somewhere, and having lived yesterday ex- 
 pect to live to-morrow, and enjoy in the meantime their 
 little more than those who have abundance. 
 
 But we are off now for Vienna, distant two hundred and 
 fifty miles. We pass through a country uneven, but well 
 cultivated; then through low lands which the peasants are 
 plowing, having high hills in the distance ; then we come 
 to mountains, some of which have ruins that look Roman- 
 like on their summits. We see vast column-like crags. 
 We come to old Austrian, agricultural, changeless villa- 
 ges ; we perforate the mountains in twelve tunnels come to 
 vast pine forests, find the old roadside crosses everywhere, 
 representing the "Man of Sorrows." We glide along re- 
 mote brawling brooks, some of which are bordered by long 
 avenues of poplar at times see a princely chateau or a 
 large manufactory finally, after about twelve hours, we
 
 VIENNA. 315 
 
 pass the great glistening Danube. Our luggage, as usual, 
 is examined, while we anathematize the cool Austrian offi- 
 cials. We drive through the princely streets to our hotel, 
 where, after being very comfortably ensconced the Vienna 
 hotels are good, but dear we find the police solicitous as 
 at Prague to know the particulars respecting our age, reli- 
 gion, profession, standing, &c. ; their unhappiness on these 
 points being relieved, we are allowed to consider ourselves 
 in Vienna, the capital of Austria, and one of the largest and 
 finest cities in Europe, having four hundred and seventy- 
 three thousand inhabitants, sixty thousand of whom are 
 Jews. Austria contains nearly forty million of inhabit- 
 ants, near thirty states or departments. Of the population, 
 according to their nationality, nearly eight million are 
 German, nearly fifteen million of the Sclavonic race, Ro- 
 mans eight million. About twenty-five million are Catho- 
 lics, three million Greek Christians, the others Protestants, 
 Jews. Of the latter there are nearly a million. The army 
 consists of 425,873 infantry, chasseurs 32,534, cavalry 
 70,376. 
 
 In splendor and general appearance, Vienna far exceeds 
 Berlin, which, except the Unter-den-Linden street, narrowly 
 escapes being simply an antique, dull, German town, like 
 Hanover or Brunswick. The royal palace in the city here, 
 in general appearance, is not so fine as that at Berlin, 
 though in position superior having fine grounds and gar- 
 dens near it, whereas that at Berlin has nothing of the kind. 
 Here the houses are very high appear new and clean the 
 streets are well paved, though narrow the squares are 
 small, but have some fine statues; there is a fine group of 
 allegoric statues on the Volksgarten in commemoration 
 of the great plague; there is one to John Sobieski, the 
 savior of Vienna and Christendom in 1683, which the Aus- 
 trians ungratefully forgetting, assented to the division and 
 annihilation of his kingdom. The people here are very
 
 316 VIENNA. 
 
 courteous to strangers, after the police are satisfied about 
 the, objects of one's sojourn and means of subsistence. 
 There are no tables d'hote here; one dines a la carte. The 
 moneys are silver coins, called florins, worth about forty-six 
 cents, and copper coins called kreutzers, worth seven or 
 eight mills. French gold coins pass readily. The walls 
 around Vienna are an immense work, consisting of an outer 
 and inner wall, fifty or sixty feet apart, filled between with 
 earth and rocks, and planted above with trees, furnishing an 
 elevated and beautiful promenade. Outside the walls is a 
 moat large enough to contain a river, which, in case of siege 
 or attack, could be filled with the Danube. The exterior 
 curve of the moat has also a high wall, and in the sunken 
 place are now fine gardens, promenades, avenues of trees, 
 military houses, defences, etc. Through and under the walls 
 are, in many places, strongly guarded gates and drawbridges. 
 Much of the city lies outside the walls ; the part inside is very 
 compactly built. The cathedral here is a Gothic building, 
 and is one of the largest churches in the world. Outside it 
 presents the darkened appearance of extreme and stately 
 age of innumerable little turrets and castles on the sides 
 and ends of the columns and cornices of tombs around it, 
 and sculpture carved work images, saints all expressive, 
 almost animated, yet tattered and wasted away by slow, 
 consuming, and inevitable age. The spire is a grand sight; 
 it wedges the sky ; it is four hundred and twent} r -eight feet 
 high, decreasing gradually to a cross. It is called the 
 Cathedral of St. Stephen, and was founded about the year 
 1000. The great bell was cast from the metal of one hun- 
 dred and seventy cannon taken from the Turks. Inside 
 you will be presented with a grand spectacle. Immense 
 and lofty Gothic columns, around which are clusters of 
 saints and martyrs in marble long, narrow, high windows 
 dim, sepulchral pictured glass paintings of rare merit 
 thirty-eight altars of marble silent worshipers bowing in the
 
 VIENNA. 317 
 
 chapels the great tomb of the Prince Eugene the Tyr- 
 olean marble monument to the Emperor Frederick III.: 
 also, the congregations listening to discourses in some 
 remote chapels the mystic ceremony of the Mass going 
 on the wax candles the music of the grand organ, like 
 the solemn utterings of the spirit of the place and all the 
 solemnities of the great Catholic superstition, unexhausted 
 and still interesting after the lapse of hundreds of years. 
 Under the church are thirty great caves filled with bodies 
 some of them kings. That the worshipers of the Catholic 
 religion derive some sort of comfort and spiritual happiness 
 from its processes, there can be no doubt. You will see 
 them before day, or in the early dim light of the morning, 
 stop on their way to market, with baskets on their arms, in 
 solemn and sincere prayer, or kissing a shrine or image. 
 Their churches are open at all times, and at all hours per- 
 sons may be seen within, in act of devotion ; while Protest- 
 ant churches are open perhaps three hours per week, and 
 then thinly attended. Our system is better, but our practice 
 is worse. We have the enlightenment of the serpent, but 
 lack the zeal of ignorance. We have more of government, 
 and they have more of God. 
 
 But here is the church of the Capuchin monks, and into 
 the vaults of the contiguous convent we descend, and here 
 are the bronze and silver tombs of the House of Austria for 
 two hundred and thirty years past. A monk with white 
 stole and candle conducts us, and points out and names the 
 mouldering occupants who sleep the sleep of death in the 
 splendor of carving, gilding and statuary. Here is the 
 great monumental coffin of the Empress Maria Theresa, 
 worth many millions; and here are also plainer tombs. 
 Maria Louisa, wife of the first Napoleon, and by her side 
 sleeps their son, the Duke of Reichstadt. She is described 
 as wife of Napoleon then Emperor. The Duke of Reich- 
 stadt has a fulsome epitaph in which his title is given, as 
 
 2B2
 
 818 VIENNA. 
 
 born king of Rome, and he is described as possessing every 
 virtue of mind, speech, or person ; and the cause of his 
 death is stated to be phthisic. The inscriptions are in 
 Latin. That to the Duke begins with "To the eternal 
 memory of," etc. The Austrian guide who accompanied us 
 stated that he died of the miserere that it was currently 
 reported at the time that Fanny Ellsler was the grave of the 
 Duke of Reichstadt, and that he was always in love with 
 some danseuse. His situation was, doubtless, peculiarly 
 awkward connected in blood with the most powerful fam- 
 ilies, yet descended from the humiliater of them ; feared as 
 the inheritor of the Napoleonic ideas, and as the centre 
 around which French agitators might concentrate, it is 
 probable he was wished out of the way ; and whatever the 
 ties of consanguinity might dictate, the political ideas which 
 were the cause of his existence, and of the marriage of his 
 mother to Napoleon, may have also accelerated his death, or 
 permitted such indulgence as would render him unfeared. 
 It is probable the indulgence of youthful passion was seen 
 and noticed with pleasure, and that no warning voice bade 
 him beware. Yet there sleeps, entirely humbled into the 
 dust, the proud fabric of Napoleon's ambition. Another, 
 and a descendant of the divorced one, inhabits the scenes 
 reared for this dead one. The eventual does justice to all. 
 The Austrians will be humbled yet, and will atone for the 
 violation of the ties of blood. The French and Austrians 
 must inevitably come into collision in Italy. The French 
 Emperor wants a decent pretext to fight the Austrians. "We 
 also visited the splendid tomb of the Princess Christina, an 
 almost speaking collection of marble statues. It is the 
 chief work of modern art being by Canova. We saw also 
 the silver urns in which are enshrined the hearts of mem- 
 bers of the royal family. There is another work of Canova 
 near here, in a building erected for the purpose of contain- 
 ing it, which some reckon as his best. It is Hercules kill-
 
 VIENNA. 319 
 
 ing the Centaur. You gaze at it with astonishment ; it is 
 most life-like in its verisimilitude. Sculpture is a glorious 
 art in such hands as Canova. 
 
 Vienna is one of the most interesting cities on the Conti- 
 nent. It is some fourteen hundred years old, having been 
 founded on a Roman camp, on the Danube. Alter the 
 death of Attila in 453, the Goths established themselves 
 here. The houses are all numbered regularly throughout 
 the city, no attention being given in numbering to the 
 various streets. To-day I saw the emperor driving, through 
 the streets in his magnificent coach, drawn by six horses, 
 preceded by military flourishes, and generally bowed to. 
 He is but twenty-seven years old ; is married ; has a daugh- 
 ter; no son. His title is Emperor of Austria, King of Bo- 
 hemia and Hungary, King of Lombardy and Venice, Dal- 
 matia, and several other places. He succeeded his uncle in 
 1848, the latter having abdicated, and the father of the 
 present emperor having renounced his right as next heir in 
 his favor. The name of the present emperor is Francis 
 Joseph. To-day we visited Schoenbrun, the winter resi- 
 dence of the emperor, about three miles from Vienna. The 
 appearance of this palace is very fine: the style is simple 
 and grand. Around the palace are beautiful grounds 
 trees cut so as to resemble walls; there are lakes, fountains 
 statues; long avenues, arched with trees; and on a hill 
 about a mile through the grounds rises a beautiful colon- 
 naded building, called the Gloriette, surrounded with elegant 
 walks, and adorned with cascades. From this point a most 
 splendid view may be obtained of Vienna the high moun- 
 tains at a distance, now covered with snow, and the Vale of 
 the Danube : the memory of this view is itself a glory. It 
 embraces the ground of the battle of Wagrara. Not far 
 from here is the emperor's park, embracing three thousand 
 wild boars. The Duke of Reichstadt lived in this palace, 
 and died here, July 22d, 1832. The villages around are all
 
 320 VIENNA. 
 
 places of resort. In the Cemetery of Wahring repose the 
 remains of Beethoven, though the exact place is said to be 
 unknown. Keturning to the city, I visited the Belvidere, a 
 vast palace, erected by the Prince Eugene, now used as a 
 picture gallery. The collection is very extensive, embracing 
 many works of the old masters: many by Eubens and 
 Titian. In the upper story are the finest modern paintings 
 I have ever seen, by Dutch and Swiss masters. Those 
 of the old Dutch masters are some of them very old 
 some on wood; many extremely valuable. There are three 
 thousand in all. It is astonishing what a number of pic- 
 torial scenes are furnished by the Bible more than from all 
 other books together. Most of the pictures, and all the 
 finest, are sacred subjects various incidents, real and imag. 
 inary, in the life of the Saviour ; then scenes, or assumed 
 scenes, in the life of the Virgin Mary ; then the distresses 
 and sorrows of the Magdalene. There are many rooms 
 guards in uniform in each room who see that no injury is 
 done by the numerous visitors; some of whom walk through 
 these splendid avenues of rich old paintings at the rate of 
 three miles an hour, pronouncing judgment, probably, and 
 making up their opinions as to their merit at a glance of a 
 second ; from which they must infer their merit is but 
 secondary. The guards will answer any questions relative 
 to the paintings, on which occasions some of them expect 
 a fee; though in general admittance is free to places of pub- 
 lic curiosity in Vienna on certain days. We also visited 
 the royal riding school, which is one of the finest buildings 
 in Europe of that kind. We saw some very fine horses, 
 which had been taught all kinds of artificial gaits and 
 graceful movements. The riding, however, did not seem 
 better than that of many a backwoodsman, who would 
 never dream that riding could be made a branch of learned 
 education. We visited also the Imperial Collection of 
 Medals and Antiquities, which contains many things of great
 
 VIBNNA. 321 
 
 interest, extending buck to the middle and Roman ages, the 
 enumeration of them merely would fill volumes. Volumes 
 have indeed been written about a single object here. For when 
 nothing is known absolutely about any thing, there is the 
 finest opening possible for saying a great deal. Antiqua- 
 rians must be left to their own unsatisfactory puzzlings. 
 The Glacis is a very interesting place to visit. It is the 
 large open space between the walls of the city and the sub- 
 urbs. It is planted with trees, has gardens; there are 
 military reviews, music, and vast crowds hurrying to, and 
 fro; soldiers, of whom there are twenty thousand in Vienna, 
 all of whom seem very courteous. Etiquette is rather a 
 ponderous thing in Vienna. Every body takes off his hat 
 to every body. The banker transacts no business with you 
 as long as you keep your hat on. Should you pass out of 
 your hotel every five minutes, the landlord, clerks, porters, 
 commissionaires, all take oft* their hats each time. 
 
 I have seen Goethe's Faust performed here. This great 
 German drama was most effectively rendered. The scenic 
 machinery, especially where the devil appears and dis- 
 appears, was quite remarkable. Nothing of the kind that I 
 have ever seen could be compared to the vast interest and 
 attention on the part of the audience. The great German 
 seemed to be uttering their own ideas, which all had felt 
 but none could utter. Goethe is a powerful delineator of 
 the human heart. His works " raise the devil" in the heart, 
 but they cannot lay him again. The reflections of Faust, 
 as delivered, were fearful. 
 
 Among the curiosities of Vienna is always shown the 
 Stock in Eisen. It consists of the trunk of a tree, near a 
 house in the centre of the city, which dates from the time 
 that the forests extended to this point. It is everywhere 
 full of nails. Every locksmith's apprentice, in taking the 
 tour of Germany, (they travel for seven years,) in passing 
 through Vienna, drives a nail into it, as a mark of their 
 21
 
 322 TRIESTE. 
 
 sojourn, though it is all covered with nails ; and, it is said, 
 it requires the assistance of the devil to drive one into it 
 now. We have been in Vienna some days, and to-morrow 
 we leave it. It is a lovely moonlit night. I have walked 
 about the great St. Stephen's Platz, with the great church 
 in the centre, its spire ascending into the sky a most im- 
 pressive sight the very variously covered tiled roof gleam- 
 ing in the moonlight, like a lake of silver. No sight is 
 more impressive than a large and splendid city gradually 
 creeping into the stillness of night so much of mind is 
 hushing up, and so much of life going into temporary dark- 
 ness. The greatest wonder in all the curious creation is, 
 that the author God of it is not more apparent. We see 
 results, but the mighty Cause is unseen. 
 
 But I slept last night (this is Friday, Dec. 4th,) on the 
 shores of the Adriatic Sea, beyond which rise the shores of 
 the most delightful of all lands on earth Italy, the beau- 
 tiful, the historical, the mournful where we expect to spend 
 the winter. We have completed our course of near fifteen 
 hundred miles through the centre of Europe, and are now 
 at Trieste, the most commercial town of the Austrian do- 
 minions. Here are the masts of numerous ships of all 
 climes here Italian activity and versatility have taken the 
 place of German ponderosity and politeness, and a softer and 
 more musical language, written in characters familiar to our 
 eye, has taken the place of the ugly, black, Gothic letters 
 and printing we have had since leaving Holland the Dutch 
 being always written in Roman letters in Holland. All 
 things indicate another race and language the names of the 
 streets, the public notices, the vernacular at the hotels, the 
 common language, the brighter air, speak of our approach 
 to Italy the fallen, beautiful Eve of all countries. We 
 left Vienna yesterday at sixX-and-a-half o'clock, in the ex- 
 press train for Trieste, three hundred and eighty miles 
 south-west of Vienna, passing through parts of Styria,
 
 AUSTRIA. 323 
 
 Hungary, and Hlyria, dominions of the Austrian Empire. 
 It is a splendid railway, and has only been finished within 
 a few weeks past. As usual, in Europe, there are first, sec- 
 ond, third, and fourth-class cars, at various prices and con- 
 veniences ; the first class contain only six persons, and are 
 cushioned with pink velvet ; the second-class contain eight 
 persons, and are better than the English first-class. The 
 railway over which we passed is the most remarkable one 
 in the world. The difficulties overcome far exceed those on 
 the Baltimore and Ohio Railway. It ascends three thousand 
 feet or more in thirty miles, and passes through at least 
 twenty tunnels. The viaducts and bridges are, many of 
 them, very long, and are of the most solid construction. 
 We began to ascend soon after leaving Vienna leaving a 
 mild climate and getting into a region of snows and cold 
 and occasionally violent winds the locomotive climbing up 
 an elevation at the rate of fifteen miles an hour then 
 passed through Scemmering tunnel, nearly a mile long, on 
 the summit of the Styrian Alps then descended into 
 pleasant vales along a river by the side of which rise snow- 
 clad mountains, seven thousand feet high, presenting land- 
 scapes of remarkable and wordless loveliness. At Gratz, 
 situated in a magnificent plain of very rich land, we saw, as 
 well as at some other places, ancient ruins, some of them 
 very extensive, consisting of thick, dilapidated stone walls, 
 works of Roman and feudal powers, creating a strong desire 
 to stop arid "do them." They are generally built on 
 the almost inaccessible summit of a conical or sugar-loaf 
 mountain a village occupying the base of the mountain 
 and commanded by the castle and are generally near some 
 large tract of arable land. The scenery in Scemmering 
 Pass is of the most grand character. The railway lacerates 
 the perpendicular sides of hard, rugged, limestone moun- 
 tains, leaps bridges, with numerous arches, over awful chasms 
 we perforate hills in darkness, or lit by the glimmering
 
 324 CAVE AT ADELSBURGH. 
 
 lamps in the cars, burning most of the route pass old, small 
 Austrian villages, which the railway seems to be awaking 
 from their slumber of one thousand years we glide by 
 miles of tranquil streams with their mills poplar avenues 
 pleasant, humble cottages come to pine-clad hills, rising 
 in rich verdure to a great height we follow circuitous 
 streams, sometimes reversing our course in a short distance. 
 The moon then rose over the bare and rocky mountains, 
 silvering their tremulous, distant outline, and glinting over 
 the lonely streams with delicate loveliness. Arriving at the 
 old Hungarian town of Adelsburgh, fifty-five miles from 
 Trieste, I, with an English gentleman, stopped for a day to 
 explore the celebrated grotto near it. About nine at night 
 we arrived at the single hotel, half a mile from the railway 
 station. There were human beings at the hotel, but not a 
 word of French or English could they speak. The next 
 morning we were conducted to the Austrian Commandant, 
 whose business it was, on our payment of a considerable 
 fee, to appoint us guides, three in number, to grant us ad- 
 mission, and give us the "little illumination." He could 
 speak French. The charge was six florins and five kreut- 
 fcers, admitting four persons, two paying the same. We 
 proceeded to the grotto, nearly a mile from the hotel, along- 
 side of a considerable stream of water, which appeared to 
 have no outlet till you came near a large limestone moun- 
 tain, where you find the river flows into a vast, natural ex- 
 cavation or cave, and is apparently lost. It reappears, it is 
 said, at a distance of thirty miles, passing under the moun- 
 tain. On a lofty, conical hill, immediately in front of the 
 cave, is an antique ruin, consisting of a few remaining walls, 
 of a feudal stronghold. It is almost as picturesque as 
 Drachenfels on the Rhine. It overlooks a fertile plain, con- 
 taining several small, old villages, bounded by bare, rugged, 
 limestone rocks. "We now prepared to enter the cave by 
 an iron door, a short distance to the right of the river. The
 
 ADELSBUKGH. 325 
 
 guide unlocks the door, prepares his torches; two other 
 guides precede us to light candles at various places. We 
 then enter the great darkness hear the noise of the rush- 
 ing river battling in the dark with giant rocks we pass 
 natural bridges see numerous lights, whose beams dance 
 on the dark waters we descend many steps we ascend, 
 stoop, squeeze through for the cavern is very low in some 
 places, in others it rises to a height of one hundred and 
 twenty feet. We then entered what is called the kingdom 
 of Pluto ; we came upon most beautiful forms and forests 
 of stalactites and stalagmites, made by the dropping of the 
 water during ages growing up and growing down also 
 some hanging from the roof, others rising from the floor. 
 They form most singular figures, some looking like time- 
 mutilated statues, others forming white limestone figures of 
 various animals, columns, crucifixes, arches, churches, dif- 
 ferent saints, almost every form having a name on account 
 of some fancied resemblance or distinction. In the beauty 
 of its stalactites this cave 48 unsurpassed in the world. The 
 dripping limestone water has here been growing into fan- 
 tastic forms for ages. One large apartment is called the 
 Cathedral, another the Belvidere, which has a fine marble 
 statue, commemorating a visit the Austrian Emperor made 
 here in 1816. Another apartment is called the ball-room; 
 this is of large size, has a level, solid floor, with orchestra 
 for the musicians, and on certain occasions great festivals 
 are held here, which thousands attend. Altogether, it must 
 be one of the grandest sights in the world when splendidly 
 illuminated. Another large apartment, about three miles 
 from the entrance, which was the limit of our explorations, 
 is called Mount Calvary. Other rooms are called the " Halls 
 of Drapery " the thin, transparent, limestone rock having 
 grown in the lapse of ages into most exact resemblance to 
 thin folds of curtains or drapery, hanging down and 
 variously colored. It is reckoned no cave in the world can 
 
 2c
 
 326 TRIESTE. 
 
 produce so vast and beautiful a collection of stalactites. On 
 grand festal occasions, more than six thousand candles are 
 lit throughout the cave, and when a fine band of music is 
 performing, the effect of such a scene the reflections from 
 the glistening columns must all be very fine. Almost all 
 the creations of Art in the outside world seem to have their 
 prototypes here in the works of blind Nature in the dark. 
 There are spires of churches, watch-towers, tombs, Egyptian 
 mummies, columns, petrified forests, pulpits, etc. The road 
 through the grotto is very good, and is supported by 
 balustrades at various points where necessary. AVe re- 
 turned partly by a different route, came within hearing of 
 the rushing dark waters, and finally to the pleasant sun- 
 light, having been three hours in the cave. There was a 
 fair at Adelsburgh that day. and the country people crowded 
 the streets in all the most curious and outre costumes. 
 Stalls and booths for the sale of all kinds of little wares, 
 were everywhere along the streets. Human creatures, in 
 all degrees of ugliness, were seen, and we saw also several 
 specimens, among the young girls, of the dark and flashing 
 beauty of Italian blood. It was a study of extreme in- 
 terest, to pass through this motley crowd. 
 
 We reached Trieste late at night. It has a beautiful po- 
 sition, just on the shores of the Adriatic, and is surrounded 
 by high hills, on which a part of the town is built. It 
 has more than eighty-three thousand inhabitants, is a free 
 port, and has in its docks and canals vessels from all parts 
 of the world. We have come from the North Sea to the 
 Adriatic. The weather here is at present mild and agreea- 
 ble. There are many fine houses here, built of the hard 
 limestone of the adjoining hills. Some of the old streets 
 are very narrow. I visited the Greek church to-day there 
 being many wealthy Greeks here, who wear a peculiar cos- 
 tume. It is a gorgeously furnished building gilt and 
 golden with some fine silver and gilt statuary. Two very
 
 TRIESTE. 327 
 
 fine, large, modern paintings are here. It is without the 
 altar, however, the confessionals, the images, and many 
 other things pertaining to its more modern and popular 
 rival, the Koman Catholic religion ; nor is it so well attended 
 nor its service so impressive. The crosses are all Greek 
 ones the arms of equal length instead of Latin ones. 
 The Catholic church is a schism from the Greek church, and 
 is better adapted to express the religious wants, and vent the 
 feelings of the lower class of people. The Greeks are 
 Iconoclasts. Some of the monuments around the fountains 
 in Trieste are very well worth looking at. The jewelers' 
 shops, dealers in coral, and glass ornaments, watches, etc., 
 are very line. The great attraction is the Cathedral, a sin- 
 gular-looking building in the Byzantine style, built on the 
 ruins of, and of a part of the Temple of Jupiter some of 
 the Roman pillars and columns of which two thousand 
 years old are incorporated into the building, and banded 
 with iron to prevent their falling to pieces from extreme 
 age. There are four rows of columns inside. This church 
 is said to be fifteen hundred years old. One of the kings 
 of Spain, Charles V., is buried here, and also Winkelman, 
 the celebrated German writer on antiquities. None of the 
 paintings are very good, but some are very old ; there are 
 frescoes and mosaics in the Byzantine style. From the 
 terrace before the church the view is of rare splendor the 
 blue Adriatic with its ships, ten thousand of which enter 
 and depart the port of Trieste per annum the red tile- 
 roofed town below you the high hills around, studded with 
 villas the residences of merchants, grown rich by the com- 
 merce of Trieste, which has prospered at the expense of 
 Venice, and all other ports on the Adriatic, and exceeds in 
 commerce any other city in Germany, except Hamburgh. 
 But to-morrow we expect to depart for Venice, beautiful 
 Venice, the discrowned Queen of the Adriatic. It is sixty 
 miles across, which the steamer usually performs in six
 
 328 VENICE. 
 
 hours. Adieu, then, to this part of Europe. We enter on 
 older and more celebrated scenes, whose day is past, yet 
 which catch a radiance from their old-like sunset hills when 
 the orb of day is gone. 
 
 But Venice, " beautiful Venice, city of song, city of old/' 
 We crossed the Adriatic Sea to-day, Dec. 5th, and are now 
 in Venice, the city " standing out of the water and in the 
 water." I as usual exercised my special talent for sea sick- 
 ness, though the sea was smooth, or only heaved calmly, 
 like the heart of a sleeping infant. We crossed in about 
 six hours in one of the Austrian Lloyd steamers. We had 
 fine views on our right, at the extremity of the sea, of the 
 rugged, mighty, massive Tyrolean mountains, rising majes- 
 tically, swathed in everlasting snow, above which were strata 
 of dark clouds. Then, as we approached this side, domes 
 began to rise out of the water with crosses on their summit, 
 church-bell towers or campaniles houses somewhat dingy, 
 like aged marble, of strange architecture; rows of high, 
 arched windows; above these, rows of circular windows; 
 canals walled up; and finally we came to a city sitting on 
 the sea, a loveliness resting on the waters, a city of silence 
 and beauty. There were some ships visible inside the im- 
 mense embankment built to keep out the high, stormy 
 waves of the Adriatic, and protect, in cairn waters, the 
 treasured city of the sea a loveliness in age, a history in 
 waves. It is useless to say we landed, there being no land 
 visible. We stopped in the middle of the great lagoon, 
 opposite the palace of the Doges. There were no streets, 
 but high, palace-looking dwellings, rising from the water on 
 each side of long, narrow canals. Many gondolas long, 
 light, graceful, canoe-looking boats most of them black, 
 and with an enclosed tent-like covering over them, looking 
 not unlike hearses, came alongside, and we were distributed 
 to our hotels, which are placed along the canals in different 
 parts of the city, ascending to them by steps which came
 
 VENICE. 329 
 
 down to the water's edge from the huge doors. The hotels 
 are generally in old palaces, and have much of Venitian 
 grandeur about therm the city having decayed, not having 
 halt* as many inhabitants as formerly it has about one 
 hundred thousand and many of the proud old families ex- 
 tinct. It is truly a city of silence ; no omnibuses, drays, 
 wagons, horses, or carriages being seen nothing but the 
 mysterious gondola, managed with great dexterity gener- 
 ally by two rowers gliding in all directions, none ever 
 coming in contact. Then its steep, arched, marble bridges, 
 generally one arch spanning the canals the bridges are 
 four hundred and fifty, the canals one hundred and thirty- 
 four the profusely ornamented houses, the grand palaces 
 of marble, all rather surpass expectation than otherwise. 
 We find some Americans here some of the type who in- 
 terlard a "damn" about something in every sentence, who 
 pronounce Europe a humbug, and can see nothing in her 
 glorious works of art or her relics of history, unaware that 
 the reason is in themselves, and that there is nothing in 
 them. In civility, politeness real politeness deference, 
 respect and obedience to authority, general order in the 
 cities and in large crowds of people, in ease of manner, ad- 
 dress, in works of art and genius, in architectural taste, in 
 excellence of railways, depots, and general security to life, 
 in established individual reliance, I have no hesitation in 
 saying many countries in Europe are far ahead of us Amer- 
 icans, notwithstanding our bombastic, inflated pride. As 
 to governments, that is the best government which is the 
 best administered ; and our government, though theoreti- 
 cally the best on earth, will be in great danger of becoming 
 the worst, through default of its agents, many of whom are 
 rapidly becoming corrupt,. unprincipled rascals. "VVe have 
 so long believed in the motto, " Principles, not men," that 
 we have neglected to observe the reverse is the exact truth, 
 and that honest men ought to be the first consideration, and 
 
 2c2
 
 330 VENICE. 
 
 principles will be the result. The conduct of Americans in 
 Europe is sometimes amusing. I observed one on the 
 steamer yesterday, who seemed to have attained a comforta- 
 ble degree of self-estimation, which he was fearful of having 
 disturbed if he should see any thing in Europe that was not 
 a great deal worse than in America. He seemed to be rest- 
 less till persons about him knew that he had been in Con- 
 gress, and could have been President, but for one James 
 Buchanan, had he been nominated in place of Mr. Fill- 
 more. While giving our passports to the landlord of the 
 hotel to register our names, I said to him, " I believe, sir, 
 you are an American." " Yes, sir," said he, " and if you 
 ever heard or knew any thing about America, you must 
 
 have heard of me. I am Mr. ." Not long after I 
 
 heard him make the same remark to a foreigner who spoke 
 a little English, and who not having heard the name dis- 
 tinctly, avowed, in his extra politeness, that he had often 
 heard of Mr. Potts, that he had a high esteem for Mr. Potts, 
 thought Mr. Potts a distinguished man. The gentleman 
 corrected him, that that was not quite his name. This gen- 
 tleman, however, is a man of considerable ability, much 
 fluency, but a superficial thinker ; and his morality may be 
 judged from his remark that " in Venice he does as Venice 
 does," which is not much of a compliment to his own coun- 
 try that he forsakes its manners and morals, and adopts 
 those of foreign cities. In conventionalities, matters of 
 mere etiquette, it is very well to "do in Eome as Rome 
 does ;" but no man of sense thinks the great, essential prin- 
 ciples of morality are to be changed with one's clime. 
 What may be right, or at least innocuous to those bred to it, 
 or accustomed to it, may be quite wrong in one whose 
 opportunities have been different and greater. 
 
 Venice, as is well known, stands on what was originally 
 a marsh in the Adriatic Sea, which was covered at high tide. 
 The islands are nearly one hundred. The gorgeous, rich,
 
 VENICE. 331 
 
 old city, with its marble palaces, and its splendid churches, 
 has its foundation in the sea on piles. The basements of 
 most of the houses are of stone the other parts brick in 
 many instances plastered. It has greatly declined from its 
 former glory, political influence and trade. It is a beauti- 
 ful decay. No new houses have gone up for more than two 
 hundred years. Most of what are called its streets, are nar- 
 row, paved passages, three or four feet wide, winding be- 
 tween high houses, and having numerous bridges, some of 
 them marble, where these passages cross the canals. Most 
 of the houses front on the canals, with steps into the water, 
 from which you get into the gondolas, which are indispensa- 
 bly necessary, though it is said one can walk all over the 
 city, all the islands being connected by bridges. Yet it is 
 the most difficult city in Europe in which to find one's way. 
 The gondoliers are about seven thousand in number ; the 
 fare is about twenty zechini for each hour's ride in one, with 
 one oar. The gondoliers stand up to row ; the fulcrum of 
 the oar is an upright piece of wood, a foot high, against 
 which the oar rests. The foundations of the buildings, like 
 those of Amsterdam, which city bears a remote comparison 
 to Venice, rest on piles. The buildings are best seen from 
 the water, as one glides smoothly along in his gondola. 
 
 But I have to-day stood on the summit of the great cam- 
 panile or Bell Tower of St. Mark's Piazza, or place, which 
 is near four hundred feet high. What a scene of splendor 
 the smooth, sunlit Adriatic Sea Venice below, without 
 streets, a compact mass of houses, with numerous churches 
 and palaces in the distance the mainland mountains, 
 gleaming in the red and pale light of snows, their bases in 
 darkness, and their undulating snow wilds alone visible ; 
 immediately below is the great Piazza San Marco, an im- 
 mense, oblong, marble-paved place, with splendid, colonnaded 
 buildings around it, among them the Basilica of San Marco, 
 with its numerous domes, and the peculiar-looking Doge's
 
 332 VENICE. 
 
 palace the multitudes of promenaders on the piazza the 
 Austrian band discoursing fine military music the other 
 sides of the piazza being lined with old Venitian marble pal- 
 aces, their fronts resting on arches, making a covered walk 
 around the piazza. The church of St. Mark is one thousand 
 years old, and has five hundred marble pillars within and 
 without. Its floor consists of mosaic marbles, in very 
 small, smooth pieces, of many colors. Like St. Sophia's 
 church at Constantinople, it is in the form of a Greek cross. 
 It has five cupolas. Its paintings, mosaics, and frescoes 
 are numerous; there is a clair-obscure kind of light within, 
 which almost magnifies its confusion and profusion of splen- 
 dor. There is let into the floor, near the entrance, a line of 
 porphyry, to show the place where, in the year 1177, Pope 
 Alexander III. placed his foot on the neck of the Emperor 
 of Germany, Frederic Barbarossa: which act shows the ex- 
 traordinary power of the popes in those days. The columns 
 and arches and vaults within the church are of exquisite 
 workmanship ; there are rows of columns of verd antique, 
 porphyry, serpentine, and other kinds of marbles ; the capi- 
 tals of some of the columns represent foliage blown about 
 by the wind. In this church the remains of St. Mark, 
 brought from Alexandria, are deposited. There are bronze 
 horses here, brought from Constantinople, when the Veni- 
 tians took that city in the middle ages; these are of an 
 ancient Roman origin. There are fluted pillars in spirals, 
 said to have been brought from the Temple of Jerusalem. 
 The bronze doors, with a whole history of legends on them ; 
 one door is said to have employed an artist twenty years. 
 This church surpasses any thing I have seen in the splendor 
 and richness of its adornings the tesselated marble floors, 
 with their devices and mosaic pictures the lapis lazuli and 
 other precious stones. The tomb of the great Doge Dan- 
 dolo is here the last of the Doges buried here. The relics 
 here are numerous, a portion of the true cross, a portion of
 
 DUCAL PALACE. 333 
 
 the dreas of the Saviour, a portion of the earth which im- 
 bibed his blood, and other things. We heard Mass here, 
 and the music of the organ, which reverberates amongst the 
 columns and domes in such a manner that one can scarcely 
 tell whence it comes ; but it seems a wild, mysterious, rest- 
 less spirit, inhabiting the dim-lighted, grand, old Byzantine 
 picture^. Alongside of the church is the Doge's palace, 
 covered with lead, and partly used as a state prison, having 
 subterranean dungeons, the famous lead-lined hall, where 
 the formidable Council of Ten sat, and also the great library 
 of St. Mark, composed of one hundred and fifty thousand 
 volumes, and one thousand rare and valuable manuscripts, 
 besides a cabinet of antiquities and a gallery of paintings. 
 The architecture seems peculiar a kind of Oriental Veni- 
 tian. On the side next to the water are seventy circular 
 windows, resting on Venitian arches, supported by marble 
 pillars. Underneath these are other painted arches and 
 sculptured pillars, making a magnificent arcade. Above 
 the circular windows extends another very large story of 
 variegated brick-work, with but few windows these large 
 and highly ornamented. The effect of this building, with 
 its lugubrious memories, is very impressive. The peculiar 
 Venitian style half Corinthian, half Oriental the strength, 
 and age, and ornaments the increasing dinginess of the 
 marble then its appearance of being a lingerer from the 
 past on the shores of the present, render this building one 
 of the most remarkable in Europe. It is said the square 
 of St. Mark, on which it is situated, casts into the back 
 ground every piazza in Europe, for architectural beauty and 
 interest The only one that can compare with it is, proba- 
 bly, the Piazza di San Pietro, at Rome. The Doge's palace 
 fronts on the Grand Canal and on this piazza. We entered 
 the Ducal Palace, ascending by the Giants' Staircase, where 
 the ancient ceremony of crowning the Doges took place, 
 and where, according to Byron's drama, Marino Faliero,
 
 334 DUNGEONS. 
 
 the Doge, delivered his eloquent, last speech, "I speak to 
 Time and to Eternity, of which I grow a portion not to 
 man," and was then beheaded. We went through the 
 Senate Halls, Halls of the Ambassadors, anterooms, rooms 
 of the Council of Ten and Council of Three. These are all 
 splendid rooms ; their ceilings and sides are magnificent, 
 with paintings by Titian, Tintoretto, Paul Veronese, and 
 others. Some of the doors are of cedar of Lebanon, 
 brought out of churches in the East; the fire-places are 
 most richly ornamented with marble carvings; the pilasters 
 of some of them are of verd antique. We also entered the 
 Library, a room of regal magnificence, showing how power- 
 ful and opulent this great republic was during her thirteen 
 hundred years of freedom. It is one hundred and seventy- 
 five feet long, eighty-four broad, and fifty-two feet high. 
 We saw here the largest painting on canvas in the world 
 Tintoretto's Paradise eighty-four feet in width, and thirty- 
 four feet in height a. powerful painting, though defaced 
 and obscured by age. There are many others of excellence, 
 including portraits of all the Doges, which are a grand 
 border of portraits around the room. That of Marino 
 Faliero, who conspired against the government of which he 
 was the head, is covered with a vail, with this inscription: 
 "The place of Marino Faliero, decapitated for his crimes." 
 From the windows here the view of Venice is grand. From 
 this we went into the halls of Grecian and Roman antique 
 sculpture ; many objects here are very old and mutilated, 
 and disfigured by age. There are some Arabic maps, rep- 
 resenting the world before the discovery of America, show- 
 ing the state of geographical knowledge. A group of 
 sculpture Ganymede and the Eagle is said to be by 
 Phidias. After entering several rooms, and seeing the 
 " Lions 1 mouths," or where they were, a receptacle for 
 anonymous communications accusing any officer of the 
 2tate, we descended into the dreary state dungeons under
 
 DUNGEONS. 335 
 
 the palace, rayless cells, one under the other, and horrific. 
 They are like wells in the thick walls of the palace. They 
 are very numerous. We saw the spot where the prisoners 
 were strangled, then their bodies carried off to the secret 
 cemetery, where nothing marked the place. These were 
 the prisons for political offenses against the State. Our 
 guide said such prisons and secret accusations were neces- 
 sary in a republic. You descend by a horrid trap-door, and 
 crawl through holes, and you see the miserable pallets, 
 about a foot high, on which they slept perhaps the dun- 
 geons being so small, possibly five paces in length, two and 
 a half in width, and six high, that no position was com- 
 fortable. The guide had a lantern to show us these places. 
 There were holes in them for a little air, and also to hand 
 the prisoners their food. They have not been used for 
 many years. Then we went over the ".Bridge of Sighs," 
 a narrow, covered passage across a canal, serving as a com- 
 munication between the Ducal Palace and a large, fine 
 building, the prison for ordinary criminals. The guide 
 asserts that prisoners, after being condemned in the palace, 
 went across this bridge, where, through two gratings in the 
 side, they took their last look at Venice " saw from out the 
 wave her structures rise" sighed, then went into the 
 prisons ; whence they were, when to be executed, conducted 
 by another passage, now walled up, into a cell, and there 
 strangled. It is a dreary, narrow passage, and was doubt- 
 less trodden by the feet of sorrow for many years. " The 
 palace and the prison" are thus on each hand. Sir John 
 Cam Hobhouse, who wrote the notes to the Fourth Canto of 
 Childe Harold, describes these places admirably. The 
 other sides of the Piazza di San Marco are surrounded by 
 splendid shops and government buildings, cafes, etc. There 
 are columns, some brought from Constantinople, others 
 from St. John of Acre. Some are surmounted with lions, 
 others with martyrs; there is the great, dark tower, with its
 
 336 PALACES. 
 
 dial in the centre, representing the Zodiac, and two statues 
 in bronze, that strike the hours twice over, at intervals of 
 five minutes. There is a flock of pigeons that comes every 
 day at two o'clock into the square, of unknown origin; 
 they are fed at the expense of the government, and pro- 
 tected with superstitious care by the people. There are two 
 great, granite pillars, fronting the Grand Canal, one of which 
 is surmounted by a celebrated bronze winged lion, brought 
 from Constantinople in the middle ages. 
 
 To-day we have devoted to the palaces of Venice. The 
 hotel in which we stay was formerly a palace the Palazzo 
 Grassi. The rooms are very high ; there is much carving 
 around the mirrors much painting on the ceilings sev- 
 eral large halls floored with cement, into which are let bits 
 of marbles, polished and smoothed. It stands on the Grand 
 Canal, and has an air of Venitian splendor. Our party, 
 consisting of an English gentleman, a lady and gentleman 
 from New York, and myself, having hired a gondola, with 
 two rowers, for twelve swanizigers, about two dollars, pro- 
 ceeded along the Grand Canal, which winds through the city 
 in the form of an S. It is lined with dingy palaces of mar- 
 ble, rising out of the water. Many of them are most 
 splendid, internally and externally. Some combine three 
 orders of architecture Doric, Ionic, and Composite in 
 their fa9ade. Many of them are historical, belonging for- 
 merly to old, extinct families of the Doges. There were 
 those of the Foscari the Merceria, in which Lord Byron 
 lived that of Manini, the last of the Doges that of Con- 
 tarini, and numerous others, with marble steps down to the 
 water's edge. Their names were pointed out as we passed, 
 by the gondoliers. We stopped at the Manfrini palace, in 
 which is an excellent collection of paintings by Venitian 
 masters. There are ten rooms, splendidly ornamented with 
 many remarkable paintings ; some fossil remains were also 
 shown, and many specimens of rich, marble tables; the
 
 VENICE. 337 
 
 floor was of cement, curiously inlaid with small pieces of 
 marbles. The Venitian school of painting, of which Titian 
 stands at the head, is remarkable for richness of colors, 
 general dignity, and aristocratic grandeur of position, and 
 apparently high enjoyment of life, in delineation. The 
 chief works of Titian, who lived nearly a century born, 
 1477; died, 1576 are in Venice. The Manfrinis are gone 
 with all their glory, as well as most of the proud, old Venitian 
 nobility. Some get poor, and sell the rich collections of 
 paintings, considered invaluable by their ancestors. Some 
 sell the materials of their palaces; but seventy-five having 
 been demolished in this way, an order from the government 
 put a stop to it. N We visited, also, the Academy della Bella 
 Arta, and strolled through its large and fine halls, which 
 have numerous and. highly life-like paintings. Some are 
 nearly three hundred years old, and belong to the pre- 
 Raphael school. The best are by Titian, Tintoretto born, 
 1612; died, 1694 and Paul Veronese born, 1628; died. 
 1588 and Giocondo born, 1477; died, 1511. Some of 
 the paintings are much injured by time and neglect. Sev- 
 eral were removed to Paris, but returned on the downfall of 
 the first Empire. One painting here represents an old 
 Venitian legend how that on a dark and stormy night, 
 when the sea had risen five or six feet, and was still 
 rising, a boatman was requested by a stranger to row him 
 to a certain place, which he at first declined; the myste- 
 rious stranger promised to protect him from the storm, and 
 pay him well. They stopped at other points, took up two 
 others, and finally, in the midst of a terrible gale, met a 
 large vessel manned with devils, who proclaimed that they 
 were about to sink Venice into the sea, because a school- 
 master had sold his soul to the devil, and then hung him- 
 self. At sight of the three persons, who then appeared to be 
 the buried corpses of St. Mark and other saints, the diabol- 
 ical fleet disappeared, the sea became calm, and Venice was 
 22 2 D
 
 338 CHURCHES. 
 
 saved. The church adjoining the Academy of Fine Arts, is 
 remarkable for its fine marble carvings, its carvings in 
 wood, and much splendor generally. 
 
 We have devoted a day to the churches of Venice, and 
 have visited several of them. They are in all styles mod- 
 ern, Italian, Lombard, Gothic, etc. They are all finely 
 ornamented by the art and genius of the Yenitians of old 
 times, and the variety and extent, the profusion of objects 
 of beauty, pictures, tombs, altars, is almost painful. 
 Painting and sculpture and art of all kinds have done their 
 best, and the eye almost tires, and is "satisfied with seeing." 
 In the church " dei Frari," is the great tomb of Titian, with 
 its groups of mourners in sculpture, and its simple inscrip- 
 tion, " Here lies the Titian " ; the tombs of several Doges, 
 and of Canova also. Nothing could scarcely be more im- 
 pressive, splendid, or grand, than this rich, old, immense 
 church, with its magnificent religious ceremonies, and the 
 fine Italian, though somewhat operatic music here, and the 
 golden sunlight shining on the works of art. The weather 
 is fine here; the snows and cold of Berlin, Prague, and 
 Vienna seem all left behind. We were also in the Church 
 of the Jesuits, which has a fine painting by Titian St. 
 Lawrence on the burning coals. The altar has ten twisted 
 columns, solid blocks of verd antique ; the ceiling is sur- 
 prisingly grand. The pavement is in mosaic. L T nderneath 
 a small slate, in front of the altar, rest the remains of 
 Manini, the last of the Venitian Doges. " The ashes of 
 Manini to their eternity," is the simple and beautiful inscrip- 
 tion in Latin. The church of San Giovanni e Paolo con- 
 tains, it is said, the ashes of twenty Doges, and among many 
 other fine paintings, Titian's Martyrdom of Peter Martyr, 
 reckoned the third finest painting in the world by some. It 
 is much defaced and dim ; but the expression of the fright- 
 ened soldier's face is wonderful. This church is undergoing 
 repairs. There are solemn and devotional exercises going
 
 VENICE. 339 
 
 on almost all the time in these churches, and the music 
 might be imagined angelic, without doing much injustice to 
 the angels; organs, stringed and brass instruments, all utter 
 notes and wails and strains and melodies, to me at least, en- 
 tirely new in the domain of the empire of sound. We 
 visited many other churches there are seventy in all in 
 Venice and then the Campo Santo, or melancholy burying 
 ground, on an island, and there we saw the sun sink into 
 the sea, among the minarets and domes and spires of per- 
 ishing, retrograding, but beautiful and wonderful Venice. 
 ^Notwithstanding the splendor and pageantry of their beau- 
 tiful religion, which they make at least as much a thing of 
 this world as of the other, no people seem to live more for, 
 and in the present, than do the Venitians; and nowhere 
 does life, this human life, appear under so graceful and 
 pleasing an aspect. The soft and delicious language the 
 most musical of all the Italian dialects the processions, the 
 gilded churches, the night scenes on the grand, gas-lit 
 piazza, all seem to demonstrate a people who drink in 
 enjoyment with every breath, and whom nothing can make 
 or feel serious, except the mention of their Austrian rulers. 
 The priests are assumed to take care of and be responsible 
 for their souls' salvation, and life is then a short and delight- 
 some drama. The regular prostitutes are said to number 
 twelve thousand, and all the rest ready and willing to be- 
 come so for a consideration or temptation. But to-morrow 
 we leave Venice. I have stood to-night on the Kialto, the 
 great, marble, one-arched bridge, the span of whose arch is 
 ninety -five feet, the width of it seventy-five feet, three streets 
 or passages on it, and twenty-four shops in two rows. The 
 blue air was sprinkled with stars, and below me was the 
 Grand Canal, with its palaces on each side. There were 
 crowds of Venitians hurrying across the bridge. A money 
 changer has an office at one end, reminding one of Shylock, 
 who was here " rated " by Antonio. The Italians decline,
 
 340 ITALY. 
 
 but live "patiently on." The heel of the Austrian is on 
 their neck. Thus it is with nations they have their great- 
 ness and decline their youthdom, their manhood, and their 
 decline. It is never vouchsafed to the same soil or the same 
 people to be twice great. Among the other places which 
 we visited in Venice, is the Arsenal. These buildings are 
 very extensive. In front of them are four lions, in Grecian 
 marble, of singular aspect and great fame, said to have been 
 brought from Athens, and one of them to have stood as a 
 monument on the field of Marathon. 
 
 This is Italy fair, lovely, romantic, ruined Italy the 
 Magdalene of nations the fallen, lovely sister of all coun- 
 tries beautiful in decay, and lovely in ruin the fallen 
 angel among the kingdoms of the earth. It is incompetent 
 for human speech to express the hatred these people have 
 for their Austrian rulers. In Venice this hatred is subdued 
 and tearful, hopeless and plaintive ; in other parts of Italy, 
 more fierce and bloodv. It is an awful thing to enslave a 
 
 / a 
 
 proud, ancient, historical people, who have genius and in- 
 tellect, but no power. Italy is the desolate and degraded 
 Eve, still lingering in Paradise. She is the woman 
 "lovely, harmless thing" conquered and rifled by the 
 stern, rude, heartless, coarse, large, beastly, infernal Aus- 
 trians. Yet the Italian can retire to his arts, his history, 
 and his memory, and wait the efflux of time. Will the 
 future have nothing for America to do in Europe? Are 
 not our principles calculated to be universal as man, and 
 limitless as the planet? What business the Austrians have 
 to rule in Italy is a problem. They are a different people 
 altogether cold, phlegmatic, and with blood borrowed from 
 the greasy seal or oily whale. The Gordian knot of the 
 Italian question ought to be cut by the sword. Austria got 
 Italy as the price of her adhesion to the " unholy" Alliance 
 of 1815, when one million of Germans had to be supplied 
 to conquer one man. But that man was Napoleon. She
 
 VERONA. 341 
 
 sold the blood of daughter, son-in-law, and grandson, to get 
 Italy. The erasure of Austria from the map of Italy, is 
 the legitimate, inheritable, descendible vengeance of the 
 Bonaparte family. It is their treasured, peculiar, private, 
 and highly valued revenge. The French have no disgrace 
 to erase from the day of Waterloo. They performed prodi- 
 gies of valor, and failed because Napoleon committed the 
 error of judgment in deeming a communication and concur- 
 rence with Marshal Grouchy not absolutely essential. An 
 army is not disgraced when fairly beaten. But there is a 
 meanness about the treatment of the man of modern times 
 at St. Helena, and a cool, deliberate, villainous contempt in 
 the manner with which the Austrians sacrificed Napoleon, 
 when he had twice saved their monarchy from extinction, 
 that will require a large investiture of future French fury. 
 The floodgate current of modern, human, popular improve- 
 ment, beats in vain against the embankment of Austrian 
 tyranny. But she will come down yet, and may she have 
 no resurrection, except to damnation. 
 
 But we are away again. We left "beautiful Venice" 
 this morning, by rail, for Verona, where we now are. The 
 day was most lovely. We took our last look at the grand 
 Piazza di San Marco, bounded by palaces, at the beautiful 
 Cathedral of St. Mark, and at the Ducal Palace, wound our 
 way for the last time, forever, through the narrow passages 
 between the great square and the Grand Canal, got into a 
 gondola, and were rowed to the railway station. The rail- 
 way first passes a very long, narrow bridge, from the Veni- 
 tian Islands to the mainland, then a low and level country 
 with many avenues of trees, then across the Brenta river. 
 There were high, irregular peaks of mountains on our left ; 
 on our right, those of the Tyrol, covered with snow. We now 
 entered an ancient-looking and hilly country, with several 
 picturesque ruins on the hills, went through some tunnels, 
 passed old towns or stations those of Padua and Vicenza 
 
 2D2
 
 342 VERONA. 
 
 looked beautiful among their hills with neat villas, and 
 Roman ruins looking down on them. We came into the 
 vine and mulberry region again. Vicenza and Padua are 
 very interesting and ancient towns, with many fine palaces, 
 paintings, and relics of tribes who preceded the Romans in 
 Italy. We also passed near the battle ground of Arcola, 
 in which Napoleon, seizing a standard, planted it amidst a 
 tempest of shot on a bridge, and being in extreme danger, 
 was carried off by his own men, and finally, getting into a 
 morass up to his middle, was about being surrounded by the 
 enemy, when the cry, " Forward, to save the General !" re- 
 sounding through the French ranks, they rushed on, extri- 
 cated him, and gained a victory. The country seemed 
 fertile, but age seemed to set heavily on land and people. 
 We reached Verona at three o'clock, distant sixty-six miles 
 from Venice. It also sits upon hills, with a proud castle, 
 manned by Austrian troops, on one of them. Through it 
 flows, rapidly, the Adige, a considerable stream, which is 
 crossed by four very fine stone bridges one of them a 
 strange, ancient-looking structure. You feel you are in 
 Italy when you enter the gates of this town, enclosed ]yy 
 old walls. You hire a commissionaire ; he takes you first 
 to the Cathedral, a large building, eight hundred years old. 
 You see the usual tombs in the floor. You are shown the 
 Byzantine sculptures on each side of the door, with marble 
 lions guarding the entrance. Back of and above the altar 
 is a painting, apparently of great merit. The figures, in 
 their attitudes and expressions, are all striking; seldom 
 have I seen any more so. It is an Ascension of the Virgin, 
 by Titian. The Emperor Napoleon seized on it, and carried 
 it to Paris. You are shown, in another part of the town, a 
 Roman gate, strange and dark in its age, and with inscrip- 
 tions and sculptures. It is of the age of the Emperor Gal- 
 lienus, A. D. 265, whose name yet remains among the 
 inscriptions. You are now presented with a beautiful view
 
 VERONA. 343 
 
 of the Adige, with its quaint old bridge; and then con- 
 ducted to an immense, oval, stone structure, which, when 
 once seen, leaves on the mind impressions of gloom, age, 
 and strength, never to be eftaced. It is a Roman or Etrus- 
 can amphitheatre; probably the best preserved in Italy. 
 The guide says its age is unknown. u It is Roman that is 
 all." You enter through an arched gate in the thick walls, 
 in which were the dens for the beasts of all countries, and 
 find yourself in an oval area, with terraces of stone steps 
 ascending all around, capable of accommodating twenty-five 
 thousand spectators. It is impossible to describe its strong 
 magnificence. In the large arena embraced by the seats, 
 were the combats of the wild beasts and the gladiatorial 
 shows. It is still used for public exhibitions, and is proba- 
 bly, at the least, two thousand years old. The present 
 height is, in some places, about one hundred feet, and por- 
 tions of a highly ornamented outside wall, much higher, yet 
 remain, as also elevated seats for the governors of the 
 Province. Many of the cells for the wild animals are now 
 used as shops. The building is constructed of very large 
 blocks of Verona marble. Its circumference is fourteen 
 hundred and seventy feet. It seems strong enough in its 
 gloomy, giant strength, to last as many centuries yet as it 
 has already done. It is calculated the number of outer 
 arches was, originally, seventy-two. You are next shown 
 in the yard of a very ancient church, the tombs of the 
 Scaliger family, ancient dukes of Verona. There are two 
 principal ones, rising forty or fifty feet high, or four stories, 
 richly and solidly built, of Verona marble, and beautifully 
 surrounded with figures men, saints, angels, and horses. 
 Others are hexagonal, with Corinthian columns supporting 
 the lower story, and surrounded by iron trellis-work. Some 
 are in a plain sarchophagus, resting on figures of rnastift' 
 dogs. Some of the tombs, which really look beautiful in 
 their enclosure of iron- work alongside of a crowded street, are
 
 344 LOMBARDY. 
 
 more than five hundred years old. Adjoining is a small, 
 ancient chapel, which I entered. It contains a figure of the 
 Saviour, that seemed remarkably vivid in its expression of 
 suffering agony. There were the usual quiet worshipers, 
 kneeling around the dim candles and paintings. Verona 
 has about sixty-two thousand inhabitants. It is the scene 
 of Shakspeare's Romeo and Juliet. The tomb of the latter 
 is still shown. The castle of the Capulet family is now an 
 Inn. Verona was the birth-place of Cornelius Nepos, 
 Catullus, the elder Pliny, and Paul Veronese. We have 
 some of the loveliest sunsets imaginable. I crossed the 
 bridge over the Adige, ascended the stone steps leading to 
 the high hill, on which is situated the Austrian fort com- 
 manding the town. The prospect from the platform of the 
 fort is of extraordinary richness. The peaks of snow moun- 
 tains, rugged and cold-looking, the last ridges of the Alps 
 toward Italy, are very near; below is the town, with its 
 river, the bridges, and the strong and high wall, defended 
 with towers manned with soldiers. There are also the 
 spires and domes of the sixty churches of Verona. Among 
 other objects are the floating water-mills, anchored in the 
 stream. 
 
 We left Verona this morning, Thursday, December 10th. 
 Our course lay along the Alps of the Tyrol and Switzer- 
 land, having them on our right, and the level country of 
 Italian Lombardy on our left. The latter is under most 
 admirable cultivation, having numerous avenues of trees 
 intersecting all the farms. In some places, too, the moun- 
 tains are terraced. I counted in one place twenty terraces, 
 ascending the mountain like steps. We passed by a beau- 
 tiful blue lake Lago di Garda lying at the foot of the 
 Alps. I saw a beautiful little island in it, with villas, gar- 
 dens, avenues. We passed numerous villages, some stud- 
 ded on the mountain side, and many small streams of water, 
 f ed by the Alpine snows, and many dry beds of torrents
 
 MILAN. 345 
 
 which arc swollen into rivers when the snows melt on the 
 Alps. The streams of water generally are remarkably clear 
 and beautiful. The scene on the left is entirely different 
 from that on the right : while on the right were snows and 
 bare mountains, on our left lay level fields, which peasants 
 were plowing. There were long rows of Lombardy poplars 
 and other trees among the vine plantations. The towns of 
 Bergamo and Brescia on our right particularly impressed 
 us by the beauty of their situation. The towers all have 
 walls around them, with castles and strong Austrian gar- 
 risons in them. The Austrian emperor tyrannizes over 
 their bodies and the Pope over their souls. Priests and 
 Austrian soldiers are almost equally numerous. On many 
 of the churches in Verona one may see written, " Plenary 
 Indulgence," for various periods, both for the " living and 
 the dead" a license being thus sold, and a regular trade 
 being had in sin. In numerous places along the streets 
 were such inscriptions in Italian or Latin, as, " Mother of 
 God, pray for us !" and little shrines are numerous in all 
 places, having representations of the Virgin and Child, or 
 of the sufferings of Christ. But at length we approached 
 Milan, ninety miles from Venice. The railway diverges 
 from the mountains into the level lands of Lombardy, the 
 long avenues of trees became more numerous, and the coun- 
 try assumed an appearance of cultivated beauty rarely 
 equalled. The spires of the churches of Milan became visi- 
 ble. We underwent the ordeal of cab and omnibus drivers, 
 and soon, passing through one of the ancient gateways, 
 found ourselves in this large, elegant, and busy Italian 
 city the principal city of the Austrian Lombardo-Venitian 
 kingdom. It is reckoned one of the most populous coun- 
 tries in regard to territory in Europe, having one hundred 
 and seventy -six inhabitants to the square mile more than 
 Belgium, Holland, or France. We have passed, in coming 
 from Venice to Milan, over a portion of the finest part of
 
 346 MILAN. 
 
 this territory. There are many millions of lemon trees in 
 this part of the country. A few yards of ground, planted 
 in lemons, suffice, in this part of the country, to maintain a, 
 whole family. The people seem to be principally employed 
 in the cultivation of the vine, which is raised on the slopes 
 or terraces, arid in the mulberry and olive trees: the 
 former, for the silkworm ; the latter, for its oil. There are 
 numerous herds of cattle. The herdmen ascend to great 
 heights on the Alps in the summer, but as winter ap- 
 proaches descend into the valleys. Wax and honey are 
 collected. Italy ranks higher for her silk than any other 
 nation. Austria acquired the greater portion of this terri- 
 tory as the price of unnatural treachery, on the downfall 
 of Napoleon, by the treaty of Vienna, in 1814. Entering 
 Milan in the dusk of the evening, as we did, its effect is 
 impressive. We saw its long brick wall; the canal which 
 runs around the city ; the narrow streets, crowded with 
 people; the high houses; finally, the great Cathedral, the 
 third greatest church in the world, clothed with numberless 
 statues, miniature turrets, mitres, all of marble, rising high 
 above every other building, and almost mingling with the 
 stars of evening a glory and a loveliness. It is only sur- 
 passed by St. Peter's in Rome and St. Paul's in London. 
 We spent several days in Milan, looking at its churches, 
 monuments of old, and its citizens. I entered the great 
 Cathedral, saw its four rows of columns, Gothic, grand, and 
 high ; its dim, old, historically, and scripturally painted 
 windows, its tombs and its paintings of rare merit. It is 
 all of marble, and is almost clothed outside with statues, 
 there being in all four thousand two hundred of them. 
 Many of them are elevated on pedestals, outside and around 
 the church, on its turrets and minarets. There are saints, 
 angels, apostles, prophets: and among them appears that 
 of the first Napoleon, he having contributed a large sum to 
 finish the church, which had been building four hundred
 
 MILAN. 347 
 
 and seventy years. When within, the impression produced 
 on the mind is truly a grand one. The ceiling seems a 
 network of marble. The great height of the columns, their 
 number, the vast space inclosed by the sculptured walls, 
 the high Gothic arched windows, seem to soothe the mind 
 into a religious devotion. But I ascended to the summit 
 of the tower, more than five hundred steps, whence is a 
 view that might almost "redeem all sorrow." On the north 
 and west you have the Alps Mont Rosa. Mont Cenis, the 
 Jungfrau, glowing in snow, with many less and nearer 
 mountains. The spire is not so high as that at Strasburgh, 
 but the view is much finer. You have below the old city, 
 of one hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants, with its 
 walls, its ten beautiful gates, its canal, fine streets and 
 squares. South and east is the plain of Italy, in which the 
 river Po flows. The Apennines can be seen and the city 
 of Cremona, while immediately around and below you is the 
 wondrous embodiment of art, the Cathedral. The Austrian 
 military bands in all these towns are fine; and at change 
 of guard, about mid day, they perform in some public 
 square for about an hour. While on the Cathedral, the 
 powerful complaining of the music below gave a strong 
 interpretation of the scene. The length of this church is 
 four hundred and eighty-five feet, breadth two hundred and 
 fifty-two, height in the inside one hundred and fifty-three 
 feet; height to the statue of the Madonna on the spire three 
 hundred and fifty-five feet. The form is that of a Latin 
 cross. No less than one hundred and eighty-four master 
 architects, superintending the work, have been employed 
 on it since the first stone was laid in 1386. It is all of 
 white marble, and the style is the Italian Gothic. Among 
 the tombs there is one to San, Carlo Borromeo, part of whose 
 body lies exposed to view, all withered and decayed, but 
 invested with gorgeous apparel. There are eighty -one 
 churches in Milan. With a guide I visited some of them
 
 348 MILAN. 
 
 some of them very impressive in their age and architecture. 
 The Church of St. Lorenzo, built out of the ruins of a temple 
 of Bacchus or Hercules, and having on some of the columns 
 inscriptions of the time of Julius Cresar, looks all strange, 
 Roman, and antique, with its old mosaics and paintings. 
 There are sixteen Roman columns, which are shattered and 
 mouldering. I saw many other churches ; one, that of 
 St. Victoria, is ornamented all internally sides, ceilings, 
 columns, etc., with most elaborate works a volume of 
 study and beauty. There are compartments of raised work, 
 foliage, figures, exquisite tracery, etc. By the side of 
 another church stands a solitary Corinthian column, frag- 
 ment of some temple of Roman times, a lingerer in the 
 present hour and remote period. Many of the convents 
 and some of the churches were by Napoleon turned into 
 barracks for his troops. One of these, Santa Maria delle 
 Grazie, contains in the refectory used by the Dominicans, 
 the much mutilated, severed, but most wonderful and pow- 
 erful work of Leonardo da Vinci the " Last Supper." 
 I stood and gazed at it long. The greatness of true, deep, 
 earnest, sad genius is there. The Saviour's whole attitude 
 expresses wounded, solemn, majestic, overflowing love, into 
 which has come a mournful prescience. The Twelve are 
 sitting around a table, and appear to have been expressing 
 their confidence and regard for him. He says, " Verily I 
 say unto you that one of you will betray me." There is 
 wounded love on account or the ingratitude of Judas, sor- 
 row for its effects on the criminal, and then there is the 
 godlike majesty of resignation. All seem suddenly as- 
 tounded. Peter clenches a knife. In the whole range of 
 all the paintings I have seen there is nothing comparable 
 for esthetic grandeur to the head of the Saviour. It was 
 begun in 1493, and occupied sixteen years. It is an oil 
 painting on the wall. The painting is faded, and parts 
 have peeled oft'; soldiers have pricked it with their bayo-
 
 MILAN/ 349 
 
 neta; the refectory has been flooded with water; indifferent 
 artists have essayed to repaint or restore it; the room was 
 occupied as a stable as a hay magazine. Da Vinci himself 
 declared he would leave the head of the Saviour unfinished, 
 to indicate no mortal could do justice to such a head ; but 
 yet it is indisputably, undeniably, and undoubtedly the 
 highest and grandest production in the world. Raphael's 
 "Transfiguration" at Borne, as a whole, may equal it, but 
 the single head of the Saviour here stands alone and unap- 
 proachable. It is calculated it may last five hundred years 
 from the time it was begun. The next generation is the 
 last that will see it distinctly, as it is fading away. I also 
 visited the Picture Gallery, or Brena, which, though by no 
 means equal to that in Dresden, contains many tine paint 
 ings and frescoes or paintings on walls. There is the 
 "Martyrdom of St. Catherine" particularly. The beauty 
 of her face has nothing gross or earthly it is pure, reli- 
 gious, unearthly loveliness, calmness and faith. She was 
 broken alive on the wheel. There are five hundred or six 
 hundred paintings in all. Milan has many very splendid 
 shops, and was once the Paris of Europe the word milliner 
 having reference to fashions, originating from the name of 
 the city. The inhabitants are strongly inclined to repub- 
 licanism. In 1848 they overthrew the Austrian govern- 
 ment, got possession of the citadel; but, for lack of good 
 leaders and concert with other Italians, were soon put 
 down. We took our departure from Milan for Vigevano, 
 by Diligence, which went slowly along with three horses 
 abreast. On our right were yet the snowy Alps, on our left 
 the level, rich plains of Italy. The road lay along a canal, 
 from which departed numerous small streams, watering the 
 meadows, turning old-fashioned mills, and rendering them- 
 selves useful in various ways. We passed many dirty- 
 looking villages, with shrines, cathedrals, crucifixes, ave- 
 nues of trees but nothing seemed to present any temptation 
 
 2E
 
 350 SARDINIA GENOA. 
 
 to "do it" with Murray in hand. Many of the people 
 looked degenerate, and decrepit, and ugly. Some begged, 
 previously repeating, as if by rote, some obscure Italian 
 prayer. We have seen but few beggars since we left En- 
 gland till now. It is scarcely permitted in any part of the 
 Austrian dominions; and it must be admitted there is a 
 vigor about the Austrian government, and a kind of firm, 
 politic discharge of duty on the part of the officials, that is 
 admirable. When approaching the outskirts of Austrian 
 Italy, passports were demanded. Knowing the strictness 
 of Austrian officials, we took care to have them all right. 
 We now crossed the Ticino on a flying bridge, and entered 
 the kingdom of Sardinia. Passports again examined, and 
 baggage searched. The great demand is for tobacco, the 
 sale of which is a government monopoly. If any is found 
 it is seized, or one is obliged to pay a fine. We at length 
 arrived at the gloomy, miserable town of Vigevano, where 
 we remain an hour or two, waiting for the cars. It is a 
 strange place. The people look like regular Italian cut- 
 throats. The houses rest on arches : they enclose dirty old. 
 squares, lonely and desolate; black cats run about the 
 house-tops. The people rob you with their eyes and 
 perhaps would hardly respect the Virgin Mary if she came 
 along in a Diligence instead of appearing as in some 
 glorious creation of an ancient painter's pencil. The rail- 
 way train came by at length, and we were soon on our way 
 to Genoa, the brightly-starred Italian night-sky above. He 
 sees Italy only half who does not gaze often on its sky, 
 from which the greatness of its past seems to look down in 
 loveliness. We crossed the Po, came to the ancient and 
 famous town of Alessandria.; then near the battle-field of 
 Marengo, where Napoleon, with twenty thousand men, 
 accepted battle tendered to him by General Melas, with 
 forty thousand Austrians was defeated up to six in the 
 evening when Dessaix arriving with his reserve of five
 
 GENOA. 851 
 
 thousand troops, remarked, " I think this is a battle lost." 
 Napoleon said, "I think it is a battle won;" ordered Dessaix 
 forward, who was shot through the head at the first charge. 
 Napoleon said, "Alas, I cannot weep now!" rallied his 
 retreating forces, and annihilated the whole Austrian army. 
 We passed through a very hilly country, forming parts 
 of the Alps and Apennines, fled through tunnel after tun- 
 uel, one of them two miles long, the whole railway being a 
 splendid triumph of engineering skill, and at length we 
 came to a milder aired scene and an orange land, and 
 stopped in Genoa the Superb, one of the most pleasant of 
 all the Italian cities. It is not like Venice, built in the sea, 
 or on it, but on slopes of high Apennine hills, bleak and 
 bare, apparently, which form a little bay in the Mediterra- 
 nean. You take a stroll next morning. The delicious sun 
 shines through the transparent sky. The streets or pas- 
 ages are, as usual in Italy, very narrow, but the houses are 
 high, princely and massive, with arched gateways, leading 
 into open, central courts, with Corinthian pillars. The 
 streets are well paved, watered, and swept ; and their nar- 
 rowness, together with the extreme height of the houses, 
 renders them shady and pleasant a desideratum in a warm 
 climate. Since leaving Austria proper the climate seems 
 changed. We have now delicious bright skies, a vast 
 abundance of light, and clear air, which has a sort of per- 
 meatjng gayety. 
 
 The streets here are crowded with gay promenaders ; the 
 women wear no bonnets, but a light muslin scarf, peculiar 
 to Genoa, thrown over their head and shoulders and de- 
 scending to their feet in many cases. But they are not as 
 pretty, as handsome, as fine-looking, or as beautiful as 
 American girls, whom inclination, patriotism, and truth, all 
 combine in commanding me to declare as the most beauti- 
 ful, decidedly, of any women I have yet seen anywhere. 
 Our women in America are great, lovely, and patriotic, and
 
 352 GEXOA. 
 
 superior to all other women. The women of Prague have 
 a peculiar, physical, oriental, and rather dark beauty; those 
 of Italy, whom I have seen, are Very graceful, easily acces- 
 sible, affable. The orange and lemon grow here, and fine 
 roses look at you, hanging over ancient garden walls, as if 
 departing summer had flung her flowery garb backward. 
 The white orange flower, in its purity and beauty and fra- 
 grance, is out in its glory, and the sun covers the land with 
 his beams of love. It is Italy, the land loved by the sun. 
 But through a long vista of houses, behold the blue sea at 
 last the Mediterranean, to whose shores we have come 
 the sea of history, of empire, of Rome and Greece. Its soft 
 waves come up and kiss these Alpine hills, while on the 
 other side it stretches away into lost distance, like history 
 retiring into the night of noteless ages gone. But the soft 
 winds come from it, and the spiritual light dances on it as 
 if it loved its azure bosom; and here and there, in the 
 harbor of Genoa, are vessels of many climes, with their 
 many-colored flags, rejoicing in the prosperity and riches of 
 the sea of Europe. 
 
 We are now in the Sardinian dominions, to which Genoa 
 belongs, though for many ages it was independent, under 
 the name of Republic of Genoa. At the reconstruction of 
 Europe, on the fall of Napoleon, it was added to the king- 
 dom of Sardinia. It is very hilly. You go up long, nar- 
 row streets, enter narrow passages, enclosed with walls. 
 There are many old walls surrounding the city, remnants 
 of its past f6rtifications. Many terraces are also back of 
 the city, ascending the high hills. Some of these enclosures 
 consist of gardens and orange orchards. Outside of all, 
 however, is a strong, high wall, with numerous forts on 
 various lofty hills. These fortifications are thought to 
 render the city impregnable to any land attack whatever. 
 From any of these points, views of rare beauty may be 
 obtained of the sea and the city, which fronts on it, toward
 
 GENOA. 353 
 
 the south. The inhabitants here are very industrious, and 
 seem to be almost Dutch Italians. The population is over 
 one hundred thousand. The people are occupied in gold 
 and silver work, filagree, coral, embroidery in cambric and 
 velvet, making iron bedsteads which latter are very fine, 
 and it would be well to introduce them into America. The 
 houses are, many of them, palatial ; and on the whole, 
 Genoa is probably the third city in Europe, in regard to 
 beauty of situation, ranking after Naples and Constantinople. 
 To an American, it is associated with the name of Columbus. 
 With a guide, to-day, we visited several places of interest, 
 among them the Palazzo, or palace, DoriaTruai. The archives 
 of the city are kept there. I remarked to the guide, Columbus 
 was a great man. I was amused by the earnestness of his re- 
 ply, " O my God I he was the greatest man in the world !" The 
 papers of Columbus are kept more securely than any thing 
 I have ever seen being secured in a special receptacle, 
 which requires three keys to unlock it. Here, preserved in 
 valuable frames, are the manuscript letters of Columbus. 
 His name is signed by himself, somewhat singularly. The 
 family name, which is Colombo in Italian, is not put down 
 Christo is indicated by the three Greek letters, XPO, 
 the ancient Christian symbol for Christ. The other part 
 of the name is in Latin, FERENS all indicating, "he 
 that brings, or carries Christ." There are, also, copies of 
 his will, and some other things relative to him, all of which 
 are held in great estimation ; and the polite Genoese gentle- 
 man who showed them, was not displeased at the interest an 
 American felt in regard to them. Few men more certainly 
 had a mission than Columbus few pursued their mission 
 with more earnestness few under greater hardships ; none 
 whatever have accomplished a mission more pregnant with 
 important results. He was aomewhat of a visionary, and 
 may be so considered ; but his visions were those of 
 prophecy. There are none of his family remaining in 
 23 2E2
 
 354 GENOA. 
 
 Genoa. Some of them exist in Spain the Duke of 
 Veraganos being the head of the family. The honors con- 
 ferred on Columbus by the King of Spain were almost 
 princely, but they availed him nothing. His native country 
 has little reason to be proud of her treatment of him, and 
 Spain still less. The former rejected his proposals with 
 contempt; the latter profited by his discoveries, then dis- 
 graced, and almost starved him brought him from the 
 New "World in chains, of which, however, the king was 
 ashamed, and on his landing in Spain, commanded them to 
 be stricken off, which Columbus refused to have done, and 
 marched with them on him to the capital. From this we 
 visited the Goldsmiths' street manufactories in gold con- 
 stituting much of the trade of Genoa. It is lined with 
 shops of great splendor. In the street, alongside of one of 
 the houses, is a small painting, protected by a glass case. 
 It is the favorite subject of the old painters the Holy 
 Family and is of most rare merit, and by a pupil whose 
 works are very rare having been assassinated, it is said, 
 at an early age, by his master, through jealousy. Napoleon 
 wanted to carry it off to Paris. The goldsmiths, to whose 
 corporation it belonged, told him they could not resist him 
 by force, but would never give it up upon which he con- 
 sented that it should remain. The picture is on stone, and 
 is surmounted by a wrought canopy, and there is generally 
 a lamp burning near it. The goldsmiths around ply vigor- 
 ously at their calling, and gaze up with respect at this 
 ancient, fraternal link, uniting them to each other and the 
 past. But from this I visited a very ancient-looking church, 
 once the chapel of the Doria family. I was led through low 
 cloisters and dark corridors, and saw gloomy-looking, an- 
 cient statues, in secluded backgrounds of old churches, by 
 sepulchral-looking priests. This was the church of St. 
 Stephanus. Over the portal was written in Latin, " One of 
 the Seven Churches." At length I stood before a picture,
 
 GENOA. 355 
 
 covered with a curtain, which, for a small fee, the priest 
 withdrew, and I gazed on a sublime painting, part of which 
 it is said was done by Raphael. It represented the Stoning 
 of Stephen. The attitude and unconscious seraphic devo- 
 tion upon the face of Stephen, as he gazes up and sees 
 heaven open, and Jesus sitting on the right hand of God, 
 are almost superhuman, while the interest and almost anxi- 
 ety thrown into the appearance and countenance of Christ, 
 are equally grand. But the eye, and heart too, rest with 
 almost painful interest on the upraised face of Stephen, 
 which seems to have the beauty of inspiration of one who 
 beheld Heaven. I visited, also, a much newer church on a 
 high hill the church of St. Carignano. It has some good 
 paintings, but its chief charm is its great view of the Gulf 
 of Genoa, the Apennines, of the city itself, with its walls, 
 forts, hills, palaces, and terraces. I ascended the tower to 
 the platform, and saw all these beneath the sun of an Italian 
 sky. The island of Corsica can be discerned, it is said, at 
 times from this point. I also visited the church of St. 
 Ambrosia. I saw here two very fine paintings that of the 
 Assumption of the Virgin, by Guido Reni. This is a most 
 divine painting. She is represented as floating upward; 
 but the chief charm of this, as well as all other fine paint- 
 ings, is that utterance of soul beneath the rendering of 
 feeling and miud almost visible on the canvas. There is 
 here, also, a fine painting by Rubens. The church is splen- 
 did and gorgeous in the rich mosaic, marbled, profuse 
 Italian style; from the vaulting down to the pavement, all 
 is gold and rich coloring. I also visited the Cathedral, 
 built in a very curious style, in layers of black and white 
 marble. Within is a chapel, containing the relics of St. 
 John the Baptist, into which no female is permitted to enter, 
 except one day in the year, as a punishment for the conduct 
 of Herodias. There are four porphyry pillars supporting a 
 canopy. I visited other places the Ducal Palace, the fine
 
 356 GENOA. 
 
 Cafe Conconcha, under the orange and lemon trees, and 
 where "form and fall the cascades," heard the English 
 and Scotch services on Sunday, saw the sun set on the 
 Mediterranean, and then considered I had " done " Genoa, 
 and prepared to depart. Then adieu to the Genoese. They 
 will promenade up and down their narrow, hilly streets, 
 and gaze on their massive palaces to the end of time, and 
 think of the past glory of their Doges ; the women will 
 wear their graceful scarf and flowing head-dress, and things 
 will go on each day as heretofore with the pleasant delusion 
 of an earth-life. We are beginning to experience the usual 
 annoyances of traveling in Italy. Our passports have to be 
 vised by the Tuscan Minister, whose fee is two francs ; also 
 by our own Consul resident, whose charge is five francs 
 and twenty-eight centimes ; then by the Genoese police, 
 who charge four francs all before we can leave. It is 
 doubted by many Americans with whom I have conversed, 
 whether our Consuls at the various places have any right 
 to charge for their visa, which, as in the other cases, consists 
 in simply writing their names. I think the government at 
 home gives them the right ; but surely the law ought to be 
 altered, and travelers not obliged to pay this rather shabby 
 tax. If the visa is rendered necessary by the police regu- 
 lations of foreign governments, it ought to be gratis, and 
 our government should be above such a petty method of 
 raising revenue as is resorted to by these monarchies. The 
 production of our passport is necessary even to get a ticket 
 for passage on the steamer to Leghorn. It is given up to 
 the authorities, to be reclaimed in person at the place of 
 destination. But at length, all ordinances complied with 
 and paid for, we leave our hotel (Hotel di 1'Italie, formerly 
 a palace,) and are on board the Italian steamer, " Ercole," 
 on the Mediterranean. The sea is smooth, and the high 
 hills inclosing the bay of Genoa, on which the city sits, 
 pass away like a spectacle. We continue close along the
 
 THE AMERICANS GET IT. 357 
 
 western shore of Italy its uneven surface rising into hills 
 and mountains, or sinking into plains, all along the way. 
 Many English and some Americana are on board. A party 
 of the former, unaware of the presence of any of the latter, 
 indulge in rather a free conversation, at the dinner-table, 
 reapecting our countrymen being the first English we 
 have heard spoken for a long time, except by ourselves. 
 The English party consisted of an old and rather well-bred- 
 looking lady, a young and rather pretty just-from-boarding- 
 school- looking lady, and a middle aged, ugly woman, and a 
 sharp-featured, whiskered, pale, dissipated Russian, who de- 
 clared the Americans are great as a nation, collectively, but 
 disagreeable individually treacherous, ready to fight in a 
 moment, like tigers would never apologize for any thing 
 that they spend more money on the Continent than any 
 other people, but are disliked everywhere, and are very ill- 
 mannered. After this delectable exposition, the old lady 
 declared the Americans are so vulgar had so much pride 
 of wealth always speaking of how much they had made, 
 and how they made it and that they spend money merely 
 on account of their vanity, and with the view of attracting 
 notice that their vanity is insufferable; they have a saying 
 that " England beats the world, and they beat England." 
 The young lady declared, several times, that she hated the 
 Americans intensely, individually and collectively, etc., etc. 
 Lying on a sofa, sea sick, I felt no inclination to resent, ex- 
 cept by contempt, these ebullitions of envy on the part of 
 the English at our unparalleled success as a nation. The 
 only real friends we have iu Europe are the lower class 
 Irish, and the middle class French the former from in- 
 terest, the latter from sympathy. The real American, so 
 far from being vain, is generally modest, quiet, somewhat 
 diffident not very easy, not very learned but a sensible, 
 discreet, well-read sort of gentleman. Impulsive boys, half- 
 grown, half-educated, and verbally insolent, ignorant of their
 
 358 TUSCANY 
 
 own country, and still more ignorant of others those who 
 have suddenly made fortunes by trade and commerce who 
 think a voyage to Europe will cover a multitude of defects 
 in their early training who go there in ignorance, and re- 
 turn from it in disgust these are not the proper samples 
 from which to form an opinion of Americans. These boast 
 and swell and swagger, and seek to supply the absence of 
 quiet, gentlemanly appreciation of things, foreign as well as 
 domestic, by an intrusive reference to things at home by 
 dissatisfaction and transparent assumption, and seek in their 
 indolence an apology for their ignorance. In Germany we 
 are respected and feared. It is thought we are disturbers of 
 governments; but they treat us with remote politeness, and 
 cool and slightly contemptuous forbearance. They appear to 
 presume you regard them with vast contempt; but if you 
 show by your manner, or some compliment to themselves or 
 their country, that you do not, no people can be more assid- 
 uous or polite. A republic seems identified, in their minds, 
 with anarchy, assassinations, general disorder, and con- 
 spiracy. It has been remarked that, during the troubles of 
 184:8, nearly all Americans in Europe at that time were in 
 favor of monarchy, from a conviction that it is best suited to 
 the people here. 
 
 But we arrived at Leghorn, after some eight hours' sea 
 passage. We were not permitted to land, however, till 
 after ten o'clock in the morning. We must here inquire 
 for our passports, given at Genoa. We find them at the 
 police office. We are now charged ninety cents each, for 
 the police visa ; next our luggage is examined. We are 
 then permitted to perambulate the uninteresting, flourish- 
 ing, well-built commercial city of Leghorn, in the Duchy 
 of Tuscany though this town is held by the Austrians, 
 (probably in compliance with the wishes of the Grand Duke 
 of Tuscany, who is a near relative to the Emperor of Aus- 
 tria,) to keep the people under, as this being a freeport, as
 
 PISA. 359 
 
 well as Genoa, Trieste and Venice, the people are somewhat 
 tinctured with revolutionary opinions, imbibed in their 
 commercial intercourse with English and Americans. The 
 inelegant name, Leghorn, is in the softer Italian, Livorno. 
 Its situation is low, but it affords fine views of the Mediler- 
 ranean, and of a vast rocky isle, Gorgona, out on its bosom. 
 Its population is eighty thousand, of whom seven thousand 
 are Jews. All species of religions are tolerated. There 
 are many ships here some from our own country ; docks, 
 canals, etc., but nothing to detain a traveler. So we take 
 the afternoon train to Pisa, having in view, right and left, 
 picturesque points of the Apennines, swamps, lakes, and 
 cultivated lands; pine forests also, and occasionally views 
 of the sea. Pisa is but a few miles. We reach it in the 
 soft light of an Italian afternoon, and promenade along the 
 ancient Arno, a beautiful stream, falling into the Mediter- 
 ranean near Pisa. There are palaces and fine massive 
 houses, some gray, old, and ghostly, on each bank of it, as 
 it flows through the city. Our guide conducts us to the 
 one square, so rich in a view scarcely paralleled in Europe. 
 The campanile, or Bell Tower; the celebrated Leaning 
 Tower of Pisa ; the noble Cathedral ; the Baptistery ; the 
 Campo Santo, or burial-place all on one square, and in the 
 distance the heights of the Apennines. Italy is the wonder 
 of all countries for churches. The Leaning Tower is a 
 very remarkably beautiful-looking object. The height is 
 one hundred and seventy-eight feet. It is fifty-three feet in 
 diameter, and an ascent of three hundred and thirty steps, 
 by a gentle inclined plane round the outside, in ascending 
 galleries of pillars, carries one to the top. It leans thirteen 
 feet from the perpendicular; so much so that one would 
 think it would fall. Its centre of gravity is, however, 
 within the base. It has stood thus for six hundred or more 
 years. There are eight stories. The inclination is thought, 
 without good reason, however to have arisen from defect
 
 PISA. 
 
 ID the foundation. Its inclination enhances the order and 
 regularity of the other buildings around it. There are 
 seven bells at the top, of remarkable sonorousness. 
 
 The great Cathedral is immediately adjoining, and is 
 truly splendid outside and in. It is most rich in paintings. 
 It is, as usual, cruciform. There are four aisles. There are 
 twenty-four Corinthian columns, twelve on each side of the 
 central aisle, over two feet in diameter, each shaft a single 
 block, and thirty feet high, capital and base included. 
 From the top of these other arches spring other columns, 
 more numerous, and also smaller. It is of vast size, and 
 highly adorned with carvings in silver, and gold, and wood. 
 There are many relics of departed saints, some admirable 
 frescoes, and the effect of looking down the great aisle 
 along the avenue of columns, paintings, etc., is exceedingly 
 impressive. Near it is the Baptisterium, a large building 
 like a church, about seven hundred years old. It is one 
 hundred feet in diameter within the walls, which are six or 
 eight feet thick. The total height is one hundred and 
 seventy-nine feet. There is a large marble font near the 
 centre, used, it is said, formerly, when baptisms were per- 
 formed by immersion. It has magnificently carved bronze 
 doors, paintings, frescoes, and a pulpit or reading desk of 
 most ingenious work. It is six-sided, and rests on nine 
 pillars; has columns, some of Parian marble, one of Sicilian 
 jasper. There are splendid bas-reliefs on it. But the 
 Campo Santo, or burying-place, is one of the most remark- 
 able places of the kind in Italy. It consists of an immense 
 oblong building, enclosing an open court. You walk 
 around the cloisters, or covered arches, which are partly 
 protected from the weather. The open court consists of 
 earth brought from Jerusalem in eighty-three vessels. In 
 the cloisters are many time-worn Greek and Koman sarco- 
 phagi, or stone coffins; marble baths, thousands of years 
 old; many tomb slabs; many fresco paintings, and espe-
 
 FLORKNCff. 
 
 cially one representing hell and the last judgment, horrid 
 beyond all description serpents twisting around wretched 
 mortals, whose faces utter out their pain and agony. 
 The frescoes here are some five hundred years old, and are 
 greatly injured by time and neglect. The "Triumph of 
 Death" is also a very awful painting. Part of it represents 
 three kings hunting in a forest, who were conducted to 
 three open tombs, where they beheld three ghastly bodies in 
 various stages of decay, which, with strange voices, warned 
 them to repentance. The horror of a soul on finding itself 
 in the grasp of a demon is terribly portrayed. Angels and 
 demons are bearing off souls to bliss or hell. The paint- 
 ings here are very numerous. It has many works by 
 Giotto. The study of them is somewhat unsatisfactory, 
 owing to their aged and faded appearance. The tomb 
 pavement is much worn by the feet of generations. There 
 are more than three hundred pieces of ancient sculpture 
 here, many of them Roman, and some supposed to be Car- 
 thaginian. Pisa, except along the Arno, has a very de- 
 serted appearance. The ruined gardens of old, extinct con- 
 vents, fill part of the space inside the walls. Nothing is 
 really bright here but the sun and the river. The popula- 
 tion is about twenty -three- thousand. 
 
 But we are now in Florence, the capital of the Dukedom 
 of Tuscany. My room overlooks the Arno, and in front is 
 an ancient stone bridge of Roman or Etruscan origin. We 
 have been here for some days. I have entered the great 
 marble Cathedral of black and white marble in alternate 
 layers, majestic in its age; the Campanile, with its carv- 
 ings and its ingenious works of art and taste ; and I have 
 stood in the tapestried halls of the Medici, rich with the 
 undying legacies of genius, for which Florence is so re- 
 markable. We left Pisa Tuesday evening last, and passed 
 rapidly by railway over one of the finest and most beauti- 
 fully cultivated regions I have ever seen anywhere all 
 
 2r
 
 362 FLORENCE. 
 
 like a garden ordered by taste and controlled by industry. 
 Numerous villages are all along the route in this most fer- 
 tile vale of the Apennines, this delicious Vale of the Arno. 
 Arriving at Florence, baggage again searched, passports 
 demanded ; and if you sojourn only three days you pay a 
 fee of eight pauls, or near ninety cents, for a permission to 
 sojourn. If you neglect to take out such permission within 
 three days, you pay twelve pauls. The object of these re- 
 gulations seems to be to deter foreigners from entering 
 these territories, or to raise a revenue from them if they do. 
 The weather here is abundantly pleasant, sunshine every 
 day, and a temperature as agreeable as any I have known 
 anywhere. The first clay of our stay here I strolled about 
 the city, walked to the piazza of the Cathedral and Cam- 
 panile, but did not enter. It was too grand to take at once 
 and suddenly. Much of the interest of Florence arises from 
 its palaces, constructed by the first architects of the ancient 
 ages, many of the palaces being in the Tuscan or Etruscan 
 style, heavy, rustic, rough basements of large stone, and 
 gradually rising in lightness and imagery as they ascend. 
 Many of the squares are very highly ornamented with an- 
 tique statues. I visited, the second day of my stay here, 
 the celebrated Florentine Gallery of Paintings, reckoned 
 among the finest in the world. It is in a vast royal palace, 
 and contains also very many antique busts of Roman em- 
 perors, sculptured works by Michael Angelo, as well as 
 paintings by this great master; and also works of many 
 others those of Raphael, Titian, Leonardo da Vinci, Ru- 
 bens and the whole is a vast mine of genius of the highest 
 order. I saw many of my countrymen here, and also some 
 of our fair countrywomen. One of the latter I overheard 
 remarking on some fine paintings, " Is not them funny ?" 
 By her side, however, was her companion, whose subdued 
 attention and personal beauty would more than apologize 
 for the remarks of her companion. I saw here the original
 
 FLORENCE. 363 
 
 antique of the celebrated statue of the Venus de Medici. 
 These antique statues have a breadth and power of ex- 
 pression which modern ones do not have. Those of the 
 Roman emperors indicate their character at once. Many 
 of them are very much mutilated. There are also many 
 Greek and Roman sarcophagi, or stone coffins, carved out- 
 side with numerous figures in bas relief, looking as they 
 had been interred for a thousand years. This gallery is 
 called the Uffizi Gallery, and, as a whole, supposed to be 
 the richest 'in the world. During the day I also visited the 
 Boboli Gardens, adjoining the Pitti Palace, the residence ol 
 the grand duke. These are among the finest I have seen 
 the hilly ground admitting the display of much taste. There 
 are very many fine statues; some by Michael Angelo; 
 long, wall-like avenues of evergreen trees, fountains, flowers 
 now in bloom. 'Tis a place of entire delight. In it is a 
 house, which, itself very antiquated, seems to have a collec- 
 tion of the dilapidated and mutilated statues, tombs, etc., of 
 all ages past. 'Tis a singular but valuable collection, and 
 their value is their age. Ah! oblivion must come upon all 
 life and living, and all efforts of life! The mind that 
 designed and the hand that executed the work must and 
 will be forgotten. Why should the work remain to mock 
 him? 
 
 But here is San Lorenzo, the wide place or piazza before 
 that church. How very old this place appears. Here are 
 all sorts of small vendors and vending. Old clothes, dam- 
 aged chairs, furniture, pieces of iron, hinges, nails all 
 things once used, now useless sold by ancient, dreary, 
 weary-looking men, whose eyes nothing can brighten but a 
 paul. Pieces of iron bedsteads, every thing that want and 
 misery could collect are here, exposed for sale, to eke out 
 a poor existence ; while the uneven, old, brick front of the 
 church is on one side, with its interior of crosses, Virgin 
 Mary scenes, its candles, its altar works, its side chapels, its
 
 364 FLORENCE. 
 
 carved sarcophagi, with bones of saints in them, its flat 
 tombs on the floor, its effigies in marble of dead saints. 
 'Tis a strange world, seething and working on outside and 
 in. But a paul can set every thing in motion, out and in. 
 Even the next world is under its influence, and religion and 
 salvation are here bought and sold. 
 
 Here is San Miniato, upon the hill outside the gates of 
 the city. You ascend a long, paved way, with an olive 
 orchard on your left; on your right is a row of cypresses 
 and crosses, and the whole way beset with beggars. On the 
 summit is an old church, with its pavement of graves, 
 shaded by a grove of cypresses. Inside, you have the 
 monks chanting, in the large, empty, old-pictured church, 
 the vesper service for the Catholic monks perform religion 
 whether any one is there or not. But what a view of fair 
 Florence, with its background of the Apennines, studded 
 with terraced villas the vale of the Arno, level, fertile, 
 and lovely the Tower of Palazzo Vecchio, up which the 
 sunset is slowly creeping the Cathedral, cased in black 
 and white marble, with its domes and spires. 'Tis beautiful! 
 Alongside of this church is a still older, closed-up church, 
 monastery or convent, surrounded by an ivy-grown, old, 
 fortification-like wall. A pretty girl comes with the keys and 
 unlocks the ancient doors, and you enter the disused, old, 
 cemetery of a church, with its ruined, fine frescoes, its marble- 
 tessellated floor, its crypt, descending which you find the 
 tomb of the patron saint, and you see around you columns, 
 beautiful, fluted, pictured, of various marbles, stolen from 
 still much older B.oman edifices, to build this church with, 
 which is itself a thousand years old. Here the monks 
 chimed and sung, and the organ rang, and the kneelers 
 worshiped, and the manufactory of devotion went on ; but 
 it is all gone now. Back of the altar, through thin plates 
 of semi-transparent, variegated marbles, comes sad, stained 
 light, melting into these old mosaics and fresco paintings,
 
 FLORENCE. St)5 
 
 where the immortality of the painter's art is dying there 
 being more real art in this old, disused church, outside the 
 city on a hill, than in all the churches in America. And 
 here is a side chapel, the walls and ceilings covered with 
 legendary frescoes. In another chapel, most richly and 
 beautifully ornamented, is a single effigy, in marble, over 
 a tomb. 'Tis death, truly rendered by genius ; the repose, 
 the pallor, the dread, are all there without the decay. But 
 you pay the pretty, young Italian girl your paul gaze on 
 the enchanting scene in the garment of sunset, look on the 
 olive orchards of the hilly, villaged scene, and leave San 
 Miniato to journey with you down into longer time. 
 
 To-day, Dec. 18, is truly a beautiful day. The clear, 
 pleasant, slightly-cool weather of this Italian climate, is 
 very agreeable. I visited Mr. Powers' studio. He was 
 not in it just then. You feel almost as if you were in 
 America here. The statue of Daniel Webster, larger than 
 life, in plaster, meets you ; Franklin also (the bust), Sparks, 
 and many other Americans. The model for the Greek 
 Slave, that of Eve, and many other beautiful designs, in 
 progress or finished, are to be seen. Many of these are 
 most beautiful in expression and execution, though lacking 
 in antique boldness and forcefulness of expression. But I 
 spent some hours to-day in the Pitti, or iu the rooms in 
 which are its splendid paintings. The Grand Duke of Tus- 
 cany lives in the palace, and it is connected by a covered 
 way which extends across the river, on one of the bridges, 
 and is supported in other places by arcades, with the Uffizi 
 Palace, so that the Grand Duke could pass from one to the 
 other, invisibly, and without descending to the streets. 
 This palace is of great size, and is built in that richly-rough, 
 elegant-ugly manner of the Tuscan style of architecture. 
 The paintings are among the best in the world nearly six 
 hundred and none are bad. There are Madonnas by 
 Raphael, and Holy Families ; pictures by Titian, Perugino, 
 
 2r2
 
 366 FLOKENCE. 
 
 Tintoretto, and Eubens, are very numerous. The rooms 
 are some dozen or more, and have splendid furniture the 
 richest and most curious, elaborate, and ingenious mosaic 
 tables in the world, elegant chairs, sofas, etc. There are 
 some bronze statues, also ; one of Cain and Abel, remarka- 
 ble for Cain's expression. But the intellect in the paintings 
 reigns supreme. Eaphael's Madonna della Seggiola, one of 
 the most celebrated paintings in the world, is here said to 
 be the sweetest of all of the one hundred and twenty 
 Madonnas he painted.. I like that at Dresden better, as 
 having a deeper and more ennobling expression. The ex- 
 pression here is most beautifully maternal, however, in this, 
 the sitting Madonna. Michael Angelo's " Three Fates " is 
 here a small but mighty picture. The great, large-hearted, 
 and great man painter, Rubens, has some, fine ones. There 
 is a Magdalene by Titian, one of the most lovely creations 
 imaginable. The Catholic conception of the Magdalene is 
 a very different one from the Protestant idea. She was a 
 lovely sinner, a beautiful repentant, returning remorseful, 
 affectionate and lovable, being one who sinned not wholly 
 through weakness, but in whom earth and heaven struggled, 
 and heaven at length surmounted, though earth lingered. 
 Judith, with the "head of Holofernes," by Christafori 
 Allori, is very fine. There are catalogues in each room, in 
 French and Italian, and guides or guards, domestics of the 
 Grand Duke, who walk up and down. The public are ad- 
 mitted on all, except fast days, free of charge. Strangers 
 from all climes are constantly promenading in it. The 
 ceilings of these lofty halls are finely painted in fresco. 
 
 To-day, Saturday, Dec. 19, I took a guide and visited 
 several places the house of Michael Angelo, whose family 
 name was Buonaraotti ; it is still kept by his descendants as 
 he left it, after the lapse of hundreds of years. He was 
 born near Florence, in 1475 lived more than eighty years. 
 The family yet exists. His talents were of the most diversi-
 
 FLORENCE. 367 
 
 fied order, and great in each unsurpassed as a painter, 
 sculptor, and architect. His works are all marked by 
 strength, and he is, perhaps, on the whole, the most talented 
 man Italy ever produced. From this I went to the magnifi- 
 cent church, Santissima Annunziata, which is most splendid 
 in its chapels of marble, its paintings, and its altars of 
 silver, and its ceiling, which glow in gilt and gold. Many of 
 the pictures and frescoes are legends about the saints. Some 
 are by Andrea del Sarto, really a great painter, and he is 
 buried here. Some are by Perugino, the master of Raphael. 
 There is a fresco of the Virgin, which has miraculous pow- 
 ers, and is said to have been painted by angels; this is 
 shown only on rare occasions. 
 
 Then again to the church of San Lorenzo, in a chapel con- 
 nected to which are the celebrated tombs of the great Medici 
 family, now extinct, or "finished," as the guide says. It is 
 a very large rotunda walls covered with the richest marbles 
 Florentine mosaic, composed of jasper, lapis lazuli, agate, 
 chalcedony. There are rich fresco paintings on the ceiling. 
 Connected to this is what is called the chapel of Michael 
 Angelo, containing his splendid statues of some members 
 of the Medici family, and some allegoric figures, intended 
 to represent Morning and Evening, and Day and Night. 
 Then there is an unfinished group in marble, of the Virgin 
 and Child, all by Michael Angelo, and all masterly. The 
 expression of thought on the face of one of the figures is 
 remarkable ; and affection on the face of Mary is equally 
 so. This is sculpture, real and true; and it is one of the 
 most interesting places in Florence. The statues of Michael 
 Angelo are incomparable. I entered next the studio of an 
 Italian sculptor, saw many most beautiful creations in 
 marble, fine, smooth, and lovely, like Powers', but lacking 
 the power of Michael Angelo, who must have had something 
 Roman in him. 
 
 Next, I entered the Academy of Fine Arts. Here is a
 
 368 FLORENCE. 
 
 very curious collection of very old paintings, taken out of 
 various suppressed churches and convents. Some are in 
 the Byzantine style, and date in periods before the revival 
 of painting in Italy, going back six hundred years. There 
 are many by Cincinnato and Giotto, very old and pre-Rapha- 
 elite masters ; the former was born at Florence, A. D. 1240 
 died near 1302 : the latter, born 1276 died, 1336. There 
 are some on wood, by Fra Angelico da Fiesole, who died 
 A. D. 1455 colors yet bright. Then I visited the Egyptian 
 Museum. I saw here a Scythian war chariot, of wood, 
 with ornaments of ivory, thirty-four hundred years old, and 
 Egyptian tombs much older seeds of wheat and other 
 kinds of grain found in coffins, and vastly ancient, together 
 with some of the stalks which grew from the seeds. Here, 
 also, I saw Raphael's celebrated fresco the Last Supper 
 recently discovered, being unknown for many ages, and now 
 it is doubted as to its being his. I gazed at it long and in- 
 tently. It is awfully impressive. The faces are almost 
 alive, and the feeling within them glows in the cold mate- 
 rials. It is probable it is Raphael's, though no single head 
 in it strikes me as being within a great distance so good as 
 in Leonardo da Vinci's painting. 
 
 Some days have passed. I have revisited the Pitti Palace 
 to gaze at the great creations of the hand of genius. 
 Raphael's Madonnas, and some paintings by Da Vinci, seem 
 to me particularly remarkable, and one who has not seen 
 them can have no idea how far painting can go, and how 
 nearly it can imitate the real. In one of the rooms is a 
 table of Florentine mosaic, which is said to have cost nearly 
 two hundred thousand dollars. There are some rare col- 
 umns of black Egyptian porphyry. 
 
 Florence has many ancient, strange, but grand-looking 
 palaces the Palazza Vecchio, or Old Palace, which has 
 great battlements, and a lofty tower rising out of one side 
 of the Palace. I ascended this tower, and had a sublime
 
 FLORENCE. 369 
 
 view the Apennines around, with old monasteries, 
 churches, convents things of past years; the Arno, flowing 
 through the middle of the town, with its three or four stone 
 bridges, having large abutments ; the walls of the city, also, 
 with lofty gates and fortresses. Below Florence, on the 
 Arno, is a grand promenade and drive, very much fre- 
 quented, called the Cascino. It is somewhat like Bois de 
 Boulogne, near Paris. There are lofty, shady trees, ave- 
 nues, flowers, and the display of carriages, pedestrians, 
 equestrians, in the evening, is very animating. There are, 
 at present, many English and Americans here. It is the 
 season in Florence, or indeed in all Italy. You meet, in 
 this pleasant promenade, or drive, many beautiful ladies, 
 whose features, dress, manner, indicate them to belong to 
 the English higher aristocracy. The English are not much 
 liked are thought proud ; the French too blustering. The 
 Americans, I think, are generally popular in Florence; 
 caused, probably, by so many and able sculptors, as Powers 
 and others, residing here. The hotel in which we stay is 
 called Hotel de New York. There are many Americans 
 here. It is well kept, in French style. It was formerly a 
 palace. Florence has about one hundred and twenty 
 thousand inhabitants. Its beautiful situation in the vale of 
 the Arno, with the hills and Apennines, olive and vine-clad; 
 has always been admired. 
 
 But San Marco, another old church in this city, with its 
 ancient paintings on wood, by Fra Angelico, a Catholic 
 monk of this city, of more than five hundred years ago, 
 who beguiled the sterner and more serious calling of A 
 priest with the gentle cultivation of his talent as a painter 1 . 
 He was born, 1387 died, 1455. Not useless were these 
 old convents. Many valuable works were preserved in 
 them, and they were the habitations of the learning and 
 learned and gifted men of these dark ages. The painting* 
 or frescoes here are very fine and delicate : also expressive, 
 24
 
 370 FLORENCE. 
 
 without much strength or variety. Santa Maria Novella is 
 a very interesting old church. There are here old and 
 ghastly paintings of dim, drear, and horrid hells of Virgins 
 of surpassing sweetness and beauty. This church is of 
 great size, three hundred and twenty-two feet long, and two 
 hundred and three feet wide across the transepts. There 
 are stained and painted glass windows here, looking like 
 imprisoned rainbows. Some of the old frescoes are nearly 
 gone, having faded. 
 
 I have revisited San Lorenzo again, to look at Michael 
 Angelo's statuary. One, the representation of the great 
 Medici, is an impersonation of abstract thought soul, as it 
 were, coming out of marble mind exhaling from cold clay. 
 You can almost feel a human sympathy with the statues of 
 Morning and Evening, and Day and Night, and recognize 
 them as fellow beings who could love and hate, sorrow and 
 suffer too. 
 
 The Cathedral of Florence, or Santa Maria del Fiore, 1 
 have been in many times. It is one of the most noted 
 churches in Italy. The dome is regarded as a wonder. It 
 served as the model of that of St. Peter's at Rome. Imme- 
 diately below it is the high altar. The works are entirely 
 cased with marble on the outside. Its length is four 
 hundred and fifty-four feet ; height, from the pavement to 
 the summit of the cross, three hundred and eighty-seven 
 feet; the transept is three hundred and thirty-four feet long ; 
 the height of the nave, one hundred and fifty-three feet. 
 The nave has four grand arches. The stained glass of the 
 windows is most beautiful. Near it is the campanile, which 
 I ascended; its height is two hundred and seventy-five 
 feet. It is a square tower of four stories ; its architecture, 
 Italian Gothic. The staircase consists of four hundred and 
 fourteen steps. Giotto was the principal architect of this, 
 as well as the Cathedral except the dome of the latter, 
 which was by Brunelleschi ; they are both buried in the
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 Cathedral they built. There are numerous statues on both 
 of them. The Baptistery is on the same piazza. It is a 
 remarkable building. All the christenings in the city are 
 performed within it. The number is said to be forty-two 
 hundred per annum. The bronze doors of this edifice are 
 wonderful, consisting of bas-reliefs, representing many 
 scenes in Scripture history. The form of the Baptistery is 
 an octagon, supporting a dome. The outer wall is of black 
 and white marble. Inside are sixteen splendid Corinthian 
 columns of gray granite. The cupola is covered with 
 mosaics, and the pavement is a splendid mosaic of black 
 and white marble, of complicated and beautiful patterns. 
 There is a tomb of a Pope here John XXIII. The view 
 of these three marble buildings, all in the same square 
 their black and white marble facades the imposing dome 
 of the Cathedral the elegant work of the campanile the 
 statues and columns and historical associations of the Bap- 
 tistery, render this an interesting place for thought ; and it 
 is not to be wondered that Dante the place is still shown 
 used to have his seat moved here, and sat down for hours, 
 musing in poetry on the beauty of the scena Yet the 
 slavery of Catholicism is dreadful ! How it trenches on this 
 world and the next too ! The Virgin Mary, a sort of lustful, 
 voluptuous love for whom, seems to have come into the 
 mind and heart of the priests as a consequence and compen- 
 sation of their enforced celibacy, and seems to be the prin- 
 cipal object of adoration. The common prayers of the 
 people are addressed to her as a sort of sub-mediator, one 
 that has more pity than Christ. It is common to see in very 
 many of the churches such inscriptions as "To the God- 
 bearing Virgin," and " Mother of God, pray For us." Origin- 
 ally, the idea of the Virgin was a beautiful one, and is so in 
 reality. She is thought to have been perfectly sinless, pure 
 as Christ, pitying, never to have gotten old, and finally, to 
 have made an ascension to heaven, where many of the pic-
 
 372 FLORENCE. 
 
 tures represent her as creating a vast sensation, and enliven- 
 ing the scene. She is always perfectly beautiful, often in 
 sorrow for her son " the Mater Dolorosa." It is a cardinal 
 item that she never became a mother but once, contrary to 
 some direct intimations of Scripture, if words are to be 
 taken in their ordinary sense. 
 
 But here is Santa Croce, where are the tombs of the 
 greatest men produced by Italy. It is a very large and 
 magnificent building; there are fine, circular windows, 
 with stained glass ; there are pavements of tombs ; there is 
 the monument to Dante, the great poet, though his remains 
 do not rest here ; then there is the monument to Galileo ; 
 then that of the great Michael Angelo Buonarotti, who rests 
 here, in a splendid monument ; there are many others, also, 
 frescoes of great age, relics, and miracle-working paintings. 
 But 'tis Christmas Eve, and we assemble in the dim-lighted, 
 ancient, immense Cathedral, with its high columns, its varie- 
 gated marble floors, its slabs of tombs, its large circlets of 
 marble, in each of which is conspicuous, the word " Ora ! 
 Ora ! Ora !" " Pray ! Pray ! Pray !" and the preparatory 
 Mass is going on; there are many people here, music, 
 chanting. The Archbishop, a young-looking man, comes 
 in, in state: boys in white vests, holding massive candle- 
 sticks some bearing his train. There are processions of 
 priests in uniform. 'Tis a splendid sight. But in the 
 Santissima Annunziata is the regular midnight Mass one 
 of the most solemn ceremonies of the church. The ceiling 
 of the church is a most magnificent gilding the arches, in 
 which are the side chapels, are hung with gorgeous crimson 
 curtains. Some of the altars glow in silver workmanship, 
 some in gold. The long wax candles, the ponderous candle- 
 sticks carried about, the incense, the grand organ, resound- 
 ing its mighty complaining, the singing of the Mass, some- 
 times joyous as the song of the heavenly host heard on the 
 plains of Bethlehem, then sad as the darkness that covered
 
 FLORENCE. 373 
 
 the land when " He died " all the glory and gorgeousness 
 of the great superstition are going on here. On Christmas 
 day, Catholicism is in its glory, though the feast of the Virgin 
 is the greatest of all being more grandly celebrated than 
 that of the Son for denude Catholicism of its Virgin, and 
 it falls. All Florence is walking up and down the Arno, 
 and across its bridges, some of which are streets of jewelers' 
 shops. Outside the gate, near the Arno, on the Cascino, 
 comprising beautiful walks, drives, groves, avenues of trees, 
 hedges, flowers what a scene, and what a place to congre- 
 gate and enjoy the pleasant, Italian, moonlit evenings and 
 twilights. Fine English carriages, servants in livery, the 
 Grand Duke of Tuscany. himself, bowing to the heads un- 
 covered as he passes, his carriage drawn by four elegant 
 horses, beautiful ladies, the stately, gentle beauty of En- 
 gland, the less confident, but fuller and richer beauty of 
 America, the darker, lither, and more intense and spiritual 
 appearance of the longer-descended Italians, all these are 
 here in perfection and enjoyment. Near this, on a high 
 hill, to which you ascend by a narrow lane, between walls, 
 is an ancient, green, dingy, dull, square building a mon- 
 astery looking cheerless as if it had to do with death, and 
 had none of the delights of life. Its church has a banquette 
 of grave-stones. You read the simple, plaintive epitaphs. 
 One has on it, in Italian, "Imploring eternal peace." One, 
 on a singer, is rather profane, "She sang to the Grand Duke 
 of Tuscany she now sings to the angels in heaven." They 
 show you the monastery, the numerous paintings one 
 startlingly good, but old and injured, on the right side of 
 the entrance all about the Saviour and his sufferings, or 
 the Madonna. Then you go into the apartments of the 
 monks ; you see the cheerless missals, the more important 
 words printed with red ink, filled with disjointed extracts 
 from the Scriptures such as are calculated tp make good 
 Catholics. The great work of Protestantism was simply to 
 
 2Q
 
 874 FLORENCE. 
 
 give the whole Bible to the whole world. Out of parts of 
 it, any thing may be made. All about here is clean, poor, 
 grave, emasculated. They show you the vaults where the 
 monks are buried, beneath the places where they spent their 
 joyless life; there is a skull lying on a table, a hearse in 
 the corner. On one corner of the edifice, outside, you see, 
 written in Italian, an anathema pronounced by Pope Gre- 
 gory,, importing that "whosoever shall injure or burn this 
 monastery, shall have no resurrection, except to damnation, 
 and shall have the part of Judas." The monks have sur- 
 rounded the hill on which the house stands with olive 
 orchards, fruit trees, and pleasant grounds, planted with 
 evergreen trees; and on the top of a high hill, near, is a 
 circular grove of cypresses. The view is one of most rare 
 beauty Florence, the high towers of Palazzo Vecchio, the 
 campanile and cathedral, the chapel of the Medici, and all 
 around the city are lovely villas studding the scene, and 
 beyond are the Apennines, with their white villas, convent 
 walls, church towers, whose bells, high up in the air, send 
 out their mingling peals in honor of Christmas ; while in 
 the vale of the Arno are fields, groves, and olive orchards, 
 and various combinations of the lovely. We have now 
 spent nearly two weeks in Florence. Of late, the weather 
 has not realized the romance of an Italian climate, being 
 foggy intensely so along the Arno. Yet the gay promena- 
 ders along the river still continue. 
 
 On Sundays I attended the Episcopal Church, the only 
 English service generally in Europe. An enforced con- 
 tribution was made at the door previous to your being 
 allowed to enter. You pay about twenty-five cents, or 
 nearly two pauls, for a preach, as formally as if you were 
 going to see a spectacle. There is, however, a free, elevated 
 gallery in the church. Many English, as well as Ameri- 
 cans, who reside permanently in Florence, allured by the 
 cheapness of house rent and provisions, and its treasures of
 
 FIESOLE. 375 
 
 ark, attend this service. To-day, Monday, December 28th, 
 the sun of Italy is out in all its glory over the old scenes 
 of mountains, towers, domes and steeples. The late fogs are 
 gone, and summer almost reigns in the sky. Back of 
 Florence are the heights of the Apennines, picturesque and 
 Italian valleys. We leave the city by the Porta Galla; 
 then, passing along a torrent, we begin the ascent. The 
 road is smooth and broad, and is inclosed by high walls. 
 It winds about as it ascends, and part of it is bordered with 
 cypress trees, olive orchards, and villas, churches and con- 
 vents. Numerous terraced walls are seen on each side, ren- 
 dering level small portions of ground. The view of Flor- 
 ence becomes more fine as we ascend. We at length reach 
 the ancient Etruscan town of Fiesole, on the top of the 
 hill, one thousand feet above Florence. We go around 
 in the rear of the church, and descending through vil- 
 las on the hill-side, come to the Etruscan walls of the 
 city, built anterior to the time of the Romans. They are 
 very much fallen down, almost imbedded in earth, ivy- 
 grown, built of massive stones without mortar, and would 
 seem to threaten defiance to centuries. They may be traced 
 for one or two miles, and are probably three thousand years 
 old. Returning, we enter the church in the* town, where 
 we find the choir of the priests, with many boys, singing 
 ancient chants. In the crypt is a stone sarcophagus, with 
 " religieuse" written on it, and by its side is an account of 
 the miracles it has performed. The church has many paint- 
 ings, frescoes and tombs. On another part of the hill, 
 higher up, is the Franciscan Convent, with the church 
 adjoining. The ladies of our party are permitted to enter 
 the church, but the monk who conducts us requests them, 
 with almost horror in his face, not to enter the monastery. 
 The building consists of long rows of cells, separated by 
 narrow halls. The doors of each cell have small pictures 
 representing some scene in which the Virgin Mary is
 
 V 
 376 THE UFFIZI GALLERY. 
 
 generally prominent. Every part of the building is clean. 
 Every thing is of stone ; but the general effect is gloomy 
 and dreary. We entered one of the cells. " Miserabile !" 
 exclaimed the guide, meaning that it was very poor, which 
 it was indeed a bed of coarse and hard materials, one or 
 two old chairs; no comfort, nothing but hard, cold, mere 
 living. Back of the convent is an old court-yard, with 
 numerous melancholy cypress trees, much green grass, also 
 paved sloping walks; and from this old place extends a 
 view of extraordinary loveliness, peculiarly Italian. Here 
 then dwell these mentally emasculated beings pass their 
 poor lives in voluntary penance and poverty. Yet after all 
 they may be as happy and as virtuous as any other class 
 of men. Those who live thus abstemiously must have few 
 or no unhallowed desires. They become enervated and 
 unmanly. Catholicism is much harder than Protestantism. 
 In over-peopled countries monkery is an element of poli- 
 tical economy. Many of these establishments are well en- 
 dowed, having extensive and finely cultivated farms, which 
 have been given them by the remorse of wicked, dying 
 great men, who repented by founding a monastery, condi- 
 tioned on mass being said daily for the repose of their souls, 
 to have an easy passage through Purgatory: the idea of 
 this latter place being an admirable speculation, which has 
 been worth millions to the church. We now began the 
 descent in our carriages along the smooth, beautiful woods, 
 lined with walls, over which were pendant flowers, and near 
 which were sweet and pleasant villas, nestled in olive 
 orchards. Beyond Fiesole is the vale called Vallombrosa. 
 But once more to the Uffizi Palace, which is indeed worth 
 many visits. In the great court of the Uffizi are numerous 
 and splendid statues of the great men of Florence: and she 
 has had many of them. Americus Vespucius, who gave 
 name to our own country, and who, some have thought, did 
 realjy first see the continent, is represented by one of the
 
 THE UFFJZI GALLKBY. 377 
 
 statues; his house is also shown in the* city. But one 
 ascends an immense staircase, and you are in the celebrated 
 Picture and Sculpture Gallery as a whole, the finest in 
 the world. Here first meet you statues in porphyry, and 
 relics of ancient Roman sculpture dogs, wolves exquis- 
 itely executed. Then you go through a vast corridor, 
 lined with antique busts of the Roman emperors Trajan, 
 Caligula, etc. all in their primitive, inherent, truthful, 
 Roman ugliness and strongly marked characters. Then 
 there are also paintings some by Raphael, some by Ciina- 
 bue sacred scenes, dating from A. D. 1240, six hundred 
 and seventeen years old. In the busts you read the lives 
 of the Roman emperors. There is Nero, as a child and as 
 a man a cold, sneaking, low-browed, infuriate rascal; 
 Vitellius, beefy, limby and big, like a Britisher and very 
 many others some much mutilated, having in the long 
 course of two thousand years suffered losses of noses, ears, 
 arms, some of which, however, are restored; that is, added 
 by modern artists. Then there are bas reliefs, by the Tus- 
 can artists of the middle ages; there are Roman marble 
 sarcophagi, with their sculptured histories; there are statues 
 by Michael Angelo and the whole is a glory and a glad- 
 ness to look at such a quiet, half-starting- into-life appear- 
 ance have many of them. Some of them look as if they 
 would only make believe they were not alive. The Venuses 
 are all terribly modest, utterly nude, but with a most vir- 
 ginal, alarmed expression. The wealth of statuary here is 
 wondrous. They were dug out of the ruins of Rome or 
 other cities, and found in villas. One of Cupid and Psyche, 
 or Desire and the Soul, is most beautiful. One of Brutus, 
 by Michael Angelo for ancient and middle-age statuary 
 are strangely mingled together is very powerful in strong 
 Roman expression, though left unfinished. In one room is 
 the finest Florentine mosaic table ever made. It occupied 
 twenty-two workmen twenty-five years. 
 
 2G2*
 
 378 THE UFFIZI GALLERY. 
 
 But near this is the Hall of Niobe, with the statue of 
 berself turned to stone by grief, and those of her children, 
 all dying around her, smitten by the angry goddess. The 
 effect is wonderful so much agony, and so much history 
 such attitudes and expressions. They are nearly two thou- 
 sand years old, and were found in the ruins of a Roman 
 villa. But when you have looked at the statuary you can 
 go into the Tribune, which contains the great works of both 
 painting and sculpture. Here you see the great statue 
 the world-renowned Venus de Medici. It is not draped at 
 all. Artificial prudery gets some severe trials on going 
 through these ancient galleries. Every thing about this 
 statue is perfectly beautiful, exquisitely chaste, womanly, 
 soft, captivating, thoroughly proportioned, elevated, tender 
 in short, that most beautiful thing on earth, a really beau- 
 tiful woman, considered as a work not of art. The waist 
 is not at all in shape as in that horrid fashion which some- 
 times prevails of compressing it. Her height, if erect, 
 would be five feet two inches. She is slightly startled, as 
 if suddenly discovered. You would think she would run 
 off, but is paralyzed by surprise. It was found near Rome. 
 No eye, no art, no external feeling can detect the slightest 
 want of conformity to the real and true physical form 
 arms, hands, feet, limbs, head, features, are all exact, thor- 
 oughly proportioned ; so that the whole combination pro- 
 duces an impression of the beautiful, the tender, the gentle, 
 the unprotected. It may be said it requires artistic knowl- 
 edge and experience to enable one to be a judge of objects 
 of either painting or sculpture. This is a mistake. The 
 true judge is simply a man who feels what can please him, 
 and recognizes the natural by external emotions, and re- 
 ceives the whole effect by .an aesthetic principle within. 
 The higher the art the better the painting or the statue 
 the easier it is to judge of it, since it appeals more strongly 
 to our common sympathy or human nature. A painter or
 
 OFF FOR ROME. 379 
 
 sculptor is but a poor judge; his mind is occupied with the 
 details ; his ideas are mechanical he is thinking of the tool 
 or the brush or the colors, and his mind is not open to the 
 full perception of the thing as a whole. The instinctive 
 recognition of excellence is the best judge of an object of 
 art. In this room are the Apollyon, the Dancing Faun, 
 and the Wrestlers, the Slave Whetting his Knife all ancient, 
 except the restoration by Michael Angelo, and all wonder- 
 ful. In some there seems a real elasticity and motion from 
 head to foot. In this room are also the finest paintings 
 one by Raphael, of an extraordinarily beautiful woman, a 
 portrait; one by Michael Angelo, a Holy Family, which 
 phrase means the Virgin and Child ; and then there is the 
 Venus, by Titian, a painting of a perfectly nude woman, 
 reckoned the best of all his Venuses, though the one in the 
 Dresden Gallery is nearly as good. Nothing could be finer 
 than the feminine, loving, half-tearful, enjoying expression 
 of this great work. There are very many other rooms, 
 with many splendid creations of art. Medusa's head, by 
 Leonardo da Vinci, has this master's acknowledged power. 
 'Tis as horrid as an embodied nightmare the snakes crawl 
 away from it. There are paintings, in separate rooms, of 
 the different schools of painting Flemish, Dutch, German, 
 Venitian ; and one room contains portraits, principally by 
 themselves, of the most celebrated artists in the world! All 
 these are interesting, when one has a " soul to make them 
 felt and feeling." 
 
 To-morrow, however, we leave Florence the Beautiful, 
 having been here two weeks. The soft moonlight is over 
 the Arno, along which have so lately trodden the numer- 
 our proinenaders. The gaslights, extending for miles down 
 the river, disclose the three or four old bridges, and the 
 rejoicing waves give back the gaslight ; but the moonlight 
 hovers on them like a loving spirit. To-day I have visited 
 the Imperial Palace, outside the Porta Romana. There is
 
 380 ROUTE TO ROME. 
 
 an ascent of half a mile to it, lined with cypresses and larch 
 trees, making a very interesting walk beset, however, with 
 beggars. The palace looks well, and the grounds around 
 it are well laid out, have statues, bronzes, etc. The wines 
 produced around on the hills are the best in Tuscany. 
 Agriculture is well understood here, and different localities, 
 even near each other, are ascertained to be best for particu- 
 lar things. Good wines are not raised in flat or low lands; 
 the lower hill-sides are best for the vine, the higher for the 
 olive. It is forbidden to train the vine, and laws have been 
 passed forbidding its planting on low grounds. The popu- 
 lation of the Grand Dukedom of Tuscany is about one 
 million eight hundred thousand. The army consists of 
 about fourteen thousand men. The support of the Austrian 
 occupation of the country is taxed on the people. 
 
 We go by Vetturini to Eome, preferring the land route 
 through the centre of Italy, though there is danger from 
 brigands. We are a party of three. We hire a driver, 
 with a large carriage which would contain six persons 
 readily, four inside, two outside, besides the driver. We 
 have four good horses. We pay for all, including all neces- 
 sary expenses of food, lodging, fires, etc., by the way, 
 twenty Napoleons, nearly eighty dollars. The journey will 
 occupy five or six days. Our contract is made out accord- 
 ing to regular form, and every thing specified. Our driver 
 is an Italian, but speaks a little French. But to-day, 
 Tuesday, December 29th, we left Florence at seven o'clock, 
 having risen early, taken our coffee, which is the grand 
 " sine qua non" in Europe. The morning was one of the 
 clear, exhilarating mornings of Italy. The postillion 
 cracked his whip, we passed out the Porta de San Nicolo, 
 where our passports were searched into, but not a single 
 hiatus being found, off' we went along the vale of the upper 
 Arno, saw the citizens at their various speculations of get- 
 ting a living, then began to ascend the Apennines, and on
 
 ROUTE TO ROME. 381 
 
 looking back saw a sea of houses Florence, in its hill-en- 
 circled vale, the sun shining on all, the spires mounting 
 heavenward, the whole vale of the Arno a loveliness. There 
 were villas on the mountain side, though on their tops was 
 a sprinkling of snow ; wheat-fields were around us as we 
 ascended : the vine festooned to mulberry trees. Then we 
 entered old, dirty, walled, and ancient villages, crowded 
 with ugly, unpleasant, ragged, poor people; the Virgin 
 Miry was making "Assumptions" everywhere, in pictures 
 on the roadside shrines. This great universal feeling, how- 
 ever, is a beautiful one, and probably softens the Italian 
 character. There were rivulets, over which were ancient 
 stone bridges. At one place we passed, is shown the 
 withered body of a man found walled up in the church 
 wall, and discovered a few years since. 
 At Levane, we stopped and took dq'tunfr a la fourchette 
 in a large, cold, Italian house, without fires Hotel la Posta 
 then ascended high hills, went through a rough country 
 in a state of compulsory fertility, in which we saw many 
 beggars and poor-looking people ; then we descended into 
 a valley, saw dingy, old, stone houses, which we traveled 
 by in the moonlight. We then entered the walls of Arezzo, 
 a cold and dingy place. Passports were here required. 
 In the hotel, fires were made at our request the common 
 Italians rarely requiring any many of the houses being 
 without chimneys. Wood alone is burnt; this is very 
 small in size, consisting of saplings, planted recently to 
 furnish wood ; also, dry grape-vines are used to kindle the 
 wood with none of the grand, old, primitive forests of 
 America being here. 
 
 We have come fifty miles to-day, through a mournful, 
 fallen, yet glorious country. One feels really in Italy on 
 these excursions through its old lands and towns. The 
 churches are very numerous; there were Italian villas also, 
 and many very fine views, while the pleasant sunshine lay
 
 382 ROUTE TO ROME. 
 
 on all. Ascending hills, as the carriage then moved 
 slowly, I alighted and walked along on the smooth, hard 
 road. 
 
 Arezzo is a small, old, interesting place, containing 
 about eleven thousand inhabitants. It is the birthplace of 
 very many distinguished men Petrarch, Macaenas, and 
 also Michael Angelo was born in its neighborhood. It was 
 an Etruscan city, and existed before Rome. It has several 
 churches, with some fine paintings and frescoes. There is 
 some Etruscan pottery here, and there are some fossil tusks 
 of elephants, regarded by the inhabitants as relics of the 
 elephants belonging to Hannibal, whose route to Rome is 
 identical with the one we are taking. When one is in 
 Italy, all the roads, however, are said to lead to Rome. 
 
 This morning, Wednesday, Dec. 31st, we rose at five 
 o'clock, having given directions to the maitre d'ltotel to 
 awaken us, and have our breakfast ready at six, which con- 
 sisted of the usual European first meal coffee, which was 
 good, eggs, and toast. We left Arezzo at six-and-a-half, in 
 a lovely moonlit morning, just about dawn. I remained 
 out of the carriage, and walked through the gates of the 
 city, and ascended to the top of the hill. The morning was 
 somewhat cool, and there was some thin ice. On our right, 
 as we continued our course, were high hills. We soon 
 came to Cortona, one of the most ancient towns in Europe. 
 Its walls, or portions of them, are Etruscan, composed of 
 immense blocks of uncernented masonry. It is three thou- 
 sand years old having been founded by the Pelasgi. It is 
 perched on a high mountain to our left, and looks as if its 
 seasons had been all autumns for a thousand years its long, 
 ruined walls and towers seem crumbling. We now entered 
 an extensive, beautiful, and fertile plain, in fine cultivation. 
 It is well drained there being ditches separating the young 
 rows of mulberries, on which hangs the vine; there were 
 olive orchards on the descents to the plain. The peasants
 
 BOUTE TO BOMB. 383 
 
 were gathering the now ripe fruit, which is small and black 
 rfWKwnewhat larger than a cherry. The mulberries are used 
 for the double purpose of supporting the vine and furnish- 
 ing leaves on which to support the caterpillar which pro- 
 duces the silkworm. This plain has several towns on it, 
 and is bounded by mountains. It was formerly a pestilen- 
 tial marsh, but has been rendered fertile by an admirable 
 system of drainage. We now came to the scene in which 
 Hannibal defeated the Roman army that battle in which 
 so great was the fury of the combatants, that an earthquake 
 which happened at the time was unperceived. It occurred 
 over twenty -two hundred years ago. The scene is between 
 the lovely Italian lake, Thrasimene, and the hills or moun- 
 tains toward the east, a portion of which comes down near 
 to the lake, separating the large plain from a smaller. Into 
 the latter Hannibal decoyed the Roman Consul, Flaminius, 
 and thus he was enclosed by the mountains which sur- 
 rounded the smaller plain, and the lake which bounds it on 
 the south. Hannibal posted his army on the high ground 
 at the further extremity of the smaller plain, and sent his 
 horse troops to attack Flaminius in the rear. The Romans 
 were terribly defeated, Flaminius killed, and almost the 
 whole army annihilated. A mist arising from the lake 
 concealed from the Romans the disposition of the great 
 Carthaginian's troops. He is remembered along this route, 
 and a certain old tower near bears the name of the Tower 
 of Hannibal. A little stream runs across the plain called 
 Sanguinetto, or the Bloody, from a tradition that it ran full 
 of blood on account of the slaughter. The scene is one of 
 most consummate loveliness now aged olive trees, some at 
 least one thousand years old, grow on the plain, and the 
 peasants were gathering the glistening fruit in the rich sun- 
 light. About this place we entered the Pope's dominions, 
 and here our baggage would have been searched, and a con- 
 siderable delay entailed on us, but for our knowledge of the
 
 384 ROUTE TO ROME. 
 
 fact, that a fee of a few pauls would purchase'exemptkm it 
 being notorious throughout all Italy, that in the domains 
 of the Church, every thing on earth, or Purgatory, can be 
 bought. The officers at the Papal Dogana, with their flour- 
 ishing coat of arms, representing, by the keys and bishop's 
 mitre and tiara, the Vicar of Christ on earth, at sight of a 
 ten-paul piece gave us free ingress. Around the Papal 
 Dogana sat some most miserable and ancient-looking beg- 
 gars most wretched specimens of the genus homo who, 
 after the traveler has satisfied the Pope's officers, pounce on 
 him in the name of various saints for a further exaction. 
 The more ugly and disgusting they are, the better they 
 seem to regard their case, and the greater the appeal to be- 
 nevolence. Hence, they cultivate wretchedness, and make 
 a profit out of misery. 
 
 We took our dejeuner at Passignano, a small village on 
 a rocky projection into the lake, with a very high and 
 grand old deserted castle on the rocks above it. Every 
 thing was dirty and Popish here. However, the hotel was 
 not as bad as it could have been, and we had some fine 
 fish out of Lake Thrasimene. The view of this silver lake, 
 with its playful waves, its little island with an ancient 
 monastery on it, surrounded by fine grounds, was fine in 
 the soft Italian sunlight. Our road, leaving Passignano, 
 skirted the lake for some miles, then ascended high hills, 
 on which were extensive series of ruins, surrounded by 
 walls of noteless date. The slightest notice of any of the 
 people here causes them to make a servile bow, remove 
 their hats, and become whining beggars. There are several 
 square old towers here, of which nothing is known. The 
 view backward from the hill, toward the lake, is one of 
 remarkable loveliness. We descended .now into a valley, 
 passed old dingy villages, dirty and dreary. Night at 
 length came on ; a mysterious looking moon arose ; we were 
 in a moat dreary and lonely valley, just the place for
 
 ROUTE TO ROME. 3S5 
 
 brigands, who frequent this route. Several robberies have 
 been lately committed we are yet some distance from 
 Perugia, when suddenly our coach was stopped. We heard 
 strange voices, loud noises were they brigands or not? 
 Cautiously we opened the carriage, summoning all our 
 latent bravery, ready for any emergency, when behold our 
 vetturino conductor was only bargaining with some per- 
 sons near for two discreet and demure oxen, which were 
 soon added in front to our four horses, to draw us up the 
 hill, the legal regulations requiring additional force at 
 certain points. After some time, the long, high, black 
 walls of Perugia were seen ; we entered the gateway, drove 
 to the "Hotel de France," an ancient palace. Perugia is 
 a very ancient city ; its inhabitants had long wars with the 
 Romans before the latter established their dominions over 
 all Italy. It was rebuilt by Augustus as a Roman colony, 
 and, during the middle ages, was independent, sustaining 
 itself for many years against the encroaching power of the 
 Popes. It has portions of the Etruscan walls, numerous 
 tombs cut in rocks and caves, and others walled up, with 
 fine sculpture and carvings. Its population is about eight- 
 een thousand. A school of painting, of which Pietro Peru- 
 gino was the great master, originated here. It has one 
 hundred churches, and fifty monastic establishments. There 
 are several Popes buried in some of these churches. The 
 paintings are very numerous the best by Pemgino, who 
 was the teacher of Raphael ; there are some of the earlier 
 ones of the latter master. The aspect of all these cities, 
 however, is gloomy, uncomfortable, classic, Roman, antique 
 as well as antic, and very interesting. You will see them 
 on high, irregular hills, with every variety of shape, style, 
 appearance, grasped by their thick stone walls, with huge 
 arched, sculptured, Roman gateways, mossy grown, and 
 bending beneath tl\e weight of their own years. It is all 
 too old the mind wants something fresh and new but 
 25 2 H
 
 386 ROUTE TO ROME. 
 
 here, though the inhabitants have a youth once, their coun- 
 try and its monuments are always old. There is mind here 
 -high genius but the age of their country is on them, 
 and keeps all down; their religion, too, represses exer- 
 tion. 
 
 But the morning is up. We take our usual early start, 
 about six-and-a-half o'clock. I, leaving the carriage, walked 
 down the long descent from Perugia ; looking back, a fine 
 sight was presented in the gleaming of the risen sun the 
 first rays on the spires and old walls. We soon come into 
 the valley of the Tiber, and crossing a long stone bridge, 
 see this ancient, celebrated river, unsurpassed by any stream 
 whatever in its associations with the past. The vale is 
 fertile, and beautiful in its garniture of wheat and its sur- 
 roundings of hills and mountains, the latter sprinkled with 
 snow. The river, which, in its whole course, is about two 
 hundred and forty-nine miles long, is not large at this 
 point, yet seems to have an antique majesty and dignity 
 about it. Italy presents many beautiful scenes along this 
 route. Few surpass, however, that I saw yesterday in as- 
 cending the mountain from Lake Thrasimene. It dwells 
 on the mind as a loveliness apart. The lake, beautiful as 
 molten silver the three islands, one of them with an an- 
 tique monastery the assemblage of ruins on the hills 
 above the square tower of observation near them were 
 all strangely lovely in their age and decay. Since crossing 
 the Tiber, we are out of ancient Etruria, with its monu- 
 ments of a people anterior to the times of the Romans and 
 written language, and where every thing of which no one 
 knows any thing is at once pronounced Etruscan. To-day 
 on our course we have on one side much level, fertile wheat 
 land ; on the other are some snow mountains, on one of 
 which is situated most picturesquely the old town of Assisi, 
 with its high, ruined citadel, its Roman walls, its long line 
 of aqueducts on stone arches, its church, upper and lower,
 
 ROUTE TO ROUE. 387 
 
 and its monasteries of the middle ages. We stopped at a 
 town near this place, and saw the ancient Gothic stone 
 chapel of St. Francis. It stands within a large wooden 
 church, which was erected over it to preserve it ; and many 
 poor and ignorant people were in it praying instead of 
 working. There were all kinds of devotional things hung 
 around it and in it; candles were burning in it, and myste- 
 rious ceremonies were being performed by priests in sur- 
 plice and stole. The people seemed to be of two classes 
 priests and beggars. We saw also near this the little cave 
 or cell in which St. Francis spent his life of penance re- 
 garded as a most holy place. It does not admit of standing 
 upright, or of lying, or of having any comfortable feeling 
 whatever; it is a stone cell, with iron doors; and the saint 
 who instituted the three vows of poverty, chastity, and 
 obedience, must certainly have had a hard time of it. There 
 is a monastery here we entered the refectory, and some 
 other rooms. The monks have one of their number to 
 preach to them the whole time they eat. The monks here 
 seem better fed and in better condition than others whom 
 we have seen. The people around here seem to beg with 
 more ease than any other beggars. They are all devoted 
 to the memory of Saint Francis, whose devotions had a 
 great influence on the middle ages. We passed several 
 very fine olive and vine plantations, also ancient avenues 
 of cypresses; and on the left, on a mountain, is the very 
 ancient town of Spello, whose walls of many eras are seen 
 for some distance along the road. The walls have been re- 
 paired on their ancient foundation the stones of the latter 
 are very gray and strong and large. The ivy and olive 
 grow over and on the walls, and probably there has been 
 nothing new in the town for a thousand years. There are 
 Roman gateways standing at the entrances of the walls 
 the very stones seem superannuated ; and the town sits 
 among the rocks as ancient as the rocks themselves. We
 
 388 ROUTE TO ROME. 
 
 passed several dirty, stenchy Italian towns, whose beggars 
 surround you at every step, preceding you everywhere 
 anxious to do the most unnecessary services, and intruding 
 their offices on you for the most trivial rewards. Yet this 
 country is very fertile, and ought to support all its inhabit- 
 ants if they would labor properly. Its population was many 
 times greater in the ages of the .Roman Empire, and also in 
 the middle ages. Much of their time is spent in the churches, 
 and Catholic devotions are unenergizing. The day must 
 come when this land will be in better hands, and these 
 people and this religion reformed or destroyed. The gen- 
 eral laws which regulate the political economy of this uni- 
 verse will not suffer them much longer. 
 
 To-day we took our dejeuner a la fourchette at Foligno, a 
 vastly dirty town, with a poor hotel, but with numerous 
 serious-looking fat priests. As we stop some hours in the 
 middle of the day, we have leisure to look at the lions of 
 the place, which are generally sacred pictures and churches. 
 We were now in the Vale of the Clitumnus, celebrated in an- 
 cient and in all times for its exceeding beauty and richness. 
 The town of Trevi, situated on a high mountain, the sides of 
 which are covered by green and beautiful olive trees, is a very 
 interesting object. Its walls are high, and look picturesque 
 and old ; and its church bells send softly out on the upper 
 air their sweet music. The vale is between high ridges of 
 the Apennines, and is to-day bathed in sunny splendor and 
 covered with fields of vines and wheat. We stopped in the 
 afternoon at the Chapel of St. Salvadore, on the road side, 
 supposed to be the temple dedicated to the river god, Cli- 
 tumnus, and described by Pliny as ancient in his time, 
 seventeen hundred years ago. The small, sweet, clear look- 
 ing stream flows immediately before the temple. We en- 
 tered the temple, and saw in some of the stones of the crypt 
 what appeared to be fragments of Eoman inscriptions, but 
 which we could not decipher. It is now a Catholic chapel.
 
 ROUTK TO ROME. 389 
 
 and is probably a much more recent building than the one 
 described by Pliny, though it has some of the stones and 
 columns used in the more ancient edifice. The Clitumnus, 
 besides being poetical and divine, renders itself useful by 
 turning a mill immediately in front of the temple; there 
 were numerous cattle also feeding on the rich pastures; and 
 the whole scene is inspiring and delicious. The very oxen 
 have a wild, poetic majesty about them. This is the route 
 on which to read Lord Byron's Fourth Canto of Childe 
 Harold. We now passed the source of the Clitumnus. It 
 rises out' of the limestone rocks of the Apennines, quite a 
 considerable stream of pure, clear water. The vale con- 
 tinues along our route for some distance. The last rays of 
 the sun of the last day of the year began slowly to climb 
 the Apennines ; then succeeded the rich red of an Italian 
 sky as we drew near to Spoleto, the place of halting for 
 the night. It is situated among the mountains, the views 
 of which are a feast to the eye. We found a good hotel 
 here' 4 La Posta" and spent the last night of 1857. The 
 waiters were extremely attentive ; but here, as at all other 
 places, one of the first requisitions is to deliver our pass- 
 ports, that they may be sent to the police. This place has 
 been a bishopric ever since the time of St. Peter, A. D. 50. 
 But the first morning of the new year 6nds us winding 
 amongst the vales and ridges of the Apennines. We had a 
 pleasant dinner at a rather unusually good hotel in Spoleto 
 last evening, after our labors in traveling. We arrived 
 there at half-past five in the evening, or just about dusk; 
 and this morning started early, breakfasting at half-past 
 five, and starting at six, before a single ray of the sun had 
 come over the Apennines. I walked through the town, 
 and up the hill on which Spoleto stands, with the solemn, 
 sweet moonlight yet mantling its gray old walls the bells 
 ringing out merrily the glad new year. The priests are 
 early risers in Catholic countries, as the bells are all ring- 
 
 2H2
 
 390 ROUTE TO ROME. 
 
 ing at five o'clock each morning for early mass. We 
 passed out the barrier through the Porta Romana. How 
 grim and solid seemed this portion of the ancient walls of 
 the city. There is a large part of the Roman aqueduct also 
 yet standing. The city being situated on one of the pro- 
 jecting spurs of the Apennines, the scenery is most roman- 
 tic. One of the gates is yet called the Gate of Hannibal, 
 from a two thousand years' tradition that the fierce Car- 
 thaginian was repulsed here after his victory at Thrasimene. 
 This, as well as the recollection of the obstinate defense of 
 Saguntum, in Spain, may have led to his great error in not 
 attacking Rome immediately after the battle of Cannae, as 
 his genius appears to have inclined him more to open battle 
 than to sieges. The ascent to the top of the Apennines at 
 this pass is called Monte Somana; and, as the carriage pro- 
 ceeded slowly, I alighted and walked to the top, near which 
 I caught the first glimpse of the brightly rising sun, strong, 
 vigorous, unwearied, and ready for the race of a new year. 
 The pass is three thousand seven hundred and thirty-eight 
 feet above the sea. The pleasant air, the rich, red glow of 
 the Italian morning, and the soft sunlight among the pines, 
 were sights among the luxuries of that walk up the Apen- 
 nines. At the summit the view is very grand indeed the 
 towns of Foligno, and Spello, and the Vale of Clitumnus 
 before them, and the mountains in the rear, were in sight. 
 This sunrise among the Apennines is ineffaceable but with 
 oblivion of all things beautiful. From the summit we 
 descended rapidly through rugged, romantic passes of the 
 mountains, formerly infested with brigands. Further down 
 the views assumed a wonderful softness, and vines, and 
 olives, and green fields again appeared. On one high peak 
 to our left I observed a very extensive ruin, many stone 
 houses, towers some entirely fallen, and the whole sur- 
 rounded by an embattled, strong wall, over the numerous 
 breaches in which crept the ivy a thorough ruin. This
 
 ROUTE TO KOME. 391 
 
 -was probably a strong fortification of some proud chief in 
 the olden, and it appeared very picturesque in its great 
 height and its strange desolation. Descending into the vale, 
 the land seems extremely fertile; the meadows produce 
 several crops in a year, and are under admirable cultivation. 
 The ancient ruins were probably, after the decadence of the 
 original proprietors, occupied by Italian banditti the deep 
 vaults and subterranean passages affording them security 
 while they made incursions on these fertile plains. Ap- 
 proaching Terni, we see its grim, ancient towers and its 
 low, decayed walls. We arrived there about mid-day, and 
 remained till the next morning. I took a guide, hired a 
 donkey, and proceeded to visit the celebrated cataract, five 
 miles from the town. My donkey has elongated ears, but 
 is of mild and pensive aspect; and, by dint of urging be- 
 hind, on the part of the attendant, and persuasion before, 
 on the part of the rider, he moves along. I took the lower 
 road, which passes through a deep vale, along an olive 
 orchard ; then through an ancient arch, near which, on the 
 almost inaccessible peak of a mountain, is a stone village, 
 completely covering the summit, yet walled in various 
 places; but whether of Goth or Christian, Roman or Lom- 
 bard architecture, is difficult to say. To get up to it or 
 down from it would seem to be equally impossible. It is 
 called Passigno. It seems to be in the world but not of it. 
 Huge precipices defend it on all sides. It is the most com- 
 pletely desolate-looking place, with its fallen walls, its 
 cheerless, stony appearance, I have yet seen gray, grim, 
 and grinning in its antiquity. Further on, in the vale, I 
 passed a fine avenue of orange trees and pines, entered a 
 deep and awful vale, with vast craggy mountains above, on 
 the remote top of one of which is a ruin alone and lonely 
 in its height and age. Then Terni, or properly Cascata 
 del Marmore. It is seen amongst its own clouds and 
 mists as a white thing coming down from heaven. I saw
 
 B02 ROUTE TO ROME. 
 
 it in the splendor of a, noon-day sun, the air all blue, the 
 san all brightness, the great, rough, perpendicular, thou- 
 sands of feet of rugged Apennine limestone all around. It 
 is a river that comes down five hundred or six hundred feet 
 in one perfect, unbroken plunge. The mist boils up; the 
 white waters fight with rugged rocks, and descend through 
 them four or five hundred feet more; the evergreen vegeta- 
 tion of the vale is crusted with a deposit of lime, precipi- 
 tated from the mist ; the winds and the rainbows come 
 around it : the whole a scene of surpassing beauty and splen- 
 dor. There are various points of view. I saw it first from 
 below, twelve hundred feet above rne, as it were, falling over 
 a huge mountain, five times higher than Niagara, though 
 the latter has a vastly greater volume of water. But this 
 scene, in the original grandeur of remote mountain scenery, 
 with the adorning of antique castles, and towns, and ruins 
 on the hills around, has a beauty that makes one silent, and 
 you almost love its strange, intense attraction. It is like a 
 battle, never to be forgotten, in its solitary, solemn gran- 
 deur. The best view is from below, where you see the 
 principal cataract through its own creations of mist and 
 rainbows a great moving white ghost of water, in a thin 
 gauze thrown over it as if to vail its dazzling beauties. 
 Lord Byron's description of this cataract would be more 
 appropriate to Niagara; but he is right in his assertion that 
 it is worth all the cataracts in Switzerland and I have 
 seen all of the latter of any note: even that of Handek 
 and the Rhine fall, which he had not seen, are not equal to 
 this. Niagara stands alone the unapproachable like 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON among men. This cataract is formed 
 by the river Velino, and was the work of the Romans, with 
 the view of draining the country above. Returning to the 
 town of Terni, which was the birth-place of Tacitus the 
 historian, we strolled around its old streets, saw some of 
 its Roman remains, entered its Cathedrals, heard music
 
 ROUTE TO HOME. 893 
 
 from the organ, and saw the old paintings, some on wood ; 
 then visited the piazza and open space, planted with trees, 
 and the usual resort for promenading at sunset, dined 
 about six o'clock, and prepared for our journey on the 
 morrow. 
 
 This morning, January 2d, we left Terni at six o'clock, 
 on our way to Rome. We started before the dawn. Our 
 course lay at first through a level and lovely country, but 
 about sunrise we came to Narni, and saw the first glad rays 
 of the sun, reddening on the mountains. We ascended a 
 high hill, and saw along the roadside, ruins of palaces or 
 castles, that may have been Roman or Gothic: but are, 
 assuredly, of the order of decay in architecture now. Then 
 the old, slumbering town of Narni, on an almost inaccessi- 
 ble precipice, along which rolls the Nar a river, white, 
 boiling, and sulphury. The subjects of the Pope, spiritual 
 and temporal, were up and moving about. Some with their 
 little earthen pots, filled with ashes and coals, which they 
 carry to keep their hands warm ; others with mules and 
 donkeys, carrying wood, brick, vegetables, for sale; others, 
 old women at fruit stalls. Then there is the old, dirty town, 
 with its fountain of projecting water in the central piazza, 
 the Cathedral, convents, and its extremely gray-looking, 
 ancient walls, its gate towers surmounted with the coat of 
 arms of the Papacy, in which muskets, drums, a bishop's 
 mitre, and the keys of St. Peter, are strongly blended. The 
 road continues for some distance along the side of a moun- 
 tain, on the ancient Flaminian Way of the Roman times. 
 The views for a great distance are most beautiful. You 
 have the Nar far below you. and splendid vistas into distant 
 regions between the mountains, very old stone villages on 
 the summit of isolated hills, walled and built for purposes 
 of defence, in a warlike age : the great height to which we 
 ascended gave grand views of the Italian mountains, with 
 numerous parallel ridges and conical peaks, with a soft,
 
 394: ROUTE TO ROME. 
 
 hazy, semi-transparent misfc, slightly shrouding the olive 
 orchards in the vales. About the miserable village of 
 Otricoli, the views are very fine. Unless the Pope, however, 
 attends to the spiritual condition of his subjects better than 
 he does to their temporal, their condition must be destitute 
 indeed in the next world, for rarely have I seen more mis- 
 erable-looking people. They rely too much on their 
 prayers to the Virgin, and too little on themselves. De- 
 scending from this, we had on our right most singular and 
 numerous monuments of stone some in clusters, others 
 separate probably Koman tombs, which lined all their 
 principal routes. They seem like circular towers; but age 
 sits heavily on them, and time has done all he could to 
 destroy them. On the left, near the termination of the 
 descent, on an isolated rock, is a most remarkable-looking, 
 old castle, a strong fortress once, yet now all in ruins 
 showing, however, the thick walls, which have become 
 almost a solid rock themselves, through age. Below this, 
 on the left, are some remarkable holes cut into the rock, 
 which are thought to be Etruscan tombs, as we re-enter a 
 portion of ancient Etrusca. We were now again in the 
 plain of the Tiber, and reaching Borghetto about noon, we 
 ordered our dejeuner a la foiirchette. During the two hours 
 we remained here, I ascended to a high mountain rock above 
 the small village. Here is all that is now left of one of the 
 most remarkable and extensive fortifications in this country. 
 It is built on, about, and in the immense rock. There are 
 very old walls, many caverns in the rock, vaulted stone 
 apartments, some of which have been large and stately halls, 
 with frescoes now ruined and crumbling. Most of the ruin 
 is now covered with grass, blackberry, and other kinds of 
 bushes, and the ivy has mounted to the highest walls and 
 towers. One tower ascends very high, and is constructed 
 of square stones. Much of the foundation is so old, as 
 scarcely to be distinguished from the rock on which it is
 
 ROUTE TO ROME. 395 
 
 built. On one side, far down, is a small stream on the 
 other flows the Tiber, through a beautiful, fertile vale. 
 Around are villages, on crumbling down, yet still elevated 
 peaks; and in the distance rises the high, ancient Mount 
 Soract, alluded to by Horace, and other Roman writers, 
 with its three peaks. This is classic Italy but how un- 
 flourishing and old ; its inhabitant?, how degenerate, ugly, 
 coarse; the towns, though picturesque and strange, are 
 gloomy, cold, and filthy. How the mind turns with 
 pleasure to the more cheerful, pleasant scenes of our own 
 America the wide, clean streets, and modern houses. This 
 is the land for thought, but America is the place for action. 
 Here the strong past encroaches on the present : but there, 
 the present is strong, and there is no gloomy past to intrude 
 its mouldering ruins on the now. Leaving the miserable 
 inn at Borghetto though the house was once a proud 
 castle, some remains of its magnificence being still visible 
 we ascended a high hill which gave us fine views of the 
 castellated rock, with its sides perforated for wells, tombs, 
 caverns. Approaching Civita Castellana, Mount Soracte 
 comes grandly into view, like an island on land, rising from 
 the plain. Nothing, however, can exceed the romantic 
 beauty of Civita Castellana. It is built on an immense, 
 volcanic rock, almost perpendicular, around the sides of 
 which is a tremendous ravine, with a foaming torrent 
 cradled in its dark abyss, and with numerous Etruscan 
 tombs cut into the rocks, the remains of Etruscan walls, 
 three thousand years old, long anterior to the Roman times. 
 Then there are singular, old, arched, and sculptured gate- 
 ways, of the middle ages, roads cut through the volcanic 
 rock every thing massive, grand, ancient, and dirty. 
 Around the town are standing, in many places, isolated 
 ruins. The town itself is at present incredibly filthy, and 
 filled with ragged wretchedness, amidst so many evidences 
 of a grand past. There is a fine bridge, one hundred and
 
 396 ROUTE TO ROME. 
 
 twenty feet above the bottom of the ravine, over which we 
 pass, before entering the city. The city is on a plateau of 
 red, volcanic tufa, or volcanic rock. Much of the land 
 around here is very fertile, but is thinly peopled, the inhab- 
 itants preferring to live in the miserable villages. Leaving 
 Civita Castellana the beauty of whose situation, the streams 
 around which, the hills perforated with tombs, must long 
 remain in memory our vetturino conductor departed from 
 the ordinary route to Rome, and took the course of the 
 ancient Flaminian Way, which lies near Mount Soracte, 
 through a wild, grass and tree overgrown country, over 
 which seemed scattered gloomy ruins. The land appeared 
 to be of excellent quality, gently undulating, offering every 
 phase and form of beauty, but utterly neglected and gone 
 into decay. Mount Soracte, with its monastic institutions 
 upon its hatched-shaped summit, was very near. Whether 
 our driver, who had recently become gloomy and taciturn, 
 intended, by deviating from the ordinary route, to deliver 
 us into the hands of Italian banditti, who from the laxity 
 of the Papal government still infest this route, was an idea 
 that occurred to our mind when, on a sudden, our carriage 
 stopped in a dark valley, a little after night, and hearing 
 voices in altercation, we looked out and discovered some 
 dark, fierce, half-attired men, with cloaks on their arms. 
 But in a moment, we saw our way was stopped, not by 
 banditti, but by sheep a drove of which nearly filled up 
 the road. In the ancient town of Rignano, where we soon 
 after arrived, we found a comfortable hotel and good fare. 
 We have come thirty-eight miles to-day. Yesterday, we 
 made sixteen miles; the day before, thirty-two miles; the 
 second day after leaving Florence, forty-eight miles ; and 
 twenty-seven yet remain to Rome. 
 
 But 'tis morning, January 3d, and we are on our route to 
 Rome ; " Per Roma," is written on the guide posts. The 
 scene around us is Italian. The sun is looking over the
 
 ROUTE TO ROME. 397 
 
 Sabine Apennines, which are rough, irregular, jagged 
 peaked like a*suddenly solidified mountain wind-tossed 
 wave. On the roadside appears, at intervals, the old, paved, 
 Roman way of Flaminius. The Roman legions marched 
 along this route to meet Hannibal, when the empire of the 
 world was the prize. In some places it is seen, with the 
 square limestones, about a foot square, of which it was 
 paved, peering on the roadside, with an accumulation of 
 many feet of earth above it, the stones projecting from the 
 hillside. These stones are now broken up to macadamize 
 the modern road ; the ancients paved with broad, flat stones, 
 seven or eight inches in depth the moderns with pebbles. 
 This land around us is now resting, as well as the people, 
 from the fierce excitement of the past. In old days this 
 route must have been highly interesting, on account of its 
 roadside garniture of tombs and palaces. Many of the 
 former yet peer from the hillsides, like caves cnt into the 
 rocks. But they are tenantless now, and were rifled ages 
 ago of their proud sarcophagi. The remains of stately, old, 
 stone halls stand in their decay on many hills around, 
 mouldering uselessly in their age, dying at top first. These 
 probably belong to the middle and dark ages the more 
 highly ornamented remains of Roman villas having proba- 
 bly long since disappeared, and been carried off in annihi- 
 lating wars. The morning is magnificent. We have now 
 entered that wondrous, modern desolation, the Campagna, 
 once covered with gardens and Roman villas, but now more 
 desolate than a desert. It is the country within a few miles 
 of and surrounding Rome. Its surface is slightly billy, and 
 it is without cultivation, though the land does not appear 
 really sterile. It is a fine day for approaching Rome. The 
 sky is slightly gauzed with stratified clouds. The Tiber 
 flows a short distance to our left. The Campagna has 
 many deep gullies and fissures in it, and the old towers, 
 around which clings the ivy, and at the base of which may 
 
 2i
 
 398 ROME. 
 
 be seen small, blue, starry flowers, are scattered over its 
 expanse. But about nine miles from Rontfe, sitting on the 
 open seat in front of the carriage, I caught the first sight 
 of the dome of St. Peter's church, rising far above that 
 sepulchre of the past, the city that lies below. It appeared 
 through the slight morning mist that hung over the Tiber, 
 with the cypress-wooded Monte Mario on its right, Rome, 
 on its seven hills, around it. This sight the sight of the 
 Eternal City, long the mistress of the world, then its 
 religious Sovereign is among the unforgetful, choice 
 treasures of memory. On the east and south, beyond 
 Rome, were seen, bounding the Carnpagna, portions of the 
 Apennines, in sunlit snow. There, then, stood at last, the 
 object of our wanderings 
 
 "The Niobe of nations there she stands, 
 Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe ; 
 An empty urn within her withered hands, 
 Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago." 
 
 It seemed as if one had suddenly seen back into antiquity 
 for twenty -five hundred years. 
 
 " Rome ! my country ! city of the soul ! 
 The orphans of the heart must turn to thee, 
 Lone mother of dead empires ! and control 
 In their shut breasts their petty misery." 
 
 This city has exercised more influence on the destinies of 
 mankind than any other. All the modern kingdoms of 
 Europe are but the pageants of Rome's great Empire, that 
 lost creation of Time. Our learning, our language, and our 
 laws are indebted to it. The strongest political idea the 
 world has ever entertained, was the Roman Empire. Its 
 ruins are everywhere the astonishment of the present. As 
 we approach the city, our road passes near to the Tiber ; 
 the tomb caves of old, now used as resorts for cattle, become
 
 ROME. 399 
 
 more numerous; and old tumbling-down walls, shattered 
 though massive yet. built of stone and brick mixed, are on 
 many hills some almost level with the ground, others re- 
 duced to a single tower. Cattle and sheep are in some 
 places seen grazing on the unfenced Campagna. In some 
 of the tombs along the roadside, the niches for the sar- 
 cophagi are still to be seen, through the yawning mouths. 
 Nearer the city, the knolls and small hills sloping to the 
 river, with intervening pastures, become very beautiful. 
 No trees are on the Campagna; but there are a few grass 
 fU-wei* strewn in clusters on different places, looking won- 
 deringly about, apparently happy in their exemption from 
 such a past as has been enacted here. Our route, near this, 
 unites with the postal route. We cross the Tiber here, on 
 a line ridge the Ponte Molle and look down on the yel- 
 low, rapid waves of the " Tiber, father Tiber, to whom the 
 Romans prayed." It was here that Constantino had his cel- 
 ebrated vision, here he fought Maxentius, who was drowned 
 in the river, and here the seven -branched candlestick of 
 gold, brought by Titus from the Temple of Jerusalem, fell 
 into the river, and was never seen thereafter. The river is 
 four hundred feet wide at this point, and apparently deep, 
 and certainly rapid. No trees are on its banks. Passing 
 along a straight road, with houses and villas on each side, 
 a wall separating them from the road, we came to the Porta 
 del Popolo, the gate of Rome on this side. We see the 
 drear, ancient walls on each side, and we, in a moment, are 
 in the city. We enter at the Piazza del Popolo. On our 
 left is a fine church, and near it the sunny summit of 
 Monte Pincio, one of the hills of modern Rome ; in front, 
 are two twin churches of the same style, and both beautiful. 
 We drove along the Corso, the principal street of the modern 
 city, to the Hotel d'Angleterre, in a pleasant and agreeable 
 location, and felt at length that we were in Rome. When 
 we entered the gates, of course our passports were de-
 
 400 ROME. 
 
 manded, and our luggage assumed to be examined; six 
 pauls, however, procured exemption from this vexatious 
 delay, even in the Pope's own city. In return for our pass- 
 ports, we got a printed paper requiring us to appear 
 within twenty -four hours, at the Police Office, and reclaim 
 them. 
 
 The impression produced bjEome on the mind is almost 
 painful. You are familiar with its past, and it does not 
 readily coalesce with the present. You cannot realize that 
 you tread where Romulus, the Tarquins, Cicero, Caesar, 
 Augustus, Constantine have been ; and that such mighty 
 throes in earth's past have spent their convulsions here. 
 You can only gradually as when you go strolling about, 
 and meet in every street columns, or statues, or fountains, 
 whose names are linked with the past realize that you are 
 in the mighty idea Rome the locality that has ruled the 
 world spiritually, since it ceased to rule it temporally, and 
 you believe in the substantial existence of the truth of his- 
 tory. Entering the city at the point we did, one of the first 
 things seen is a vast Egyptian obelisk. These are numerous 
 in Rome, being brought from Egypt by the emperors, but 
 during the middle ages had fallen down, and were buried 
 many feet in the ground. Within the last two or three 
 hundred years the Popes have raised them on pedstals, 
 converted them to Christianity, surmounted them with 
 crosses, and thus made them subservient to the worship of 
 the Virgin, though the mute, mysterious, but meaningful 
 hieroglyphics of ancient Egyptian idolatry are still on 
 them. This one stood before the Temple of the Sun in 
 Egypt. I saw the sunset from Monte Pincio the evening 
 of my arrival in the city. It set amidst the sea of Rome's 
 glorious church spires, St. Peter's church in full view, and 
 around me were the numerous statues and mementoes of 
 the past. It is one of the seven hills of Rome, and is now 
 a grand public promenade with gardens, walks, seats, flow-
 
 ROME. 401 
 
 
 
 ere, carriage-drives; and here are seen the splendid equi- 
 pages of England, France, Russia, and other countries, 
 Rome being a central point in Europe for spending the 
 winter. The various classes are very distinctly marked. 
 There is a refinement, elevation, softness and rather feeble- 
 ness indicated by the appearance of the higher classes of 
 England's aristocracy, especially the ladies. The Pope's 
 military band here discourses fine music each evening; and 
 around are fine modern statues and imitations of the 
 antique. There are those of Ariosto, Tasso, Michael An- 
 gelo, Raphael, Tacitus, and many others. This is near 
 modern Rome, which lies principally in the Campus Mar- 
 tius of ancient Rome, embracing the base and summits of 
 three only of the seven hills of ancient Rome. Modern 
 Borne is not much over four hundred years old; the ancient 
 city, part of which was once on this point, has nearly all 
 disappeared. But Rome has a distinct and awful chapter 
 of its ruins, which cover a space much more extensive than 
 the modern city, occupying the site of the ancient city, and 
 consisting now of her indestructible remains of palaces, 
 baths, temples, tombs, villas, amphitheatres, walls in short, 
 the ruins of thousands of years which time could not des- 
 troy, which war could not waste, and which all the innu- 
 merable changes to which the devoted city has been ex- 
 posed have left changeless, have sought in vain to triumph 
 over ; which Attila, Totila, Bourbon, and Bonaparte have 
 battered at in vain, and which still survive the death, ruin 
 and damnation of all conquerors, and which only the last 
 conflagration of the world can destroy. The world, and 
 Rome, and the Coliseum are to go down together, according 
 to the old mystic legend. Nothing can be a grander sub- 
 ject of contemplation than this ancient city first, its ori- 
 gin, two thousand five hundred years ago, on the Palatine 
 Hill ; then its gradual rise to power and refinement, and its 
 conquest of all the world; then its greatness under the 
 26 2 12
 
 402 ROME. 
 
 . 
 
 Caesars ; its gradual decline before the successive hordes of 
 barbarians from the north, especially after the removal of 
 the seat of government to Constantinople; then its ultimate 
 subjugation by the barbarians; the almost divine power the 
 Popes claimed and exercised during the middle ages; the 
 almost extinction of the ancient city, and the rise of the 
 Rome of the middle ages ; the extirpation of the latter, and 
 the rise of the present city under Sixtus V. ; then its extra- 
 ordinary treasures of art and architecture, and its sublime 
 ruins. It is probable Rome, upon the whole, combines 
 more interesting points than any other place on earth. 
 Some might consider Jerusalem more interesting. But 
 even religiously speaking, Jerusalem, though there the 
 Christian religion originated, has not exercised so potent 
 an influence, to say nothing of its inferiority in political 
 influence and in works of taste and learning. Of all the 
 places in Rome the Vatican Palace, the winter residence of 
 the Pope, with St. Peter's Church adjoining, is probably the 
 most interesting. 
 
 Most Americans and English in Rome stay at the hotels 
 near the Piazza di Spagna, at the base of the Pincian Hill, it 
 being regarded as the healthiest and cleanest part of the 
 city. From this point one goes down the Via di Condotti, 
 crosses the Corso, then along the Via della Fontanella, then 
 the Via del Arvo, the Via di Tor di Noria to the bridge 
 of St. Angelo, which you cross, seeing the Tiber's yellow 
 waves below. On each side of the bridge are statues of 
 saints and apostles, gigantic but beautiful. On the further 
 end is an immense round tower or citadel, built by the 
 Roman emperor Hadrian to contain his ashes. It is now 
 the French fort, the Emperor of France having six thousand 
 soldiers in the city, who have military occupation of it. On 
 t.h<3 top of the citadel is seen a gigantic figure of a winged 
 
 *el St. Michael (for the Popes sometimes kindly 
 onize angels) sheathing his sword. This great tomb,
 
 ROME. 403 
 
 built by the emperor Hadrian one hundred and thirty 
 years after Christ, has been for ages a fortress, and the 
 ashes of Hadrian long lost ; but the sarcophagus in which 
 they were held is in the Vatican Palace. You are now 
 across the Tiber. This side of the river is much the small- 
 est portion of Rome, though the inhabitants pride them- 
 selves as being the only descendants of the ancient Romans. 
 Then you go by the Borga Nuova and arrive at the Grand 
 Piazza di San Pietro, a great place in front of St. Peter's 
 and the Vatican Palace. You have passed over a consider- 
 able part of the ancient Campus Martiua, on which the 
 modern city is built, from the Monte Pincio to the Monte 
 Vaticano. You have found some of the streets on this 
 route very dirty, others comparatively clean, with some 
 grand-looking palaces on them, with open, arched gateways 
 leading into inner courts. In front of these palaces is gen- 
 erally a piazza or open place. These palaces are generally 
 built of a peculiar kind of hard stone, called travertin, 
 which is very durable though somewhat porous. The 
 Piazza di San Pietro, on which you now are, has an air 
 of richness, grandeur and interest unsurpassed in the world. 
 In its centre rises a lofty Egyptian obelisk. On each .side, 
 though at some distance from the obelisk, is a fine fountain. 
 The piazza is bounded on two sides by a splendid colon- 
 nade, perhaps the finest in the world, consisting of four 
 rows of travertin columns, sixty-one feet high, and admit- 
 ting of two carriage-roads under the arcades. The number 
 of columns in the two sides, which are almost semicircular, 
 is two hundred and eighty-four. The great St. Peter's is 
 at one end of this piazza, with its proud facade and its still 
 grander dome, and its statues in front and on the roof. 
 This, though the largest church in the world, occupying 
 two hundred and forty thousand square feet, impresses one 
 in regard to its exterior, not so much on account of its 
 great size as on account of its perfection of style and archi-
 
 404 ROME. 
 
 tectural beauty. The fagade has been condemned as too 
 heavy, and as concealing the great dome built by Michael 
 Angelo. The great size is concealed by the exquisite taste 
 and interesting character; and as to Michael Angelo's dome, 
 nothing can conceal that. On the right is the Vatican 
 Palace, said to have four thousand six hundred and twenty- 
 two apartments. Its length is one thousand one hundred 
 and fifty-one feet, its breadth seven hundred and sixty- 
 seven ; it has eight grand staircases, two hundred smaller 
 ones, twenty courts, and, like St. Peter's, occupied more 
 than three hundred years in building. Both occupy nearly 
 the site of Nero's circus the scene of his atrocious perse- 
 cutions of the Christians where St. Peter was (it is alleged) 
 buried, and there have been churches on that ground for 
 fifteen hundred years, the first having been built by Con- 
 stantine the Great. The building of St. Peter's extended 
 over the reigns of forty-three Popes, and cost fifty million 
 dollars. The cost of keeping it in repair each year is more 
 than thirty thousand dollars, and it requires the constant 
 attention of more than sixty workmen. The expense of 
 building it was defrayed in part by the sale of indulgences, 
 from which arose Luther's Reformation. Michael Angelo 
 died in his eighty-ninth year, in 1563, when the great 
 dome, which is double, was completed. The Vatican being 
 open to-day to the public, I walked through some of its 
 Tast and interesting halls. You ascend by a splendid stair- 
 case, pass some magnificent courts, see fine statues, great 
 frescoes, and then enter a long corridor, two hundred and 
 thirty yards in length, splendid beyond description, and 
 on each side are ranged pieces of sculpture dug out of 
 Rome's ruins. The collection is unequalled in the world. 
 The mere ruins of Rome have furnished forth a more august 
 collection than all the genius of all times of all other coun- 
 tries : this, too, after the city has been sacked and destroyed 
 eight or ten times, and twenty feet of soil have accumulated
 
 ROME. 405 
 
 on its most famous places, and the old, immortal hills them- 
 selves have dwindled down and lost themselves and their 
 glories in the dust. You go first through the Gallery of 
 Epitaphs or Inscriptions Greek, Roman, and early Chris- 
 tian. All these were found in and on tombs, and in the 
 Catacombs outside the city. Those on one side are heathen, 
 and have no immortality in their epitaphs, no rising again, 
 while those of the early Christians express an exalted hope; 
 then through long galleries of the splendid, striking, severe 
 sculpture of the ancients, found everywhere over Italy 
 emperors, chimeras, animals in marble all expressive, an- 
 tique, and wonderful, and lovely in their exquisite art; 
 then through rooms of old Egyptian tombs, mummies 
 vailed and unvailed, some glaring at you in horrid, hideous, 
 hateful death, mutilated by the unseen fingers of Time, and 
 looking weary at not being allowed to return to common 
 dust again. There were sarcophagi of all kinds of marbles, 
 porphyry, etc., with high and deep bas reliefs, expressing 
 volumes. It took more than half of the whole lapse of time 
 since the creation, with the highest genius of earth, to pro- 
 duce what I saw to-day the eye, wearied with gazing, and 
 the mind with remembering, and the heart with feeling. 
 The great tapestries representing some of the Cartoons of 
 Raphael, are in two large halls, and possess great interest. 
 These galleries are, all of them, the imperishably embalmed 
 minds of great souls, leaving here deathless legacies out of 
 the rich abundance wherewith God had blessed them to all 
 succeeding times. 
 
 But the great bell of St. Peter's sounds with its unwritten, 
 but mighty music, and the Pope rides out in his splendid 
 carriage and his six fine horses, and a band of music strikes 
 up and the drums beat, and the French soldiers in the 
 piazza present arms, for he is the Head of the Church 
 Christ's Vicar on Earth his Holiness, Lord God I the Pope. 
 Verily, St. Peter himself never went out thus attended,
 
 406 ROME. 
 
 unless it were to execution. But times are changed. The 
 Pope is kept on his throne by French soldiers, and though 
 he is fallen from his high estate in the middle ages, he is 
 thus brought nearer to St. Peter's condition. Austria or 
 France either could destroy his temporal power in a mo- 
 ment, and restore him to what he was originally a plain 
 Bishop for the first five hundred years after Christ; but 
 through motives of policy, he being almost venerated by a 
 large portion of their subjects, they suffer him to retain his 
 present position. Or if they did not uphold his temporal 
 power, it would go down from sheer weakness, as the fiction 
 of a Pope is repugnant to the common sense of all modern 
 times. 
 
 To-day, January 5th, has been one of those undelightful 
 days that are not much relished by sight-seers rain all 
 day. I strolled along the Corso, the principal street of 
 modern Rome. I called at the Palazzo Braschi, where the 
 American Minister, Mr. Cass, resides, and at several other 
 places, but have not yet entered on the vast and mournful 
 study of Rome's ruins. There are many English and 
 Americans in Rome at present, wandering through the glo- 
 rious galleries and ancient ruins. There is much talk here 
 at present in regard to the late earthquake near Naples, the 
 account of which probably reached Paris and London be- 
 fore it did here, as papers and telegraphic dispatches and 
 general news about things near, are luxuries unknown in 
 Italy. It is said to have destroyed fifteen thousand people. 
 It does not, however, deter persons from going there from 
 Rome. I know nothing comparable in majestic interest to 
 the mind equal to a visit to Rome. 
 
 To-day, January 6th, has been one of the great fete days 
 of the Roman Church. Nearly a third of the year is, in 
 all, occupied by these holidays, during which the people 
 are not permitted by law to labor, and which, perhaps, may 
 be one cause of so much beggary and wretchedness. You
 
 ROME. 407 
 
 see the people standing about in their raggedness, kissing 
 statues of Jesus, the cross, or images of the Apostles, or 
 attending Mass. The best-looking part of the people are 
 the soldiers and priests. They all look fat, sleek, and well- 
 cared for, and physically, are, in general, superior to the 
 people the best specimens of the latter being used to re- 
 cruit the former. This feast is that of the Epiphany, or the 
 showing of Jesus Christ, when a babe, in the manger. In 
 some of the churches there is a theatrical representation of 
 the Virgin and Child. One church has the Bambino, or 
 little babe, a carved image of a child, said to have been cut 
 out of a tree on Mount Olivet, and painted by St. Luke 
 himself, who, as the Catholic Church had need of a painter, 
 is selected to perform what legendary painting is necessary. 
 This is shown to the people, and carried about, and has 
 miraculous powers, and has wonderful influence in families 
 in various interesting situations being often sent for, and 
 getting more fees than any physician. I visited the Sistine 
 Chapel the Pope's private chapel in the Vatican Palace 
 remarkable for the great fresco of Michael Angelo, repre- 
 senting the Last Judgment. Those who enter here, if gen- 
 tlemen, must have on a black dress coat ; if ladies, must be 
 in black, with faces vailed, and no bonnets on. Several 
 were excluded by the gorgeously attired chamberlains at the 
 door, for lack of those prerequisites. Many Cardinals were 
 present, splendidly arrayed their carriages and servants in 
 red livery themselves in crimson velvet, with little boys, 
 or domestics, bearing up the train of their long, flowing 
 robes. The Pope, a benign-looking old man (Pius IX., now 
 in his sixty-sixth year), came in by a private entrance : the 
 cardinals kiss his hand, kneeling before him; he blesses 
 them they hold his mitre and the whole thing is grand, 
 imposing, and puerile. The music, however, is most rich 
 and solemn the music is always vocal when the Pope is 
 present and the whole ceremony of High Mass is a most
 
 408 ROME. 
 
 sacred -looking spectacle. It is a kind of repetition of the 
 death of Christ. 
 
 But St. Peter's ! I entered this the first church of the world. 
 The sight is probably worth any other moment of our lives. 
 There are five doors the thick heavy curtain is drawn 
 aside, and you enter. The impression is intense, painful, 
 impatient, disheartening, like that which one must feel at 
 the self-conscious height of all enjoyment. You see an 
 immense pavement composed of various marbles ; and at 
 the further end the church is a Latin cross nearly six 
 hundred feet from the entrance, you see the High Altar, 
 standing over the relics of St. Peter, and in front of this, 
 in a circle, are eighty-nine lamps burning night and day. 
 There are four spiral columns of the Composite order, 
 richly ornamented, supporting a grand canopy over the 
 altar ; at the latter, the Pope can alone celebrate mass. As 
 usual there is a vast central nave, the roof of which is 
 vaulted, and there are two side aisles, five massive piers 
 separating them from the aisle. But who can describe St. 
 Peter's! It is like jumping into the jewel chamber of 
 Heaven. Genius has done all it could; wealth and taste have 
 exhausted their resources. Grand and numerous as are the 
 churches I have seen, none can compare with this. One 
 can scarcely realize that he has seen St. Peter's after he has 
 been in it. While I was in it, in one of the side chapels, as 
 large as a very large church, mass was being performed 
 the music swept through the sublime church, like the rush- 
 ing of mighty legions of angels' wings along the Empyrean 
 of Heaven. Years may pass all manner of events may 
 beat and war upon the heart but nothing can surpass, 
 nothing can equal, nothing efface the impression left by 
 the view of the interior of St. Peter's. Near the mighty 
 twisted bronze columns of the High Altar is an expressive 
 bronze statue of the Apostle Peter it is kingly majestic ; 
 the Catholics in passing always kiss the toe, which they
 
 ROME. 409 
 
 have nearly kissed off. The chair in which he sat as Pope, 
 enclosed in a huge gilded exterior of bronze, is also here, 
 and the crypt contains his bones. It is a difficult thing 
 for any human being to manage such vast size and coerce 
 it into beauty, yet it is done in this church. The im- 
 pression of the great old giant-souled Michael Angelo is 
 the only thing about the church that is greater than it. 
 
 Thursday, 7th. We are out to-day on a sight-seeing 
 expectation our plan being not to have any plan. Here 
 is a large church in the Via Lata, near the Doria Palace. 
 Churches of the twelfth century are no longer regarded by 
 us as old. Many of those in Rome go back for their foun- 
 dations to the second and third centuries, and are conse- 
 quently fifteen hundred years old. They have, however, 
 often been materially modified arid adapted to the taste 
 prevailing in different ages. This church occupies the site 
 of the house in which St. Paul lived with the Centurion. 
 We descend into the dark crypt, and see the Roman walls 
 of the old foundation ; and we see a singular spring of 
 water near, the legend of which is that it sprang up mirac- 
 ulously to enable the Apostle to baptize the Centurion 
 whom he converted ; rather an impossible fact, by the way, 
 as sprinkling, considered as religious baptism, was unknown 
 for two hundred years after Paul's day, until introduced 
 by the Catholics themselves, and at first only in cases in 
 extremis. But now, through streets whose dirtiness and 
 stenchiness are vast and almost interesting, yet along which 
 are palaces of splendid architecture belonging to families 
 whose names were renowned in the middle ages, and pass- 
 ing through a church built over the palace, we descend by 
 a staircase, which is modern, into dungeons which are old 
 very. There are two dungeons, one below the other. The 
 architecture is Etruscan, formed of immense rough stones, 
 without cement. There were no doors, the prisoners being 
 let down into them by cords, through an opening in the 
 
 2K
 
 410 ROME. 
 
 floor. They are at the base of the Capitoline Hill, and are 
 many feet below the present surface of the ground. They 
 are fearfully dark and dreary, and are twenty -four hundred 
 years old, being mentioned by the oldest Roman writers. 
 Here Jugurtha, king of Numidia, was starved to death, 
 the Catiline conspirators were strangled, and St. Peter was 
 confined in it. The old priest who acted as guide showed 
 us the pillar to which he was chained ; and there is also a 
 spring down deep in the lower dungeon, of whose waters 
 we drank, which of course had sprung up miraculously, to 
 enable St. Peter to baptize his jailers. It is like a well. 
 These prisons were state-prisons, and were built in the 
 kingly periods of Rome. Catholicism, which requires 
 larger faith than any other system of religion whatever, as 
 one must believe not only in the Bible but in the vast 
 volumes of legendary lore, has of course converted these 
 dungeons into chapels. It is one of the lovely winter-days 
 of Rome, a bright day for exploring old ruins. We have 
 come down through the Cor so, then to part of the Capito- 
 line Hill, through streets of hideous filth, into old Rome, 
 and here it is sure enough, in all its voiceless, magnificent, 
 mournful ruins. I have stood on the Capitoline Hill and 
 looked at the- ruins of Rome, strewn around. Here are the 
 " chief relics of almighty Rome." Here the three hundred 
 Triumphs ascended in proud and long array in the glorious 
 days of past time, and here are their unextinguishable me- 
 mentoes, speaking, though mute, in affecting eloquence. 
 Here are statues of old Romans in bronze and marble, 
 broken and sad looking. They have been found in many 
 places among the ruins, dug up and placed here. One, an 
 equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius. is admitted to be the 
 finest equestrian statue in the world. It is astonishingly 
 fierce. Roman-like, full of life and action. The piazza on 
 the top of the hill is surrounded by buildings of the fif- 
 teenth century, and churches these occupy the places of
 
 THE ROMAN FORUM. 411 
 
 the ancient Koman temples. On one side you pass amidst 
 dirty houses, then through a garden where are orange and 
 olive trees, and you come to the assumed place of the 
 Tarpiean rock, and look down it, " where a thousand years 
 of silenced factions sleep !" It is not very high now, not 
 over forty feet, and is merely an abrupt declivity, the accu- 
 mulations of the soil, the old houses below, and the abrasion 
 of the hill, having reduced its size. Descending on the 
 other side of the hill, (Capitoline) you have in one view the 
 most extraordinary collection of ruins in the world. It is 
 the place of the Roman Forum. It looks like the haggard 
 spectre of a city. It is fifteen hundred years since the 
 commencement of the decline of Rome and the Roman 
 Mythology, and during that time the earth itself has grown 
 up around these ruins, to the height of twenty or more 
 feet. You see excavations that have been made by the 
 French and private English noblemen, in some places dis- 
 closing the ancient Roman pavement of the Forum, mould- 
 ering and mutilated marbles arches, substructions of tem- 
 ples, Corinthian columns, fragments of the porticos of tem- 
 ples some excavated down to the base, and others with 
 buried bases, standing all as they have stood for a thousand 
 years, and weary that the world would not be no more. 
 Some are in clusters and some are solitary. Here are eight 
 columns of granite in one place, supposed to have stood at 
 the foot of the Temple of Saturn. What has become of the 
 rest no one knows. Near are three Corinthian columns of 
 beautiful white marble, supposed to be a part of the temple 
 erected to Vespasian. Near there, a single column, to whom 
 or of what long unknown, called by Lord Byron, "the 
 Nameless Column, with a buried base," but recently ex- 
 cavated to the base, and ascertained from an inscription laid 
 bare to be elevated to the Emperor Phocas, and supposed by 
 some to be coeval with the Catholic religion. Further on 
 stands another fragment of some temple of marble, grim and
 
 412 RUINS. 
 
 black with age, but lofty and imposing. But why describe 
 a marble wilderness of ruins! Who knows what or where 
 these are or have been ! Cicero, Julius Caesar, Augustus, 
 Pompey, could tell but where are they ? You see the 
 Rostrum, the Arch of Septimus Severus, with its Latin in- 
 scription and its bas relief. On others are portions of in- 
 scriptions, the remainder belonging to lost fragments. 
 Ruins and mighty ruins, massive and strong yet. There 
 come down to us over the gulf of time, the memories of 
 the wars of the middle and declining ages of Rome the 
 names of Narses, Belisarius, Attila, Totila it was the 
 impossible object of the barbarians to extinguish Rome, 
 when these temples were destroyed and every thing port- 
 able and valuable removed. The remainder, however, is a 
 city of ruins. The Via Sacra passed along this route. 
 There are people digging and working among the ruins, 
 and on the unexcavated parts of the Forum are houses of 
 the middle ages, during which the locality even of the 
 Forum was lost nor are its limits even now denned, and 
 each ruin is the subject of numberless unsatisfactory dis- 
 quisitions. The ground is called by an Italian name, 
 equivalent to " Cattle market," and the filthy inhabitants 
 are spreading out clothes to dry, after washing on mighty 
 and majestic Roman ruins and fragments of temples ; and 
 dirt and raggedness abound where even the very air is a 
 loveliness, and the most classical memories cling like lost 
 spirits. An orange tree is hanging out its golden fruit 
 near, in mockery of marble desolation. 
 
 Priests, with black, broad, shovel hats, and long cloaks, 
 and absorbed countenances, walk about. The whole place 
 and people seem to have had their past long ago, and weeds 
 and shrubs grow on marble ruins. The marble itself has 
 peeled off the columns, and the statues look as if Time 
 were trying his rough, awkward hand, on classic counte- 
 nances; and the old Romans on them look as ragged as
 
 RUINS. 413 
 
 the modern Italians. Along those now excavated stone 
 pavements, and up those wasted and worn marble steps, trod 
 once Cicero, Caesar, and Trajan. What human wrecks, too, 
 are amidst these ruins I You think of the brightness of 
 Rome's past; you follow the suggestions of your heart as 
 you look at these noble ruins ; you then look around, and 
 what do you see of the things of the present? Bloated, 
 filthy, and wretched beings, that can only beg and rot in 
 the sun ; whose virtue and conscience you could buy in any 
 matter in which the Virgin Mary is not concerned for half 
 a paul. The very air is poisoned with their stenches. 
 Further on are eight columns, now standing, their bases 
 below the surface, and their upper parts adorned with 
 Roman sculpture; and an inscription is on the top: "To 
 the divine Antoninus, and the Divines* IMS wife." The 
 temple, of which these were once a part, or all that is left 
 of it, has been incorporated into a church; but the aged 
 marble and the massive stones abnegate, the present and 
 assert a grander antiquity than their present use. There 
 are the bases and ruins of seven or eight temples, two or 
 three Basilicas or courts of justice, three or four triumphal 
 arches near the space occupied by the Forum. Further on 
 is the Arch of Titus, almost entire, and really beautiful. 
 It is of marble, and was erected to commemorate his triumph 
 over Jerusalem. There is sculpture on the inner arch rep- 
 resenting on one side Titus in triumph : on the other, the 
 captive Jews, bearing the golden candlestick. It is a single 
 arch of white marble. It has on it, "The Senate and People 
 of Rome to the deified Titus.'' Then, on the right, you 
 have the Palatine Hill, where was the palace of the Caesars, 
 now consisting of brick and undecaying substructions, and 
 ruins overgrown with weeds, and vines, and ivy. On the 
 left stand ruins that are massive and wonderful, but name- 
 less and unknown, called by some the Temple of Peace, by 
 others the Basilica of Constantine, consisting of three mas 
 
 2 K2
 
 414 THE COLISEUM. 
 
 sive arches of brick work, beautiful indeed, and near seventy 
 feet high, but overgrown with shrubbery and weeds. Not 
 far from this are the remains of the Temple of Venus and 
 Eome ; and still further on the right is the Arch of Con- 
 stantine. It commemorates the emperor's victory over 
 Maxentius. It consists of three archways, many columns, 
 statues and bas reliefs. The ordinary road passes under 
 this as well as the Arch of Titus. But you are now before 
 the monster of all ruins, the Coliseum, or Flavian Amphi- 
 theatre, commenced by Vespasian, A. D. 62, and completed 
 by Titus or Dornitian. It is therefore more than seventeen 
 hundred and eighty years old. Its form is oval, and the 
 space it occupies about six acres. It is built of large blocks 
 of travertin, stone, which has a soft sunset hue, and is 
 more durable than marble, and large masses of Roman 
 brick work. It looks almost like a prodigious rocky cleft 
 in a mountain, chasmed and irregular. There appear to have 
 been four stories, the three lower tiers of arches supported 
 by piers; the fourth, a solid wall, faced with pilasters. In 
 each of the lower tiers or stories there are eighty arches 
 the first Doric, the second Ionic, the third and fourth Co- 
 rinthian the whole one hundred and fifty-seven feet high. 
 Within were the marble seats, sloping backward from the 
 arena, and over the top was, in Roman times, a great awn- 
 ing. It could seat eighty-seven thousand persons, who 
 could all see the fearful combats of wild beasts, and gladia- 
 tors, and the mangling of the Christians the wild beasts 
 being kept in vast dens around the base of the building. 
 Moss, and grass, and weeds an entire and peculiar botany, 
 upward of four hundred and twenty species of plants are 
 found growing on this most remarkable of all ruins. There 
 are lovely flowers fastening on brick walls more than a 
 hundred feet above us, like gentle thoughts clinging around 
 a seared and lacerated heart. Here the Jewish captives 
 taken in the wars of Titus toiled in a more hopeless slavery
 
 THE COLISEUM. 415 
 
 than their Egyptian one, with no Moses to come to their 
 deliverance, no Christ, no hope. Along the base and uuder 
 the floor of the vast oval, were stalls for the wild beasts, the 
 fierce inhabitants of the forests of Asia and Africa, famished 
 for days, and then fed on Christians and Jews for the 
 amusement of the Romans. But the Christians have all 
 conquered where they died. The Popes have converted 
 the Coliseum also; and all around its ample interior are 
 Stations, or chapels, (fourteen) representing the Ascent up 
 Calvary ; and in its centre is a large cross, with the mystic 
 spear and sponge; and an inscription on the cross promises 
 two hundred days' indulgence to each one who kisses the 
 cross. On one side is a pulpit, in which a monk preaches 
 every Friday. It was constructed to last forever, but that 
 is a vain thing. Yet it has already sustained more catas- 
 trophies and calamities than any other building whatever. 
 Much of it has fallen down ; the outer circle of walls is not 
 near entire. Vast palaces have been built of it. It was used 
 for two hundred years as a quarry; it has been used as a 
 fortress ; has indeed " fallen from its high estate," and been 
 prostituted to all kinds of servile business ; and it is now a 
 church. But it cannot die till it shall have accomplished 
 the compensations due to its past ; and almost enough yet 
 remains to build a city out of it. There are avenues and 
 corridors all around it, on each story, between the vast 
 columns, and under the lofty arches. Externally the ap- 
 pearance presented is that of three rows of lofty arches, 
 one above the other, going entirely around the building, 
 along which were numerous adornments statues, frieze- 
 work in stone. Brick walls have been constructed by 
 modern Popes to keep portions of it from falling down. 
 There it sits, an awful, majestic ruin, rising high in the 
 blue air of Rome, an unhappy thing in spite of the sun, 
 enamelling up its past as if therein were garnered the
 
 416 THE PALATINE HILL. 
 
 sacred ashes of martyrs long ago. Ah ! no city has had the 
 past that Rome has had. 
 
 From the Arch of Titus I ascended by a road between 
 old walls to the Palatine Hill. This celebrated hill, where 
 stood the palace of the Ca3sars, part of which was habit- 
 able in the eighth century, where palaces had existed since 
 the kingly period, and where Romulus is said to have 
 made the first foundations of Rome, is now a garden where 
 weeds, vines, ivy, cypresses, grow over the substructions, 
 and brick foundations of the palaces and temples of old. 
 The hill is about one-and-a-half miles in circuit. On one 
 place you are shown where stood the Temple of Apollo 
 all around are strewn fragments of marble ruins, mixed 
 with the soil. Here was the Temple of Jupiter, the house 
 of Augustus, that of Caligula, and further on that of Nero. 
 These buildings were probably of such splendor as to sur- 
 pass all other palaces that ever existed. In them were 
 the glorious master pieces of Greek and Roman art, and 
 against them was especially directed the fury of Rome's 
 numerous conquerors, so that nothing remains. Therein 
 glittered gems and jewels of inestimable value all that 
 earth could do to render life a scene of enjoyments. The 
 laborer's instruments of agriculture now harrow up this 
 classical dust. There are several convents on the hill, and 
 villas with their gardens. Taking a guide, I descended into 
 a subterranean apartment in the hill, called the Baths of 
 Livia. The guide lights a torch, and shows you ancient 
 Roman fresco paintings of heads and animals on the black- 
 ened, aged wall, the colors of the paintings by some art now 
 lost preserving their original brightness ; there are portions 
 of baths, niches for busts. You are in the under-ground 
 apartments of the palace of the Csesars. The very air is 
 ghostly and old. The decline and fall of the mighty 
 Roman empire, and the rise of all the kingdoms of Europe, 
 have been since these things were built. All over the
 
 THE PALATINE HILL. 417 
 
 surface of the Palatine Hill are desolate fragments of walls. 
 The soil is fertile. Why should it not be, since it once 
 grew temples and palaces, but now it feeds itself from their 
 ruins. The soil has fragments of immortal marbles that 
 sat in the pride and genius of art, almost living things, 
 before Julius Caesar. From an elevated modern villa, on 
 the top of the hill, are most interesting views of the old 
 city and its surroundings. The Tiber flows on one side, 
 and the Circus Maxiraus was at the base of the hill be- 
 between it and the Aventine. The beautiful little antique 
 columned thing, with its ugly modern restoration into a 
 church, the Temple of Vesta is seen. The Coliseum, the 
 Arches of Titus and Constantino, the fragmentary columns 
 of the Forum, with the ruined arches they support, the 
 domes of the three hundred and sixty churches of Rome, 
 the historic land of the mightiest political idea the world 
 has ever seen are before you. But the stupid gardeners 
 and mule-drivers work on below you. What care have 
 they for the antique! They care more for the paul you 
 give them than for the entire past. It is useless to ask him, 
 What is this, that, or the other thing? He merely con- 
 fesses his ignorance by one word, whereas it takes others 
 many volumes to show the same thing. You might as well 
 interrogate the manes of Caligula : they would not answer, 
 and he cannot. Who knows, after two thousand five hun- 
 dred years of desolation, whether that ivy-grown wall was 
 the Palatine Library, or whether these arches were erected 
 . by Augustus, or whether those crypts, now used as stables 
 for cattle, were under Nero's golden house ? Who knows 
 any thing ? He that knows he knows nothing. There are 
 corridors, arches and vaults said to have been erected by 
 Nero, and the building above, which was inhabited by the 
 Emperor Heraclius as late as the seventh century, in other 
 parts of the hill, most mournfully mantled with ivy and 
 with creeping plants, and around them are the Farnese 
 27
 
 418 THE PALATINE HILL 
 
 Gardens. Such is the Palatine Hill. But 'tis time to re- 
 turn. Here, however, is a modern church (by modern is 
 meant here not older than four hundred years) near the 
 Roman For urn. You enter. A monk, eager to make a 
 paul, (a little over a dime,) comes to conduct you. Though 
 the churches are splendid on the outside and inside, the 
 priests are generally poor. Many things that are really in- 
 teresting to an American, or a dweller in a new country, 
 are to be seen in all these churches, more than in many a 
 museum. Above the altar he shows you a grand old paint- 
 ing, then down in the crypt ho shows you relics of martyrs. 
 Here is a splendid bronze tomb, with adornments of pre- 
 cious stones, as lapis lazuli, verd antique marble, angels in 
 bronze and silver. How proud some people are after they 
 are dead ! He tells you here are the bones of saints mar- 
 tyred during, the ten general persecutions of the Christians 
 in the days of the Roman emperors; and all around are 
 elegant marble vases, containing the bones of this and that 
 nothing, and a lamp is ever kept burning out the darkness. 
 Well, let us respect humble sincerity wherever found. 
 There are worse employments in this world than attending 
 to the bones of martyrs. 
 
 To-day, January 7th. we have employed one of the best 
 guides in all Rome, who speaks a little English, and who 
 formerly was in the employ of Louis Napoleon when he 
 resided in Rome. The word " we" sometimes means an 
 editor, sometimes a king, queen, and emperor a Pope also; 
 but at present it means ourselves. We are five or six 
 Americans, travelers, who have met in Rome and Florence, 
 and one English gentleman. Three of our party are ladies 
 one a sparkling, dark-eyed brunette, whose life has been 
 transparently pure, and whose heart is an unclosed rosebud; 
 one a more pensive, thoughtful, and paler beauty that best 
 of all created things, a true American woman and we are 
 out over the sights and scenes of Rome, starting usually at
 
 THE BORGHESE PALACE. 419 
 
 ten and returning in time for dinner at five o'clock, P. M. 
 Our guide takes us first to the Borghese Palace, one of the 
 finest palaces of the modern Roman Cardinal aristocracy. 
 Its Picture Gallery is extensive, containing more than eight 
 hundred paintings, many of them very fine. The palace is 
 near the Tiber, and is built of travertin stone, as are most 
 of the palaces. This is a volcanic stone, which underlies 
 most of the country hereabouts, and was thrown out of 
 some vast, now extinct, volcano, ages ago, or it may be 
 coeval with the original fluidity of all things. It is some- 
 what, and sometimes very much, porous. The palaces usu- 
 ally inclose a four-sided court; the staircases are of mar- 
 bles; the lower windows have iron bars across them. 
 The Picture Gallery consists of fifteen rooms. In each 
 room are hand-books or catalogues of the paintings, subject 
 and master, in Italian and French. There . are liveried 
 domestics in each room. You enter your name in the 
 Visitors' Book, pay a paul to the guard who opens the door, 
 if alone if with a party, two or three pauls; and you walk 
 through the splendid rooms, in which you find at almost all 
 times travelers like yourself from various countries. It is 
 a wearisome business "to go through with" these grand 
 galleries. You are embarrassed with their riches. The 
 celebrated "Entombment of Christ," by Raphael, is here; 
 the " Cumaean Sybil," and the " Chase of Diana," both by 
 Domenichino, and very fine. In some fresco paintings 
 by Raphael "Archers Shooting with the Arrows of Cu- 
 pid" there is vast genius. From this we went to the 
 Capitoline Hill, and ascended to the summit of the tower. 
 It has been remarked there is no scene in the world more 
 interesting than that presented from this spot. The glor- 
 rious past of Rome is in view. Here are the seven im- 
 mortal hills. The one on which we stand is the Capitol, 
 having had on it the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. The 
 Forum, with its mighty and beautiful ruins and excavated
 
 420 ST. JOHN LATE RAN. 
 
 temples, lies below us. Not far from this is the ruin- 
 covered Palatine. On the right of this is the Aventine, 
 convent-crowned. To the left of this, crowned by the 
 Church of St. John Lateran, first in rank and dignity 
 of all churches in the world, is the Ccelian. North of this 
 is the Esquiline Hill. These hills, though within the walls, 
 and in ancient Rome covered with houses and temples, are 
 at present solitary and deserted, or covered with vines and 
 gardens. There is, north of this hill, the Viminal, also a 
 lonely desert inside the walls ; and next to this the Quiri- 
 nal, on part of which is the Pope's summer palace. These 
 are the seven hills of the original city of Rome. Monte 
 Pincio, the Janiculum, Monte Vaticano, and others now 
 inside the walls, were added under the emperors the 
 Apennines and the Sabine Mountains, lying under white 
 snows at present, with celebrated Italian towns on their 
 slopes, on one side, the blue Mediterranean on the other 
 the long, plain, undulating, and, ruin-sowed Campagna be- 
 tween them all these are in view: the Tiber rolls between 
 the city of the Cassars, with its ruins and excavated tem- 
 ples; the city of the Popes, with its churches, all pass be- 
 fore the eye an unparalleled panorama. It is Rome, the 
 Mighty Fallen ! In the tower of the Capitol is the great 
 bell rung but on two occasions : to announce the death of 
 the Pope and the beginning of the Carnival. 
 
 Descending from this, we drove to the Church of St. 
 John Lateran, ecclesiastically the first church in the world. 
 It is grand and gilt beyond description, and rich in marbles 
 and mosaics ; relics also containing the heads of St. Peter 
 and St. Paul, for the whole body of any saint is rarely all 
 buried at the same place. One of its chapels, that of the 
 Corsini family, some of whom were Popes, beggars descrip- 
 tion in its rich marbles and gems. It has fine statues and 
 a porphyry sarcophagus. This church was originally 
 founded by Constantine, and is fifteen hundred years old.
 
 CHURCHES IN ROME. 421 
 
 Though St. Peter's is larger and finer, this is regarded as 
 the first and principal church of the Catholic world. Five 
 General Councils have been held in it. Adjoining it is a 
 palace, in which the Popes dwelt for one thousand years. 
 The malaria is depopulating this part of the city, and as it 
 thus was rendered unhealthy, the palace has been converted 
 into a museum of sculpture. The statues in the sides of the 
 nave, and around the roof of the church, are numerous; 
 there are also very strange and old mosaics of the Virgin 
 and saints in the interior. Near this church, or Basilica, as 
 the seven chief churches of Rome are called, is the Bap- 
 tistery, an octagonal structure of brick-work, built by Con- 
 stantine. It contains the baptismal font of green basalt, in 
 which Constantine was baptized ; also, two magnificent red 
 porphyry columns, fine paintings, but chiefly the holy stair- 
 case, brought from the house of Pilate in Jerusalem, re- 
 nowned as that by which the Saviour descended from the 
 judgment-seat, and marked with his blood. It is almost 
 covered with wooden planks to protect it, and devotees were 
 ascending it on their knees, kissing each step before ascend- 
 ing it, and thereby get two hundred days indulgence, invest- 
 ing thereby a fund of goodness out of which they can draw 
 when inclined to sin. The Catholic Church have made out of 
 Purgatory a bank which has been worth to them hundreds 
 of millions, by which the other world is made of some use 
 in this. I saw here a likeness of the Saviour at twelve 
 years of age, said to have been painted by St. Luke. Near 
 this we passed the remains of the great Aqueduct of 
 Claudius, the Roman Emperor. It is a brick canal, on 
 gigantic arches, perhaps fifty feet high. Six miles of this 
 work still bestride the Campagna. It was originally forty- 
 eight miles in length, of which thirty-six were underground. 
 The aqueducts in ancient Rome were numerous ; they con- 
 veyed water from fountains in the Apennines across the 
 Campagna. Modern Rome is, perhaps, as well supplied 
 
 2L
 
 422 CHURCHES IN ROME. 
 
 with water as any city in the world. Water is rendered a 
 highly ornamental adjunct in most of the cities of Europe, 
 in the form of splendid fountains, a thing we sadly neglect 
 in America. One would think the Romans were ignorant 
 of the hydrostatic principle that water will rise in a tube as 
 high as the fountain, judging from these massive construc- 
 tions to convey it on a plane. The aqueducts look like huge 
 city walls, pierced with innumerable arches. Then we came 
 to a recently discovered tomb, that of Eurysaces the baker, 
 a vast monument, concealed for ages in huge walls. It has 
 sculpture representing the domestic habits of the Romans, 
 and the processes of making bread, and a bust of the baker 
 and his wife. All these ancient tombs have no immortality 
 on any of them. Affection clung around the dust of the 
 departed ; but except among such philosophers as Seneca, 
 Plato, or Socrates, there is no hope of a reunion. Whereas 
 that is the burden of the simplest modern' Christian grave- 
 stone. 
 
 Then we visited another church a Basilica that of 
 Santa Croce, or the Holy Cross, which contains portions of 
 the true cross of Christ, the fragment of which is exhibited 
 to the people on one day in Easter week, as a vast rarity. 
 This church was founded A. D. 327, by the Empress 
 Helena, who found the true cross on Mount Calvary, im- 
 bedded in the ground, and had it transported, with some of 
 the earth, from Jerusalem to this place. There has thus 
 been a church on this foundation for fifteen hundred and 
 forty years. Ladies are not allowed to enter some chapels 
 in this church, except one day in the year. There are 
 many columns in this church, three of which are of red 
 Egyptian granite. The High Altar has an ancient urn of 
 green basalt. Most of the portion of Rome over which we 
 had now passed, was a desert, or covered with ruins, vines, 
 or olives. Our guide now directed our course to the 
 Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, one of the finest
 
 CHURCHES IS ROME. 423 
 
 churches in Rome. The view along the aisle of this church 
 is splendid. There are two rows of Ionic columns of white 
 marble. This church was founded fifteen hundred and 
 three years ago. The display of ancient paintings along the 
 sides and ends of the nave is wonderful ; the vault over the 
 Tribune, back of the High Altar, has very ancient mosaics. 
 About the High Altar are four Corinthian columns of red 
 porphyry. The great attraction, however, is the Borghese 
 Chapel, said to be the richest chapel in the world. The 
 altar of the Virgin in it has four fluted columns of oriental 
 jasper, all kinds of marbles, rich and antique, and many 
 kinds of precious stones. Ornament is exhausted in this 
 chapel. We saw here a miraculous painting of the Virgin, 
 said to have been painted by St. Luke. The tombs in this 
 chapel of the Borghese family, and that of Sixtus V., in 
 another chapel, are of extraordinary splendor. The nave 
 of this church is two hundred and eighty feet long. 
 
 From this we drove to the Church of St. Peter in Vincoli, 
 so called because it contains a portion of the chain with 
 which St. Peter was bound. This is shown to the people 
 only on rare occasions. It is in the usual form of a Latin 
 cross, with low rows of antique, fluted columns along the 
 aisles. It contains the powerful and most impressive statue 
 "Moses," by Michael Angelo, regarded as one of his great- 
 est works. The statue is sitting, and the expression of 
 lofty, commanding intelligence in the face, is most remark- 
 able. In the cloisters adjoining the church, which are 
 formed out of some ancient ruins, we saw Guido Reni's 
 most lovely painting, called " Hope," represented by a beau- 
 tiful woman : one of those paintings at which the heart 
 gazes as well as the eye. There is a pensive looking for- 
 ward in this picture a leaping over the troubles of the 
 present into the future, which is enchanting. There is also 
 here a very fine and impressive painting by Domenichino, 
 the angel liberating Peter.
 
 424 FORUM OF TRAJAN. 
 
 The Catholic churches are open all day, except, generally, 
 from twelve to three ; there are persons nearly all times in 
 them praying; priests at all times, who, for a small fee, 
 unlock the doors of the side chapels, or cloisters, or unvail 
 the celebrated paintings, and demean themselves toward 
 strangers with politeness. Old beggars are, in general, 
 around the entrances, beseeching you, in the name of vari- 
 ous saints, for alms. 
 
 Returning toward our hotel, we passed through ancient 
 streets, in different parts of which stood ancient columns, 
 crumbling ruins, half buried, mournful in their mutilated 
 sculpture. Then we came upon the excavated Forum of 
 Trajan, several feet below the present surface, with its 
 broken pillars and its strange, voiceless, but eloquent deso- 
 lation. The Forums appear to have been places of public 
 resort, adorned with lofty and elegant columns, libraries, 
 where the people met, conversed, promenaded, heard ora- 
 tions a kind of elegant lounge among choice treasures of 
 art. They were built by various Roman Emperors, as a 
 kind of compliment to the people, to commemorate their 
 reigns and display their taste in the fine arts. Much of this 
 one is excavated ; but a third of the space occupied by it is 
 supposed to be under the adjoining streets and houses. The 
 original height of the gray granite columns was about fifty- 
 five feet. The column of Trajan, which has stood unbroken 
 for seventeen centuries, stands near the Forum. It is re- 
 garded as the most beautiful historical column in the world, 
 and has been the model of innumerable others: that of 
 Napoleon, in the Place Vendome in Paris, is merely an imi- 
 tation. It is a column composed of thirty-four blocks of 
 white marble, is one hundred and twenty-seven feet high, 
 and has sculptured on it twenty-five hundred human 
 figures, besides many horses and fortresses, all representing 
 the victories of Trajan, who extended the Roman Empire 
 beyond any previous limits. Trajan, returning from his
 
 ROMAN CHURCHES.* 425 
 
 wars, died on the way, and never saw it completed. His 
 ashes, placed in a golden urn, were deposited under the 
 column. The figures are sculptured in bas relief. Sixtus 
 V., the Pope who undertook the conversion of all the 
 obelisks and ancient columns of Rome, converted this one 
 also, and had it surmounted by the statue of St. Peter in- 
 stead of the Roman Emperor. The columns of granite 
 standing around were broken very irregularly ; some are 
 yet fifteen or twenty feet high, others only two or three feet, 
 others higher. This Forum was finished A. D. 114. After 
 this we drove by the beautiful fountain di Trevi, the water 
 falling over artificial rocks. Many priests were seen in the 
 course of our day's sight-seeing. They were almost as 
 numerous as the beggars. They wear long black cloaks, 
 broad black hats ; and you may see, occasionally, extremely 
 black negroes walking side by side with white priests in- 
 tended for missionaries in Africa the Universal Roman 
 Church making no distinction of color. Many Cardinals 
 are seen riding in their red carriages, or on horseback 
 some hideous and ugly-looking. Antonelli, the Pope's 
 prime minister, ought to take the premium for ugliness. 
 They are attended by servants in red livery, and their rank 
 is that of princes. Many processions of various kinds are 
 seen, monks in coarse clothing and sandal-shod priests in 
 white blankets and costumes denoting their order; also, 
 processions of boys, who are being educated for priests. 
 Catholicism has succeeded and failed, or it has failed by suc- 
 cess. No success over heart, head, here and hereafter, was 
 ever so complete. Yet its success is the failure of all free- 
 dom and prosperity, and the establishment of a spiritual 
 tyranny. 
 
 This morning, January 8th, I visited the church Santa 
 Trinita de Monti. It is on Monte Pincio. You ascend by 
 one of the most beautiful stairways of stone in the world, 
 consisting of more than one hundred steps. In part of the 
 
 2L2
 
 426 ROMAN CHURCHES. 
 
 church and convent is one of the Egyptian obelisks, of 
 which there are so many in Rome. This one is of red 
 granite, with hieroglyphics. It is on a pedestal, and the 
 height of the whole from the ground is nearly one hundred 
 feet. Nearly all of these obelisks stood in ancient Rome, 
 but during the middle ages had fallen down, and were im- 
 bedded in the mud, until they were re-erected within the 
 last two or three hundred years. I was admitted through 
 a side door into the church by a mild, gentle-faced man. 
 There are some very fine paintings here one, a Deposition 
 from the Cross, by Daniel da Volterra, assisted by Michael 
 Angelo, regarded by some as the third greatest painting in 
 the world, being surpassed but by two others. It looks 
 very old, and is somewhat injured; but the persons seem 
 almost like statuary, and all show the magnificence and 
 power of great genius. It is a fresco. There are some 
 other fine paintings here one a Madonna in the pre- 
 Raphael style, that is truly lovely, sinless and holy one 
 of those creations on which we love to dwell, till our heart 
 gives life and humanity to the creation. The nuns devote 
 themselves to the education of girls, whose voices are most 
 sweet when blended with the organ, and the music is of 
 the best style. Here a series of sermons, in almost all 
 languages, are delivered on each day in a different lan- 
 guage. This is to show the universality of the Catholic 
 religion. The church is internally a most splendid one, 
 and on the altar were statues dressed and representing the 
 Virgin and Child, and the three Wise Men of the East and 
 the Star above, all scenic and well represented. The 
 preacher, who was from Nova Scotia, expatiated in English 
 on the abuses resulting from private interpretation of the 
 Scriptures, much, as I suppose he thought, to the edifica- 
 tion of the Protestants who formed a considerable part of 
 the audience. The Bible, with the Catholic interpretation 
 of it annexed, is the way they receive the Scriptures ; in
 
 KOMAN CHURCHES. 427 
 
 which respect they are not singular, since many Protestant 
 sects receive it as expounded by their various creeds. 
 
 The sufferings and trials of the Virgin Mary were much 
 enlarged on, so as to arouse our sympathy and concern, 
 and indeed a very pretty case can be made out of it. This 
 
 is their favorite subject. 
 
 
 
 " They turn from grizzly saints and martyrs hairy, 
 To the sweet portraits ofthe Virgin Mary." 
 
 Conversions, as they call them, rather perversions, are 
 said to be numerous at Rome from the Protestant faith. 
 In general, Catholics are well instructed by the priests in 
 the polemics of their faith, and they can argue better than 
 most Protestants. Their course of argument is most insid- 
 ious and dangerous, and really they make the idea of the 
 " Holy Apostolic Catholic Church," with its antiquity, its 
 long array of Popes, and its brilliant history, and the self- 
 denial of its priests and nuns, a very imposing thing. It 
 has so much of what appeals directly to the senses in its 
 traditions and relics, that it is difficult to see how, by the 
 ordinary laws of the human mind, one who is educated in 
 it can be otherwise than Catholic or infidel. Those who do 
 not think are the former those who do are the latter. 
 Protestantism is regarded as a kind of modern, vulgar 
 humbug, gotten up by a renegade priest, and is hardly 
 thought to be respectable. Little is known of the various 
 sects of Protestantism, who are generally considered as all 
 Lutherans and Episcopalians. The number of Protestants 
 living in Rome, this does not include travelers, is two hun- 
 dred and sixty-three. The Jews are nearly ten thousand. 
 The rest, about one hundred and eighty thousand, are Cath- 
 olics. After the exhilarating exposition of the error of 
 attempting to interpret the Scriptures for one's-self, I pro- 
 ceeded to the stately palace of Prince Spada, where, in a 
 lofty old hall, I saw the gigantic statue (nine feet high) of
 
 428 ST. PETER'S. 
 
 Pompey the Great, generally admitted to be the one at the 
 base of which Julius Caesar fell. It is of Parian marble, 
 and the attitude, gesture, and expression, are most imperial. 
 The left hand grasps a globe. It was dug out of the ruins. 
 The picture -gallery here contains some very fine works, 
 though underrated by Murray, in his excellent Guide Book. 
 A painting of Jesus Disputing in the Temple struck me as 
 very good: a grand, earnest, and noble face is given to 
 the Saviour. There is one of Dido on the funeral pyre of 
 her husband, that is very fine. From this I wandered 
 through Rome. The city does not improve any of course. 
 There are restorations, frescoes are cleaned, churches kept 
 up, pictures restored, some ruins dug out, but few houses 
 are built. Then I crossed the bridge of St. Angelo, built 
 by the Emperor Hadrian, as a passage to his mausoleum 
 on the other side of the Tiber, now a strong French for- 
 tress, from which there is a covered way to the Pope's pal- 
 ace, by which he can secretly escape to the fortress. I then 
 spent some hours in St. Peter's. This church impresses 
 one greatly on account of its vast size. Persons appear 
 like pigmies when seen from opposite ends of the church. 
 The letters around the vault of the dome are six feet long, 
 but appear not more than five inches. They are in Latin. 
 " Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. 
 I give to thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven." The 
 Evangelists are represented in mosaic, and appear of the 
 ordinary size, though the pen in St. Mark's hand is six 
 feet long. There are confessionals in every living language 
 in St. Peter's no matter of what nation a person may be, 
 he can find a ghostly father here able to receive his confes- 
 sion in his native tongue. They sit on the confession 
 boxes, and some have long wands in their hands, by which 
 they touch those kneeling in front, and give them spiritual 
 benefit. The women confess much more frequently than 
 the men. All must confess however occasionally, since the
 
 ST. PETER'S. 429 
 
 neglect of it involves the loss of their civil rights if per- 
 sisted in. There is one confessional in which a Cardinal 
 sits once a week, with authority from the Pope to pardon 
 great offenses, which no ordinary priest can forgive. St. 
 Peter's, like three other churches in Rome, has a holy door, 
 by which in years of jubilee persons may go in, but never 
 come out. It is walled up during the intervening years. 
 The temperature of St. Peter's undergoes no change, per- 
 haps on account of its vast size. In summer, it is cool and 
 pleasant in winter, warm and delightful. Few or no Cath- 
 olic churches that I have seen have fire-places, stoves, or 
 seats. You must kneel or stand, and if cold must shudder 
 through your devotions if you intend any. In some places 
 there are chairs, which are occasionally put into the aisles 
 of the church. The absence of seats or pews enables one to 
 see the fine marbles and mosaics of the floor, the tombs, etc., 
 besides rendering church-going not quite so luxurious a 
 thing as in some Protestant churches. In St. Peter's there 
 are mosaic representations of most of the great paintings 
 of Italy. Oil paintings and frescoes both fade, but mosaics 
 are immortal, as many remaining from old Roman times 
 prove. The Florentine mosaic is the best and most valu- 
 able, consisting of real stones or gems of various colors, 
 set in so as to make the picture; the Roman, of which 
 these in St. Peter's are formed, consists of small pieces, va- 
 riously colored with a composition prepared not much 
 unlike glass. Standing at the proper distance, it is impos- 
 sible to tell them from oil paintings. There is but one oil 
 painting in St. Peter's. Besides a piece of the true cross 
 found by the Empress mother of Constantino, St. Helena, 
 on Mount Calvary, the head of St. Andrew, and pictures 
 of St. Peter and St. Paul, this church has the handker- 
 chief, retaining the impression of the Saviour's face, on 
 which he wiped his brow, when ascending Mount Calvary: 
 this is exhibited on certain occasions. Some of the Catholic
 
 430 THE BAMBINO. 
 
 legends are beautiful. One about the cross is as follows. 
 Adam, when about dying, being sunk in deep remorse on 
 account of the disaster brought on the human race by him- 
 self, dispatched Seth, his son, to implore the Cherubim 
 guarding the entrance to the tree of life in Paradise, to give 
 him some of the fruit to renew his life. The angels denied 
 the request; but breaking off a small twig from the tree 
 he threw it over the walls of Eden, informing Seth that 
 when that branch had fruit his father would recover. Seth 
 returning found Adarn dead; he however planted the twig, 
 and it grew to be a vast tree. After various occurrences, it 
 was cut down by order of Solomon to make a bridge over 
 an approach to the Temple, by which the Queen of Sheba 
 was to pass on her visit to him. When passing over it she 
 had a vision, which revealed to her that when that wood 
 ran blood, Jerusalem would be destroyed; which, when 
 Solomon hearing, he ordered the wood to be thrown into 
 the Dead Sea. Ages passed, when by some convulsion of 
 nature the wood was thrown near the foot of Calvary, and 
 the persons making the Cross of Jesus Christ finding no 
 other wood convenient, appropriated it for that purpose. 
 Thus it ran blood, and from it the Second Adam revived 
 Christ being its fruit. 
 
 The Bambino ceremonies, which took place at the various 
 churches on the 6th inst., attracted much attention. The 
 Bambino consists of an ugly-looking, scared babe, carved 
 out of an olive tree, from Jerusalem, which St. Luke, kindly 
 appearing, painted while the artist was taking a nap. It is 
 carried about in procession by a company of priests, and 
 attended by a band of soldiers with music, the people kneel- 
 ing, and esteeming it a great happiness to get a glimpse of 
 it. It looks most extremely like gross idolatry. The 
 Bambino goes about in a carriage, to visit women in labor, 
 and performs many splendid cures. 
 
 This morning, January llth, we are out again over the
 
 RUINS OF ROME. 431 
 
 sights of Rome. The air is rich and delicious. Yesterday 
 we suspended sight-seeing. I went to the Palazza Braschi, 
 the residence of the American minister, where, in a room in 
 that spacious palace, the Presbyterian service is performed 
 every Sunday the minister kindly inviting all Americans 
 to come ; the seats are free, and there is not a word said in 
 reference to a paul as pay, preparatory to a preach. Pro- 
 testants are not allowed a meeting-house in Home. On 
 Sunday evening, the great resort in Rome is the Pincian 
 Hill. A first-rate band of music performs here, splendid 
 carriages and fine horses are seen, and the whole population 
 of Rome are out, enjoying the scene and the sunlight, the 
 mirth and the music. It is melancholy in its mirth, how- 
 ever, when one thinks of the powerful and mighty empire, 
 that has passed away, beneath our feet, whose inhabitants, 
 two thousand years ago, enjoyed the same scene that we do 
 now. Our party of eight or nine, this morning (Monday), 
 with our guide, rode rapidly through the streets of Rome. 
 The streets are all narrow, and without foot pavements. 
 Here we stop at a huge, four-sided marble superstructure 
 the Temple of Janus Quadrifons possessing the solid and 
 time-enduring attributes of a Roman structure. It is sup- 
 posed to have stood at the junction of four different streets 
 in old Rome; the streets, with their population, have all 
 passed away, but it remains. Each front is fifty-four feet 
 long, and about forty high, and the four principal arcades 
 are surrounded by numerous blind arches, etc., and the 
 whole ruin is tree and shrub and moss-grown. Opposite 
 are the remains of another temple, with sculptured bas re- 
 liefs on it, and then through a long, narrow, dirty lane of 
 walls and houses, we descend to works still more ancient 
 the Cloaca Maxima, or great ditch, constructed by Tar- 
 quinius, King of Rome, more than twenty-four centuries 
 ago. It still serves as the sewer, or drain of Rome, as it ' 
 has done through almost half of all time. It is a subter-
 
 432 RUINS OF ROME. 
 
 ranean, covered arch, terminating in the Tiber, composed of 
 massive stones, without cement, and its antiquity and 
 identity have never been doubted. Many of the stones of 
 the arch are five or six feet in length, and two or three feet 
 thick. About these temples and great works are very 
 mean, modern Roman buildings, and mean-looking Romans 
 at work. There is a stream of fresh, clear water near this, 
 where Castor and Pollux, the demigods, watered their 
 horses, after assisting the Romans in some battle of old. 
 Here Roman women were washing clothes. We then stood 
 on a bridge over the Tiber, and saw the mouth of the 
 Cloaca Maxima, the yellow, golden river flowing near by 
 mean houses and scenes, instead of the temples and palaces 
 of yore. Near this is, however, the beautiful little Temple 
 of Vesta. It is circular, and surrounded by twenty beauti- 
 ful Corinthian columns of Parian marble; the height of the 
 columns is thirty-two feet ; the roof and other portions are 
 modern. But little remains of the ancient building, except 
 the columns, one only of which is lost. It is now a chapel. 
 The remains of the Temple of Fortune, now incorporated 
 into a church, stand on a recently excavated basement, and 
 have a number of beautiful Ionic columns. Passing along 
 the base of the Palatine Hill, with the ruins of the Palace 
 of the Caesars on our left, and the site of the Circus Maxi- 
 mus on our right, we came upon portions of the old Appian 
 Way, on parts of which we saw the Roman paving above 
 ground. This way was, in old days, lined with stately 
 tombs. We soon came to the Tomb of the Scipios, discov- 
 ered some years since in excavating for a wine cellar. We 
 descended, with lighted torches, some distance down into 
 the ground. There are numerous windings and caverns 
 deep in the ground, formed out of the volcanic rock, and 
 we saw the niches where the urns were, containing the ashes 
 of this most renowned family, the inscriptions over the 
 places where the stone coffins and sculptured sarcophagi
 
 VIA APPIA. 433 
 
 had been; they are now removed to the Vatican Museum. 
 All was gloomy and dark here, as a fit shrine of departed 
 greatness. When we had threaded the avenues of these 
 celebrated tombs, which are twenty-three centuries old, and 
 paid the grim tomb-keeper, we returned to the light of day 
 and pursued our course. The road on one side was skirted 
 with ruins ; the marble of the temples and the gray columns 
 was all gone, but the foundations of the buildings, those 
 things which could not be destroyed, and which time could 
 not devour, stood proud, lonely, but enduring in their age, 
 partaking not of the transitoriness of even the Roman Em- 
 pire. We soon came to the Triumphal Arch of Drusus. 
 standing almost entire in its age and grandeur, a thing 
 Roman and renowned. Drusua was the father of the Em- 
 peror Claudius. It is a single arch, very high and overrun 
 with Italian ivy. Its age is about seventeen hundred and 
 fifty years. We now passed outside the walls of Rome by 
 the Porta Santa Sebastiana, or gateway Sebastian, and were 
 on the Campagna. The present walls of Rome are, in gen- 
 eral, those built by Aurelian, sixteen hundred years ago. 
 They are generally of Roman brick, are fifty feet high on 
 the outside, and have nearly three hundred towers. There 
 are twenty gates in all, but at present seven are walled up. 
 The portions belonging to the imperial times, consisting of 
 walls somewhat like net-work, patches made by Belisarius 
 and the Popes are also seen. The wall makes many angles 
 in its course. We were now on the Via Appia, or Appian, 
 which once extended to all the eastern and southern posses- 
 sions of the Romans in Italv. Until within the last few 
 
 w 
 
 years it had been confounded with the Campagna, and its 
 ancient course only known by the ruins of tombs; the 
 paving was many feet below the present surface, but of late 
 years a number of miles of the way has been cleared out. 
 The earth itself rose against the Roman ruins, and wanted 
 to hide them. We passed various ruins of tombs: there 
 28 2M
 
 434 CATACOMBS OF ST. SEBASTIAN. 
 
 were no cheerful dwelling-house?, no country seats to greet 
 us, no orchards, nothing but the Campagna of Rome the 
 seared, world-blighted Campagna, scorched and scathed by 
 war in all ages, till it had grown superannuated before the 
 world would cease. Its surface is irregular, and without 
 trees or fences or hedges. We came to a church erected on 
 the spot where St. Peter, fleeing from Eome to escape mar- 
 tyrdom, met the Saviour, and asking him, "Lord, whither 
 goest thou ?" received for answer, " To Rome, to be cruci- 
 fied the second time !" upon which Peter, gathering courage, 
 returned to the city, and submitted to a crown of martyr- 
 dom. The Saviour imprinted his feet on the solid slab of 
 black lava stone on which he stood. We were shown the 
 fac simile of the original. Along here we come upon the 
 City of the Sleepers the places of the ambitious dead the 
 weary, nameless, brick monuments, erected to contain the 
 ashes of unimmortal dead. But who could tell what is, or 
 is not. Is that shapeless heap of brick, denuded of orna- 
 ment, fresco, and marble, the tornb of Geta? Another 
 place is claimed as the Columbaria of Augustus, where, in 
 brick holes (not unlike dovecotes, whence the Latin name is 
 derived), the ashes of the freedrnen of Augustus were de- 
 posited in urns the family burying-ground of the Roman 
 emperors. Nothing is more melancholy than perished 
 greatness than the ruins of an empire. We now come to 
 the Basilica, or church of St. Sebastian, founded by Con- 
 stantine fifteen hundred and thirty years ago, underneath 
 which we, taking an old priest as guide, he giving to each 
 a torch, descended to the great Catacombs, which are under- 
 ground passages, gloomy caves, caverns, and corridors in 
 the volcanic rock, and passing under the city of Rome 
 itself, and even as far as the Mediterranean having open 
 ings at various places in the city, under churches, and in 
 the Campagna the whole forming a subterraneous Rome. 
 These passages were originally excavated, it is said, to pro-
 
 CATACOMBS OF ST. SEBASTIAN. 435 
 
 cure a peculiar species of volcanic ashes, called pozzuloni, 
 which, in conjunction with lime, formed that cement which 
 has contributed to render the Roman work almost imperish- 
 able. Afterward, they became, when abandoned, the resorts 
 of robbers, and in times of great persecutions of the early 
 Christians, they hid here during the day, and brought the 
 bodies of those who had suffered martyrdom. The early 
 Christians believing in the resurrection of the identical 
 body, did not burn the remains as the Romans did. The 
 bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul were originally buried in the 
 Catacombs of the Vatican. When Nero was about to erect 
 a circus over that place, they were then removed to the 
 Catacombs of St. Calisto, connected with those which we, 
 at present, entered the entrance to them being a few hun- 
 dred yards nearer Rome. Descending under the church, 
 we went down a great number of narrow steps in the vol- 
 canic rock, the monk preceding, the ladies growing a little 
 paler as the air became heavier and more sepulchral, and 
 the number of windings increased, so that in a few moments 
 it would have been utterly impossible for any of the party 
 to have found the way out. The monk showed us the 
 niches in the walls for the bodies, which were generally 
 walled up and covered with cement, with some mystic 
 symbol the Greek letters representing Christ, the palm 
 branch indicating martyrdom; the instruments of torture 
 by which they were put to death, were also found here. In 
 some places large rooms appear to have been excavated, 
 and here, the monk said, the early Christians assembled to 
 sing and pray, as in a church, seventeen hundred and twenty 
 years ago that being about the time when the most vio- 
 lent persecutions raged, when they were smeared over with 
 combustible substances, half buried in the ground, and set 
 on fire to light Nero's gardens with. What fearful and 
 tearful meetings must have been held here, when the braver 
 ones returned, bearing the mutilated corpse of some one
 
 436 CATACOMBS OF ST. SEBASTIAN. 
 
 who had died triumphantly and gloriously in the faith. 
 How, while the flesh grew weak at the sight, the spirit was 
 strengthened! What joy and hope grew out of the grave 
 of sorrow ! and they were more happy than Nero in his 
 golden house. In some rooms were the burial-places of an 
 entire family husband, wife, and several children. The 
 word " Martyr " was inscribed on some slabs. Most of the 
 inscriptions here now are only copies, the real ones having 
 been removed to the Vatican Palace, where I saw many of 
 them. The old monk asserted that seventy-four thousand 
 persons had been buried here. He showed us where the 
 remains of St. Sebastian were found, who was shot to death 
 with arrows; they are now buried under the High Altar in 
 the church. The air here was stifling and sepulchral. We 
 could hear the carriages rolling along on the Via Appia, 
 over our heads. Persons have been lost in these Catacombs, 
 and the guide told an awful story of a teacher, and a school 
 of thirty children, who had ventured in without guides, and 
 all perished the tortuous nature of the route soon con- 
 fusing the mind. The old monk, however, said he could go 
 many miles through them without lights, and not lose his 
 way. The return to the light of day was pleasant. In the 
 church, we saw some of the arrows with which St. Sebastian 
 was put to death ; also, the original stone on which the im- 
 pression of the Saviour's feet was made, and other relics, 
 all of which we, as Protestants, doubted extremely. 
 
 Kesurning our route, we visited strange and extensive 
 ruins on the Campagna, called the Circus of Maxentius, and 
 the Tomb of Komulus. There are mighty ruins strewn 
 over the Campagna, consisting of brick walls and the foun- 
 dations of stately palaces. The circus is fifteen hundred 
 and eighty feet long, and two hundred and sixty in breadth, 
 constructed of brick and small stones. The balcony where 
 the Emperor sat to view the races, is yet seen. Obelisks 
 stand here, and many works of art. From some of these
 
 TOMB OF CECILIA METBLLA. 437 
 
 points, the view embraces miles of Roman ruins, remnants 
 of huge, arched aqueducts. Returning, we visited the so- 
 called Temple of Bacchus, now a Catholic church. There 
 are some paintings here of the eleventh century. In front 
 are four white marble columns, of the Corinthian order. 
 Near this we saw a most beautiful grove of live oaks, called 
 the Sacred Wood, which is the only cheerful, living feature 
 almost in this horizon of ruins. Near this we visited the 
 reputed fountain and grotto of Egeria, where Numa, the 
 second King of Rome, held nightly consultations with the 
 wise counsellor- goddess. It is an artificial vaulted cham- 
 ber, hollowed out of a steep bank ; there are niches for the 
 divinities. It is partly in ruins, and there is a small foun- 
 tain whose waters precipitate themselves into a bath. The 
 waters are reputed as medicinal. The walls have been 
 clothed with slabs of marble; the ruins are covered with 
 moss and evergreen plants, hanging down. The distinctive 
 character of the Campagna is here clearly seen. It looks 
 like an accursed present grieving over a glorious past. It 
 is a very irregular level, having numerous holes and caves, 
 leading, no one knows where catacombs of dead men's 
 bones below, and ruins of palaces above. We now visited 
 the fortress-like tornb of Cecilia Metella, on the Appian 
 Way, about two-and-a-half miles from Rome. It looks like 
 a once strongly fortified, now dismantled castle. It is nine- 
 teen centuries old. Within, all is in ruins, but the strong 
 outside circular walls remain. It has a simple inscription 
 on a marble slab, " To Cecilia,"daughter of some one, wife 
 of some one. The tower is circular, resting on a quad- 
 rangular basement, and is seventy feet in diameter. The 
 upper parts had fallen down, but when it was changed into 
 a fortress, were replaced by battlements. Few travelers see 
 this remarkable monument, without experiencing a singular 
 sympathy for the strange and unknown Cecilia, whose ashes 
 were placed in this, the most beautiful sepulchral monu- 
 
 2 M 2
 
 438 FARNESIAN PALACE. 
 
 merit in the world. A marble sarcophagus was found here 
 many ages ago, in a small vaulted apartment, surrounded 
 with walls of great thickness, in the interior of the monu- 
 ment. A golden urn, containing the ashes, was in it ; this 
 latter has long since disappeared. She is said to have been 
 the wife of Crassus, the wealthiest of the Romans, who 
 perished miserably in a war against the Parthians. The 
 tomb is a very conspicuous object along this road of ruins. 
 It rests on a wall of lava, strengthened with large stones. 
 Some ivy has covered a part of it. It is probably eighty 
 feet high. Here the Roman paving of the Via Appia is 
 very distinctly seen. We pursued the route for some dis- 
 tance, then returned toward the city ; on our return, visit- 
 ing the house of Rienzi, the great Roman Tribune of five 
 hundred years ago, the destroyer of the ancient nobility of 
 the country, and who secured, for a brief period, something 
 like popular Roman liberty. We then stood on the Ponte 
 Rotte, one of the bridges over the Tiber ruins of temples 
 visible all around the yellow, careless river flowing be- 
 neath as in ages ago, when Rome was in its youth, and 
 thirst for empire had every gratification. The miserable, 
 modern city was full in view above, and the island in the 
 Tiber, shaped like a vessel, with its churches the ancient 
 glorious, but the present desolate. To our hotel, then, with 
 our heads full of ruins. 
 
 To-day, January 7th, our party start again with our 
 Cicerone. We first visited the palace of the Corsini family 
 beyond the Tiber. There is a fine collection of paintings 
 here some most beautiful ones by Carlo Dolce and Murillo. 
 There is a most beautiful marble sarcophagus here, with 
 sculpture on it in bas relief. Opposite to this is the Farne- 
 sian Palace, which contains some beautiful frescoes by Ra- 
 phael. These palaces are not inhabited, except by servants. 
 They belong to the King of Naples. The latter palace is a 
 melancholy place. The frescoes of Raphael are left in
 
 BATHS OF TITUS. , 439 
 
 damp and decay. The Galatea, one of his finest produc 
 tions, is here. She is represented in her shell, drawn by 
 dolphins. There is a strange, active, livinyness in the face 
 and form of Galatea. From this we revisited the Strada 
 Palace, on the other side of the Tiber, where we reside 
 saw again the great statue of Pompey, and some other an- 
 cient but most broken statuary, many of which are aftect- 
 ingly powerful in their age, their mutilation, and their 
 mystery. From this place we returned to the ruins, these 
 last places being amongst modern houses and squares, 
 though on the ground occupied by the ancient city. We 
 entered the long and immense corridors and vaulted apart- 
 ments of the Baths of Titus. All here was Roman and 
 imperial. They are on the Esquiline Hill, not far from 
 the Coliseum. The baths were stately, kingly residences. 
 These covered an area of eleven hundred and fifty feet by 
 eight hundred and fifty. They were built on the ruins of 
 the palace of Nero's Golden House the latter being built 
 on the ruins of the palace of Maecenas, the prime minister 
 of Augustus. We saw on the high ceilings and on the 
 walls, by the light of the lamp, elevated on a long pole by 
 the conductor, the frescoes and paintings of the ancient 
 Romans, still preserving their colors, though, until recently, 
 buried under the accumulations and rubbish of centuries. 
 The mosaic pavement of the house of Mrecenas is yet visi- 
 ble. It is out of these extensive and yet only half exca- 
 vated ruins that many of the valuable antique statues of the 
 Museums have been dug. Further excavations will reveal, 
 doubtless, several new discoveries. The French have exca- 
 vated many of these chambers. The improvements of 
 Rome consist in penetrating into the ruins of ancient build- 
 ings. It appears that Titus, who was the conqueror of 
 Jerusalem, and reigned only two years, had these buildings 
 constructed in haste, and that he threw down the Golden 
 House of Nero and other buildings, whose anterior ruins
 
 440 MICHAEL AJSTGELO'S LAST JUDGMENT. 
 
 are now "brought to light. The paintings consist of animals 
 and flowers in arabesque, of the most graceful and beau- 
 tiful outlines. We went through numerous half-excavated 
 halls ; and few places have impressed me so much with the 
 grandeur and power of old Home. From this our guide 
 took us to the Academy of St. Luke, or Academy of Fine 
 Arts. There are paintings here by Titian, Raphael, Guido, 
 Vandyke, Poussin, and other great masters some of them 
 nude, and formerly reserved in the Secret Cabinet. 
 
 To-day, January 13th, we revisited the Vatican Palace. 
 The day was cool and clear, without being frosty. At such 
 a time the old historical city, but especially the piazza in 
 front of St. Peter's, is most beautiful the stately and im- 
 mense, but irregularly built Vatican Palace; the two glo- 
 rious fountains, which are like upward cataracts; the noble 
 avenue of columns, inclosing two sides of the piazza, and 
 supporting arches, on which are probably, on each side, 
 fifty statues; then the unquestionably ancient Egyptian 
 obelisks, eighty-three feet high, elevated on the backs of 
 four marble lions, which rest on a lofty pedestal : the col- 
 umn, with its aged, granite, Egyptian appearance, despite 
 its being "purged from an impure superstition" by the 
 Pope, as an inscription on it states; then the great St. Peter's, 
 fronting all, with its saints, angels, and martyrs in marble, 
 on its lofty fagade its two large statues of St. Peter and 
 St. Paul, near the beautiful and gradual ascent to the 
 church its grand vestibule, and the marble interior, lofty 
 and large and though not the product of any one mind, or 
 the result of any continued plan, yet is imposing, impressive 
 and rich in gilding, mosaics, and marbles, and general effect 
 beyond description. We visited to-day the Sistine in the 
 Vatican, the Pope's private chapel. It is not large, but 
 very lofty; and the sides, and ceilings, and ends are covered 
 with celebrated frescoe paintings. Among them, at one 
 end, is the greatest of all frescoes, sixty feet long by thirty
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO'8 LAST JUDGMENT. 
 
 broad, the work of seven years of Michael Angelo's life 
 the "Last Judgment" a painting often criticized, and in 
 some respects unsuited to the taste of the present age, yet 
 full of living and remarkable power. The position and 
 gestures of the Saviour are probably not commanding and 
 dignified. There appears too much mere power, without 
 majesty. There is not the awfully merciful and great face 
 of Leonardo da Vinci. The introduction of Charon and 
 his boat, and other specialties, might have been avoided. 
 Michael Angelo seems to have taken Dante and certain 
 heathen writers as better delineators of the Last Judgment 
 than the inspired writers. It is a congeries of too many 
 ideas for the simply grand. It is nearly- three hundred and 
 twenty years old. Parts have peeled off; the smoke of the 
 candles and the incense have blackened parts of it, and 
 fastidious Popes have employed inferior artists to drape the 
 nude figures; the air and light are absorbing the colors: 
 yet it is probably the best fresco painting in the world; and 
 it appears in the dim light of the Sistine Chapel like a tre- 
 mendous, portending, approaching shadow of the future. 
 The persons stand out almost like sculpture; and there is a 
 wonderful solemnity in the whole scene which grows on 
 one and draws one with it. The Judge is in the act of say- 
 ing, " Depart ye cursed," to the wicked below, on his left 
 hand, who rise from the dead begirt with flames, and 
 entwined with the folds of serpents, and with demons grasp- 
 ing them. They descend, with faces of unutterable woe and 
 voiceless despair, to the mouth of an unreturning hell. 
 Above, on the left, are the martyrs, with their instruments 
 of martyrdom, presenting them in awful fear to the Judge. 
 The unpitying Judge has the compassionate Virgin by his 
 side. On his right are angels blowing the lust trumpets 
 and opening the Book of Life. Below, on the right, are 
 the righteous rising from the dead in the embrace of angels, 
 and with their first glance on the face of the Judge.
 
 442 THE VATICAN MUSEUM. 
 
 From this we walked to that great resurrection-to-life-again 
 of ancient art, the Vatican Museum, where inscriptions 
 from Christian catacombs and Roman tornbs, sarcophagi 
 and mummies from Egypt, four thousend years old, Greek 
 and Roman statuary exhumed from the ruins of temples, 
 baths and palaces, are around you, almost alive with dead 
 genius. The Gallery of Inscriptions, the one first entered, 
 is two hundred and thirty yards long, and contains sepul- 
 chral inscriptions going b.ick to the times of the earliest 
 Fathers of the Church. They also indicate the periods when 
 certain things now recognized as matters of faith were in- 
 troduced. The Virgin and Child, so common in the middle 
 and later ages, does not appear as a composition till near 
 the sixth century. The crucifix, and the allusions to it and 
 the cross, seem not to have been so common in the very 
 early ages as in later times. Adjoining this is another 
 Museum, containing over seven hundred specimens of an- 
 cient sculpture, in thirty compartments. These consist of 
 Roman emperors, orators, gods and historical characters. 
 The drapery of these statues is marble; the perfect oneness 
 of expression in some of the faces, and their grand, antique 
 dignity, are remarkable. There is a statue of Demosthenes 
 here of ancient Greek workmanship, remarkably dignified, 
 and with the Grecian robe in graceful folds over his shoul- 
 ders. Many of the floors are of ancient mosaic figures and 
 designs restored. Very many of the statues have lost por- 
 tions some an arm or a nose. In many instances these 
 have been restored by illustrious modern masters. Another 
 Museum is then entered, the various rooms having received 
 different names, after the Popes by whom they were en- 
 riched, or in whose reigns these specimens were found. In 
 one place we saw the sarcophagus of Scipio, a most remark- 
 able object. The skeleton was found entire when it was 
 first opened, two thousand years after the death of Scipio. 
 It was found in the Tombs of the Scipios, which we visited
 
 THE VATICAN MUSEUM. 443 
 
 a day or two ago. Then there are four cabinets around a 
 cortile or court, containing by far the most celebrated pieces 
 of sculpture that have come from the chisel. I looked at 
 the Laocoon doubtless the finest creation ever drawn out 
 of marble the father and two sons in the deadly folds of 
 the serpent. There is the action of passive suffering in it. 
 There is no weakness in the father, though there is no 
 escape. The serpent, winding his folds around the group, 
 and awaking them, seems like an impersonation of relent- 
 less Fate, overcoming struggling human will. This group 
 stood in the palace of the Emperor Titus, and is described 
 by Pliny as superior to all objects whatever of either paint- 
 ing or statuary. It is of Greek workmanship. Though 
 the subject is not a pleasant one, you can gaze at this till 
 you almost partake of its action yourself. 
 
 Then in another cabinet near is the great Apollo Bel- 
 videre, a glorious type of manly beauty, the most graceful, 
 dignified and perfect human statue in the world. It is also 
 a Greek work, probably twenty-three centuries old. You 
 can scarcely believe it mortal, but a god just alighting on 
 the earth. A slight, lofty, and passionless indignation seems 
 on the lips and eye, as if scarcely disturbing the proud, in- 
 tellectual serenity. He stands as if looking at a fallen foe, 
 whom he had slain not in anger but in justice not elated, 
 but satisfied. People go into raptures and grow enthusias- 
 tic over these pieces of sculpture, and no wonder every 
 thing is so extremely life-like and beautiful ; not an atti- 
 tude, a gesture, a nerve, a vein, a feature, that is recognized 
 as untrue to nature. Then we went into the Hall of the 
 Animals some in flowered alabaster, some in oriental ala- 
 baster, some in black or yellow marble: then into the Gal- 
 lery of Statues some by Praxiteles; there are hundreds of 
 these of the heroic and godlike times : then into the Hall 
 of the Busts of many historical characters of Roman and 
 Grecian times; of these several hundreds: then into the
 
 444 THE PANTHEON AND RAPHAEL'S TOMB. 
 
 Hall of the Greek Cross containing fine Egyptian statues 
 of colossal size, in red granite, but chiefly two immense 
 sarcophagi of red Egyptian porphyry one contained the 
 ashes of the daughter, the other those of the mother of Con- 
 stantine; these are most splendidly ornamented with high 
 has reliefs : then into the Hall of the Biga, or Greek War 
 Chariot horses and harness all cut out of splendid white 
 marble a wonderful work of art. 
 
 To-day, January 14th, our party, attended by our guide 
 who is useful in general merely to show the localities vis- 
 ited first the Pantheon, the temple erected to all the gods, 
 by Agrippi, twenty-six years before Christ, the best pre- 
 served of all the lioman ruins, which is said to be owing to 
 its having been, at an early age, converted into a Catholic 
 church, which it now is the saints ruling where the gods 
 reigned. It is a vast rotunda, surmounted with a great 
 dome ; the floor is of porphyry and marbles ; much of it is 
 broken. The portico is regarded as a master piece of archi- 
 tecture. It is one hundred and ten feet long, and forty- 
 four feet deep ; has sixteen Corinthian columns of oriental 
 granite, with capitals and bases of white marble. Each 
 column is of a single block, and is forty -six feet high ,and 
 five feet in diameter. The building is of Roman brick, 
 with numerous blind arches to strengthen it. The door- 
 ways are of marble. In the centre of the dome, at the top, 
 is a circular opening to the sky, supplying the only light 
 the building receives. The rotunda is one hundred and 
 forty-three feet in diameter; the walls are twenty feet thick; 
 the height from the pavement to the summit is seventy-two 
 feet. The building is well preserved, though so many cen- 
 turies old. It, however, wears the blackened and impres- 
 sive mantle of time, and seems strangely out of sympathy 
 with the buildings around it. The earth, too, has risen 
 around it. This region is a great resort of dirty beggars. 
 The Pantheon has one attraction, which must ever render it
 
 RAPHAEL'S TRANSFIGURATION. 445 
 
 remarkable. It is the burial-place of Raphael. His tomb 
 is the third chapel to the left, on entering. He died on hip 
 birth-day Good Friday when thirty-seven years old 
 A. D. 1520 having achieved the immortality of genius on 
 earth at that early age. He is the glory, the ne plus ultra 
 of all art; but Michael Angelo surpassed him in variety of 
 genius being almost as good a painter, the greatest of 
 sculptors and architects. Michael Angelo, however, had a 
 long life, as he died in his eighty-ninth year. He had more 
 power and grandeur and dark energy than Raphael, who 
 has never been equalled in enchanting sweetness, grace, 
 softness, and ethereal beauty of expression. There is no 
 room in the endowments of humanity to carry the art of 
 painting beyond that to which it was carried by Raphael. 
 Raphael was one of the noblest of mankind. He died, it is 
 alleged, by some amorous excess, but most probably from 
 exhaustion his genius exhausted his body. 
 
 After this we proceeded to the Vatican, the great treasure 
 house of genius and mind. We went to the gallery of 
 paintings, not large only fifty in all but most choice. 
 We passed through stately halls, and corridors, with fading 
 frescbes of rare genius, then into the interior of the build- 
 ing, up grand flights of stairs, then through galleries, 
 whence extended views of Rome, rich and lovely beyond 
 the power of language. We entered the first room of the 
 Picture Gallery, where were paintings by Titian, Perugino, 
 Raphael some on wood, and some very old. We then 
 entered the second room, in which are but three paintings, 
 but two of them are the first and second paintings, in ex- 
 cellence, in the world. We stood before the Transfigura- 
 tion, by Raphael, the last work of this, the greatest of 
 masters the one on which he lavished all the magnificence 
 of his genius, and which has, for more than three hundred 
 and thirty years, been considered, as a whole, the first paint- 
 ing in the world. The works of true genius have a mag- 
 
 2N
 
 446 RAPHAEL'S TRANSFIGURATION. 
 
 netic, thrilling, and awful effect as if the dead souls 
 lingered there in their embodiment. This is the stamp of 
 immortal genius, looking out imperishably from the canvas. 
 The Saviour is represented, surrounded by a glorious efful- 
 gence, on the top of Mount Tabor the Mount of Trans- 
 figuration on one side is Moses, on the other Elias; they 
 are in the air. The three Apostles are on the ground in 
 confused positions, as if overwhelmed with the glorious 
 appearance. Below, in the vale, are the rest of the Apos- 
 tles, essaying, in vain, to cure the possessed with a demon, 
 who is held by his father, and is surrounded by his relatives 
 and friends, mother and sister, kneeling and beseeching, 
 with faith and confidence, the further exertion of their 
 power. The Demoniac's face is horribly distorted; the 
 father's face expresses hopeless and anguished, yet still per- 
 severing affection; the mother is pale with weeping and 
 watching, and begs, with unconquerable affection, for her 
 son; the sister is a lovely portraiture of pleading sympathy. 
 One in the group of the family has abandoned all hope; 
 others press on, eager to see. Some of the Apostles ex- 
 press, in attitude and manner, "We can do nothing!" 
 Others point in the direction of the Mount, as if to 1 say, 
 " He can !" The whole is wonderful and most subjective. 
 Heaven, with its beatitudes earth, with its affections and 
 agonies and solicitudes and hell, with its horrors and 
 devils, are all there. The face of the Saviour expresses a 
 noble and compassionate sublimity. It is heaven with the 
 duties of earth still struggling. I cannot say I think it 
 equal to the face of the Saviour in Leonardo da Vinci's 
 painting in Milan. Raphael's has more loftiness and sub- 
 limity, but there is also an expression of slight impatience, 
 as if to say, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long 
 shall I be with you, and suffer you." Then benevolence 
 prevails, and he says, "Bring him hither to me." But Da 
 Vinci's is unmixed, wounded, godlike, sublime affection,
 
 ST. JEROME RECEIVING THE SACRAMENT, AND DYING. 447 
 
 the regard of a great soul that suffers, but suffers in love. 
 We all stood and looked at the solemn and awful painting 
 in silence. It is three hundred and twenty-seven years 
 old. The coloring is yet most brilliant. It is regarded 
 as the world's best effort the best work of the greatest 
 master. 
 
 The verdict of all the great masters who have seen it, 
 pronounces it, as a whole, the greatest production ever 
 painted on canvas. Sculpture is probably a higher depart- 
 ment than oil painting, and fresco painting, like that of 
 Michael Angelo's Last Judgment, is regarded as more diffi- 
 cult. In these last two, as well as architecture, Michael 
 Angelo excelled all men. But one sometimes will turn 
 from his grand and cold creations, where energy and intel- 
 lect and power predominate, to the sweet humanity the 
 softer affections, the more gentle and endearing influences 
 that permeate the divine productions of Raphael. Having 
 seen the best paintings in Europe, I have no hesitation in 
 according submission to the opinion, that though parts of 
 other paintings may be as good as parts of this, even the 
 face of the Saviour himself, that this, however, is the best. 
 The painting is seen under a good light and to great 
 advantage. It is about twenty feet long, and twelve wide. 
 By its side is the second best painting in the world the 
 "St. Jerome Receiving the Sacrament, and Dying" nearly 
 the same size, or larger. Every thing here bears upon the 
 principal event the cherubs above waiting to escort his 
 soul, the sorrowing and silent attendants around, the priest 
 with the wafer, the old and dying man, whose appearance is 
 remarkably striking, and all are distinct-charactered, and 
 impressive. It is by Domenichino, who was born A. D. 
 1581 died, it is alleged, by poison, given him by enemies 
 jealous of his talents, A. D. 1641. He was a man of great 
 amiability, and of excessive timidity and modesty. In the 
 same room is Raphael's Madonna di Foliguo, a beautiful
 
 448 ETRUSCAN MUSEUM. 
 
 painting. In two or three other rooms are several fine and 
 celebrated paintings. But what can now please, after hav- 
 ing seen the chef ePceuvre? 
 
 We then visited the Etruscan Museum in the Vatican, 
 containing many of the most celebrated remains of those 
 singular people who preceded the Romans in Italy. These 
 remains occupy no fewer than thirteen chambers. They 
 have very numerous remains of terra cotta, or earthenware 
 some of most ingenious designs vases, coffins of baked 
 earth with paintings on them, urns for holding the ashes of 
 the dead some found in ancient tombs in Civita Castellana, 
 and Ostia many of the deities of the Greeks, with stories 
 from Homer, articles of kitchen furniture ; also, some gold 
 filagaree work, female ornaments, bracelets, ear-rings, which 
 are not surpassed, and rarely equalled, in the present day 
 for minuteness of work and taste all these, and an infinity 
 of others, the production of a people three thousand years 
 ago, and far older than the Romans. There are, also, 
 ancient Roman chariots, a bronze frame on which dead 
 bodies were burned, instruments for sacrifice, cups, goblets. 
 There are stamped clay pieces, supposed to be Etruscan 
 money, a series of idols in black earthenware, and a vast 
 number of polished mirrors. Many of these works, as well 
 as many old buildings in various parts of Italy, demonstrate 
 that three distinct nations the Pelasgi, the Umbri, and the 
 Etruscans whose works, style of buildings, and manners, 
 all differed essentially from each other, inhabited Italy pre- 
 vious to the Romans. They were, probably, colonies from 
 Greece or Egypt, and as their existence is only problemati- 
 cal, it may tend to reconcile us to that obscurity which is 
 the fate, not only of individuals, but of entire nations. 
 The history of these nations is only written in their sepul- 
 chral remains, and in the their desolate, earth and moss- 
 grown walls. The Roman Empire has swept over Italy, 
 and itself decayed, since the then that then was. What is
 
 THE EGYPTIAN MUSEUM. 449 
 
 Railed the history of the world, is very meager indeed. 
 Moat of the nations of the world are unknown to history. 
 The originators are generally unknown to history. The 
 more ancient nations were originators ; the Romans learned 
 from the Greeks and Etruscans; and in London and Paris 
 there is but little architecture that is regarded as excellent, 
 that is not a copy of some Greek or Roman temple. The 
 Gothic style, so well adapted to churches, originated amongst 
 a northern nation. 
 
 From this we went into the Egyptian Museum again, 
 observing their idols all presenting a grave, singular ap- 
 pearance of repose in their style, the mummies, also, four 
 thousand years old a horrid sight. This collection is in 
 ten rooms. The specimens of papyrus and Egyptian glass 
 are very curious. From this we went into what is called 
 the Stanze or Chambers of Raphael, which are four cham- 
 bers, the paintings on the walls and ceilings of which were 
 executed in fresco by Raphael and his pupils. There one 
 is surrounded by the genius of the great master. The sub- 
 jects are numerous, but seem generally intended to repre- 
 sent the glory of the Church. Some were completed by the 
 pupils of Raphael, after his untimely death, from his de- 
 signs. Much of the history and many of the items of belief 
 of the middle ages may here be studied. There are various 
 paintings in each room, but the room takes its name from 
 the principal painting in it. One represents the burning 
 of part of Rome, A. D. 847. There is one representing the 
 'Dispute on the Sacrament;" another called "Philosophy," 
 or the "School of Athens;" another, the "Expulsion of 
 Heliodorus from the Temple," a story founded on one of 
 the Apocryphal books; another, " St. Leo I. arresting Attila 
 at the Gates of Rome." Attila is represented in the midst 
 of his cavalry as shrinking at the apparition of St. Peter 
 and St. Paul in the heavens. Then there is the " Deliver- 
 ance of St. Peter," a remarkable painting, with four lights ; 
 29 2 N 2
 
 450 THE VATICAN LIBRARY 
 
 and then the "Battle of Constantine and Maxentius," a 
 fierce and energetic representation of a battle. You can 
 scarcely believe that the action is not going on before your 
 eyes, so furious seem the combatants. The style of Michael 
 Angelo appears to be infused into some of these paintings- 
 The Vatican is of such immense size that some rooms and 
 even chapels have been lost in it; that is, remained un- 
 known for many years, till accidentally discovered again. 
 Scarcely any place in it, however, wonderful as are its col- 
 lections, is more interesting than these Chambers of Raphael. 
 From this we went into the Library of the Vatican, remark- 
 able for its valuable manuscripts. The books are not seen, 
 being inclosed in presses and receptacles in the centre of 
 the vast rooms. One corridor through which we walked is 
 two thousand feet long. We saw, in the various rooms, 
 many most interesting things instruments of torture, found 
 on the bodies of martyrs in the Catacombs; paintings in 
 fresco, found in old tombs; ancient Byzantine paintings 
 on wood; figures in ivory; very old and celebrated books; 
 presents from various emperors to the Popes ; the magni- 
 ficent vase, or font, in which the present French Prince 
 Imperial was christened, a present from Napoleon III. to 
 the reigning Pope ; many specimens' of works in malachite, 
 alabaster, etc. The Vatican Library was formed by the 
 donation of the rare and valuable manuscripts and books 
 of old monasteries ; also, various kings, queens and dukes, 
 families and cities in distant countries, have enriched it. 
 The collection of Greek, Latin, and Oriental manuscripts 
 amounts to twenty-four thousand, being the finest in the 
 world. Leo X. sent agents into distant countries to collect 
 manuscripts. Some of the manuscripts present examples 
 of the erasure of an ancient classic work on parchment in 
 order to write a monkish legend on it; but by extreme 
 ingenuity the latter has been erased and the former re- 
 stored. In one place I saw a fresco of Charlemagne, one
 
 THE LATERAN MUSEUM. 451 
 
 thousand years old ; a celebrated Roman painting repre- 
 senting a marriage, two thousand years old a remarkably 
 expressive work. The Vatican contains, in what are called 
 uncial letters, that is letters of large size, the Bible of the 
 sixtfr century, containing the oldest version of the Septua- 
 gint and the first version of the Greek New Testament; 
 a Virgil, in capital letters of the fourth century, and many 
 other very interesting manuscripts. 
 
 We pursue our investigations through the ruins and 
 Museums of Rome. We see the long processions of hooded 
 monks and friars; some with black cloaks, probably not 
 unlike the toga of their heathen heroic ancestors ; others, 
 in red blankets, some in white. Passing by the great Coli- 
 seum ruin, we entered the Museum of the Lateran, for one 
 thousand years the residence of the Popes, and contiguous 
 to the Basilica of St. John Lateran. There are seven Ba- 
 silicas in Rome, and each one of them has the privilege of 
 according six thousand years' indulgence from the penal 
 fires of Purgatory. The Museum is in many stately rooms, 
 and contains all sorts of things in the way of old Roman 
 statues, fragments of ornamental columns, bas reliefs on 
 baths and mausoleums, sarcophagi, and beautiful marbles, 
 busts and statues of Roman emperors and generals. The 
 stories of Niobe and Orestes are in bas reliefs on some of 
 the sarcophagi. There appear to be placed here those 
 things for which no room is found in the Vatican. There 
 are thirteen rooms, many of them most magnificent ones. 
 There are two sitting statues of Tiberius and Claudius; 
 others of Drusus, Agrippina and Fulvia are erect and draped. 
 In the apartments above we saw some elegant paintings; 
 some of them very old, taken out of various churches. 
 Some are on wood, and in the Byzantine style, strongly 
 suggestive of the peculiar ghostliness of the tenth or eleventh 
 centuries. In one of the rooms we saw the great mosaic 
 pavement, found in the Baths of Caracalla, representing the
 
 452 ASCENT TO THE TOP OF ST. PETER'S. 
 
 boxers of ancient times. It is first seen from a passage 
 along the wall, several feet elevated above the mosaics. It 
 looks, indeed, very striking. The scene around this part of 
 the city is Roman and renowned ; broken and ruined walls 
 of aqueducts on high arches are visible for some distance. 
 The high obelisk of the Lateran, before that church, the 
 largest now known, aged Egyptian, and the reputed oldest 
 work of art in the world, is of red granite and covered with 
 hieroglyphics. It was elevated by the Roman emperors 
 fifteen hundred years ago, but during the middle ages fell 
 down and was broken into three pieces. With the orna- 
 ments and base to the top of the cross it is one hundred and 
 forty-nine feet. The weight is said to be four hundred and 
 forty-five tons. Returning from this we passed by the aged 
 and grand Coliseum, saw the immensely large stones of 
 which it is built, in base and exterior, and the grasses and 
 flowers growing out of the walls, and the open passages and 
 arches of the huge ruin. The Catholics have given it the 
 idea of a church; and the souls of the martyred ones in it, 
 if they take delight in scenes earthly, may look down now 
 and see how they have triumphed where they died. I also 
 revisited the hoary, round Pantheon. It is truly impres- 
 sive. It is without windows, and presents the appearance 
 within of a vast dome, with pillars of marble at regular dis- 
 tances. The niches where the gods sat are now occupied 
 by saints. It is a gloomy, old, sad, venerable place. The 
 modern houses around these old buildings the Coliseum, 
 the Pantheon and the Roman Forum are fifteen or twenty 
 feet above the ancient level of the ground. 
 
 But the ascent to the top of St. Peter's. It is one of the 
 rich, lovely, blue air days of Italy, (Saturday, January 16th,) 
 and our party of nine, accompanied by our guide, having 
 procured permits, undertake the ascent a broad carriage- 
 way leading two-thirds of the way up. St. Peter's is always 
 warm and pleasant in winter said to be occasioned by its
 
 ASCENT TO THE TOP OF ST. PETER'S. 453 
 
 absorbing so much heat in summer as to keep it warm all 
 winter. The asceut is at first rather easy, being up an in- 
 clined plane of brick work, which carries you round and 
 round, and thus you ascend the mighty pile. You go up 
 some two hundred and fifty feet, when you come to a gal- 
 lery around the inside of the dome, from which you can 
 look down into the interior of the church. You are now 
 near the great mosaics around the inside of the dome, which 
 on the pavement of the church appeared of such delicate 
 execution and of the size of life, now seem like monsters. 
 You ascend perhaps one hundred feet higher to a second 
 gallery, when the view down into the church becomes 
 almost awful. Persons walking about on the marble floor 
 below appear like pigmies. You feel the grandeur of the 
 great pile gathering about you like a portion of immensity. 
 Rising higher between the double walls of the dome, you 
 come at length to an exterior view one of the most glo- 
 rious ever witnessed. I have stood on the high Alps, on 
 Mount Righi and the Alleghanies, and have seen mountain 
 after mountain receding irregular, wooded, or snowed 
 and glaciered over for noteless years ; and I have seen the 
 red light of morning come tenderly and inquiringly along 
 their giant, awfully chasmed ridges, which lit up at its ap- 
 proach like aged want before a benevolent mistress but 
 I stood on St. Peter's, and saw the Eternal City sitting on 
 her seven hills, four of them blasted, barren and buried in 
 ruins ; the Tiber, the Apennines, the Mediterranean sixteen 
 miles off, the ancient, remarkable, world-weary looking Cam- 
 pagna all around. No scene has had such a past as that. 
 The Rome that conquered the world sits at your feet like a 
 mighty giant, bound hand and foot by the gossamer, yet 
 strong web of a majestic superstition. The palaces of 
 Rome, the castles, the ruins, the monster ruin the Coliseum, 
 are all in view. The semicircle of colonnades on each side 
 of the great place before the church, the lovely fountains,
 
 454 MOSAIC MANUFACTORY. 
 
 the gray, old, erect pyramid, (tornb of Caius Cestius,) and 
 Home's mighty volume of two thousand five hundred years 
 of history came into vision. Returning to the interior of 
 the dome from the outside gallery, in which we had this 
 view, we ascended, one by one, by an iron ladder, to the 
 ball, four hundred and forty feet above the floor. This 
 ball, which from below appears scarcely larger than a 
 foot-ball, is capable of containing sixteen persons. Some 
 climb up to the top of the cross which surmounts the 
 church. This we did not do. On our descent we stood on 
 the solid stone roof of the church, several acres in superficial 
 extent. Here are some houses for the workmen, who keep 
 the church in order and repair. It requires one hundred 
 persons, all the time engaged, at an expense of thirty 
 thousand dollars per annum. There is a fountain on the 
 roof, and there are numerous statues, eighteen feet high, 
 near the faQade. At last we descended to the church again 
 the beautiful church, with its wealth, and warmth, and 
 splendor. What a scene had passed into the soul and been 
 imprinted there as one of its imperishables! Two thousand 
 five hundred and five years ago Romulus, standing on the 
 Palatine, and Remus on the Aventine Hill, derived from 
 the flights of birds their prognostics. And now but Rome 
 cannot be said to be no more while St. Peter's Church 
 remains ! We then visited the manufactory of mosaics in 
 a portion of the Vatican Palace, where we spent some time. 
 The workmen have the painting, which they copy in 
 mosaic, before them. They break and grind the glass-like 
 composition, variously colored, and place them in order, 
 and thus gradually build the picture, the pieces varying 
 in size and color, as the requirements of the painting 
 demand. Some of the stones, or pieces of glass, are very 
 small, others as large as a grain of corn, or larger. Some 
 have the color in the composition, others have it painted 
 on them. Some paintings require ten years to complete
 
 ITALY. 455 
 
 them in mosaic. The guide asserted the workmen have 
 twenty thousand different tints in the glass. The business 
 of copying in mosaic does not require great genius, it is 
 merely mechanical. 
 
 It is usual among those travelers who remain some 
 time in Rome, to rent furnished lodgings, and have their 
 meals brought to them from restaurants which make this an 
 especial business. By this means one can secure better 
 rooms, more privacy, and have one's meals when, and what 
 one wishes. The meals are sent perfectly hot in large tin 
 baskets, kept warm by charcoal braziers, at a regular 
 hour, and at a fixed price, the dishes being varied each 
 day. The meals cost in general about fifty cents to each 
 person. We have rooms on one of the principal streets, 
 near the Corso and Piazza di Spagna, in an old, ghostly - 
 looking stone building, formerly a palace. Our rooms are 
 well furnished, and an Italian woman named Raccali, the 
 Italian for Rachel, waits on us. She is from Bologna. 
 The landlord and his wife, who are very attentive the 
 latter has the Italian suavity and grace, the former speaks 
 French are both courteous and attractive. I have en- 
 gaged an Italian schoolmaster to give me some additional 
 lessons in his language, and with whom I can talk about 
 his people, and come more in contact with them. He says 
 he is descended from the Samnites, who were more an- 
 cient than the Romans, and who, in the early ages of the 
 Republic, humiliated all Rome, by requiring the Roman 
 army, one hundred and fifty thousand men, whom they 
 had entrapped into a disadvantageous position, to pass under 
 the yoke, (two swords forming an arch',) an ineffaceable 
 mark of disgrace. The Samnites, he says, lived among 
 the mountains of the Apennines, and being poor did not 
 offer any attractions to the nations and barbarians who 
 successively conquered and occupied Italy, and were never 
 thoroughly incorporated with the Roman people, who at
 
 4:56 ROMAN CHURCHES. 
 
 best were but mighty intruders in Italy among the pow- 
 erful tribes and nations and distinct communities who 
 preceded them, and whose domains generally consisted of 
 a central city on some inaccessible mountain peak, and a 
 few miles of territory, and who lived unprogressively but 
 peacefully and poor from age to age. The Romans were 
 the filibusters of those ages those mighty, restless spirits 
 that change and revolutionize communities, and evoke 
 in convulsions the deeper and stronger agencies of the 
 human soul. He says the present Italians are not gene- 
 rally descended from the Romans, but rather of the orig- 
 inal indigenous nations that preceded them ; that the barba- 
 rians who conquered Italy, as well as the Romans, did their 
 due on it and passed away, and made scarcely any perma- 
 nent settlement in it, except in Lombardy, where they were 
 attracted by the fertility of the soil. The Campagna around 
 Rome having been so often conquered and desolated, soon 
 became, and remained the desert it now is. 
 
 I have observed with what freedom Americans especi- 
 ally are conversed with in Europe. With the people of 
 no other country can the middle class find vent for their 
 unexpressed ideas about freedom, politics and religion, 
 with which their hearts abound. The Americans are well 
 thought of in Italy. The Italians know the history of Amer- 
 ica sometimes better than that of their own country 
 Carlo Botta, an Italian, having written one of the best his- 
 tories of America. He told me they were not allowed, in 
 the Pope's dominions, to write and print their lives with- 
 out first submitting them to the Inspector or Censor, who 
 would make them omit whatever he does not like that 
 works on politics or religion are prohibited, the Bible 
 being the first on the list. I have not yet seen a Bible in 
 the Pope's dominions of any kind, except in the hands of 
 English or Americans. He says there are spies about at 
 all times that he was not sure of sleeping in his bed that
 
 \ 
 
 HO MAN CHURCHES. 457 
 
 night that at any time the police might knock at his door, 
 take him off to prison, where he might remain months 
 without knowing what his accusation and who his accus- 
 ers were if at the end of that time he should have a trial, 
 aud be declared innocent, no compensation would be made 
 him for loss of time or health. He said only the ignorant 
 in Home believe in the Catholic religion that he and many 
 others only attend church once a year to keep from being 
 suspected that all this machinery about the Virgin, and 
 relics, etc., was worn out that they did not believe, many 
 of the people, in either Catholicism as such or Protestant- 
 ism, and that they thought the Pope had no business to be 
 their temporal as well as spiritual ruler. Evident it is 
 they do not like their government; and like most of the 
 other governments of Europe, except the English, it is 
 merely kept up by force and French soldiers. 
 
 To-day, Sunday, January 17th, we attended service in 
 the Palazzo Braschi, in a room of which is the American 
 chapel. There is the Presbyterian service in the morning, 
 and Episcopalian in the evening. At three o'clock we 
 attended the English service, in a building just outside the 
 walls, which it has been granted to the English to erect, as 
 they are not allowed to have one inside the walls. The two 
 Protestant congregations do not agree very well. At the 
 American service, it is said, the chaplain declined praying 
 for the Queen, in form, whereupon the English minister 
 omits praying for the President of the United States. In 
 the English church, I listened to the fine music and the 
 rather good sermon. Really, the various Protestant sects 
 have reformed a good deal from Catholicism, and if they 
 would examine the Bible for themselves more, and listen to 
 their preachers less, they might, in the course of time, get 
 right. I heard the minister read a portion of Paul's letter 
 to the Romans. Eighteen hundred years have passed, and 
 here we were, in Rome, listening to that Epistle, just out- 
 
 2o
 
 458 HIGH MASS AT ST. PETER J S. 
 
 side the walls. I thought how anxious the Apostle was to 
 come to Rome how he came, and suffered death here. 
 Yet, how directly pointed seem the Apostle's appeals to be 
 now, on the very place to which they were first addressed 
 since then read in all languages. The saints he alluded 
 to have all gone to dust. They worshiped God, and read 
 his Epistles in the Catacombs of St. Sebastian ; they hid, 
 during the day, in those subterranean receptacles, and 
 brought the bodies of martyrs there for burial. St. Paul 
 was himself put to death in Nero's Circus, on the very 
 ground where St. Peter's church now stands. The most 
 splendid church in the world is erected on the place where 
 he suffered, and there a worship, in which the death of 
 Jesus Christ is recognized, has been performed for fifteen 
 hundred years. Over the Catacombs rises, also, a splendid 
 Basilica. St. Peter was crucified, with his head downward, 
 in the place where now is built the fine church, San Pietro 
 in Montorio. Their triumph is complete. 
 
 But the sunset on Monte Pincio who that has ever been 
 at Rome can forget it ? The splendid carriages wind up 
 and down the zigzag route, from the Palazzo del Popolo up 
 to the sunny summit, where are gardens, villas, music, stat- 
 uary. The setting sun throws a yellow sea over all the 
 west then the hues are merged in roseate tints, and the 
 numerous domes rise up in the soft blue air of Rome and 
 an angel-looking visitant, the young moon, comes out of 
 the sky, as if wondering at all this loveliness. Thus, and 
 here looked she when Cicero and Ca3sar and Rome had their 
 great past. 
 
 But to-day, Monday, January 18th, was one of the great 
 days of St. Peter's, the festival of the removal of the Papal 
 Chair from Autioch to Rome. The times when all ecclesi- 
 astical matters took place have been accurately settled by 
 the Roman theologians, and if there bo any historical 
 doubts or discrepancies, a papal bull is called for, which
 
 HIGH MASS AT ST. PETER'S. 459 
 
 most effectually silences all difficulties. The Pope simply 
 decrees that it was so. We were there at an early hour, and 
 as we entered, we heard the mysterious singing of the 
 Pope's chorus, in one of the side chapels, coming as from a 
 far distance. The scene on entering the church is always 
 interesting. The eighty-nine bright lamps, burning day 
 and night around the crypt, in front of the High Altar, 
 within which crypt are the headless bodies of St. Peter and 
 St. Paul, and over which rises the lligh Altar, immediately 
 under the great dome, with its four immense columns of 
 fluted bronze, with all kinds of adornments, garlands, 
 cherubs, vines, etc., sculptured on them the columns sup- 
 porting a splendid canopy. The Pope's Swiss Guards, in 
 their curious uniform, invented, it is said, by Michael An- 
 gelo, composed of yellow, black, and all sorts of stripes, 
 and looking like the ne plus ultra of harlequin ugliness, 
 came around and stood guard, admitting none to a near 
 view, excepting gentlemen in black, with dress coats on, 
 and ladies arrayed entirely in black, and with no bonnets 
 on their heads, which were to be enveloped in a black vail, 
 and excluding all others. The principal ceremonies were 
 to be in the Tribune, or open space behind the Great Altar 
 formed by the junction of the Latin cross. The ex-queen 
 of Spain, now living in Rome, came, with her attendants, 
 and sat down in a place specially prepared for her. A 
 space in the grand central aisle, through which the proces- 
 sion was to pass, was kept clear by armed soldiers. Some 
 seventy or eighty of the Pope's guards, composed of the 
 chief Italian nobility, arrayed in splendid and imposing 
 uniform, armed with swords other soldiers, armed with 
 halberds and lances formed on opposite sides of the 
 Tribune. There were thousands of people in the church, 
 but owing to the vast size there was most abundant space 
 for all. It was one of the few occasions in which High 
 Mass is performed at the Altar of St. Peter, by the Pope in
 
 460 HIGH MASS AT ST. PETER'S. 
 
 person. Suddenly, there was the noise of voices, in accla- 
 mation, the sound of a trumpet in the far distance, toward 
 the entrance of the church (we were at the other end, near 
 the High Altar), has attracted all attention, and looking 
 toward the entrance, we perceived a grand, moving spectacle 
 approaching us in gilt and gold the Pope of Rome in a 
 golden chair, which was borne on the shoulders of twelve 
 cardinals, advancing slowly up the grand nave, lined on 
 each side with soldiers and people. Nothing could exceed 
 the splendor of this procession. You might think of Anti- 
 christ, the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition, Mystery, 
 Babylon the Great, or what you please, but this grand 
 array at once realized all one might know or dream of, that 
 was stately and imposing. Two enormous fans, composed 
 of plumes of ostrich feathers, on long gilt wands, carried 
 by two men, preceded him. He was arrayed in a large 
 folding robe of white satin, embroidered with gold. He 
 had on his head a triple crown, or tiara. He crossed him- 
 self frequently, and blessed the people as he advanced 
 slowly along. Bishops and cardinals arrayed in crimson, 
 with attendant train bearers, preceded and followed ; there 
 were mitres and crucifixes, resplendent with gems, borne 
 along. This scene, in such a church, seemed to mock even 
 the splendid sunlight. When he reached the Tribune, he 
 was assisted to alight. When kneeling on a rich cushion 
 before the altar, his crown was taken off' the cardinals re- 
 moved their red caps, knelt, and all were supposed to be 
 "making their devotions" after which he rose, and walked 
 to the throne erected for him in the Tribune. Cardinals, in 
 long, red robes, with prodigious tails, or trails, which were 
 carried by their servants, came up and kissed his hand, or 
 the hem of his robe, or the cross on his slipper, bowed three 
 times, as is said to him, as to the Father, on his right, as to 
 the Son, in front, and on his left, as to the Holy Ghost. 
 Other ceremonies were gone through, such as holding a large
 
 HIGH MASS AT ST. PETER'S. 461 
 
 gilt book before him, with immense lighted candles on each 
 side, though in the splendors of day, so that he might read : 
 there was singing, also, in which the Pope joined, with a 
 rather full, strong voice. There was, also, much putting on 
 and off done to the tiara, or crown, considerable blowing of 
 the nose on the part of his " Holiness," great staring on the 
 part of us Protestants; there was frequent dispersing of 
 incense, carrying golden cups and dishes, jewelled and 
 gemmed, display of large golden crosses, etc. A priest then 
 ascended a small side pulpit, knelt to the Pope, then made 
 an oration, and, when closed, he knelt again. The Grand 
 Mass then went on, the music, performed wholly by the 
 Pope's choir, seated on the right of the Grand Altar, was 
 of the most splendid character. The music was all vocal, 
 as is generally the case when the Pope is present, but, with 
 the exception of the grand organ at Freiburg, I have never 
 heard any thing so remarkable in the world of sound. Oc- 
 casionally it proceeded rather monotonously, and rather 
 wearisome, but at times there rolled in a chant, awful, 
 frightful, and tremendous, like thunder rattling along the 
 embattled walls of heaven. It was no music of this world 
 the genius of the other world was in it. Then it wailed 
 like some sad spirit, stalking among the marble-sculptured 
 ruins of the Roman Forum ; then it came out in fearful 
 sublimity, like a voice that could shatter earth into atoms. 
 Then it grew loftier and wilder, as if it went up to lose 
 itself among the stars, and then lonely as the wail of the 
 angel, who had, in vain, sought the boundary stone of cre- 
 ation. Then it ceased. The Pope again was assisted to the 
 cushioned stool, knelt, and immediately behind him knelt 
 the fifty or sixty cardinals, two and two ; the Pope's head 
 was uncovered; the guards all dropped on one knee, the 
 clangor of their arms on the marble pavement resounded ; 
 the scene in the splendid, immense church, with its vast 
 dome above, the carious and rich altar below it, the lamps, 
 
 2o2
 
 462 THE POPE. 
 
 the long, massive, and numerous wax candles burning, the 
 gorgeous dress of the cardinals, the sudden silence, the sun- 
 light on the great marble columns, and the glorious paint- 
 ings and mosaics, the presence of that most historical of all 
 characters, the Pope of Rome, claiming to be the two hun- 
 dred and fifty-ninth in regular apostolic descent, from St. 
 Peter, asserting, and believed in by the one hundred and 
 twenty millions of the Catholic world, to have mysterious 
 powers over hell and heaven, all made the scene imposing 
 and solemn. It was at the elevation of the Host, as it is 
 called, or that part of the Mass in which they are called on 
 to adore the piece of bread, or wafer, which it is the most 
 important idea of the Catholic faith to regard as really the 
 flesh of Christ. The Pope was then elevated again, by the 
 assistance of the cardinals, on his chair of state, and carried 
 around to that side of the altar where we were, passing 
 close to us, and giving those who knelt his blessing, which 
 seemed to be all he had to give. The spirit of Martin 
 Luther was strong in our group, and we did not kneel, nor 
 even bow ; upon seeing which, he intercepted the blessing 
 he was about to give us. The infallible Pope of Rome had 
 made a mistake. In old days he would have burnt us at 
 the stake. But the politics of Protestantism have taught 
 him to respect its religion. Passing along the nave, the 
 pageant disappeared, the Pope passing by a side door into 
 his palace of the Vatican. The Pope is a well fed, fat, be- 
 nevolent-looking old man, in his sixty-sixth year. Of all 
 the persons in that house, it is probable he, least of all, had 
 his own way. He is a part of the great machinery of 
 Catholicism. It is necessary that the station be filled by a 
 nonentity. He cannot undertake any reforms. His duties 
 and his sphere are all fixed and defined, and he cannot de- 
 part; if he did, his life would be sacrificed to his office. 
 The present Pope, in the early part of his reign, attempted 
 liberalism, but was soon given to understand his bed would
 
 VESPERS AT ST. PETER'S. 463 
 
 become one of thorns, and he has gone back into the 
 "things that are." It is evident, however, that such cere- 
 monies, in the name of religion, must become tiresome. It 
 would never suit Americans. We love change something 
 new we soon become tired. But Europeans reverence the 
 old, and are attached to their time-honored customs. But 
 the Pope and his tiara of two thousand sparkling diamonds, 
 a present from the ex-queen of Spain, his guard of nobles, 
 and his Swiss Guard, and the name and station of Apostolic 
 successor, are out of St. Peter's. On the place where he 
 stood, St. Peter, eighteen hundred years ago, suffered mar- 
 tyrdom. What a change from the scene of then to the 
 grandeur of now. Yet the Pope to-day looked humble, and 
 seemed by no means proud, and doubtless is as much the 
 successor of St. Peter as any body else in Europe or 
 America, and probably has far less pride than many who 
 have far less pomp and circumstance. But if it be not as 
 gross idolatry as was ever practiced in the four hundred and 
 twenty-four temples of ancient Rome, it is hard to tell what 
 it can mean. 
 
 At half-past three o'clock, I attended Vespers in St. 
 Peter's. There were two grand organs, and two choirs. It 
 was in one of the side chapels of St. Peter's, as large as an 
 ordinary-sized church. The music of the old Masses seems 
 more interesting than the religious feeling in them. Many 
 of the voices were very fine. In former days, and perhaps 
 at present too, it was the custom to procure some poor per- 
 sons, who were made eunuchs in order that their peculiar 
 contralto voice might fill some of the parts. It is said the 
 performance of these pieces has been attempted in vain in 
 other places, and that the true interpretation of them is 
 given nowhere but in Rome, and at St. Peter's. Many per- 
 sons object to the music, as too operatic ; but they forget, 
 probably, they are making the circumstances under which 
 they have been educated the standard by which to judge of
 
 464- BEATRICE CENCI. 
 
 the feelings and wants of others. In these climes, in the 
 south generally, there is a greater tendency to theatrical 
 display; even devotion seeks a dramatic form; human feel- 
 ing is here more objective emotion is all external and all 
 feelings seek action ; and we, in our more subjective nature 
 may, perhaps, only condemn what is as natural and proper 
 in them as our course is to us. The same feelings have 
 various forms of manifestation in different nations. 
 
 But this most lovely of days, January 19th, one of the 
 finest, most deeply clear, most brightly blue, most truly 
 sunlit days I have ever seen anywhere, I am in the Bar- 
 beriui Palace. From the Piazza di Spagna, you go out the 
 Via Felice, or the Happy Street ; you come to the Piazza 
 Barberini, with its antique fountains and its beggars lying 
 in the sun, to the palace, which, like many other Italian 
 palaces', is not very cleanly in its surroundings. The lower 
 stories of some of the palaces may be a temple or a stable 
 or a cafe' you can only find out which by observation. 
 This family has decayed though some of them were Popes 
 into an old semi-idiot, the Cardinal Barberini. Beggars 
 may be seen lying about the stately columns which sur- 
 round the lofty inner court, and fountains, with marble 
 statues, may be found playing amidst filth. But it has its 
 treasures of art, its picture galleries like most others its 
 statues and sculptures dug out of ruins, its mosaic tables 
 and bronze chimeras, and it has some lovely, glorious, 
 speaking pictures by Kaphael and Guido. I stood before 
 the extraordinary picture-portrait of Beatrice Cenci the 
 lovely, the unfortunate, the stern and the gentle. She is 
 looking back on you as sb, goes to execution, like a half- 
 regretful sunset weeping, and yet glad to go dying, yet 
 remembering, loving, yet regretting. It is one of the most 
 poignant paintings I have ever seen. It is youth and 
 warm, fresh life under a dark cloud of wrong one who 
 must die, and who would die, yet cast a last, lingering look
 
 BEATRICE CENCI. 466 
 
 behind. Who is it that knows not her most tragical 
 history ? She is the favorite in Rome, next to the Virgin 
 and St. Agnese. The family is long since extinct. The 
 painting is by Guido, who saw her as she cast a glance 
 back, on her way to execution for the alleged murder of 
 her father, " The Cenci," by way of eminence, whose name 
 is pronounced with a kind of horror in the "voice by the 
 Romans of the present day. She was beheaded at Rome in 
 1699. Her father, in the vast stone castle of Petrella, on 
 the route to Naples, as well as in the Cenci Palace at Rome, 
 performed untold horrors, for which he purchased absolu- 
 tion from the venal Pope, and at length attempted incest 
 with his own daughter. She having no resource, the ser- 
 vants of the Count, to save her honor, and in assumed but 
 never expressed compliance with her wish, murdered him. 
 Beatrice maintained her innocence to the last; but the in- 
 fluence of a powerful family, who had much to gain by the 
 extinction of the Cenci family, and the occurrence of a 
 similar crime at the same time, induced the Pope to order 
 her execution. No copies of this painting are allowed to 
 be taken by the Count Barberini, unless at request of a 
 crowned head. Few pictures, however, are more common, 
 in all the picture shops of Rome, than this, but they are 
 miserably inferior. Beside this picture is the Fornarina, by 
 Raphael, the lady whom he loved, a splendid, living paint- 
 ing gay, lascivious beauty, and ability to give pleasure, 
 yet a rather unpleasing picture. The heart turns to the 
 sad, pensive, yet young, fresh, and dying Beatrice. Her 
 golden hair falls around her shoulders. She is habited in 
 the white robe in which to die, but immortality and the 
 other life look out from her eyes, mingled with the majestic 
 sorrow of leaving this world in innocence and disgrace, and 
 the last of her name. Seldom, except in Leonardo da 
 Vinci's painting at Milan, of the "Last Supper," have I 
 seen embodied so much expression. There is also a very 
 30
 
 466 ARA CCELI. 
 
 good painting here of Adam and Eve, by Domenichino. But 
 I have ascended the one hundred and twenty-four marble 
 steps leading to the church, Ara Coeli. near the Capitol, and 
 on part of the Capitoline Hill, and on the site, as is supposed, 
 of the great Temple of Jupiter Oapitolinus. It is said to 
 be twelve hundred years old. The ceiling is flat, gilded, 
 and carved, and the floor is in mosaic of various designs. 
 The monks and priests, hooded and unhooded, are walking 
 about, or kneeling in the various aisles, or altars, and a 
 large black cat is stepping demurely over the marble floor. 
 There is an aisle on each side of the nave, formed of mas- 
 sive columns, taken from the ruins of temples, or brought 
 from Egypt in old days. There are many tombs and paint- 
 ings, the latter by great masters, images and relics ; and 
 here is also the miraculous Bambino, or wooden babe, that 
 cures the sick and performs divers miracles. The church is 
 of great size ; the long rows of columns look grand, and it 
 is rich in pictures and statues, and is paved with tombs. 
 Outside, on the portico, grass-grown and old, you look over 
 Rome, and the hills beyond, and you see the ascent, leading 
 to another part of the Capitoline Hill, whereon you see the 
 equestrian statues of Castor and Pollux, the Egyptian lions, 
 the ruined statues called the "Trophies of Marius," and in 
 the middle of the piazza, the great bronze Roman statue of 
 Marcus Aurelius, on horseback. It is Rome you see but 
 Rome, old, dead and gone. On this hill was the chief Tem- 
 ple of Jupiter, "the father of all the gods and men." The 
 columns of his temple have been used to build this old 
 church and the convent adjoining. Man will corrupt every 
 thing he touches. Catholicism is corrupted Christianity, as 
 Paganism is the corrupted, ancient, sublime traditions that 
 came from Adam, as a legacy from Paradise. The saints 
 and sisters are the reappearance, in other forms, of Pagan 
 ideas. Jupiter and Venus are displaced, but Peter and
 
 CENCI PALACE. 467 
 
 Mary have come up. " Ephraim is joined to his idols, let 
 him alone." 
 
 But here, in another part of the city, is surely the most 
 horrid, hideous, hateful, hellish, of all places that I have 
 seen. It is "II Ghetto." Not only Rome, but mankind 
 here seem in ruins. It is the Jews' quarter. Filthy, abom- 
 inable, narrow, and dirty streets, crowded with hapless 
 mortals ; old clothes vendors and dirt vendors of all kinds 
 are here. Any one who has a taste for the weird, the outre, 
 the antique, for a small, irregular slice of hell, for humanity 
 in decay, for a people on whom the self-invoked curse "on 
 them and their children" lias wrought and reached its 
 uttermost, can here get gratification. Here, in the midst of 
 all, stands the gloomy, old, stone Cenci Palace, looking as 
 if haunted by the ghosts of demons. Here lived Beatrice 
 Cenci. The demon, her father, here attempted the violation 
 of his own daughter, and filled the house with whores and 
 horrors. The dwellers about tell you " It is the Cenci !" and 
 almost cross themselves immediately, to exorcise the 
 thought of them. Its lower story is barred, and the win- 
 dows have iron grates to them. It was long uninhabited, 
 and the family is now extinct. Around here you may read 
 remains of long Roman inscriptions, half effaced. You 
 may see ruins of temples, theatres, carved columns, and 
 relics of Rome, portions of which were used to construct 
 the Cenci Palace. 
 
 The yellow Tiber, swift and compact, flows near, and 
 the soft bright sun is over all in his glory, beauty, and 
 brilliancy, yet what wretchedness and ruin below. Those 
 who have their existence anywhere else than here, may 
 well be thankful. Among these people, however, occa- 
 sionally you may see at times a face or form of rare, dark 
 eastern Jewish beauty, a kind of reassertion of the old 
 beauty the race once had on the hills of Palestine. The 
 Jews have to appear each year before the Governor of
 
 468 THE COLISEUM. 
 
 Rome, and beg permission to live another year in this 
 most filthy quarter, which is granted them on condition 
 they pay the expenses of the Carnivals. Formerly 
 they were shut in by bars and gates each night, and 
 not allowed to come out till next morning. Near their 
 quarter is a church for them to look at, having on it, in 
 Italian, "All day long have I stretched out rny hands to a 
 stiff-necked, rebellious people." Yet the Jews are the un- 
 mixed and true aristocracy of all mankind. None have 
 so noble an origin, so pure a blood, or so grand a litera- 
 ture, or have conferred such benefits on the world. Hu- 
 manly speaking, Isaiah, and Joel, and John, are not only 
 superior to Homer, Virgil, and Dante, but the assertion of 
 any superiority in the latter is merely grandly ridiculous. 
 Crossing the little old stone bridge here, you reach an 
 island in the Tiber. This bridge was built just two thou- 
 sand years ago. Small as the island is, (it was cut into the 
 form of a boat) it has several large churches. On one 
 of them is inscribed : " In this church is the body of 
 St. Bartholomew, the Apostle." The remains lie under the 
 principal altar, in a sarcophagus of red porphyry. Rome 
 would be nothing were its relics and ruins taken from it. 
 Returning toward the city you pass the " Street of Conso- 
 lation," rather inaptly named, as it passes the base of the 
 Tarpeian rock, where criminals expired, being precipitated 
 from above. Yet along here, and amongst mean houses, 
 what royal ruins appear they seem the wrecks of a lovely 
 past, strewn about by time and carnage. 
 
 To-day, January 20th, I went to the Colonna Palace, 
 belonging to the once powerful and princely family of the 
 middle ages; but now, like most of the other great fami- 
 lies of that period, it is much reduced. There are said 
 to be seventy-five palaces in Rome, and that no city can 
 boast of so large a number of fine palaces. They gene- 
 rally belonged to Papal families, and the Popes having no
 
 THE COLISEUM. 469 
 
 children, descended to collateral branches. The palace con- 
 tains some hundreds of paintings, but the best of the once 
 large collection have been sold or removed to other places. 
 There are some works in tapestry, and some antique 
 bronzes here, and in particular a splendid cabinet, with 
 various designs in ivory relief in particular, one repre- 
 senting Michael Angelo's Last Judgment. Some of the 
 paintings are in an immense hall, reckoned one of the 
 grandest in Europe, and which is itself a wonder. There 
 are old Venetian mirrors, frescoes on the ceiling, some 
 antique statues, besides the paintings.. The domestics of 
 the family, in livery costume, receive you in each room, 
 take your paul, hand you the catalogue of paintings, and 
 warm their fingers over the charcoal brazier in the room, 
 there being no fires. Most of these cold marble halls are 
 not very comfortable, though there are crowds in them 
 each day they are open, many ladies ugly enough to 
 belong to the higher classes of the English nobility. Then 
 through divers dirty streets we went to the Roman Forum, 
 and vainly sought to disentangle the past from the present, 
 for Rome has been eight times destroyed and rebuilt, and 
 the antiquaries unsettle one's faith in every thing by end- 
 less discussions. Here, in the space now generally called 
 the Roman Forum, were once eight or ten temples, gor- 
 geous and glorious there were Arches of Triumph, sev- 
 eral Basilicas or Halls of Justice, numerous lofty col- 
 umns, and the accents of Cicero have been heard on this 
 classic air. Twenty feet of earth have accumulated around 
 the bases of the ruins, and it is a resort for cattle vendors, 
 has numerous low arid filthy shops, beggars lay iti the sun ; 
 ragged, cheerless men stand about and lean on the cold old 
 columns of marble half sunk in the ground, and pillars of 
 porphyry that have been incorporated into churches. 
 Other marble columns stand alone with the ragged ruins 
 of time about them; the old marble itself has wasted, 
 
 2 P
 
 470 THE COLISEUM. 
 
 while in other places is the elegant frieze-work and sculpture 
 of twenty centuries ago, distinct, scathless, and defiant of 
 time. On your right are numerous isolated columns, frag- 
 ments of temples, and on your left are the vast ruins of 
 arches of Roman brick work, remains it is said, of the once 
 magnificent Basilicas of Constantino, fifteen hundred and 
 twenty years old. Further on we see the remains of the 
 Temple of Remus and Romulus, erected in the reign of the 
 Emperor Hadrian, around which are strewn many fragments 
 of granite columns. These are near the monster ruin, the 
 Coliseum which, from its high old gray walls, on which 
 here and there are growing tufts of vegetation, seems to 
 mingle with the blue sky above, emulating in its eternity 
 of decay the everlasting serenity of the heavens. Around 
 you are the huge basement walls of the building, nearly 
 two hundred feet thick at base, in which were the dens for 
 the wild animals; also corridors, passages, and stairways. 
 The Coliseum is the most grand, affecting, and mournful 
 ruin in the world. 
 
 It is just enough ruined. Parts of it would have fallen 
 down, but that the present and preceding Popes have had 
 it propped up by walls. Here, on those ascending sides 
 from the interior, once lined with marble, were seats on 
 which the Romans sat and looked down on the wild beasts 
 devouring the Christians ; the Romans have all passed 
 away and Christianity has conquered the world, and rules 
 and reigns in the proud city, and even in the Coliseum itself. 
 They saw the Goths and barbarians fighting here for their 
 amusement these barbarians have formed empires sur- 
 passing Rome in civilization. All is gone but the ruin 
 the gray, sad, aged ruin. Eighty-seven thousand persons 
 could sit at one time in the vast interior; and here they 
 assembled day after day for hundreds of years ; but they 
 are all gone now like the leaves of past autumns. The 
 Coliseum, however, is almost time proof. It seems treas-
 
 THE COLISEUM. 471 
 
 uring up some mighty past in its great heart. It has the 
 curse to live and wither through the moonlights and sun- 
 lights of ages to come, and may survive Rome itself. 
 When the Campagna malaria shall have conquered the 
 many-times conquered city, and be its last subduer, the 
 Coliseum will stand on the depopulated base of the seven 
 hills, garnering the Christian dust till the last trumpet 
 shall awaken the martyrs on the spot where they fell. 
 Christians were brought from the remotest quarters of the 
 empire to be tortured here. They were hunted out of the 
 Catacombs of the Campagna into which persecution had 
 compelled them to fly. St. Ignatius was brought from 
 Antioch, and exposed to the wild beasts here for a fero- 
 cious feast for the Romans. The Coliseum never disap- 
 points, but always surpasses expectation. St. Peter's may 
 perhaps disappoint. It is vastness overdone with minute- 
 ness. The Coliseum is simply and ruinously grand. The 
 size of St. Peter's seems to be in conflict with, and wonder- 
 ing at its trappings. The Coliseum has no ornaments. It 
 is architecture gone back into nature; it is stone, old, gray, 
 square stone, forgetful that it had once to do with men, 
 fleeting, busy, hasting, hurrying men, and pleasant, light 
 and lovely women. It had to do with Paganism and Ju- 
 piter, and Romans and martyrs. 
 
 But to-day, January 21, I was in the Capitol Museum, 
 containing, like the Vatican, the remains of ancient sculp- 
 ture. The building occupies the left side of the square of 
 the Capitol. I have looked at the "Dying Gladiator." 
 Lord Byron's description of it is wonderfully accurate. 
 The size of the wounded man dying is larger than life ; 
 the effect is melancholy on the beholder ; it is so evidently 
 a thoughtful man gradually conquered by death. It is one 
 in cheerful, fresh, hopeful life, who had never thought of 
 death as a thing in which he was concerned, over whom 
 not the thought, but the reality, had come suddenly and
 
 472 ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE THE EMPEROR. 
 
 eurprisingly. He has fallen, and leans on one hand, and 
 looks toward the earth. The cold prostrate statue has 
 some of the awfulness of death about it. You feel solemn 
 and impressed, as if more than marble was there. It is 
 described by anatomists as being true to nature in every 
 particular. It was dug out of the Gardens of Sallust. 
 There are here many other statues and busts some of 
 emperors, gods, goddesses, and chimeras, extracted from 
 various ruins. There are antique busts of nearly all the 
 Roman Emperors, in the true, severe, Roman strictness of 
 feature; and it is interesting to gaze at these most life-like 
 representations of monsters of men, as some of them were, 
 and observe the conformity in their general appearance and 
 physiognomy, to the facts of their history. Then there is an 
 adjoining apartment containing the busts of nearly one hun- 
 dred persons, the most eminent in all antiquity. One of the 
 best heads here is that of Alexander the Great. There are 
 also Homer, Socrates the latter remarkably ugly ; Alci- 
 biades, Plato, Cleopatra, etc. In another room I was par- 
 ticularly struck with a bas relief on a sarcophagus repre- 
 senting the battle of the Amazons with Theseus. Jn an- 
 other room is a remarkable Roman or Grecian mosaic, 
 representing four doves drinking a work of most singular 
 accuracy much admired by the ancients, in which there is 
 only not life. The doves are represented as drinking, and 
 the shadow of one darkens the water. The pieces of na- 
 tural stone of which it is composed are so small that one 
 hundred and sixty of them are contained in a square inch. 
 
 The great subject of conversation among all classes of 
 late has been the attempt to assassinate the Emperor of the 
 French on the 14th of this month. It has thus been at- 
 tempted the second time by Italians. The Italians hate 
 him hate the whole Bonaparte dynasty. They say the 
 first Napoleon sold them to Austria: that they in Rome are 
 merely French subjects ; that if they do any thing whatever,
 
 THE SCIARRA PALACE. 473 
 
 the French soldiers are ready to punish ; that on account 
 of the Austrians in the north, and the French in the middle 
 of Italy, their own condition is hopeless. The Italians have 
 passion, pride, impetuosity, genius but are superficial and 
 powerless. Their dream is a republic ; but it would be a 
 most bloody one. The different factions would rule by 
 destroying each other. No people have been so much vic- 
 timized by their own governments. Others have a temporal 
 despotism to groan under : these have a temporal and spir- 
 itual one too. The French emperor will now have still 
 more confidence in his destiny. It created a profound sen- 
 sation in Home, though at first it was regarded as a ruse, 
 gotten up by the emperor to manufacture a sensation. It is 
 true the Romans here, and the Pope also, are mere French 
 subjects. The French have the Castle of St. Angelo and 
 other points that command the city. But it is better for 
 these people to bear " the ills they have than fly to others 
 that they know not of." 
 
 To-day we visited some of the studios of the painters and 
 sculptors. Rome contains many of these not only Italian, 
 but English and American artists. We saw a painting by 
 an American artist, Mr. Rothmuller. It represents King 
 Lear, Edgar, and Gloster his father the king in the act of 
 saying, " Aye, every inch a king !" The position, attitude, 
 and gesture of the king are all extremely fine; that of 
 Edgar is also good. This painting is regarded here, among 
 the best artists, as a fine work ; and after three hundred 
 years of age perhaps it will be regarded as a great work. 
 I saw also some landscape paintings by an Italian artist 
 who painted twenty years before he showed any of 
 his paintings these seemed to be glowing fac similes of 
 nature. His name is Castelli. We also visited to-day the 
 Sciarra Palace. It is in the Corso, and has some fine paint- 
 ings. Those of Raphael are of course first looked at. One 
 of his productions here, "The Violin Player," a simple 
 
 2 P2
 
 474 THE CHURCH OF ST. CECILIA. 
 
 portrait, yet has that under half-alive expression which the 
 great painter could give. You expect his paintings to 
 move and speak, or you seem to recollect such persons in 
 your past life. .Raphael more than paints ; he paints ex- 
 pression and soul, and it is easy reading. There are some 
 by Leonardo da Vinci, whose works are characteristic and 
 peculiar. The one, " Vanity and Modesty," is a study for 
 hours. There are several lovely Madonnas and Magda- 
 lene.?. These two ladies of olden times are presented in 
 various ways and characters. The Virgin is always beau- 
 tiful, holy, scarce of the "earth, earthy," pitiful; the Mag- 
 dalene is repenting, enticing, alluring half-sorrowful, half- 
 sinful. She is always a lovely sinner. 
 
 To-day I have visited the Church of St. Cecilia, beyond 
 the Tiber, in that part of the city called Trastevere. 
 St. Cecilia is mentioned by Paul in his letter to the Romans. 
 Portions of her house are yet shown among the foundation- 
 walls of the edifice. She is buried under the High Altar. 
 She is said to have been the inventress of the organ. 
 I heard the fine music of the morning mass, and the 
 nuns could be seen, with their pale, soft faces, passing 
 dreamily and calmly about. The establishment of nunne- 
 ries, convents, monasteries, affords a living to a vast number 
 of persons in Catholic countries. They get a mere living 
 by abnegating the common and natural ties of the heart, 
 and by the performance of their stereotyped devotions. 
 The world becomes to them that portion of it within the 
 walls of the establishment. The probability is that they 
 have as severe internal struggles as those have who remain 
 without engaged in contact with the world. Many of these 
 establishments are wealthy, having legacies left them by 
 some discontented and wealthy old person who had sought 
 within their walls seclusion and repose or left them en- 
 dowments by way of atoning for sin. Some are poor, how- 
 ever, and beg, starve, and teach. I looked at the mosaics
 
 THE PROTESTANT CEMETERY. 475 
 
 and frescoes here, which are one thousand years old. The 
 church has a wide nave, with two side aisles, separated from 
 the nave by long rows of beautiful columns. Not far from 
 this flows the Tiber, and you may see here some ships that 
 have come from the Mediterranean ; and here are also the 
 remains of the oldest bridge in Rome, about two thousand 
 three hundred years old. It is the bridge on which the 
 noble Roman Horatius Codes stood, defending the narrow 
 pass against the army of Porsenna, till the Romans broke 
 the bridge down behind him, when he swam ashore and 
 escaped. The foundations of the piers alone remain. Cross- 
 ing the river, and passing down it' along the base of the 
 Aventine Hill, having on the left numerous substructions 
 of ancient and unknown palaces and temples, all ruined 
 and gone, and continuing to walk some distance over now 
 deserted spaces, once a populous part of the city, one arrives 
 at a most sad, sweet, quiet spot, where are the old and new 
 Protestant Cemeteries and the great Pyramid of Caius 
 Cestius. The old Cemetery is small, and is surrounded by 
 a deep ditch, and has numerous cypresses and pines. It is 
 close adjoining the old Pyramid of the Roman, built of 
 marble, now blackened by time, which rises high, and gray, 
 and stern, above the smaller monuments beneath. The 
 new Cemetery occupies the slope of a hill, and is walled 
 around, one side of it being inclosed by the walls of the 
 city. It is well kept ; the gravel-paths are in fine order, 
 and bright flowers are blooming underneath the tall cypress 
 trees. The inscriptions are generally in English; some are 
 in Greek; and some persons here buried are from the 
 United States. Some monuments are to members of the 
 English nobility who have died in Rome. One of the 
 plainest I noticed had on it nothing but "William, fifth 
 Duke of Manchester." The walls of Rome, built by Aure- 
 lius the emperor, with their falling towers and gray, ivy- 
 covered ruins, form an interesting object, viewed through
 
 176 THE PROTESTANT CEMETERY. 
 
 the funereal cypress plantations around the graves. Most 
 of the monuments are of marble ; some are of travertin 
 volcanic stone. I stood by the grave of Shelley, the genius, 
 misguided and erroneous, but amiable and benevolent. It 
 is a plain slab, almost level with the ground, close to the 
 ivy-mantled old Roman wall. It has on it his name, time 
 of birth, and death, and the Latin words, " Cor cofdium," 
 " heart of hearts." There is also dimly written below : 
 
 " Nothing of him but doth suffer a sea change, 
 Into something rich and strange," 
 
 in allusion to his being drowned near Leghorn. The body 
 having been washed ashore, was (such having been Shel- 
 ley's wish) consumed by fire ; the heart, however, not burn- 
 ing, was buried here. No place more fitting could have 
 been found for him who wrote " Alastor, or the Spirit of 
 Solitude," and "Prometheus Unbound." with its "thrice 
 three hundred thousand years." In the old Cemetery, which 
 has been much longer in use, I found the grave of the emi- 
 nent English surgeon, John Bell, and also that of the 
 author of a line which will be remembered while earth 
 exists 
 
 'A thing of beauty is a joy forever," 
 
 John Keats. It is a small marble monument, without his 
 name, time of birth, or death. He is described as " a young 
 English poet, who, on his death-bed, in the bitterness of his 
 heart at the malice of his enemies, desired these lines on 
 his tombstone, ' Here lies one whose name was writ in 
 water.' " Keats died in Rome, where some of his last words 
 were, " I feel the daisies growing over me !" They do grow 
 over him. His death is generally attributed to the ill- 
 natured criticism on his works, which appeared in the 
 "Quarterly Review." Keats, as has been well remarked, 
 was the greatest of all poets who have died so young. The
 
 PYRAMID OF CAIU3 CESTIUS. 477 
 
 "Eve of St. Agnes" will be admired and read one thousand 
 years after the coarse productions of Giftbrd, who is sup- 
 posed to have written the critique, have been inhumed. 
 Keats, in regard to true poetry, is worth three Words- 
 worths and five Southeys. The gray Pyramid of Caius 
 Cestius, the walls of the city built partly around it, with its 
 old marble Corinthian columns on each side, is one hundred 
 and twenty-five feet high : the width at the base, one hun- 
 dred feet; the walls, of travertin and brick- work, and 
 coated with marble, are twenty-five feet thick. The wall 
 of the city here indicates the decline of the empire when its 
 old age came upon it, and the Goths and other barbarians 
 menaced its existence. I entered by a low tomb or cave- 
 like aperture, into a vaulted apartment in the centre of the 
 pyramid, where the guide, who had provided torches, 
 showed me, on the sides of the chamber, the rapidly disap- 
 pearing frescoes of birds and human figures. The chamber 
 was empty, damp, and dripping. The body of the proud 
 Roman he lived in the Augustan age with its sarcopha- 
 gus, has long since disappeared. The ground around the 
 pyramid has been elevated many feet in the lapse of years. 
 The Roman is forgotten in his own tomb, and new religions 
 and new empires have grown over the place. Returning, 
 I passed over the Aventine Hill, crowned with several 
 churches and convents, and also some fine gardens of olives 
 and oranges. I shall never forget the piled-up clouds of the 
 Italian sunset I saw here. They rose from the sea, and 
 rested on the blue hills that bound the Campagna, like a 
 tent stretched for the tenantry of heaven, who had came 
 down to look at the ruin-seared scene of earth's history. 
 The view from the Aventine is most lovely. But every 
 thing around is Catholic. You see written on the churches, 
 " Full indulgence every day, for the living and the dead." 
 It is said, in some of these churches, a person, by a skillful 
 investment, can purchase twenty-nine thousand years in-
 
 478 ASCENT OF THE COLISEUM. 
 
 dulgence from the fires of purgatory. Images of the Vir- 
 gin and Child, -and crosses, occupy the most conspicuous 
 points. 
 
 To-day, January 25th, our party, consisting of six per- 
 sons, ascended the great ruin, the Coliseum, to the top. 
 The Coliseum seems to have been built with four very large 
 and thick concentric walls, and proceeding from the centre, 
 which was lowest and next to the arena, rising higher to 
 the exterior one. On this, the Emperor, Vestal Vjrgins, 
 and chief persons sat the other circles of walls, with seats 
 rising higher, being in the rear. On the highest tier, the 
 common people sat. The inner wall, which was probably 
 highly ornamented, is in utter ruins. We ascended by 
 staircases of brick, to the second, third, and fourth stories, 
 there being landing places and wide corridors between each 
 wall, supported by enormous arches, in some places almost 
 ready to fall. It looks almost like a craggy chasm in a 
 mountain, when you look into the interior from the sum- 
 mit, nearly one hundred and fifty-seven feet high. Around 
 you, on the exterior, are the usual views of Rome the 
 great ruins which are very near, the arches and ruins of 
 temples, the sea sixteen miles off, and the past-world look- 
 ing Campagna. We walked along the brick corridors and 
 platforms between the walls. Snails, lizards, and many 
 other animals have taken a secure retreat in the ruins. 
 Trees and shrubs and weeds are growing out of the walls, 
 and a whole botany of wall flowers are beguiling the great 
 ruin with their brief beauty. Woodbine, and many other 
 creeping plants, here forever vernal, would bind up the 
 broken places with verdure. But in vain. It cannot turn 
 from its hoary, stone-petrified past. An army might well 
 encamp in it yet. It was begun by Vespasian, and finished 
 by Titus. Five thousand wild beasts are said to have 
 fought in it to dedicate it. The triumph of Trajan, over 
 the Dacians, was celebrated in it, by the combat of ten
 
 COLISEUM BY MOONLIGHT. 479 
 
 thousand gladiators, and eleven thousand wild beasts were 
 slain, the sports continuing four months. 
 
 Some bas reliefs in the Vatican Palace represent scenes 
 in the Coliseum, by which it appears that there were sub- 
 terranean caves, or passages, under the floor of the arena, 
 and by suddenly lifting, by machinery, the stone doors of 
 these, the wild animals beneath, mad with pain and hunger, 
 sprang up like lightning, and devoured the Christians, after 
 chasing them around the arena, or in some cases the latter 
 were chained to stakes. 
 
 Returning from the Coliseum, we entered the gallery of 
 paintings on the Capitol Piazza. Many of them are very 
 interesting; there are also some antique sculptures; some 
 striking ones of Julius Cuesar, recognized at a glance, as 
 conveying an idea of this lofty, proud, able, sagacious, 
 heartless man; the celebrated, antique, bronze She Wolf, 
 the nurse of Rome thunder-stricken and scarred with 
 Romulus and Remus, as twins. There are also some fres- 
 coes here, and some tapestry works. 
 
 But the Coliseum by moonlight, and alone! Down I go, 
 along the Via Condotti to its entrance into the Corso, the 
 principal street in Rome. What crowds of Italians! some 
 walking on the very narrow side walks, many in the middle 
 of the streets, each with long cloaks, which might well con- 
 ceal a stiletto. Some with little earthen pots, carrying red- 
 hot coals, to keep their hands warm. Then you pass 
 Roman palaces, with their wide, arched gateways, entering 
 to a large quadrangle, or inner court. You come to the 
 Venitian Palace, where the Corso terminates, enter narrow, 
 dirty, old streets, where you might easily be stabbed and 
 robbed and forgotten in ten minutes' there is the pleasure 
 of danger, however. Then you begin to ascend the Capi- 
 toline Hill, with its buildings, by Michael Angelo; its 
 equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius ; its relics of ancient 
 Rome, those stately and grand initials the proudest that
 
 480 COLISEUM BY MOONLIGHT. 
 
 ever were, S. P. Q. R., the Senate and People of Rome on 
 many objects, and you now have left the city, and have 
 come upon the ruins columns, fragments of temples, 
 sunken pavements, worn with the feet of Romans, ancient 
 arches. You are upon the Via Sacra, then the round, 
 grand, monster of a ruin rises up before you, and fills half 
 the sky, like a visible embodiment of a mighty past. The 
 jagged shadow falls on the ruins around, the trees and 
 shrubs on the walls look like the waving garments of the 
 multitudes who sat there in olden time, the stars are seen 
 through the " rents of ruin," and the moonlight lays its soft, 
 white hand on all, and seems to bind up the chasms ten- 
 derly, like a hand of beauty on a rugged, heart-seared brow. 
 The night wind sighs through the arches, and along the 
 vast, lonely corridors, and cloudy patches of mist, sweeping 
 over the sky, shed alternate light and darkness, shade and 
 shadow, moon and mystery, over the age-blackened walls. 
 You pass under one of the arches, and stand within it. How 
 large it appears in the dim light the hallowed heart of a 
 mighty, seared, scathed, and blasted empire, seems around 
 you. The Palatine Hill, with the ruins of the Caesars' 
 Palace the Ccelian, cypress crowned all these, and count- 
 less generations are around you; two thousand years of 
 Roman empire seem here. Though conquered and kingly 
 have alike passed away, yet the Coliseum, like an old world 
 that has had its day, lingers on, a past amidst a present. It 
 is well to have seen the dark, old desert in the moonlight, 
 it leaves so solemn and mystic an impression on the heart; 
 it looms up in the mind as the sublime of architecture and 
 age. The clouds flit over the blue, Italian sky the moon 
 comes among them, and embroiders them with silver both 
 change and flit incessantly ; but it stands beneath, mute, a-nd 
 mighty, and changeless the Niobe of ruins, in the solemn 
 darkness of moonlight, mystery, and age. 
 
 Of late we have suspended sight-seeing. The cold, clear,
 
 AMERICA. 481 
 
 wonderfully brilliant weather of this climate still continues. 
 Great preparations are making to celebrate the Carnival, of 
 which Rome is now the head-quarters. It is to commence 
 in form next Saturday, and will last eight days. 
 
 In Rome there are several reading-rooms, in which we 
 can read papers from all regions. The New York Herald 
 and several other American papers are taken; and it is 
 really refreshing, after a day of toil spent among the ruins 
 of Rome, to spend an hour in perusal of the more intense 
 and energetic life in action in our own country, now far 
 distant. There is always an appropriate stand-point at 
 which to see any thing to advantage; and I must say that 
 here, in the midst of decrepit and extinct nationalities and 
 ruins of mankind, and systems of religion or rather super- 
 stitions, our young, flourishing and vigorous government 
 appears to great advantage as a refreshing and green spot 
 on the world's arena, where a broad and fertile land offers 
 bounteously all the rich products of nature, and where a 
 congenial government is at once the index and encourager 
 of advancement and progress. We can almost feel the on- 
 rushing tide of our country's destiny and its assertion of 
 a great future of new principles. There the people have 
 got the government of themselves in their own hands ; the 
 very air inhaled is freedom ; and the clanking shackles of 
 tyranny, the chains on mind and the degradation of body 
 are not, and the largeness and greatness of our country 
 write themselves on heart and soul. The artificial barriers 
 of caste and rank are not; and the only distinctions are 
 those resulting from individual efforts, and the wide, grand 
 work of developing life to its utmost is open to all. If we 
 have faults, they are those of youth and exuberant health ; 
 and our undiseased activity and energy will not stop with 
 the levelling of forests and the subjection of nature, but 
 will utter out a history that will overshadow and render 
 tame all earth's past. America is the rejuvenescence of 
 31 2q
 
 482 POLITICS. 
 
 mankind. The first settlers found no established institu- 
 tions there, and proceeded to make all things new. Never 
 was such a theatre given to man for a fair trial of princi- 
 ples. Never has the result so honestly answered to the 
 circumstances. The object in the eternal archives of des- 
 tiny was simply to give human nature a fair chance. A 
 continent was dispeopled of a nonimproving race to make 
 way for the experiment. The greatness of the interests at 
 stake required their subjugation. The individual must 
 yield to the general. The individual must be pained for 
 his and the eventual good. The eventual settlement of the 
 slavery question that singular mental hallucination which 
 affects the minds of so many men at the North may now 
 be foreseen. Its abettors, whatever moral honesty they 
 might have had in regard to agitating that question hav- 
 ing of late years made it a political question it will spend 
 its force and descend to the tomb in company with other 
 exploded issues, leaving the relative and natural position 
 of the two races unaffected. The Kansas question, it ap- 
 pears, remains unsettled. Like the disturbed pendulum, it 
 will vibrate awhile, but will eventually settle on the broad 
 and firm principle of popular sovereignty, as expounded by 
 the President not the licentious will of a mob, nor the as- 
 serted numerical majority of a non-voting population but 
 the legal will of the people, as officially announced through 
 constitutional channels. The condition of the African race- 
 American slavery being the highest and most excellent 
 condition in which they have ever been known in all his- 
 tory, will be fully set forth ; and presidential expectants, 
 like Douglas, who flatter themselves their prescience has 
 discovered a principle, by assuming the popular side of 
 which they expect to be borne into power ; and the miscel- 
 laneous tribe of small calibre men, like Greeley and Seward, 
 whose astonishing, inflated arrogance is only equalled by 
 their destitution of moral principle soft-headed, sleek,
 
 POLITICS. 488 
 
 weak men, like Sumner and others, who are able to master 
 one idea, and even make a speech on it all these, in their 
 small efforts to retard, or thwart, or divert the advancement 
 of our country, will be cast aside by the great, sweeping 
 tide of our onward history, as floating weeds old ocean's 
 waves only elevate on her bosom to overwhelm in a yet 
 deeper oblivion while the influence of natural feelings, 
 the common inheritance of American pride, the iron bands 
 in the form of railways, the natural bands in the form of 
 rivers, and the real interest of all will tend to unite our 
 people, and evoke for them happier auspices than the 
 " ample page of history, rich with the spoils of time," has 
 ever yet disclosed. 
 
 Such men resemble the foul sores and ulcers that dis- 
 charge the peccant humors of the physical system; they 
 are the fungi of our rapid growth, and though foul them- 
 selves, they are the conduits, the dirty ditches and sewers, 
 by which the political system is purified. It is better to 
 let men twist tfce rope by which to hang themselves than, 
 by suppressing free speech, convert them into assassins and 
 conspirators. Words and editorials are preferable to wea- 
 pons and daggers, which such men might use if not unven- 
 orned in some way. If they talk of morality, conscience, or 
 plilanthropy, or consistency, they are to be suspected of 
 undertaking a deeper game, since these, as well as honor, 
 are used by them, not for their inherent value, but as 
 drapery to conceal their selfish ends. They forget that 
 Freedom is a relative term, and always implies to be free 
 from something, and that which may be freedom to one 
 race is slavery to another that the African race, though 
 in a state which would be slavery to us, are in a state of 
 freedom, relative to them and their ancestors and that 
 though we have destroyed the Indians by our civilization, 
 we are elevating another race, by and through their slavery 
 to us. But the common sense of America is sound, and
 
 484 POLITICS. 
 
 our government differs from others in that, while theirs 
 appears fair in the exterior, within are the seeds of ultimate 
 dissolution, while ours is sound at the core, and casts off, at 
 the surface, through the convulsion of untrammeled, free 
 suffrage, its foully engendered humors, and permits them to 
 rot in their own. degradation. While they assert that our 
 practice stultifies the Declaration of Independence, "that all 
 men are born free," they stultify themselves, since, though 
 a man may be born free, he does not continue so one 
 moment after birth, but immediately comes into subjection 
 to the laws of his being, condition, and circumstances ; the 
 slave comes under the conditions of his being exactly in a 
 similar manner in which every other person, each according 
 to his position, relations, and circumstances, which he may 
 modify, after birth, to some extent, but cannot very con- 
 veniently do so before. Each is born with certain influ- 
 ences hereditary, national, moral, legal under which con- 
 ditions he has his being, and the slave is, in no respect, any 
 worse off in these particulars than that of the agitators 
 themselves his condition being as natural to him as theirs 
 is to them. People are not elevated by merely changing 
 their condition ; the slaves are elevated in and through and 
 by their condition, in a greater degree than the agitators are 
 in theirs, who, if one may judge by their narrow premises 
 and halting conclusions, their rampant and gaseous denun- 
 ciations, stand in great need of some other engine, than 
 their vaunted freedom, to elevate them into mediocrity. 
 From the papers I see, it appears the President has taken a 
 judicious course in regard to these matters, and it is well- 
 known he has the requisite firmness to adhere to them, 
 seeking Ids applause in the constant vindication of his own 
 conscience, and the coming verdict of posterity. The nor- 
 mal state of the negro is to be a slave. A nation, or a man, 
 is in their normal state when they progress, or are in a state 
 of their highest development. The negro, in Africa re-
 
 PINCIAN HILL. 485 
 
 mains stationary; the free negro, in general, amongst 
 whites, retrogrades is not so industrious as when enslaved, 
 does not increase so fast, is less courteous and bears in his 
 countenance the infallible indicia of his circumstances bear- 
 ing hard upon him. He is pensive, melancholy, and short- 
 lived. The race have not the stamina, the substratum of 
 self-support. The attrition of slavery is, however, a com- 
 pulsory progression. They increase faster, live longer, are 
 more developed physically, are more cheerful, and are con- 
 sequently more in their normal state. Nothing but slavery 
 can civilize them. It is well-known, by those that know 
 them well, that the true nature of the negro reappears in 
 them often, under certain circumstances the cannibal, 
 atheistic, cruel, regardless, conscienceless negro of Africa, 
 utterly uncivilized and degraded for centuries, with low and 
 beastly proclivities which nothing can extract from their 
 blood but the compulsory industry and progression of 
 slavery. Nations die, if not in their normal state, as cer- 
 tain tribes of Indians are killed by civilization. The true 
 and absolute essence of the Indian nature, not having vent, 
 breaks and dies, but will not bend. Therein the negro 
 differs. He is pliable, and can be civilized, and slavery is 
 his civilization. 
 
 To-day has been one of those remarkably bright and 
 sunny days of Italy, in which heaven seems glad and the 
 earth joyous. What a scene from the Pincian Hill, which 
 overlooks the Piazza del Popolo, with its churches and 
 their domes, and its great Egyptian obelisk of red granite, 
 covered with hieroglyphics. It is seventy-eight feet high, 
 and was brought from Egypt by Augustus, but having 
 fallen down in the middle ages, was broken into three 
 pieces. It was re-erected nearly three hundred years ago. 
 It originally stood before the Temple of the Sun, at Heli- 
 opolis. Augustus rededicated it to the Sun. Of course it 
 is now, like the others, surmounted by a cross. These 
 
 2Q2
 
 486 DORIA PALACE. 
 
 obelisks are the greatest wonders in Rome. They have out- 
 lived the gods and goddesses of three religions. On the 
 populous plains of the Nile they adored the gods of Egyp- 
 tian mystery. In ancient Rome they worshiped the refined 
 mythology of Jupiter and Venus. They now devote them- 
 selves to the saints of Catholicism and the Virgin Mary. 
 Defaced inscriptions on them of each era announce they 
 were "purged from a vile superstition." How each age 
 libels the preceding ! The temples of Pagan Rome were 
 built into Christian churches, and the obelisks of Egypt 
 have been taught to adore the Cross. The old Roman in- 
 scription remains on it. On the right, beyond the Tiber 
 and the city walls, is Monte Mario, covered with dark 
 cypresses. St. Peter's, with its grand dome, the strong, dark- 
 looking, circular castle of St. Angelo, surmounted by a 
 gigantic Archangel in bronze, in the act of sheathing his 
 sword, are in front. On the left is the city, with its numer- 
 ous church domes that of the Pantheon in particular 
 dark, ancient, and grand. A fine band of musicians are 
 about to perform in the gardens, immediately in rear of 
 the walled brow of the hill. The scene is most beautiful, 
 both in its past and present, beneath this Italian sun. The 
 musicians, more than sixty in number, with brass instru- 
 ments, form a circle they are in fine uniform the leader 
 stands in the centre, and their utterance of music swells 
 over the mute, but expression-full statues, like the wailing 
 of Rome's past of glory. The crowd collect around, the 
 red carriages of the cardinals, with their outriders, their 
 servants leading riding horses, while my lord cardinal 
 walks along the gravel paths, servants bearing their flowing 
 trains. The costumes of various nations here, the long-robed 
 and dark-cloaked priests, the groups of friends and tourists, 
 all make a scene of rich interest. 
 
 ' To-day, I have been in the Doria Palace, probably the 
 most splendid of all the palaces in Rome excepting those
 
 FEAST OF THE PURIFICATION. 487 
 
 of the Pope this family retaining a portion of their ancient 
 wealth and grandeur. There are fifteen or eighteen rooms, 
 lofty and splendid, in which are contained eight hundred 
 or more paintings, rare and old sculpture. The windows 
 are hung with elegant silk and satin curtains. The floors 
 are, many of them, of magnificent mosaics. One grand 
 hall is surrounded with costly Venitian mirrors. Rich 
 tables of various kinds of marbles are in each room ; lofty 
 chandeliers sprinkle light from their numerous branches, 
 and an air of tasteful and regal magnificence and elegance 
 is diffused everywhere. The rooms are on the first floor, 
 or in our country it would be called the second, and sur- 
 round the court of the grand quadrangle. The paintings, 
 with their gilt and gold frames, and, various devices, are 
 seen to great advantage. One, a Deposition from the Cross, 
 struck me as remarkable; it is in a small cabinet. An- 
 other, a Crucifixion, said to be by Michael A ngelo, displays 
 some of his rare power. There are some most splendid 
 landscape paintings, surpassing any I have seen in Rome of 
 that kind of painting some by Claude, others by Gaspar 
 Poussin. The palace is in the form of an oblong square, 
 surrounding a court yard, with colonnades. In this court 
 are trees, flowers, statuary, and fountains. 
 
 To-day, February 2d, has been quite a great day at St. 
 Peter's. It was Candlemas, or the Feast of the Purification 
 of the Virgin. We entered the church about half-past nine 
 o'clock. The impression this grand church makes on the 
 mind, is fitly compared by Lord Byron, " to climbing some 
 vast Alp." About two hundred soldiers, in uniform, were 
 drawn up on each side of the grand nave ; these kept the 
 central part of the church clear, admitting, however, several 
 thousands of persons, who stood outside their ranks, between 
 the lofty columns and the numerous side chapels and aisles. 
 The Pope's Guard, composed of the nobility of Rome, in a 
 most splendid uniform, but a rather more showy than effi-
 
 488 CEREMONIES OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 cient-looking body of men, were there also and the Swiss 
 Guard, also, in a most outre, middle-age-looking attire and 
 kept order, guarding the images, candles, columns, and 
 every thing, from secular intrusion. The Pope came in, as 
 before, in his gilded chair, borne aloft on the shoulders of 
 twelve cardinals, dressed in tunics of magnificent red velvet ; 
 he was himself also thus habited. He looked weary and 
 weak, but rubicund ; he blessed the people, crossed himself, 
 and muttered prayers as the splendid procession moved 
 along, in the middle space, between the files of soldiers. 
 Arrived near to the Grand Altar, over the crypt containing 
 the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul, and where now were 
 immense wax candles burning, the Pope alighted, and the 
 ceremony of blessing the candles soon commenced. The 
 Pope first made the sign of the cross over them, then 
 sprinkled them with incense, then with holy water, and it 
 was done. Possibly five or six hundred candles were thus 
 blessed. Then each person, with a candle in his hand the 
 Pope carried in his chair, bearing also a candle went in 
 procession around a 'space guarded by soldiers, near the 
 Grand Altar, singing, or chanting, and the candles being 
 lighted, the whole had a grand effect. After this, Grand 
 Mass was performed, the Pope assisting, during which rich 
 vocal music filled the air. In the High Mass, the Sacristan 
 eats of the wafers, and drinks of the wine and water, pre- 
 pared for the Papal High Mass, an immemorial custom, as 
 a security, lest the Pope should be poisoned in using them, 
 as has been the case, in history, when he partakes of the 
 consecrated emblems. The Pope was then carried out, and 
 the grand thing terminated. After the churches of Rome, 
 and the ceremonies of Rome, there is nothing more of that 
 kind remaining in the world worthy of being seen. The 
 only thing left, is to come back again to Rome, and be again 
 astonished. The proof of Christianity must always be in 
 its practice its effect on the heart. This is the ground it
 
 ST. PETER'S. 489 
 
 takes, as appealing to each one's personal experience, as to 
 whether the practice of it does not make him better : but 
 whether such splendid ceremonies, these dresses Haming 
 with gems, and these rites in reference to candles, have any 
 enlightening effect on the mind, may well be questioned. 
 The Catholic religion presents us with an imposing, ancient, 
 venerable, infallible something, called the Church to which 
 you must be reconciled in which salvation is possible, and 
 out of which damnation is sure it being a cardinal princi- 
 ple that all Protestants are damned necessarily. This thing 
 the Church is, in the aggregate, superior to the Bible, 
 custom, history, and is itself the only authority ; and most 
 splendidly is this assumption kept up. Many of the Italians 
 here regard the whole thing as superstition ; that this 
 machinery and mechanism of devotion are stale and worn 
 out; that they are rife for something else; that it is be- 
 lieved in only by the vulgar ; that the priests themselves do 
 not all believe in it, and regard religion as a profession 
 merely by which to live ; that the better and more intelli- 
 gent class only attend church occasionally, in order to pre- 
 vent being watched, and have spies set over them. Cathol- 
 icism suits well, either a highly objective mind, as that of 
 the lower orders in Europe, or a highly subjective mind, 
 like that of a profound philosopher, who sees in its symbols 
 the thing signified, and extracts the good from the evil. 
 But the middle class of Europe, who will make themselves 
 felt in its future, are not satisfied with it. These great, im- 
 posing ceremonies, which have continued for more than 
 twelve hundred years, and have all the sanction of venera- 
 ble antiquity, have had their day, and will pass away. 
 Doubtless there was some good in them ; they are power- 
 fully impressive; and stripped of their adornments, they are 
 commemorative imitations of the naked facts they relate to. 
 They have therefore a value, and upstart ignorance could 
 find in itself a more appropriate subject for ridicule than
 
 490 ST. PETER'S. 
 
 these ceremonies. Religion, it is true, is a thing divine, and 
 to all, and in all persons, essentially the same; yet, it is 
 equally true, that "he that takes it, makes it," that is, it re- 
 ceives a form, a phase, a color, and a guise from the quali- 
 ties of his own mind. It is thus that Christianity becomes 
 Catholicism, and Protestantism becomes Lutheranism, or 
 Methodism, or Presbyterianism. Religion is a divine idea, 
 knowledge, or fact, thrown into this world to operate on the 
 mind and heart as a component part of the general experi- 
 ence of humanity. It is an element in an enlargement of, 
 and a direction to the human soul a phase of progression, 
 and a connection between this world and another. As it 
 argues a higher elevation hereafter to its recipients, so does 
 it entail a deeper suffering to those in contact with it, for 
 the Universe is economical, and each thing has a value, a 
 relation, a comparison, a compensation, a reverse and a real. 
 Catholicism is full of ghosts and legends and relics things 
 corning out of the middle ages, and entrenching on the 
 present. St. Peter's is always interesting, but on a grand 
 occasion like this, is wondrous. You stroll about as if you 
 were in a forest; you see confession boxes for penitents, in 
 all languages; you see the priests in them, blessing the 
 children, and also grown persons, by long rods by which 
 they touch their heads. The great, grim, bronze statue of 
 St. Peter (said to have been formerly one of Jupiter) is 
 kissed by the devotees. You see the .sublime statues, 
 chiseled out of marble by Canova, and the great mosaics of 
 Raphael's Transfiguration and Domenichino's Communion 
 of St. Jerome, and other works, while the vast size, the 
 height, the splendor of the church, the crowds of costumes 
 and colors for Catholicism admits all into the body of the 
 church impress you in a thousand ways. The only thing 
 greater than Catholicism, is the simpleton who stands and 
 laughs at it, and sees no virtue, nothing respectable, nothing 
 true, but that to which he was brought up. The only thing
 
 THE QUIBINAL PALACE. 491 
 
 smaller than nothing, is sectarian and narrow-hearted 
 bigotry and illiberality, that, instead of quietly learning, 
 scornfully criticises. People are not puppets in the hands 
 of fate, to be, or believe just what circumstances dictate, 
 but they are wills, free within certain limits, and therein 
 responsible ; and a Catholic, in his circumstances, may be 
 as truly convinced of the truth of his creed as a Protestant 
 in bis, and both should respect the other, and not "judge, 
 lest he be judged." 
 
 To-day, February 4th, we visited the Quirinal Palace, the 
 winter residence of the Pope. The day was truly lovely 
 one of those deeply blue-air skies of Rome. This palace is 
 on the Quirinal Hill, one of the seven hills of ancient Rome. 
 Special permission to visit it must be procured. It is here 
 the conclave of cardinals sits to elect the Pope ; and from 
 the balcony over the principal entrance the result of the 
 election is announced to the people. As most of the other 
 palaces of Rome, it is built in the form of a large quadran- 
 gle, enclosing a spacious court between the walls. You 
 pass up a large marble staircase, and you are shown by the 
 polite Major Domo the various apartments first, an im- 
 mense, long and high hall, one hundred and ninety feet 
 long, richly decorated ; then into others the throne- room, 
 the audience-chambers, the Pope's bed-room, the splendid 
 bra&s bed on which he sleeps, and on which Pope Pius VII. 
 died ; then halls of embassadors, the dining-room and many 
 others. The Pope always dines alone, except at a few 
 stated times, when certain of the cardinals are admitted. 
 His religious duties are all prescribed to him ; and if he 
 does them he is no idler. Many of those halls have most 
 splendid silk and satin hangings. They abound in mag- 
 nificent ivory crucifixes. Some of the paintings are of 
 superior excellence. One representing the "Annunciation," 
 by Guido, struck me as very fine. A tapestry work of the 
 French Gobelins' manufacture, representing St. Stephen,
 
 492 VILLA ALBANI. 
 
 appeared to be a remarkable work. There are some mosaic 
 floors, extremely ancient and interesting, excavated from the 
 ruins of the Emperor Hadrian's villa, near Tivoli, eighteen 
 miles from Home. From the palace we went into the Qui- 
 rinal Gardens adjoining. These are very splendid. Very 
 old live oak trees, box wood, hedges of great height cut so 
 as to resemble perpendicular walls of verdure, magnolia 
 trees, palms, and many Oriental looking trees, orangeries 
 and lemonries, with fruit in all stages; ancient sun-dials, 
 statues, fountains, old Roman marble baths and sarcophagi, 
 now serving as receptacles for plants ; cool, dark, shady 
 recesses all these are here in their beauty and interest. 
 Descending a stairway leading to a lower part of the gar- 
 den, we came to a small casino, in which is an organ, played 
 by a water-wheel. The water is let on and off the wheel 
 from a reservoir: the wheel is arranged somewhat like the 
 wheel within a music box. Here also various fountains can 
 be made to play in a moment, and in a manner most unex- 
 pected by the beholder some resembling an ascending 
 brisk shower of rain ; statues of angels connected with the 
 the organ blow trumpets, and the whole scene is like fairy 
 land. Returning, we again strolled through the gardens, 
 from which the view over Rome, with its numerous churches 
 and the hills beyond, is very fine, .especially on a blue 
 Italian day like the present. In front of the palace is a 
 square, where there is a beautiful fountain, with equestrian 
 statues, bearing the names of Phidias and Praxiteles ; they 
 were probably dishumed from the ruins of Rome. 
 
 To-day, February 5th, we visited the Villa Albani, just 
 outside the walls of Rome, by the Porta Salara. The walls 
 of Rome are nearly fifteen miles in circuit, and those parts 
 that I have seen are mainly of brick, with portions of the 
 old Roman walls of stone appearing occasionally. There 
 are stron^ battlements and towers at short distances. But 
 
 O 
 
 the walls look old and crumbling; they are probably forty
 
 VILLA ALBANI. 493 
 
 or fifty feet high. Much more of the ground inclosed by 
 the walls consists of ancient ruins, villas and desert hills, 
 than the modern city occupies. Entering the gates of the 
 villa, to see which special permission must be obtained, you 
 are amazed at the elegance and taste in which the grounds 
 are kept. Long avenues of evergreen trees, forming an 
 arch overhead; hedges of boxwood and other kinds, straight 
 or square, with antique statues looking out of the vacant 
 spaces in them ; circular walks, fountains, and every thing 
 that wealth could devise, meet the eye. The villa itself is 
 a modern house, built about a hundred years ago, having 
 in front a splendid portico, with many columns of Oriental 
 granite and marbles. There are no less than forty-four 
 columns of various marbles. This portico contains numer- 
 ous antique statues one I noticed of Julius Caesar, who 
 was a man probably of as much compact ability as any in 
 antiquity. Ascending the grand staircase, we were shown 
 numerous and stately halls, containing collections of statuary 
 regarded as inferior only to the Vatican and Capitol galle- 
 ries. The French, during the reign of Napoleon, carried 
 off nearly three hundred of the finest pieces of sculpture to 
 Paris. At the downfall of Napoleon the Prince Album was 
 allowed to reclaim them ; but being unable to sustain the 
 expense of reconveying them, he sold the greater part to 
 the King of Bavaria. Notwithstanding this reduction, this 
 collection is still a most noble one. Paris, during the reign 
 of Napoleon, had nearly all the chief treasures of an, both 
 of painting and sculpture, that were in Europe. It was the 
 object of the emperor to make Paris the most interesting 
 city in the world. The mosaics, bas relievos, various kinds 
 of marble columns, paintings by distinguished masters, and 
 all kinds of Greek and Roman works of art are all a study 
 and all interesting. One bronze statue is shown as the work 
 of Praxiteles. There is a most beautiful bust in bas relief 
 in marble remarkably fresh looking and expressive " An- 
 
 2 R
 
 494 VILLA ALBANI. 
 
 tinous crowned with lotus flowers," reckoned next after the 
 "Laocoon" and ''Apollo Belvidere"of the Vatican in merit. 
 There are hundreds of others many of them of Roman em- 
 perors and Greek writers all remarkable for their clear, 
 distinct, forcible, antique expressiveness those of Esop, 
 Scipio Africanus, Alexander the Great. Hannibal, Homer, 
 and Epicurus. These busts are generally ascertained to be 
 what they are designated by their resemblance to faces in 
 ancient times, or by some allusion to them in old writers, 
 or some characteristic historically known. There are also 
 sarcophagi with whole histories in allegory, urns, baths, 
 Egyptian vases of rare material, relics of the mighty past 
 of Home, trophies found in the eternity of her ruins. Many 
 of these have suffered in the rude attacks of the barbarians 
 of the middle ages. The Campagna soil is full of pulverized 
 marble statuary : and the few that remain show us what the 
 treasures and magnificence of the Roman empire were, and 
 especially what the skill and genius of the Greek artists 
 were : for it is probable that many of the finest pieces of 
 ancient statuary were the work of Greek artists settled in 
 Rome. The Bigliardo, or Billiard Saloons, and the Coffee 
 House are in other portions of the grounds, and, like the 
 principal villa, are repositories of ancient art in profuse 
 and melancholy grandeur. The villas around Rome are 
 the creations of the cardinals, who, having no posterity, 
 spend their wealth in surrounding themselves with taste 
 and learned magnificence. None of the great Roman fami- 
 lies of the present day can deduce their origin from the an- 
 cient Romans but generally arose in the middle ages from 
 the Popes, who, having no issue, ennobled their nephews. 
 This villa belongs at present to the Count Castelbarco, a 
 Milanese nobleman, to whom it descended in the female 
 line from the Cardinal Albani. Many of these villas are 
 kept up, not as residences, but as mere appendages to the 
 rank of those who own them. The custodi, to whom you
 
 VAULTS OF THE CAPUCCINI. 495 
 
 give two or three pauls for showing them, is more benefited 
 than the owner. One is almost astonished at the rich dis- 
 play of various kinds of marbles in these villas, and the 
 eye and mind grow weary with gazing at them. The views 
 from the upper apartments of the Casino are line embrac- 
 ing the mountains, other villas on the desert Carapagna, 
 dreary as a storm-tossed sea. 
 
 Returning to the city, I entered the Church of the Capuc- 
 cini, or the Capuchin Monks, on the Piazza Barberini. 
 Here are some fine paintings; one, the Archangel Michael 
 fighting with Lucifer, a grand painting; also, one or two by 
 that great master, Domenichino. There are some monu- 
 ments to princes and cardinals; an epitaph, in Latin, on one 
 of the latter (Cardinal Barberini) is curious "Here lie dust 
 and ashes, and nothing else." There is a monastery attached 
 to this church, as to many others in Rome. The brethren 
 go about in their coarse, brown hoods and cloaks, with 
 sandals on their feet, and no hat. Beneath the church is 
 the cemetery, or crypt, the most horrid place I was ever in. 
 Death here appears in all its frights. Approaching it, you 
 see various, half-obliterated, Latin inscriptions, such as 
 " Respect the end," " Vanity of vanities all is vanity." 
 The monk lights a lamp, and you enter a Golgotha in all 
 its terrors, a place of skulls and dead men's bones. There 
 is quite a number of these low, stone chambers connected 
 with each other. Around the vaulted roof and along the 
 sides, close together as possible, are fastened human bones. 
 Piles of these also in regular order, like walls or pyramids, 
 are all around, and fleshless skeletons stand in all directions. 
 In each room stand four or five skeletons of monks, with 
 their black clothing on, a cross over their hearts, their right 
 hand holding a small placard, on which are written their 
 name and age and time of death. They all seem to grin 
 horribly, ghastly, and deathfully in their decay and ruin. 
 These occupy open spaces in the walls of bones. 'Tis a
 
 496 THE GRAVE OF NERO. 
 
 fearful and hideous spectacle ! A lamp, the frame of which 
 is of human bones, the skull forming the receptacle for the 
 oil, hangs from the ceiling a chandelier of human bones. 
 The articles of furniture here are all of human bones. The 
 earth, constituting the floor of this dreary place, was 
 brought from Jerusalem. When a monk dies, he is put, 
 with his ordinary clothes on, in the place of the skeleton 
 longest here the bones of which are then piled up with 
 the others. The skinny corpses will have an expression 
 about their fallen jaws, their white teeth, their heads to one 
 side, their stretched-out fingers of bone, that is the perfection 
 of the awful and horrible. They have rosaries around their 
 necks, and seem to be praying in death. It is pleasant to 
 get out of this charnel house, and see that the world is yet 
 alive. It is a pleasant thing to be alive; but must we all 
 come to this? 
 
 To-day I have visited a church near the Porta del Popolo, 
 at the base of the Pincian Hill. It has the usual garniture 
 of a tomb pavement; it has splendid side chapels, with 
 paintings of frescoes and mosaics, and an air of solemnity 
 and death and dread, generally. This church is said to 
 have been built on the place where the ashes of Nero were 
 found, and scattered to the winds and destroyed, and where 
 ghostly phantoms were seen at night, hovering around the 
 place, to the great dread of the inhabitants. This church 
 was then built to keep them down, and since its erection, 
 they are seen no more. There is some painted glass in this 
 church the only thing of the kind to be seen in Rome 
 reminding one of the Gothic churches of England and Ger- 
 many; and there is also a statue of "Jonah, seated on a 
 Whale," which is said to have been modeled by Raphael. 
 With regard to the grave of Nero, it is a singular circum- 
 stance, as related by some ancient writers, that for a long 
 time there were some who strewed it with flowers, indicating 
 that the ferocious, cool, reckless tyrant, must have had some
 
 GUIDO'S AURORA. 497 
 
 one really attached to him. I also visited a Casino, belong,- 
 ing to the Rospigliosi Palace, which contains on the ceiling 
 the celebrated fresco by Guido the Aurora. It is very 
 beautiful. Some of the female portraits, representing the 
 " Hours," are very graceful and lovely. The representation 
 is a chariot, on which is seated a youth, personating the 
 Sun ; the chariot is drawn by twelve horses, and preceded by 
 a female figure, scattering beautiful flowers the whole 
 symbolizes Morning. There is also here a beautiful picture 
 of Adam and Eve in Paradise, by Domenichino. In the 
 garden are some very rare trees some magnolias from our 
 own clime; there are fountains and old statues and arched 
 promenades. Descending the Quirinal II ill, on which this 
 palace is situated, one comes to the Tower of the Conti, 
 built apparently from portions of a Roman temple, the 
 columns of which, with their bases many feet below the 
 present level, and their ornamented Corinthian capitals, and 
 the ancient, mossy, massive remains, generally, are some of 
 the nameless ruins one meets everywhere in Rome shat- 
 tered and time-worn, as if ruin's self had breathed on them 
 yet still beautiful and respectable amid the dirt and filth 
 and human ruins around. Further on, beyond the Coli- 
 seum, rises the Coslian II ill, on the slope of which are vast 
 ruins of brick walls, with opepings into underground apart- 
 ments, overgrown with ivy and rank, luxuriant vegetation. 
 These are the substructions of the Temple of Claudius. 
 Above them is a row of dark cypresses. Below, toward 
 the Coliseum, is a public promenade, planted with mulberry 
 trees. Around, and on the Ccelian Hill, near, are several 
 churches and convents, into one of which I entered. The 
 views of the arches and falling ruins here are very fine, 
 embracing those of the Palatine Hill. It was here that the 
 finest part of ancient Rome lay. The modern road yet 
 passes under the arches of Titus and Constantino. Beyond 
 the Coliseum, in the direction of St. John Lateran, is the 
 32 2 R 2
 
 498 THE CARNIVAL. 
 
 very old church of St. Clemente, who is mentioned by St. 
 Paul in his Epistle to the Romans this church being built 
 on the site of his house. You see its flat, richly orna- 
 mented ceilings, and its side rows of various kinds of 
 columns, probably, in some of the restorations of the 
 church, filched from heathen temples. The floor is of 
 numerous small pieces of variously colored marbles. Old, 
 staring, mosaic figures look at you from the Tribune, back 
 of the High Altar. They are of the Byzantine style of 
 the middle ages. On each side of the nave are marble 
 pulpits, from one of which the Gospels, from the other the 
 Epistles were read, in the early Christian times. Several 
 cardinals are buried here. In one of the chapels are inter- 
 esting mosaics, representing the old legend about St. 
 Catherine. 
 
 To-day, Saturday, February 6th, began one of the great 
 festivals of the Roman Church the Carnival, or "farewell 
 to flesh " a time of feasting, fun, and recreation, prepara- 
 tory to the forty days fast of Lent. The last eight days of 
 the Carnival, which in reality begins on the first of January, 
 are the most interesting, and it is those on which we now 
 enter. The weather to-day has been unpropitious for the 
 amusements, being cloudy and rainy. The Carnival began 
 in form to-day, at twelve o'clock, as announced by the ring- 
 ing of the great bell of the Capitol, which is rung but on 
 this occasion, and on that of the death of the Pope. There 
 was also the firing of cannon and a general display of the 
 military ; and if there are any criminals to be executed, it is 
 done on this occasion the object being to impress every 
 one duly in the first place that there is some law about, and 
 inspire a wholesome terror. It has been remarked that the 
 people of Rome are the gravest and most serious-looking 
 people in the world. This may be a consequence of their 
 inquisitorial government, or their dwelling on the grave- 
 yard of a mighty empire. On this occasion, however, every
 
 THE CARNIVAL. 499 
 
 "one fools himself to the top of his bent." Soon after 
 twelve o'clock, many open carriages, in which were seen all 
 kinds of persons, or all kinds of dresses, the most fantastic 
 and absurd imaginable, began to move along the Corso and 
 principal streets. The city seems, however, relieved, as.it 
 were, and you feel a new impression everywhere. Every 
 thing is allowed to be ridiculed, except the government and 
 the religion. Those riding in the carriages were generally 
 masked some with a simple black covering over their face, 
 others in half-mask, some with wire gauze over their faces, 
 some with dominoes, some with vast pasteboard projections, 
 intended to take off noses. In short, there is scarcely a 
 feature or profession that was not caricatured. The dresses 
 were very gay flaring colors predominating many of 
 them trimmed with gold lace. Some essayed wit by appear- 
 ing in curious hats of many shapes, and the whole population 
 seemed inspired with harlequinism and odd fun. There 
 were many bouquet sellers along the streets the Campagna 
 flowers being made into small bouquets and sold to the 
 revelers, with which they pelted each other as they passed in 
 the streets, or were pelted from the balconies and windows 
 above. Others had large baskets of comfits, made either 
 of flour or else of lime, and some were made of small 
 seeds, rolled in flour the usual size was somewhat larger 
 than a grain of wheat; these were sold in great quantities, 
 to throw on each other, directly in the face or on the cloth- 
 ing, which latter soon became whitened by it, the mask pro- 
 tecting the face. 
 
 At various places along the streets, on the side walks, 
 and in front of some of the palaces, are erected balustrades 
 and seats along the different stories of the houses; these are 
 let out at high rates to persons that wish to see with conve- 
 nience. At the two ends of the Corso, the Piazza del Popolo 
 and the Piazza Venezia, there were extensive, raised wooden 
 structures, with seats or chairs, at two or three pauls each,
 
 500 THE CARNIVAL. 
 
 for the evening; by which one has an extensive view of the 
 proceedings. All these windows and balustrades were filled, 
 and the roofs were almost covered with spectators. I allude 
 to the Corso, to which street the performances are princi- 
 pally limited; the other streets and parts of the city, except- 
 ing the Via Barberini, and the Via Condotti, and the Piazza 
 di Spagna, being almost deserted. The Corso is about one 
 mile long, extending from the Piazza del Popolo to the 
 Piazza Veneziana the carriages passing to these two points, 
 then returning, sustaining an attack of comfits and flowers 
 from the windows and balconies all the way, which they 
 returned with spirit. Carpets, flags, curtains, streamers of 
 every kind, were hung from the balustrades along the street; 
 the ancient gloom of the city was gone, and an aspect of 
 gayety most singular and exciting had arisen. About five 
 o'clock the whole population of the city was assembled in 
 the Corso, and along the narrow banquettes ; the military, 
 who also occupied the entrance to every street from the 
 Corso, and stood at each corner of every street, and occupied 
 places in the square, then galloped up and down the Corso 
 to keep a space in it vacant. All carriages were then in- 
 terdicted, and a wall of packed humanity lined each side. 
 Several races of dogs, in the first place; then about ten 
 spirited horses, without riders, but with tin, metallic clap- 
 pers, with goads or small spikes in them, bounding up and 
 down on their backs, to urge them forward, were let loose 
 from -the Piazza del Popolo, and ran the whole length 
 of the Corso to the Piazza. Venezia, where they were 
 stopped by carpets stretched across the streets. The judges 
 sat near this, and decided which horse was the winner. The 
 horses ran very fast; they were small but spirited animals; 
 and the clattering of their feet on the paved Corso, and the 
 cheering of the crowd, presented a scene enlivening and 
 amusing. The prizes of the winners are squares of fine 
 velvets, furnished by the Jews as the terms of their being
 
 HALL OF INSCRIPTIONS. 501 
 
 allowed to live in the city. Formerly they were obliged to 
 run themselves through the streets for the amusement of 
 the Christians. Since the revolution, or rather attempt at 
 revolution in 1848, masking at the Carnival has been pro- 
 hibited by the government. It is now allowed on certain 
 days. The race terminates the public proceedings for the 
 day ; the people disperse to more private, but perhaps less 
 sinless diversions a general relaxation of morals and vir- 
 tue being expected during that time. 
 
 To-day, Monday, February 8th, I strolled with some 
 friends into the large Hall of Inscriptions in the Vatican 
 Palace. It contains, on the right hand, Greek and Roman 
 monumental inscriptions, found in tombs; on the left, simi- 
 lar ones, found in catacombs and other places, of the early 
 Christians. Many of them are remarkable for their very 
 bad Latin or Greek, and also for their very incorrect orthog- 
 raphy. Then, as now, it appears the schoolmaster was not 
 perambulating miscellaneously, in other words "abroad,** 
 when monumental inscriptions were making. Some of the 
 inscriptions are, however, inexpressibly touching. Some- 
 times, on the Heathen ones, there is the whole name, and 
 then the simple but beautiful Latin word, " Vale i Vale !" 
 as if the farewell were understood to be eternal. In the 
 Christian inscriptions there is more hope; and the Greek 
 word "Eirenes," or "Peace," is on many of them. We also 
 walked again into St. Peter's. In one of the chapels on the 
 right, when entering, is what is called a "Pieta" the Vir- 
 gin holding the dead Christ on her kneea a group in mar- 
 ble, by Michael Angelo. The Virgin looks like a young 
 girl about fifteen. It is assumed in Catholic legend that 
 she never grew old, but always continued young and beau- 
 tiful. Perhaps it is in imitation of her that some of our 
 American ladies never get beyond " a certain age." There 
 are rnamy monuments here to persons of great note. The 
 splendid monument to Clement XIII., regarded as the finest
 
 502 DESCENT INTO THE CRYPT OF ST. PETER'S. 
 
 in the church, by Canova, is a splendid affair in marble. 
 The Pope is represented as praying: the Genius of Death, 
 with his torch reversed, sits on one side; on the other, is the 
 figure of Keligion holding the cross. The lions at the an- 
 gles are most beautiful creations. Gregory Nazianzen is 
 buried in this church. The three " Pretenders," the last of 
 the royal house of the Stuarts, have a beautiful monument 
 here by Canova. They deserve it as well as any, having 
 lost the throne of Great Britain for Catholicism. It is said 
 the expense of this monument was defrayed by those who 
 profited by the downfall of the Stuarts the house of Han- 
 over. The monuments to the Popes are generally at the 
 expense of the cardinals created during their reign. In 
 one of the chapels is a column, said to have been brought 
 from the Temple of Jerusalem, and to be that on which 
 Christ leaned when disputing with the Doctors. There is 
 but one oil painting in St. Peter's the "Fall of Simon 
 Magus" the rest are all mosaics and frescoes. The length 
 of St. Peter's in the interior is six hundred and thirteen 
 feet. The length of the transepts across the church is four 
 hundred and forty-six feet. 
 
 To-day, February llth, we descended into the crypt, or 
 subterraneous grotto, underneath St. Peter's Church. The 
 priest took a torch, and opening a door in one of the colos- 
 sal columns, preceded us down a winding marble staircase. 
 We passed through numerous and narrow corridors, on 
 each side of which were numerous and very ancient bas 
 reliefs in marble some mosaics and paintings by distin- 
 guished masters. Every thing here was marble and splen- 
 dor, underneath as above. Occasionally we stopped before 
 little chapels to some saint, in which lamps were burning, 
 shedding a dim light through the tomb-like darkness rest- 
 ing on the dwellings of the dead. We were shown the 
 shrine in which rest the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul. 
 They rest side by side immediately under the great dome,
 
 DESCENT INTO THE CRYPT OF ST. PETER'S. 503 
 
 Protestants ridicule relics, but a uniform tradition of 
 fifteen hundred years in duration is at least respectable. 
 Advancing, the apartments grew lower; the air much 
 more suffocating; every thing plainer and more ancient- 
 looking; the pavement ceased to be of marble, and looked 
 more antique and Roman, and some of the low vaults and 
 arches required stooping. This is the Grotte Vecchie, the 
 crypt of the ancient Basilica, or church erected here by 
 Constantine more than fifteen hundred and fifty years ago, 
 which stood for more than one thousand years, when the 
 present church was begun. In the times of the emperors 
 Nero's Circus stood here. The bodies of St. Peter and 
 St. Paul were removed to this crypt from the catacombs of 
 St. Calisto in the fourth century. We saw around us, in 
 the dim, dull light, graves in grandeur of Popes and 
 German emperors of ages gone. Some in large and splen- 
 did or Oriental sarcophagi. Some of the stone coffins are 
 very large and plain; others have sculptured on the lid the 
 marble effigy of the sleeper beneath. We saw the urns of 
 the Stuart family. The inscriptions on them call them 
 James III., Charles III., and Henry IX., Kings of England, 
 France, Ireland, etc. The Pretender and his brothers, the 
 last of whom died Cardinal York, expelled from England 
 for being Catholics, justly sleep here in the proudest fane 
 of the Catholic world having lost a kingdom and dynasty 
 for that religion. The bodies of many Popes, among them 
 that of the wickedest of men, Alexander VI., rest here. 
 There are around numerous sacred places stones inclosed 
 in iron gratings, which on sundry occasions have asserted 
 miraculous powers by spouting blood; sacred relics; an- 
 tique crosses, old and almost extinct frescoes of the Virgin, 
 one thousand years old, that look at you with ghostly, 
 fading loveliness, and that have miracle-working powers. 
 The numerous corridors and chapels have iron doors, which 
 the monk opened with his keys. You feel almost, indeed,
 
 504 MICHAEL ANGELO. 
 
 when down there, as if it were a holy shrine. What a 
 compensation in such a church having been built on the 
 spot where stood Nero's Circus. Coming up into the mag- 
 nificent sunlit church above, what a change! No women 
 are allowed to go down into the crypt except after comply- 
 ing with certain prerequisitions, stating their object ie 
 devotional. 
 
 We also revisited the Sistine Chapel, and gazed long at 
 the powerful fresco of the Last Judgment, sixty feet long 
 by thirty in breadth, and three hundred and thirty-six years 
 old. It is much defaced by neglect. It is an aspect of the 
 Judgment in which there is little mercy and much ven- 
 geance. Yet it is most grand, notwithstanding the severe 
 censure it has received. Faces of more unmitigated horror, 
 agony, and despair, were never depicted. Serpents twist 
 and twine in relentless folds about the wicked. Some sit in 
 unimaginable despair and silent endurance. The great 
 Judge of all is represented in an attitude of decisive, mighty 
 power, from which there is no appeal, and whose dictates 
 are eternal. You would expect to be damned as you look 
 at it. It is a dreadful subject in the hands of a master. 
 Michael Angelo was a man of fierce power. No Pope 
 could rule him, but he ruled them. One of them thought 
 the figures in the Last Judgment were too nude, and was 
 advised to make Michael Angelo drape them. Michael 
 Angelo replied, " Let the Pope go on and reform the world, 
 and then the figures will reform themselves." But by sug- 
 gestion of one of the fastidious cardinals, an eminent 
 painter was employed to drape some of the figures. Upon 
 which, Michael Angelo introduced the cardinal's likeness 
 into the painting, in the hottest part of hell, encircled with 
 serpents. On the cardinal's complaining to the Pope, 
 Michael Angelo said " the Pope could not deliver him, for 
 he had put him in hell, over which the Pope had no 
 power." It has been suffered to remain, and is the figure
 
 THB CARNIVAL. 505 
 
 in the right and lower corner of the picture. One of the 
 Popes paid Michael Angelo an honor which in form is with- 
 out parallel, in visiting him at his house, attended by the 
 cardinals. The Pope of course never visits any but crowned 
 heads. On the roof of the chapel, and around the frieze, 
 are frescoes also by Michael Angelo; they represent the 
 Creation, the Eternal Father calling the world out of 
 chaos, Paradise, the Expulsion of Adam and Eve, Sibyls, 
 Prophets and Apostles. These are wondrous works also, 
 and, as paintings, are regarded as superior to the "Last 
 Judgment." 
 
 The Carnival goes on, notwithstanding the rainy weather. 
 You see a narrow but splendid street, lined on each side 
 with noble houses and palaces, from every window of which 
 are suspended balconies, from which hang curtains, carpets, 
 or tapestry, red, white, and gilt materials, from the front of 
 each, along the streets. In the balconies, and on all the 
 superstructures, stalls, and galleries along the streets, are 
 ladies, girls, women gentlemen, boys, men, dressed in red 
 and white, masked and unmasked : some with loose, white 
 linen wrappers on, and painted hoods all in fun, frolic, 
 immense enjoyment all in high blood, health, and merri- 
 ment all classes, from the highest to the lowest, meeting 
 on the common ground of enjoyment. They have numer- 
 ous small, light missives, bouquets, flowers, small colored 
 comfits, of which there is a great manufacture for this occa- 
 sion also small pieces of paper; these they have in a 
 basket by their side, and shower down on the people below, 
 who, as well as the passers in carriages, attack them in re- 
 turn. Everybody knows everybody, and everybody pelts 
 everybody. The ends of the streets terminating in the 
 Corso look like flower gardens, on account of the great 
 quantity of bouquets in baskets for sale. Carriages continu- 
 ally pass along the streets, filled with maskers in all man- 
 ner of ugliness, in fantastic dresses, between whom and 
 
 2s
 
 506 ST. ONOFRIO. 
 
 those on the balconies wages a war of fun, frolic, and 
 frivolity. About half-past four o'clock a procession of 
 splendid, red, gilt, and crimson carriages of the cardinals, 
 preceded by a band of musicians, and attended by the 
 Pope's guard of young nobles, on horseback, passed 
 through the Corso. The first carriage contained the Senator 
 of Rome, a person appointed to hold office during a term 
 of six years. A company of dragoons, in splendid uniform, 
 also rode by. The street was thus cleared ; the race horses 
 were then brought out in an enclosure near the Egyptian 
 obelisk, in the Piazza del Popolo; the rope between them 
 and the Corso \vas then dropped, a cannon fired, the crowd 
 shouted, and as the horses carried almost a tinner's shop of 
 clappers, rappers, flippers, stickers, and prickers on their 
 backs, it may presumed they burst forward. I witnessed 
 the race this evening from the top of the Pincian Hill. 
 Unfortunately, the other evening, a man was killed by one 
 of the horses, when springing forward. The whole scene is 
 one of innocent and joyous mirth. The police and soldiery 
 are stationed all along the streets, and instantly arrest or 
 fine those who throw larger bouquets or missives than those 
 of the legal allowance. Some Americans of our acquaint- 
 ance were fined twenty-five dollars for being too strongly 
 and h<eavily funny. 
 
 To-day we visited the church of St. Onofrio, with its con- 
 vent, on the summit of the Janiculum Hill. The way is 
 along a dull, narrow, dirty, lonesome-looking street, extend- 
 ing up the hill. The view over all parts of the city is very 
 good the Castle of St. Angelo, once the Mausoleum of the 
 Emperor Hadrian the orange groves around on the near 
 hills the Tiber and the valley below, and in the distance 
 the Sabine hills covered with snow. We entered the damp, 
 sepulchral-like lonely church, all paved with tomb-slabs. 
 We stood by the side of the splendid new monument, where 
 repose the bones of Torquato Tasso, the great Italian poet.
 
 ST. ONOFBIO. 507 
 
 In the gardens around here he walked and peacefully passed 
 away the latter years of his life he who, for loving a prin- 
 cess, was thrust, as deranged, into the dungeons of Ferrara. 
 
 " I was indeed delirious in my heart 
 To lift my love so lofty as tbou art ; 
 But thou, when all that birth and beauty throws 
 Of magic 'round thee is extinct, shalt have 
 One half the laurel that o'ershades my grave ! 
 Yes, Leonora, it shall be our fate 
 To be entwined forever but too late !" BTBOH. 
 
 In a room, kept almost in a sacred manner, we saw a cast 
 in wax of his head; his princely brow bears the stamp of 
 genius. It was taken just after his death. We also saw 
 his belt, and his inkstand, and his crucifix. This is the cell 
 in which he lived and died. He died in 1595, at the age of 
 fifty-one. The monks afforded him an asylum here. We 
 passed into the convent, up the staircase, and along the 
 brick- paved corridors, with the cells of the brothers on each 
 aide. They live and dress very plainly, watch each other, 
 pray to the Virgin, work, sing doleful chants, say Mass, lead 
 a joyless, but calm, gentle; useless sort of life, and then are 
 buried in the vaults of the church, and their chance of sal- 
 vation is the greater the nearer they can get to the High 
 Altar. There are some frescoes here by Domenichino. 
 Cardinal Mezzofanti, the great master of languages, who 
 probably knew more languages than any one man who ever 
 lived, rests here. The inhabitants of this side of the Tiber 
 claim to be the only direct descendants of the ancient 
 Romans, though much the larger part of the city is on the 
 other side. They refuse to intermarry with any others than 
 those living on their side. On this side of the river I saw 
 the handsomest lady I have yet seen in Europe. She had 
 that modest, full, reserved kind of beauty one sometimes 
 sees the dark, clear eye, the elevated expression, the soft, 
 brunette complexion, and then that covering of soul, that
 
 508 SANTA MARIA DEGU ANGELI. 
 
 nameless, natural grace and elegance which constitute the 
 highest charm of female loveliness. I saw her but a few 
 moments shall never see her again but she left the im- 
 pression of a Koman lady, an unopened volume of soft and 
 bright thoughts. 
 
 To-day, Friday, February 12th, there is no Carnival. 
 The day is very lovely and clear after the late rains. We 
 visited, to-day (the " we." at present, consists of myself and 
 two traveling friends, one a gentleman from England, the 
 other from New York), the great church of Santa Maria 
 degli Angeli. It is a splendid church in the interior, being 
 in the form of a Greek cross, and was constructed by 
 Michael Angelo, out of parts of the Baths of Diocletian. 
 The exterior looks like extensive ruins of rough Roman 
 brick-work. Within, the church has a beautiful and smooth 
 marble floor, numerous and excellent paintings, some fine 
 statues, and it has also a number of ancient Egyptian 
 columns of granite, which supported the grand hall of the 
 Baths of Diocletian, now converted into this church. The 
 houses of the palace, with the baths, are stated to have been, 
 in the reign of Diocletian, a mile in circuit, and to have 
 employed the labor of forty thousand Christians, who, as 
 slaves, were compelled to labor in their erection, and it is 
 said, though perhaps on insufficient authority, that some of 
 the bricks have been found with the mark of the cross on 
 them. The introduction of the cross, however, as a symbol 
 of Christian worship, is thought to have occurred much 
 later. Eight columns in this church are of the ancient edi- 
 fice. They are of one piece are forty-five feet high, and 
 sixteen in circumference. It was in the reign of Diocletian 
 that the last and most dreadful of all the ten general perse- 
 cutions of the Christians occurred. He afterwards resigned 
 the empire, which he had governed with great wisdom, and 
 died in honorable obscurity. The buildings out of which 
 this church was constructed, are sixteen hundred and fifty
 
 OTUDIO OF CRAWFOBD. 509 
 
 jears old. Adjoining the church is the very extensive 
 Carthusian convent. One of the monks, in a white, blanket- 
 looking cloak, and small cap, which he took off whenever 
 he came to an image of the Virgin, or an altar, led us 
 around the large cloisters, which are covered arcades, sup- 
 ported by carvefl pillars, enclosing the gardens of the con- 
 vent. The cloisters being secluded on all sides, except 
 toward the gardens, afford an admirable place for the monks 
 to walk in during rainy weather, and meditate and study 
 their breviary. In the centre of the garden grow around 
 a fountain four very large cypress trees, planted by 
 Michael Angelo, three hundred and forty years old. Orange 
 trees, bending beneath their yellow, golden fruit, are all 
 around ; the birds sing on the branches, and the fresh and 
 pleasant sunlight casts a soft splendor on the ruins as we 
 wander through them. Near this church is the studio of 
 the late lamented American sculptor, Crawford, recently 
 dead. We entered it and saw numerous .casts, and some 
 statues, reminding us very much of our own country and 
 its statesmen. There are still some men at work in his 
 studio, all Italians, finishing the works to which the chisel 
 of Crawford will never be applied again. We saw vari- 
 ous models or casts in plaster the cast or model being 
 first made, and the sculptor-working at the marble with the 
 cast before him. We saw " Adam and Eve," a most beauti- 
 ful finished group in marble, a little boy and girl intently 
 examining a bird's nest. This seemed to me very beautiful, 
 probably as beautiful as any modern statuary I have seen. 
 There is also an extensive cast of an allegoric representa- 
 tion of the progress of civilization in our country, a noble 
 statue of Beethoven, and many others. From this, our walk 
 lay toward the Porta San Lorenzo, through long lanes, on 
 each side of which are high walls enclosing gardens and des- 
 olate villas over ruins this part of the city being scarcely 
 inhabited at all. Near the Porta, or gate, are vast ruins 
 
 2s2
 
 510 TEMPLE OF MINERVA MEDICA. 
 
 of aqueducts on high, brick arches. The gate of the city 
 walls is a low arch, built of very large stones. Above it are 
 Latin inscriptions of the fourth or fifth century. The gate 
 has two old towers. The view from this out into the Cam- 
 pagna, once so flourishing with villas, and so populous and 
 fertile, shows a vast, undulating, ruinous waste, apparently 
 yet fertile, but in ruins only, and earth-weary and fallen. 
 The old, thick, patched-up city walls, with towers of square 
 brick- work at short distances, the upper parts of both walls 
 and towers falling into ruins, the work, it is said, of Stilicho, 
 one of the able generals of Justinian, in the fifth century, 
 when the might of empire was departing from Rome when 
 she began to feel the weakness of old age when the north- 
 
 o o 
 
 em hordes, like a dark cloud, were preparing desolation for 
 her ancient grandeur when the night of the middle ages 
 and of superstition was coming on. This was after Con- 
 stantino had removed the seat of empire to Constantinople. 
 This wall is seen winding around the vast open space, where 
 was once a populous city, but where are now only ruins, 
 vacant villas, and dark avenues of orange trees, leading, 
 perhaps, to some old chapel or deserted temple. Passing 
 along the Via San Bibiana, we came to a gateway leading 
 into a garden, in which are strewn numerous ruins of ruins, 
 but in the centre of which rises, covered almost with ivy, 
 mantling the scars and seams of ruin, and with evergreen 
 trees, one of the most picturesque ruins of Rome the 
 Temple of Minerva Medica about sixteen hundred years 
 old. The thick brick walls, ten sided, surround a circular 
 space and support a dome, much of the latter being fallen 
 in, and the walls of the sides being crushed and time-rent. 
 It was, in old days, lined with marble and adorned with 
 statues and altars. Few ruins seemed to me more impres- 
 sive than this ivy-grown desolation. The malaria is rapidly 
 depopulating this part of the city, and marching on the 
 other parts also, with a silent step, but more fatal and resist-
 
 TUB CARNIVAL. 511 
 
 less than those of the Goths and Vandals, and from the ruin 
 effected by it there is no resurrection. Returning by the 
 ruins of the Trophies of Marius, and other vast remains of 
 Roman aqueducts, lofty, inspiring, and sublime in the gray 
 age of ruin, we soon reached the modern city. 
 
 To-day, Saturday, February 13th, has been one of the 
 soft, pleasant, sunny, and rather relaxing days of Rome. 
 The Carnival, after the temporary cessation of yesterday, 
 was resumed this afternoon with great spirit. The military 
 were everywhere, to preserve order dragoons, with drawn 
 swords, being stationed in the middle of every street, and 
 at short distances from each other. The carriages were 
 numberless, insomuch they were ordered by the police to 
 file up the Via Condotti to the Piazza di Spagna, there turn 
 and come down again to the Corso, thus much lengthening 
 the distance and time. Masking was not allowed to day, 
 there being but two days this year on which it is permitted, 
 Thursday and next Tuesday. Most persons, however, wear 
 a thin gauze over their faces, to protect them from the com- 
 fits, which were constantly thrown in handfuls on them. 
 Some of the comfits are made of small seeds or berries 
 rolled in lime or flour, and are sold at three baiocchi (about 
 a cent) per pound. Small bouquets, which were very 
 numerous, are sold at a paul (about ten cents) each. The 
 carriages were full of Italians of all classes; the rather pen- 
 sive, subdued, confiding, and earnest beauty of the higher 
 ranks was pelted as well as the common classes, and the 
 reward was a smile or a bouquet thrown. A stream of car- 
 riages passed up one side of the street, another down, the 
 inmates of which pelted each other, and both were pelted 
 from the windows and balconies above. All was democracy, 
 enjoyment, and an irrepressible outburst of pent-up hilarity. 
 The Carnival is peculiarly Italian, and has never suc- 
 ceeded in any other country. The appearance of the Corso, 
 its gay hangings of red, white, and gilt, the numerous car-
 
 512 CATACOMBS. 
 
 riages with the strange, flaunting dresses, tne gay, pretty- 
 girls, all aspiring to every shape, form, and color of oddity, 
 the bouquet sellers, vendors of chairs or lodges to sit or stand, 
 the horses flying with the rattling tin clappers to urge them 
 on all seemed to make old Home glad in her gray age, and 
 she seemed to have put on the habiliments of youth and 
 former years, and to have forgotten the stern, mouldering 
 ruins of her bosom, and to have dressed herself in tinsel for 
 a brief gladness. They show the same abandon their 
 ancestors did when the attraction was the exposing of the 
 Christians to the wild beasts in the Coliseum. 
 
 To-day I rode out on the Campagna, passing out by the 
 Porta Sebastiana, near which, on the side of the walls next 
 to the city, is the very ancient arch of Drusus the founda- 
 tion of it being of large blocks of volcanic rock the road 
 passes under it, and there is the usual garniture of green 
 vines and ivy around it. Passing the gate, the view of the 
 battlemented and macchiolated walls of brick and stone, 
 with the mouldering buttresses, is very striking. On the 
 Via Appia you are surrounded with relicts and remnants 
 of ruins; brick aqueducts for miles stretch over the Cam- 
 pagna, falling and crumbling at various places ; other re- 
 mains attest the former existence of great circuses ; other 
 round brick walls are called the tombs of various emperors, 
 defying the crumbling hand of time the now yellow, thick 
 ivy waves like long, yellow hair over the ruins, as the 
 breeze comes by, seeming to threaten the evanescent 
 mortals that come to inspect such gigantic ruins. One such 
 pile of picturesque ruin, with the thick ivy around it, 
 rattling over the cold bricks like an aged monster shaking 
 his locks, seemed to me one of the most singular and ex- 
 pressive ruins in this ruin land. It is near the Catacombs 
 of St. Calisto. We again entered, further on, the Cata- 
 combs of St. Sebastian, getting a monk, the ugliest of 
 mortals, to conduct us through the grim retreats of death.
 
 TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA. 518 
 
 Descending many steps, we came to the long, winding pas- 
 sages, through which no stranger could ever find his way 
 or return. They extend to the Mediterranean, sixteen miles. 
 They are the most fearful places imaginable. At first we 
 heard the rumbling of carriages on the Via Appia, just 
 over head a thin layer of volcanic rock between this 
 died away as we descended lower and lower, for the Cata- 
 combs are in some places four stories deep. The church 
 itself is built directly over them. We came to apartments 
 where they sang and prayed two thousand years ago, where 
 they brought the bodies of martyrs and interred them in 
 niches in the sides of the halls and passages, walling them 
 up and cementing the lids. They had nothing here but 
 cold walls, dens nothing but God, religion, and a hope of 
 resurrection. After being in Catacombs under Catacombs 
 deeper than we went before, we were quite glad to reascend 
 to the light of day from these dreary sepulchres. The 
 whole Appian Way was full, above and below ground, of 
 tombs below, the humble ones of the Christians above, 
 those of the proud Romans. The most remarkable tomb 
 of all antiquity, is that of Cecilia Metella, a little further 
 on, now surmounted by feudal battlements and additions of 
 the warlike middle ages, when it was converted into an 
 impregnable fortress. About it are many smaller buildings 
 of the middle ages, and opposite are the remains of an old 
 Gothic church, the only one of that style I have seen in 
 Rome. It resembles some of the old churches in England, 
 but is an utter ruin. The tomb is circular, about seventy 
 feet across, and the inscription on a marble tablet, next to 
 the Via Appia, is affectingly simple, " To Cecilia, daughter 
 of Qu. Creticus, wife of Metellus Crassus." 
 
 " Metella died 
 
 The wealthiest Roman's wife behold his love or pride!" 
 ,, v v ' *- ^ f *8 
 
 Her ashes have long since gone into common dust, and her 
 33
 
 514 OBSEQUIES OF A CARDINAL. 
 
 sarcophagus (supposed to be the one in the Farnese Palace) 
 is problematical ; her tomb has been made a fortress of, and 
 now frowns over that sea of ruins, the Campagna. Yet it 
 is beautiful and symmetrical in its strength, and a soft 
 influence of tenderness and affection seems to linger over 
 the place after all the tumults of war and the conflicts of 
 nineteen centuries. 
 
 To-day, Monday, February 15th, I attended the funeral 
 obsequies of a cardinal, who died on Friday. The celebra- 
 tion took place in the church of San Marcello, where the 
 family of the deceased had a vault. The noble church was, 
 in the interior, draped with splendid black velvet, edged 
 and trimmed and barred with gilt and gold. A monk was 
 mumbling some ceremonies in each chapel as I entered. In 
 the middle of the aisle was a splendid hearse, covered with 
 a gorgeous pall of velvet, and around it were several 
 hundred wax candles burning. The Pope being expected, 
 though he did not come on account of the somewhat 
 unpleasant weather, a splendid canopy, under which was a 
 throne, was prepared for him; his grandly attired Swiss 
 Guard were also present. The cardinals came in one by 
 one, an attendant bearing their long trails. Each one had 
 on a small, circular, red cap. They approached the b;er 
 a priest handed to each a censer, kissing the hand of each 
 the cardinal swung the censer several times toward the bier, 
 then handed the censer to the attendant, who kissed his 
 hand again on receiving it. Another priest held a large 
 book before him, in which he read aloud a few words, then 
 he passed to his seat in the other part of the church. Each 
 cardinal having performed this process, the chanting began 
 a wild and rather painful, and occasionally musical strain 
 after which the interment took place. The cardinals are 
 nearly all old men, apparently well fed and hearty. It is 
 said in Rome they always die by threes. Two others are, 
 therefore, expected to die soon. There are six cardinals of
 
 STUDIOS. 615 
 
 the order of bishops, forty -six of the order of priests, and 
 tv/elve of the order of deacons. They are princes of the 
 church the number is limited to seventy the Pope fills 
 up all vacancies that occur. The cardinals constitute the 
 Sacred College who elect the Pope they are shut up till 
 they agree the voting is secret. The result is determined 
 by two thirds of a majority, subject to a privilege possessed 
 by Austria, France, and Spain, to impose a veto each, on 
 one candidate. The Pope is required to be a cardinal, and 
 an Italian by birth. The income of the Papal States ia 
 about twelve million dollars the expenses more than thir- 
 teen million. The Pope's private expenditure is about 
 sixty thousand dollars. There are said to be, at present, 
 about two thousand Englishmen and Americans in Rome 
 the former being about four fifths of that number. The 
 expenses of these average about five dollars per day, and 
 perhaps ten dollars would be a fair average, as there are 
 many of the English nobility who keep up extensive, and 
 consequently expensive establishments. The foreigners 
 mainly sustain the hotels, shops, artists, workers in mosaics, 
 sellers of paintings new and old, etc. 
 
 To-day we visited some of the artists' studios principally 
 Americans. Some of these, without doubt, pursue a very 
 hiyh style of art, for we found them on the fifth story. In 
 Mr. Chapman's studio, we saw a most beautiful, fresh, and 
 inspiring work, the " Four Seasons." In T. Buchanan 
 Read's studio, we saw several very beautiful works one a 
 kind of "Nymph of a Waterfall," in which there is both 
 poetry and her sister art, painting, blended. The manner 
 in which the vapory particles become drapery around the 
 central female figure is exquisite in idea and admirable in 
 execution. In Mr. Bartholomew's studio he is an Ameri- 
 can sculptor we saw a statue which is certainly a grand 
 and splendid work Eve in her beautiful sorrow certainly 
 a statue of most superior excellence. Mr. B. is a pale,
 
 516 ROME. 
 
 thoughtful-looking, genius-gifted man. In the studio of 
 Mr. Gibson, an English sculptor, we saw a beautiful statue 
 of Venus, painted a flesh color. The ancient Greeks 
 painted some of their marble statues the color of life, but 
 the practice is very rare in modern art. The combination 
 of the two arts seems an improvement, and this beautiful 
 statue seems a thing to love and live for. 
 
 But to-day, February 16th, was the last and greatest day 
 of the Carnival. In the morning I visited the church, 
 Santi Maria della Pace, where is one of Raphael's celebrated 
 paintings the " Four Sibyls." It is an interesting work, 
 but probably not much of Raphael remains after some three 
 hundred years, and occasional retouching by other artists. 
 Michael Angelo said of it, that each head was worth one 
 hundred kingly crowns. The faces have an extraordinary 
 depth of meaning in them. On a chapel in this church is 
 written, that for every Mass said in that chapel, one soul is 
 released from purgatory. In a large and splendid church 
 on the Via Bipetta, near the Tiber, I saw Raphael's 
 " Isaiah," an expressive and grand face. There are some 
 other very fine paintings here, and some statuary. The 
 Tiber along this part of the city looks most old and desolate, 
 and the people very degraded and miserable 4 . One of the 
 streets I entered here is called the " Via di Inferno " the 
 " Street of Hell." Not far from this I saw the remains of 
 the Mausoleum, where the Emperor Augustus Caesar was 
 buried, and many of his family. The remains consist of 
 parts of the reticulated walls, being small, square stones, set 
 upright in one corner in the shape of a diamond, or ex- 
 tended net. It is surroun'ded by mean houses and thor 
 oughly filthy streets, obnoxious to every sense, and is now 
 used as a cock-pit. Such is the grave of Augustus, and 
 such is the end of the great. Though all the streets of 
 Home are well paved with hard lava, or volcanic blocks of 
 -etone, and the revenues of the city amount to nearly a mil-
 
 THE CARNIVAL. 517 
 
 lion of dollars per annum, yet the government seizes on 
 the greater part of this sum. leaving but little to be applied 
 for cleansing purposes. The filth, therefore, of Rome is 
 fearful. 
 
 At two o'clock the Carnival was resumed, and the old 
 city seemed glad and happy as in its youth of two thousand 
 years ago. The bright sun of Italy cast its gladness from 
 the sky. The procession of carriages began to move up 
 and down the Corso, the Via Condotti, the Piazza di Spagna, 
 filled with gay masqueraders, throwing and receiving 
 bouquets, pelted from windows and balconies, pelting in 
 return, receiving showers like snow of confetti, and all in a 
 state of magnificent gayety. All kinds of masks were in 
 motion, though it is strictly forbidden to caricature either 
 priests or soldiers the two principal elements of Rome 
 yet even these were sometimes slightly " taken off" as far 
 as they dared; but Englishmen, Jews, Turks, demons, old 
 women, were all represented in long groups of masquera- 
 ders in most outre costume. The great press and crowd of 
 two hundred thousand people on the Corso, defied descrip- 
 tion. A group might be found in some places listening to 
 an improvised recitation of some of the rythmical and 
 musical Italian poetry with singular and impassioned ges- 
 tures. There were others from the depths of the Sabine 
 Mountains, from lone deserts of the Campagna, historic- 
 looking creatures, dwelling where nations had perished 
 beings whose ancestry antedated Rome all meeting and 
 mingling together. Men apparelled in women's clothing, 
 or theatrical dresses, in most rich and gaudy colors all 
 laughing, all enjoying. At half-past five o'clock the street 
 was cleared by the dragoons, and the usual horse race took 
 place some seven or eight horses running with the tin 
 apparatus at their backs. This being over, the carriages 
 returned to the Corso, and the scenes continued. But when 
 the beautiful hues of an Italian sunset, in the midst of which 
 
 2T
 
 518 THE CARNIVAL. 
 
 appeared the virgin moon, had given place to dusk, on a 
 sudden the whole length of the Corso, all the windows, 
 balconies, and even the roofs of the tall palaces, glowed with 
 a hundred thousand lights, the passers in the carriages the 
 one stream advancing up, the other returning all holding 
 small candles, or tapers, made for this purpose, of waxed 
 candlewick, and sold in long rolls each one having pro- 
 vided himself with a supply. The scene then would have 
 beggared description, but it soon beggared imagination. 
 They all began to endeavor to extinguish each other's lights 
 and preserve their own, throwing bouquets on them, or 
 handsful of comfits ; and those on the balconies had long 
 poles, to which were attached handkerchiefs, with which 
 they put out the lights of those below them, while at the 
 same time their own were perhaps put out by a similar 
 means by those above them. The lights were relit imme- 
 diately, and thus the good-humored, laughing war continued 
 for two hours. The beautiful Italian girls in the excite- 
 ment and pleasure, their fresh complexions and black eyes, 
 all showed to great advantage in the soft and varied light. 
 Each exclaimed as he put out the light of any one, " Senza 
 moccolo!" "Without a light!" and while putting out the 
 light of one, his own was sure to be extinguished by an- 
 other. This is called putting out the Carnival, and such a 
 scene of revelry and noise and vast confusion, crowding, 
 laughter, brilliant gayety, madness, wild excess, and joyous 
 disorder is perhaps nowhere paralleled, except here. But 
 about eight o'clock it was all over. The two hundred 
 thousand people on the Corso were all gone, the lights all 
 put out, the crushed, flower-strewn pavement was untrod- 
 den, the Carnival was done, a gloom and gravity came upon 
 every brow, and Rome assumed the silence, the stateliness 
 and majesty that became such a sepulchre of the " things 
 that were."
 
 ASH WEDNESDAY. 519 
 
 To-day, February 17th, is Ash Wednesday, and now 
 begin the forty days of Lent, or fasting, and repentance 
 succeeds the diversions of the Carnival. The ceremony of 
 the Pope blessing the ashes took place in the Sistine 
 Chapel. A dress coat is an absolute prerequisite for admis- 
 sion. There was a crowd assembled, as usual, of soldiers 
 and ecclesiastics Englishmen and Americans drawn to- 
 gether by curiosity, or devotion many ladies also; but 
 these are not allowed to be near the principal ceremonies, as 
 a punishment for the sin committed some time ago in the 
 garden of Eden by grandmother Eve. The Pope came in 
 wearing, as usual, the triple crown, or tiara, denoting the 
 union of the imperial, royal, and spiritual power; there 
 was the usual bowing and kneeling, and High Mass went 
 on; there was appropriate music, and the Pope read in a 
 very audible manner from a large book, in Latin, which was 
 held before him, others holding lighted candles, which are 
 always important parts in the Romish service. The Pope 
 then took his seat on a throne underneath a canopy ; the 
 cardinals one by one advanced aud knelt before him. The 
 Pope took some ashes in his fingers, placed his right hand 
 on their heads, and then sprinkled ashes very slightly, say- 
 ing, in Latin, something like the following: "These are 
 ashes, thou art ashes, and remember that thou wilt return 
 to ashes." Each then arose, kissed the Pope's hand or robe 
 with great unction, then bowed and gave place to others. 
 The scene was imposing ; the rich dresses of the cardinals, 
 however, indicated any thing but the humility the ceremony 
 is intended to remind them of. The gorgeous decorations 
 of the ceilings and sides and ends of the chapel, by the 
 frescoes of Michael Angelo the antiquated and venerable 
 ceremony, that numbers its age by a thousand years all 
 ought to have kept certain Americans quiet, who, young 
 and ignorant, thought proper to ridicule and sneer at the 
 ceremonies; whereas, had they been brought up as these
 
 520 LAST VISIT TO THE VATICAN. 
 
 people have been, they would probably believe in them as 
 strongly. I know nothing more contemptible than an 
 ignorant contempt of religious services that do not happen 
 to chime with those of our own parish bell. 
 
 I also re-entered the Vatican, and strolled through its 
 stately and grand resurrection of old Greek and Roman 
 genius; looked at the statues of the Roman, and Greek, 
 and Egyptian gods where the art of the sculptor appears 
 greater than his religion; looked at the antique statues of 
 Cicero, Demosthenes, Apollo; gazed at the mighty and awful 
 agony in marble of the Laocoon ; saw the historical bas 
 reliefs; the marble and granite pictured columns of old; the 
 splendid porphyry baths and storied sarcophagi that had 
 held emperors' dust for many ages ; the sepulchral inscrip- 
 tions; the animals, half-alive, though in stone and all this 
 for the last time. You have been there with friends gentle 
 and kind ; you have seen antiquity face to face in these old 
 works; and you form an attachment to them and leave 
 them with regret. The Laocoon and the Apollo Belvidere 
 become things that you love. For, however much you may 
 be disposed to criticize at first, your mind will always settle 
 down and remember longest those works which long ages 
 have concurred in pronouncing the best. This is by far 
 the most splendid collection in the world. But kings, em- 
 perors, and artists are all gone into dust long ago; even the 
 names and titles are unknown of those whose works remain 
 to instruct, and edify, and warn, in these splendid and glo- 
 rious halls. I also went into the Gallery of Paintings again, 
 and stood before that great painting the highest triumph 
 of art the " Transfiguration," by Raphael. The paintings 
 here are all by the first masters; but this one is superla- 
 tive. Each face is the volume of a life. The Saviour's 
 face is divinely lofty and humanly gentle. Sinless, holy, 
 yet condescending, compassionate, attractive, majestic, sub- 
 lime. The maniac seerns to shudder like a demon coming
 
 THE CHURCH OF ST. AGNESE. 521 
 
 into the presence of God; the disciples are abashed and 
 baffled, and can do nothing but point to the Mount where 
 Jesus has gone. The father confides and wills not to des- 
 pair yet ; the mother beseeches with maternal agony ; the 
 sister a beautiful figure, with sisterly grace, deep affection, 
 and profound interest. It is heaven and hell all the life, 
 and action, and feeling of domestic human life. But he 
 came down and said, " O faithless and perverse generation, 
 how long shall I be with you and suffer you 1" as if the 
 descent from the beatified transfiguration to earth was pain- 
 ful. But compassion prevailed. "Bring him hither to 
 me 1" It was done, and the maniac was healed. 
 
 To-day, February 18th, we visited the Church of St. 
 Agnese. It is outside the walls of the city more than a 
 mile. We went out by the Porta Pia. This church is said 
 to have been built by Constantino. St. Agnese was a 
 Christian maiden, converted in the first or second century. 
 She was of humble rank but of extraordinary beauty. She 
 was seen at her humble occupation of spinning by the em- 
 peror's son, whose advances she repelled, saying she was 
 the bride of the Church. Being thus discovered to be a 
 Christian, she was martyred on the Piazza Novana, in the 
 city, where another church, called by her name, stands, and 
 where she struck blind the first person who saw her after 
 her public exposure. This church, where her body was 
 found, presents a very old appearance. The floor is many 
 feet below the present surface of the ground. We descended 
 a long marble staircase, on each side of the corridor of 
 which are numerous old tomb-stones, with inscriptions in 
 Latin and Greek, taken from the adjoining cemeteries and 
 catacombs under ground. The church itself is kept very 
 clean and neat, and has some old Byzantine mosaics of 
 saints, with their fixed, staring, ghostly appearance the 
 style of the middle ages ; one of St. Agnese, is said to be 
 eleven hundred years old. Her body lies under it. There 
 
 2x2
 
 522 NEW CHURCH OF ST. PAUL. 
 
 are many lofty columns of rare marbles in this church; 
 along the nave and above there is another row supporting 
 the roof. The apparently deserted and old Church of St. 
 Constanza is near this, founded by Constantine, and where 
 portions of his family were buried. It is a circular dome 
 has within it double rows of columns surrounding a circular 
 space, and there are beautiful mosaics, very brilliant-looking, 
 but of great age, around the interior. The pavement ap- 
 pears to be the original one. From this place we went to 
 the splendid Basilica of St. Paul on the opposite side of the 
 city, a mile beyond the walls. This was also founded by 
 Constantine ; that is, the original church, a part of which 
 only remains, the rest having been consumed by fire some 
 thirty or forty years ago. It is now. however, rebuilt in a 
 most splendid and imposing style. There are four rows of 
 granite and marble columns along the nave, which is three 
 hundred and ninety-six feet long. Some of the marble 
 columns are the most rare and beautiful specimens in the 
 world. The quantity of precious stones, and especially of 
 lapis lazuli and malachite, is immense. These are presents 
 from nearly all the Catholic princes of the world, and even 
 from the Mohammedan Pacha of Egypt, who gave four 
 columns of a rare Oriental alabaster. There are mosaic 
 likenesses of all the Popes, from St. Peter down to the late 
 one, an imposing array of two hundred and forty-nine 
 heads, with the time each one held the Papacy. St. Peter 
 is stated to have been Pope twenty-five years, seven months 
 and two days. There is a magnificent assumption in this 
 long line, extending through so many ages, up to Christ. 
 Nothing that the world has ever seen can equal in mere 
 splendor the Catholic Church, with its grand claims on this 
 world and the next. In this church are some very fine 
 modern paintings one, the Stoning of St. Stephen, in which 
 St. Paul is an impressive figure, gazing thoughtfully on 
 Stephen. There are in the Tribune behind the Altar some
 
 THE MALARIA. 523 
 
 frescoes preserved from the old church. The old church 
 had no less than one hundred and thirty-eight columns, 
 most of them ancient, presenting the finest assemblage in 
 the world. In this church, previous to the burning, Chris- 
 tian worship had been celebrated uninterruptedly for fifteen 
 hundred years. There are eighty columns of granite in the 
 modern church, with capitals of white marble. The columns 
 are each a single stone. This church is near the place where 
 St. Paul was beheaded. The interior certainly presents one 
 of the most imposing sights imaginable. The four aisles of 
 lofty granite columns almost exceed in effect that produced 
 by the superior vastness of St. Peter's. The church is not 
 yet quite finished, but it has been dedicated already by the 
 present Pope. We walked around the cloisters of the Bene- 
 dictine Monastery adjoining the church. The columns sup- 
 porting the cloister roofs are truly singular, being of all 
 possible designs some having mosaics on them, some be- 
 ing twisted, some fluted, and some spiral. This building is 
 of the middle ages. The splendor of this church is, how- 
 ever, all melancholy. The mysterious malaria is most fatal 
 here in the summer, and is yearly becoming more so. The 
 monks are obliged to leave the monastery early in the sum- 
 mer. The few that remain to perform mass, or go out from 
 the city to attend to it, become pale and short-lived. The 
 deadly malaria will claim all this splendor. Of the cause 
 of the onward stride of the miasm toward the city nothing 
 is known certainly. Some see in it the fulfilling vengeance 
 of Heaven against "Mystery Babylon;" some attribute it to 
 the uncultivated state of the Campagna, which in former 
 times was under flourishing cultivation ; some, shortly and 
 succinctly, to a curse an easy way of disposing of the mat- 
 ter. There is volcanic rock, or tufa, as it is called, under- 
 lying the whole of the Campagna, and the Apennines 
 around give indications of extinct volcanoes, that once may 
 have been as active as Vesuvius. The tufa rock is eruptive
 
 524 ALARIC AND ATTILA. 
 
 matter thrown out ages ago. The silence and desolation of 
 the Campagna are dreadful. A country that is cursed 
 morally, as this is, is not unfrequently under a physical 
 curse also. Some think the innumerable battles fought 
 here leave dead, decomposing, deleterious particles, that 
 are escaping from the soil. It is strange how little is his- 
 torically known of the population of ancient Rome. There 
 are writers who estimate it at three or four, or even eight 
 millions. A judicious medium would be about two mil- 
 lions. The \\ alls are about twenty-six miles, in circuit at 
 present; and this space, and doubtless a considerable region 
 beyond the walls, was covered with houses some of them 
 very high as we find a decree was passed by one of the 
 emperors limiting the height of private edifices to seventy 
 feet. The Emperor Augustus asserted, it is said, that he 
 found Rome built of brick and left it built of marble. In 
 the decline of the empire, after the seat of government was 
 removed to Constantinople, (which was about the year 330,) 
 no sight could have been more splendid and saddening than 
 this solemn mass of venerable magnificence sinking into 
 decay. Alaric and his Gothic army ravaged Rome for six 
 days, A.D. 410, eleven hundred and sixty-three years after 
 its foundation on the Palatine Hill by Romulus; and for 
 the preceding six hundred and nineteen years, or since the 
 abortive attempt of Hannibal, no foreign enemy had dared 
 to approach it. It is said Alaric asserted he felt a preter- 
 natural impulse which impelled him to the siege and sack 
 of Rome. lie did not long survive it, however; and Attila, 
 the barbarian monarch of the Huns, was admonished of 
 this fact when he threatened the Eternal City. Besides 
 this the two apostles (St. Peter and St. Paul) appeared to 
 him on horseback, according to the legend, and warned 
 him to desist. Attila died on his nuptial night, soon after. 
 The Vandals, under Genseric, sacked the city in A. D. 455 
 and pillaged it for fourteen days and nights. Odoacer, a
 
 JOURNEY OVER THE CAMPAGNA. 525 
 
 chief of one of the barbarian nations, was the first foreigner 
 who sat down on the throne of the Caesars, and reigned 
 over a degenerate people, whose ancestors asserted a just 
 superiority to all the rest of mankind. He finally extin- 
 guished the Western Empire of the Romans, A. D. 476. 
 The abdicated mistress of the world became, however, the 
 capital of the Catholic Church. The Roman Empire com- 
 prehended, at the time of Trajan, at the beginning of the 
 second century, the fairest portion of the earth. All Asia 
 Minor, Syria, five provinces beyond the Tigris, all Egypt, 
 all the -known part of Africa, the entire shores of the 
 Mediterranean Sea, the countries now known as Germany, 
 France, Spain, Portugal, England with part of Scotland, 
 Switzerland, the southern part of Austria, the whole of 
 Greece, and the isles of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy, etc., 
 are but the disjointed members of the mighty monarchy 
 founded by Romulus and his robbers, which overshadowed 
 the world, gave to mankind the greatest men, was the 
 nucleus of the Christian religion, and by its fall seemed to 
 symbol the destruction of the whole frame of nature. 
 
 To-day, February 19th, has been, atmospherically, a 
 pleasant day, and it has been spent on classic soil. There 
 is one railway in the Papal States, from Rome to Frascati, 
 about twelve miles. It was constructed by a French com- 
 pany. Passing by the Basilica of St. John Lateran, we 
 came to the small railway station, and were soon riding in 
 a vehicle, and propelled by a power utterly unknown to the 
 Romans, over the Campagna toward the mountains. The 
 Campagna is a desert, but it produces a crop of grand ruins. 
 These wretched-looking ruins can no longer grow, except 
 when the pitying ivy embraces them; they have nothing 
 more to do with time or man, nothing but decay on the 
 cheerless bosom of the Campagna. There are unknown 
 ruins here that have survived all history to which there 
 are no names, no records, nothing but an eloquent, mourn-
 
 526 FRASCATI. 
 
 ful pile. Aqueducts, built of very large stones on lofty 
 arches, like the walls of a giant city, stretch in miles of 
 ruins. Villas of emperors here only exist in the form of 
 ivy-grown, gray walls, that can no longer decay, though 
 they once had an excess of life. Nothing can be more 
 melancholy than these shreds of so great a past. The ruins 
 of a temple erected on the place where Coriolanus met his 
 wife and mother, and to their request yielded, but said, 
 "Thou hast saved Rome, but ruined thy son!" may be 
 observed. Approaching Frascati, we came to a more hilly 
 region, fruitful with olive orchards. Leaving the railway, 
 we ascended a long hill, or mountain, to the town of Frascati, 
 founded on the site of an ancient city, which was entirely 
 destroyed in the wars of the middle ages. It is a small 
 place on the hill-side, with some remains of Roman walls, 
 and some tombs. As in Rome, the energy of the people is 
 expended in -constructing churches. Here we hired mules, 
 which are kept for travelers, and proceeded up the moun- 
 tain, the ascent being very steep, passing on our way 
 numerous and very splendid villas built on the mountain 
 side and belonging to the Roman nobility, where they resort 
 in summer, during the malaria season in Rome. They are 
 generally built so as to command most lovely views of the 
 Campagna below, are adorned with elegant terraces and 
 grounds, in which are fountains, shrubbery, etc. In one 
 of them Cardinal Boromio composed his historical annals. 
 Another was the residence of Lucien Bonaparte. In 1818, 
 when this prince's daughter was just on the point of being 
 married to a Roman prince, a descent was made by 
 brigands, to carry off' the lady, so as to require a vast ran- 
 som for her restoration ; this was fortunately prevented. 
 Other members of the family were, however, carried off' to 
 some of the hills, for whom the prince was obliged to pay 
 six thousand dollars ransom. The road by which we 
 ascended, though steep, is almost entirely enclosed by a
 
 TUSCULUM. 527 
 
 shady avenue of ancient live oaks. It passes in some 
 places over the ancient Roman road of two thousand years 
 ago. There are several large churches and convents ob- 
 served on ascending the hill, the bells of which ringing out 
 on the fresh sunny air, seem well suited to the desolate 
 repose of the scene. Approaching the summit of the hill, 
 we came upon the gloomy ruins and half-buried buildings 
 marking the site of the ancient city of Tusculum, which, 
 in ancient times, was a splendid city, to which Cicero and 
 others used to retire after their labors in the Senate or 
 Forum, and look down on the great city, the only one that 
 was ever mistress of the world. We came first to an exca- 
 vated amphitheatre of great size, built in an oval form, the 
 lower parts of the walls alone remaining. On the right of 
 this are extensive ruins, supposed to occupy the site of 
 Cicero's villa. Further on, by the ancient Roman Way, on 
 the thick blocks of which are deep ruts made by carriages 
 two thousand years ago, we came to a theatre built of 
 stones, with many of the seats yet entire. There are vari- 
 ous other nameless ruins around, which were excavated by 
 Lucien Bonaparte. A hill ascends above the theatre, from 
 which is disclosed one of the finest views in any country, 
 embracing Rome, with the giant of churches, St. Peter's, 
 rising above the sea of domes; beyond is the Mediterranean 
 Sea, shining in the sun ; the Campagna, with its ruins, is 
 below, and around are mountains and vales Rocca di Papa, 
 Monte Cava, a classic land and a classic sea, all in view. 
 Immediately about, on the hill, are half-buried fragments of 
 marble statues, columns peering out of the weight of the 
 sod of centuries. The ground is covered partly with 
 clusters of beautiful flowers growing in their life of beauty 
 over the ruins. Nothing is so desolate as desolation itself 
 gone into decay. This hill is twenty-two hundred feet 
 above the sea level. In this place is the scene of several 
 of Cicero's works. Returning, we reached the city late in
 
 528 PINCIAN HILL. 
 
 the evening. But long shall linger the memory of the 
 sunny and beautiful slopes of the hills around Tusculum 
 and the villas of Frascati. 
 
 To-day, Saturday, February 20th, I have been visiting 
 several places in Rome. Ascending the one hundred and 
 thirty -four steps from the Piazza di Spagna to the top of the 
 Pincian Hill, crowned with a stately, towered church and 
 convent, one is soon in the ground occupied by ancient 
 Rome. You are, as usual, assailed by beggars little girls 
 who affect the cheerful, insinuating manner, take your hand, 
 beseech you to give them a " mezzo baiocchi " then there 
 is the whining beggar, the one who mutely extends his 
 withered hand there is the one who holds up a child (bor- 
 rowed for the purpose, perhaps), and begs for the " bam- 
 bino." There is an old beggar, who, for many years, has 
 claimed as his kingdom a right to beg on these steps, and, 
 it is said, pays a certain sum to the government for that 
 permission. Other beggars respect his rights, and do not 
 encroach on his domains. Indeed the beggars appear to 
 parcel out the city, and each one claims certain streets as his 
 peculium. This old beggar is always cheerful ; he is called 
 the " Torso," as he is defective in his feet, and moves on his 
 hands. If you have given him once, he rarely begs from 
 you again, but takes off his hat, with " Bon giorno, signer," 
 in his best style. He rides to his station each morning on 
 a donkey, to beg. These beggars may be descendants of 
 Julius Csesar, while Cardinal Prince Borghese may be de- 
 scended from his slaves. In the course of ages one's an- 
 cestors may be princes, beggars, saints, or demons. One 
 has borrowed a mother, on whose account he begs. If you 
 look like a foreigner, you are addressed as " Monsieur," but 
 generally as "Signor," rarely in English, that language not' 
 being so well adapted to begging. It is impossible to 
 express the pathos they can throw into the word "Signor, 
 poveri," "Sir, we are poor." Descending the Pincian Hill,
 
 CHURCH OF ST. PRASSEDE. 529 
 
 you next ascend the Quirinal, then the Viminal. The lat- 
 ter hill has almost disappeared, on account of the elevation 
 of the circumjacent valley. Near this is the church of St. 
 Pudenziana, on the site of the oldest church in Rome, said 
 to huve been first founded in the year A. D. 45. As in 
 other very old churches, the floor is below the present sur- 
 face. It is a small church, with the usual very old and 
 dingy-looking pictures, and on the Tribune, or space back of 
 the Altar, esteemed the most sacred place, are those singular- 
 looking old mosaics, in gold grounds, indicative of the 
 middle, or Byzantine ages. The church occupies the site of 
 the house of Pudens, a Senator, with whom St. Paul lodged. 
 There are fourteen columns of gray marble. The bell 
 tower is of the Lombard style of architecture. The great 
 Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, or Saint Mary the 
 Greater, is on the summit of the Esquiline Hill, and is next 
 in view. It is also on a site where has beert a church for 
 sixteen hundred years. Here you see long rows of massive 
 columns, numerous frescoes and mosaics eight hundred 
 years old: relics also the identical cradle in which Jesus 
 Christ lay! You seem to be looking adown the corridors 
 of time, as you gaze on the long line of marble columns, 
 supporting a historical entablature of mosaics, and its 
 mosaic floor, compartments of figures, trodden on by the 
 feet of generations long since dust. Near this is the church 
 of St. Prassede, on the site of an Oratory erected here A. D. 
 160, to which the early Christians retired when persecuted. 
 When I entered, there were four or five hundred soldiers 
 within, attending service. It appears it is required of them 
 to attend service regularly. There are tombs here of the 
 date of 1286. St. Prassede, after whom the church was named, 
 was a daughter of Pudens, who was the first person converted 
 in Rome by St. Paul. There are mosaics here one thousand 
 years old, of eastern origin. There are sixteen columns of 
 34 2 tf
 
 530 THE MURO TURTO. 
 
 granite, and some black porphyry. Pudens is mentioned 
 by Paul in his Epistle to Timothy. 
 
 I visited also, to-day, the Villa Borghese, the entrance to 
 which is just outside the Porta del Popolo. The grounds 
 of the villa are the most extensive and beautiful I have yet 
 seen in Italy. There is perpetual summer in the long ave- 
 nues of live oaks, there are fountains springing at various 
 places, there are chapels, summer houses, antique statues, 
 remains of Roman arches, half-obliterated Roman and Greek 
 inscriptions dispersed over the grounds and gently ascend- 
 ing hills, all in the immediate site of the walls of Rome. In 
 the Casino there is a rich collection of ancient and modern 
 sculpture. The halls there are some sixteen of them are 
 most stately; the ceilings are in fresco, by great masters; 
 there are some modern statues by Bernini, of great excel- 
 lence one, a group of Apollo and Daphne, a fine work 
 the goddess becomes a tree as he seizes her ; very many 
 remains of antique sculpture some of them not very 
 chaste looking. There is a statue, by Canova, of the beau- 
 tiful Pauline Bonaparte, sister of the first Napoleon, who 
 was married to Prince Borghese. Some of the floors have 
 Roman mosaics from various ruins, representing the com- 
 bats of the gladiators. This villa is open only on Saturday, 
 at which times, as was the case to-day, there are many 
 visitors. The Borghese family have given several Popes to 
 the Papal throne, and retain much of their old power and 
 possessions. They own fifty thousand acres of the Cam- 
 pagna. There are pompous, liveried domestics in each 
 room. The one in the first one receives your donation, and 
 ceremoniously bows till you are out. You write your name 
 and nation in the visitors' book. Interesting as are the 
 treasures in these grand halls, they arc not comfortable. 
 There are no fire-places in any genuine Italian house. The 
 domestics sit over iron braziers of red-hot charcoal. Return- 
 ing, I looked at the Muro Turto, or leaning wall. It is a
 
 EXCURSION TO TIVOLI. 
 
 portion of the ancient wall of Rome, remaining unchanged 
 and unrepaired since the times of the first Caesar it being 
 alleged that it is under the special protection of St. Peter 
 and St. Paul, who appeared to Alaric with drawn swords in 
 their hands, as he was about to attack the city there, and 
 obliged him to retire. Belisarius, one of the greatest gen- 
 erals of the fifth century, was about to repair it, but was 
 dissuaded by the people. 
 
 To-day, Monday, February 22d, we start early on an ex- 
 cursion to Tivoli. The morning is pleasant, though some- 
 what cool. We go out by the low-browed gate of San 
 Lorenzo, and enter upon the Campagna. The scene con- 
 tinues desert and dreary for some distance, without cultiva- 
 tion, though the land does not appear of inferior quality, 
 and is covered with sod. Antique ruins of the middle ages 
 rise around, presenting ernbattlemented walls and towers. 
 Approaching the mountains, some fifteen miles from Rome, 
 their snow-clad summits are seen touching the beautiful 
 clouds of Italy. We pass several streams, branches of the 
 Tiber, some of which separate the " Agro Romano," the 
 Italian name of the Campagna, or country immediately 
 around Rome, from the Sabine territories. On the left are 
 three pointed hills, the tops of which are embraced by old 
 villages and castles. We soon came to a sulphurous region, 
 the scent of which fills all the air. Large and deep and 
 dead sea-looking lakes are seen, out of which rises sulphur- 
 ous gas, and a stream of milk-white water comes from them 
 and foams its furious torrent through an artificial canal, the 
 white smoke hovering over its waters. The whole region 
 looks dead and desolate, and around there is no vegetation ; 
 the smell is horrid, and here may be the crater of the 
 volcano, hereafter, which some say is to destroy Rome. 
 Near this is a lake, very deep, and certainly the most infer- 
 nal, dark, and dreary-looking which I have ever seen. It 
 produces, by constant petrification, the stone called travertin,
 
 532 VILLA ADRIANO. 
 
 which grows around its banks in great quantities; this 
 is its dreary vegetation, and this is constantly narrowing 
 the margin of the lake, and will convert it eventually into 
 a dreary, rocky chasm. It is called " Lago di Tartari," or 
 " Lake of Hell." Further on, we came to another mighty 
 Koman tomb, resembling that of Cecilia Metella, though 
 not as good masonry. It has been a tomb, a fortress, and 
 is now a prison. It is a large, circular tower, to defend 
 ashes long since lost to earth. Many of the large blocks of 
 stone of which it was composed have been taken away, 
 probably to construct other buildings, and its upper parts 
 are now battlemented with brick. Here, on all sides, the 
 views are most lovely. To the left are several conical 
 peaks of mountains, crowned with very old, changeless 
 Italian villages, where life and history go on in an unvaried 
 round for a thousand years. Diverging to the right, we 
 now entered that solemn ruin, Hadrian's Villa, one of the 
 most extensive in the world. Here that emperor, who had 
 traveled over the greater part of his dominions, then almost 
 all the known world, constructed buildings, baths, temples, 
 theatres, in imitation of the various styles and places which 
 had pleased him in his travels. The whole embraced a 
 circuit of miles; but of these there exist, in general, but 
 shapeless walls, indicating the partial outline. What a 
 desolation now ! Large and dark cypress trees grow all 
 around and over the beautiful ruins, and the aged arches 
 are draped by the ivy, and the olive arbors around wanton 
 luxuriantly in the fertile soil of fallen fanes. The ruins are 
 much more extensive than those of the Palace of the 
 Caesars. The finest statues of antiquity stood in the niches 
 which one yet sees in the walls ; and many of those remains 
 now in the Vatican and Capitol galleries, and many in vari- 
 ous parts of Europe, came from these ruins, though during 
 the middle ages many of the fine statues were burnt to con- 
 vert the marble into liuie. There are ruins of three
 
 ASCENT OP THE MOUNTAINS. 533 
 
 theatres, a lofty reticulated wall, six hundred feet in length, 
 temples supposed to have been lined with slabs of porphyry, 
 immense swimming baths, ruins called the library, temples 
 *>f Diana and Venus, the Imperial Palace, ruins of the 
 Academy, remains of the Tartarus, or Hell ; also of the 
 Elysian Fields; ruins of the hundred chambers in short, 
 this villa, in the days of its founder, must have been a 
 miniature world. We spent some time passing through 
 long, low, nameless corridors, then along frescoed halls the 
 bright, eternal sky, that knows of no such ruined scenes as 
 these, overhead. The ruins belong to the Duke of Braschi 
 in Rome, and require a special permit to see them. They 
 are under the superintendence of a custode, who acts as 
 guide. Much of the space occupied by the ruins is an olive 
 plantation, and we saw groups of the dark Italian girls sit- 
 ting under the trees, collecting the fruit which others were 
 shaking from them. Observing our curiosity in looking 
 at them, they thought it a fine opening to beg, which at 
 once dispersed our romance to the winds. In the midst of 
 this magnificence of all that the Roman Empire could 
 furnish, Hadrian, who was one of the wisest and best of the 
 emperors, was seized with a mortal and incurable disease, 
 of which he died at Baiae, near Naples. Hadrian succeeded 
 Trajan, and reigned nineteen years, dying A. D. 138. Re- 
 suming our carriages, we began the ascent of the mountains, 
 the Villa of Hadrian lying at their base. The ascent was 
 by an excellent road, through a splendid olive plantation, 
 adorning the mountain slope, belonging to the Duke of 
 Braschi. The ugly but useful evergreen olive flourishes 
 here finely in great age, the soil being apparently better 
 than that of the Campagna, where there is but little cultiva- 
 tion. The views obtained, upon ascending the mountains, of 
 that sea of ruins, the Campagna, are very fine. St. Peter's 
 asserts its vast size, by being most distinctly seen, though 
 fifteen miles off in an air line. There are many Roman 
 
 2u2
 
 534 TIVOLI. 
 
 villas on the ascent. At length we came to Tivoli, with its 
 old walls and towers, dirty streets, and legions of beggars, 
 no less than fourteen of whom beset us at one time, profer- 
 ing services. The city is on a mountain slope, with a tre- 
 mendous chasm on one side. It is utterly impregnable on 
 that side, and is defended on the other sides by walls. It is 
 five hundred years older than Rome, consequentlv over 
 three thousand years in age, being originally a Greek 
 colony. Horace and Virgil, and many others, have cele- 
 brated the beauty of Tivoli, then called Tibur. Queen 
 Zenobia died near it. The chief attraction here now is the 
 Cascade of the Anio, which, after that of Terni, is the finest 
 in Europe. We crossed a bridge, on the right of which is 
 a very ancient Roman graveyard, which was unknown for 
 many ages, and only discovered when excavations were 
 made to divert the course of the stream. On the right of 
 the bridge is the splendid cataract, three hundred and 
 twenty feet high, with its rainbows blown about by the 
 winds, its gauze-like vapor vailing it in half-seen beauty 
 like drapery, and its thunder-like roar reverberates through 
 the ancient mountains like an aroused spirit. Just above 
 it, on a ledge of jutting rocks, stand the columnar ruins of a 
 Roman temple, repaired into a Catholic church. Walking 
 around a beautiful road, formed in the bosom of the moun- 
 tain, but opening on the left, toward the Carnpagna Rome, 
 the sea, Tivoli, the cataract we had a scene of most won- 
 drous interest and loveliness. Further on we had full 
 views of the hill, anc'ent and wild, on which Tivoli is situ- 
 ated, from which issue the main cataract, and a whole 
 phalanx of smaller ones, leaping into the vale below with 
 the glee of wild mountain children. Nothing could be 
 more beautiful ! The little winds fan the brilliant vegeta- 
 tion ; and the cherub children, the rainbows, come around 
 with their many-colored garments; the old ruins themselves 
 are happy, and the physiognomy of the scene becomes one
 
 SAN LORENZO. 535 
 
 of the eternities of the heart. Many ruins of villas, those 
 of Catullus, Sallust, Mactenas, are here; the scene is a love- 
 liness in tears a dirge of Beethoven embodied it is Italy, 
 the fallen, discrowned queen of all countries a thousand 
 years after her grandeur when her very ruin had become 
 beautiful. Had mankind produced nothing more than the 
 Roman Empire, they would have been a sufficiently grand 
 creation for a God. In the dim haze afar oft' loomed up 
 Michael Augelo's dome over St. Peter's, a thing of won- 
 drous beauty. As the hotels of Tivoli are not renowned 
 for much except dirt, we brought along with us somewhat, 
 that while the mind feasted on the beautiful in nature, the 
 physical man might not be forgotten ; so, seated under the 
 shade of an olive, in the midst of this scene, we dined off 
 bread, butter, dried figs, ham, and sublimity. Returning to 
 Rome in the evening, and after passing that grave-yard of 
 grandeur, Hadrian's Villa, we had one of the glorious Cam- 
 pagna sunsets of this climate all the adornments of piled- 
 up clouds, streamed and tinged with gilded glory, looking 
 like an isle of sky, another land of evanescent loveliness. 
 These sunsets continue for weeks of the same type the 
 same clouds come out on the sky, assume the same forms, 
 and gather themselves up in glory. On our route we stop- 
 ped at the margin of one of the drear lakes, and looked at 
 the petrifying waters, and also at the Basilica of San 
 Lorenzo outside the walls, founded, it is said, by Constan- 
 tine, who, from the number of churches attributed to him, 
 probably only made some change in Pagan temples, so as 
 to adapt them to Christian worship. This presents an im- 
 posing appearance in its long array of columns, some fluted, 
 others with spiral flutings; some of granite, others of vari- 
 ous kinds of marbles; some with Corinthian, others with 
 Composite capitals ; some of the columns half buried, some 
 of black Egyptian granite. St. Lawrence and St. Stephen 
 are buried here. Then there are the low entrances from it
 
 536 ROME. 
 
 to the Catacombs, which are explored with great risk and 
 danger. There are panels of red and green porphyry here, 
 and two marble pulpits, one on each side of the nave, an 
 indisputable proof of its great antiquity. The floor is of 
 beautiful mosaic. The seven splendid Basilicas of Rome 
 are worth any man's time to come across from America to 
 see. Their treasures of art and architecture, their antiqui- 
 ties, their customs, their relics, their wealth in marbles and 
 precious stones, all form instructive subjects of thought to 
 the man who looks at the theatre of this world in its pres- 
 ent and its past. Cumulatively, they afford a splendid 
 argument for Christianity, and of the actual existence of the 
 persons of its founders. It is true that one need not believe 
 in the relics, but the man has had an erasive sponge applied 
 to his reasoning powers who cannot see that, superstition is 
 an argument for the existence of something that is true ; and 
 though, perhaps, as many splendid temples have been 
 erected to Jupiter, Venus, Apollo, Mercury, and other non- 
 existent personages, as to the Apostles, yet, if a tradition 
 assert a thing in an unvarying manner for fifteen hundred 
 years if churches have been built on the spot in express 
 attestation of it it furnishes the strongest possible evidence 
 of the facts claimed. But it may be said that on the same 
 premises a temple to Bacchus proves that Bacchus existed, 
 arid the whole Grecian mythology, from which the Roman 
 is borrowed, could thus be proved also. The two cases are 
 not alike. There is no uniform tradition as to fact, place, and 
 time : no corroborating history, no concurrent testimony ; 
 the heathen gods arose from the imaginations of the poets as 
 described in the writings of Homer and others, whereas 
 the men of Christianity preceded the books on them. 
 How often, however, our belief only compliments our 
 conduct. 
 
 But to-day has been our last day in Rome. It lias been 
 a leave-taking of places and objects rendered almost dear
 
 LAST DAY IN ROME. 
 
 by association and merit. I have revisited the glorious 
 works of art in the Borghese and Doria Palaces the 
 "Entombment," by Raphael, and the works of Domenichino 
 and Titian in the former, and the glorious* landscapes of 
 Claude Lorraine in the grand halls of the latter ; also, the 
 statues of the Capitol, especially the Venus of the Capitol 
 which is in a reserved hall, not usually opened one of the 
 finest statues in the world ; the grand study of the Dying 
 Gladiator also, and the expressive and mournful statue of 
 Aggrippina in a sitting posture lamenting the death of 
 Drusus. I was also in the Vatican, to which it is bard to 
 say farewell. I was in its immense library the largest in 
 the world, not in reference to the number of books, but in 
 regard to the quantity of space; saw the splendid vases and 
 specimens of precious stones, presented from various emper- 
 ors to the Popes; the baptismal font, a splendid affair of 
 gold and precious stones, from which the French Prince 
 Imperial was sprinkled a present from Napoleon III. to 
 the Pope who christened the prince by proxy ; also speci- 
 mens of old papyrus, with historical annals on them ; very 
 old church paintings also, not very good, but very interest- 
 ing on account of age and historical relations; paintings 
 and ladies differing essentially the one becoming more in- 
 teresting when the mellow tints of age gather upon them 
 of the other I shall not speak. We saw also many instru- 
 ments of torture and of martyrdom, and mosaics found in 
 catacombs; a fresco of Charlemagne an expressive one 
 of that great hero, one thousand years old : a Bridegroom 
 Scene, one of the most celebrated of original Roman paint- 
 ingsa chaste and beautiful piece; there is the original 
 plan of the Church of St. Peter's, as designed by Michael 
 Angelo, in the form of a Greek cross, which would have 
 made a much grander and more imposing construction than 
 the present one, if the great design had been carried through 
 by that great mind. There are numerous lachryrnaria, or
 
 538 LAST DAY IN ROME. 
 
 small vial-looking glasses, to hold the tears of the martyrs, 
 as they fell, while they suffered, which were esteemed most 
 sacred, as well as very many other things collected by the 
 Popes to render this place, what it is in truth, the most 
 interesting place in the world. It has been well remarked, 
 that no palace in the world approaches the Vatican in point 
 of interest. The Laocoorj, that sublime agony; the Apollo 
 Belvidere, the perfection of godlike beauty, (it is stated as 
 a fact that a French lady became so enamored of this cold 
 marble ideal of beauty, that she became deranged), and then 
 a "last, lingering look" at Raphael's "Transfiguration," 
 which goes with one as a brother soul ; then a last stroll 
 through St. Peter's a last glance at its grandeur; then a 
 walk on the Pincian Hill, where the wealth of England and 
 the nobility of Rome pass and repass to show their wealth 
 and beauty. The number of English at present is great in 
 Rome; and their coroneted carriages have in them persons 
 whose satiety of earth and appearance of unhappiness. 
 which are attendants on high birth and breeding, are indi- 
 cated by their countenances. The music discourses and the 
 sun sets on Rome: but where should one's last hour in Rome 
 be spent but in Rome's ruins! These gay prornenaders 
 are too light, and frivolous, and evanescent for a place so 
 awful-hearted as Rome. The night was slightly moonlit 
 and hazy, and there were struggling rays of planets in the 
 sky, and a half-rnoon looked out from its home of ages as if 
 weary of this old world. I walked down the Corso, threaded 
 the dirty, old, narrow, cut-throat-looking streets about the 
 Capitol Hill, then passed among the skeletons of temples, 
 and stood in the Coliseum, so old-looking that it has become 
 devotional, so gray and grand that you respect it, and so 
 sad that you fear it. The great rim of mighty gray wall is 
 around you, with its two hundred arches; but the hundred 
 thousand spectators who once sat on those once marble-lined 
 tiers of seats daily, and the Roman Empire itself, have
 
 FAREWELL TO THE COLISEUM. 539 
 
 gone! There is the hollow, guttural, murmuring of the 
 Tiber ; there is the watch-clog near, baying for company ; 
 there are the rows of cypresses skirting the Coelian II ill, 
 growing among ruins; there are the wretched rents in the 
 ruin the Roman princes having made this a stone quarry 
 for two hundred years to build palaces out of; there is the 
 ghostly, spectral moonlight, flickering and glimmering 
 and the rest is silence ! But the great, round, many-arched 
 thing, with its broad and solemn under-aisles, seems to have 
 a kind of gray gladness and majestic content in its great 
 age. Yet it seems to be a human, spirited thing, appealing 
 to you for sympathy. It is the most suggestive ruin in the 
 world. Your past may come back to you there; but what 
 is your past to its past! I turned away. I shall never 
 stand there again. Returning by the old Roman way, 
 when approaching the Arch of Titus, I heard on the left, 
 proceeding from among the vast ruins of the noble Palace 
 of the Caesars, on the Palatine Hill, the most singular, 
 prolonged, and unearthly scream I have ever heard any 
 where. It was a sound that seemed to search you and to 
 see you. I stood and listened. It came at regular inter- 
 vals. There are no houses, nothing but substructions of 
 palaces. If there be a place on earth where ghosts might 
 haunt, this is assuredly the scene where Nero, and Calig- 
 ula, and Domitian, each mother, brother, and wife mur- 
 derer each exhausted all the ingenuity of sin and where 
 ruin now only reigns. I stood and looked at the scene 
 remains of temples many centuries old, clad in the gray of 
 age, while the dim moonlight, with its shreds of shadows, 
 fell on them. The Arch of Constantino, that of Titus, of 
 Septimus Severus, each with sculptured figures; the three 
 lofty and beautiful columns of fluted marble, called the 
 ruins of the Temple of Julius Caesar; the solitary column 
 of Ph ocas; the excavated paved way of the Roman Forum; 
 the eight columns of the Temple of Peace all were in
 
 540 LEAVING ROME. 
 
 view in the silent beauty of ages. The voice screamed 
 from one place, at regular intervals. I walked slowly on, 
 nearly one hundred yards, toward the Capitol Hill, when 
 suddenly the voice changed its position to another and 
 entirely different part of the ruins, as if keeping parallel 
 with my position. It was pitched on a key unlike 
 any thing I have ever heard, and more like a continued 
 shriek of the damned falling into hell, than any thing I can 
 imagine. From my knowledge 'of the locality, it was im- 
 practicable for any ordinary person to descend the huge, 
 shapeless ruins on the northern side of the Palatine Hill, 
 and approach the ruins known in Home as the Basilica 
 Julia, where I heard it the last time, in the very brief 
 period intervening. The Romans living in the dirty, mean, 
 modern houses, contiguous to this locality, had all retired, 
 and whether the noise was made by jackal, wild cat, owl, or 
 the ghost of Caligula, I neither know nor care, but it was 
 hideous enough to be any of them. Regaining the Piazza 
 Campidoglia, or the ;t Mournful Place," the modern name 
 of the Capitol Hill, I was soon in the Corso. Adieu, then, 
 to Rome, dear old Rome, with its grand churches, its solemn 
 and stately and venerable superstitions, its palaces, the repos- 
 itories of dead art and genius, and its ruins, to all Adieu ! 
 But this morning, Wednesday, February 24th, we left 
 Rome. We are a party of seven, all friends made in travel- 
 ing. We are traveling by vettura, which affords greater 
 facilities for seeing the country than the rapid post travel- 
 ing. The vetturini are a great institution in all Italian 
 towns. We have a large carriage accommodating five con- 
 
 O O D 
 
 veniently in the inside, two on the coupe in front, which is 
 covered and protected from the weather: the driver occu- 
 pies a lower seat in front. We enter into regular written 
 contract with the proprietor of the vehicle ; he is to furnish 
 us with a good carriage, with four good horses, driver, pay 
 all expenses on the route, hotel bills, stop at the best hotels,
 
 LEAVING ROME. 
 
 and be on the route four days to Naples, for which we pay 
 twenty-two Napoleons, about eighty -six dollars, for the whole 
 party. Yesterday we procured visas for our passports 
 getting three visas paying one dollar for the visa of our 
 own consul, one for the police visa of Borne, and one for 
 the Neapolitan visa. The buono mano is also a great insti- 
 tution in Italy. Every one with whom you have had any 
 dealings expects a buono mano, after you have satisfied hia 
 just demands. Having dispensed all these indispensables, 
 we took leave of our host and hostess, not omitting 
 Kaccali, our fire-lighter, all of whom seemed to have formed 
 ft real attachment to us during our stay of nearly two 
 months, and shed tears, with many wishes of "bon viaggio," 
 or a safe journey. We depart down the Corso, from the 
 Via Condotti, pass the column with all the wars of 
 Antoninus sculptured on its twenty-eight blocks of white 
 marble then we pass that of Trajan, with the sunken ruins 
 of his Forum then pass near the Coliseum, of which we 
 take a final view then the great Basilica, St. John Lateran 
 then we arrive at the gate San Giovanni, where our pass- 
 ports are required ; we are then out of Rome and on the 
 Campagna. Rome was no more to us, except as a thing of 
 memory. Our course was toward Albano, fourteen miles 
 from Rome, by the new Via Appia, the old Via Appia on 
 our right, and the Via Latina on our left, both old Roman 
 ways, marked in their course over the Campagna by a long 
 line of ruined sepulchres. The great Roman works of 
 aqueducts stride over the plain for miles, sprinkling the 
 remarkable Campagna with picturesque ruins, crumbling 
 arches, and falling masonry. The Ages are there in the 
 vaatness of their decay. There were strange masses of brick 
 and undestroyed fragments of tombs, almost colossal and 
 all ivy-grown. About eleven miles from Rome our route 
 joined the Via Appia; We crossed the dry bed of a river, 
 a singular feature in Italy, where you sometimes see the 
 
 2 v
 
 542 LAKE ALBANO. 
 
 rivers themselves gone into decay. Approaching Albano 
 there was a long ascent, lined on each side with tomb ruins. 
 There was the tomb of Pompey the Great, in particular, an 
 immense, round, brick tower, four stories high, and which 
 appears to have been originally covered with fine blocks of 
 white marble. There was a chamber in it twelve feet long, 
 arid eight wide, in which were deposited the ashes of 
 Pompey, brought from Egypt by his wife Cornelia, after 
 his murder there. Remaining at Albano some hours, we 
 took our dejeuner a la fourchettc. From this, by a pleasant 
 walk of a mile or two along a most noble avenue of lofty 
 and old live oaks, some of which are singularly supported 
 in their helpless age by brick columns, we visited Castel 
 Gondolfo, a village containing a summer residence of the 
 Popes, and here, cradled in an extinct volcanic crater, we 
 saw one of the most beautiful little lakes in the world the 
 Lake of Albano. It is oval in shape, and about six miles 
 around; and when we saw it, its blue waves were curled by 
 a mountain wind, and it was spanned by a beautiful rain- 
 bow, , or rather mistbow, as if an angel were painting the 
 air. The Romans dug an emissary, or subterranean canal, 
 about a mile in length, passing under the town and through 
 the mountain, the object of which was to reduce the amount 
 of water in the lake, there being danger it might overflow 
 the Campagna. This was done about twenty-three hundred 
 years ago. This still exists, and much water passes off by 
 it. The appearance of the lake is wonderfully curious in 
 its deep, cup-like crater, and its towns and monasteries 
 around it. Here, probably, thousands of years ago, was 
 one of those volcanoes whose eruptions formed the volcanic 
 rocks underlying the Campagna. The views around were 
 wo-ndrously beautiful, embracing mountains, ravines, the 
 almost level, dark, and fated -looking Campagna, on which 
 no snow ever falls, extending to the shining Mediterranean 
 there is Rome also, our last view of it, with St. Peter's
 
 ROUTE TO NAPLES 543 
 
 a vision of the past, an eternity of history. Along the base 
 of the mountains, near, are numerous conical elevations, 
 crowned with turreted ruins and battlemented walls, re- 
 mains of villas, and ivy-grown, ponderous tombs. The 
 whole Campagna is seen as far as Soracte. Descending 
 again to Albano, by the gallery of ilexes, having on our 
 left a large grove of Roman pines, three or four hundred 
 years old, we rambled through the old town, once a favorite 
 resort of the old Romans. It contains several fine, modern 
 villas, and is said to be healthy, but is rather too near the 
 malarious regions of the Campagna. Though very dirty, 
 these old towns have an air of solidity and permanency not 
 possessed by American towns. They are built of large, 
 cut stone, and the villas, convents, and churches have all an 
 air of splendor. Just outside the walls is a large and high 
 cross with the entire apparatus of the Crucifixion the spear, 
 the sponge, the ladder, the hammer, nails, apron, etc. The 
 crosses generally content themselves with spear and sponge, 
 but this one omits no particular. The scenic ground of 
 half of Virgil's ^Eneid is visible from the gates of Albano. 
 Leaving Albano, where we drank some of the fine wines 
 of that country, growing on the slopes below, which has in 
 all ages been celebrated, we passed the singular-looking, 
 old tomb, assigned, on doubtful grounds, to Aruns for 
 there have been volumes written on each ruin then we 
 passed a stupendous, modern construction, a viaduct, con- 
 sisting of three superposed ranges of arches six on the 
 lower tier, twelve on the central, and eighteen on the upper 
 the height of each being sixty, and the width forty-nine 
 feet between the piers. This spans a chasm of ten hundred 
 and twenty feet in breadth in the road, and at a height of one 
 hundred and ninety-two feet. It is a work finished during the 
 reign of the present Pope, and shows that the spirit of public 
 improvement is not dead in Italy, as this work almost rivals 
 the ruins of the ancient constructions which stand around
 
 ROUTE TO NAPLES. 
 
 it. "We also passed Lariccia and Genzano; near the lat- 
 ter place is a most magnificent triple avenue of elms, and 
 the most beautiful lake of Nemi, occupying, like that of 
 Albano, the crater of an extinct volcano. The views 
 around here are lovely, exhibiting hill and mountain slopes 
 vine-clad, and the sea-like Campagna below all seemed 
 classical, antique, and beautiful, as we wound among the 
 hills on the smooth, hard road. We reached Velletri at five 
 o'clock in the evening, where we designed remaining for 
 the night. It is on the brow of a hill, overlooking the 
 Campagna and the sea. It has about twelve hundred in- 
 habitants ; the one street is long and dirty. Nearly all 
 the men wear black, piratical-looking cloaks. There are 
 castles, convents, and churches. I entered one of the latter 
 in the dim dusk of the evening, and heard the dull, droning 
 music, saw the faded paintings, the glimmering candles, the 
 slabs of tombstones. The women are pretty here. This, 
 as well as many other towns in this region, held long wars 
 with the Komans the latter finally conquering, till all 
 Italy was subdued. This was the country of the Volsces, 
 and Coriolanus surrounded this town with walls and a fosse. 
 The regions overlooked by these hills is all classical; the 
 ^Eneid had its action here in the ages anterior to Rome. 
 The hills around are generally fertile, being covered witb 
 olive and vine plantations, interspersed with ruins. Sum- 
 mer seemed to dwell forever in the long galleries of live oaks 
 which we passed, in ascending to the Lake of Albano, and 
 birds in their branches were singing songs, to us unknown, 
 of summer. 
 
 We left Velletri at eight o'clock this morning, February 
 25th, our vetturino conductor having provided us with a 
 good and rather comfortable inn (La Fosta). We traveled 
 about twenty-five miles yesterday. Our route now began 
 to descend toward the Pontine Marshes. On our left were 
 the bleak and bare Volscian Mountains, with occasionally
 
 ROUTE TO NAPLES. 546 
 
 little, old, and doubtless dirty stone villages, perched on 
 peaks, with castles of the middle ages, towers and walls, 
 and ruins of temples of more ancient times, toppling into 
 decay, serving as homes for the brigands who infest this 
 region. We passed through an oak forest, which has been 
 cleared away on each side of the road for some distance, to 
 deprive the robbers of covert. We soon reached Cisterna 
 anciently "Tres Tabernae,"or the Three' Taverns one of 
 the places where the brethren from Rome met $t. Paul, and 
 where he " thanked God and took courage." It is now a 
 very small town, with a large fortress or castle, belonging 
 to a princely family of the middle ages; there is also a 
 Cathedral. One of the towns on the left of this, on the 
 skirts of the mountains, is Cora, an ancient Greek colony, 
 reckoned by some authors to be one of the oldest in Europe. 
 The town had three circuits of walls. The Pontine Marshes, 
 upon which we now entered, are level, but utterly desert 
 and uncultivated, except being used in some places as pas- 
 tures for sheep and buffalo large numbers of the latter 
 being seen. They are live or six miles broad, extending 
 from the mountains to the sea, and about thirty-six miles 
 in length. The old Roman, or Appian Way, on which we 
 now were, runs straight through the marshes in some 
 places repaired with walls on each side, in other places 
 there are long avenues of elms. The appearance of the 
 marshes, except in its having few trees, is not much unlike 
 a swamp in some of our Southern States. Along one side 
 of the road is a fine ditch or canal. The few people one 
 meets in this desolate place are small and miserable-looking, 
 with very sallow complexions. 
 
 The fatal malaria is very bad throughout the whole ex- 
 tent of the marshes. We soon arrived at the place called 
 Appii Forum, where the brethren from Rome met St. Paul. 
 It consists of a most miserable hotel, in the centre of the 
 Pontine Marshes; there are one or two other houses, 
 85 2 V2
 
 546 ROUTE TO NAPLES. 
 
 churches and monasteries near ; but the general aspect, in 
 spite of one or two green fields, is most cheerless. Here 
 we partook of a meal amidst uninviting surroundings. The 
 landlord, observing we were foreigners, indicated by signs 
 that St. Paul stopped at his hotel and dined. It was some- 
 thing, however, to have stood on the very place where the 
 apostle did eighteen hundred years ago. Most beautiful 
 wild flowers here grow in profusion, some of which were 
 preserved as^ mementoes by some of our party. The marshes 
 are bounded on the left by the extremely irregular peaks 
 of the mountains, some of which are snow clad. The bases 
 of the mountains are wooded with olive groves. Along the 
 side of the marshes next to the Mediterranean were, it is 
 said, in the flourishing times of the Roman Empire, no less 
 than twenty-three cities, and the entire marshes were culti- 
 vated. The neglect of the drains during ages of war, and 
 the want of cultivation in a soil once so highly cultivated, 
 probably induce the malaria, its fertile strength thus being 
 perverted to a noxious poison instead of conducing to the 
 welfare of man. There are some very picturesque-looking 
 towns on the mountains. Sezze is one of these; and on 
 the right is seen, for a long distance, the noble Promontory 
 of Circe, rising almost out of the blue Mediterranean Sea. 
 The beauty of this bold limestone promontory, and its 
 classical history, render it an interesting object. In one 
 place near " Foro Appio" we saw some cultivation; there 
 were gangs of laborers at work with singular agricultural 
 implements some were hoeing the wheat, others turning 
 up the black soil with spades; and one person with a large 
 club in his hand superintended. In some places the marshes 
 do not present so very dreary an appearance as old descrip- 
 tions would lead one one to expect. The canal on the 
 road-side, constructed by Augustus, and in modern times 
 repaired by one of the Popes, is of considerable size, and a 
 current of some force runs through it, which, after somo
 
 ROUTE TO NAPLES. 54:7 
 
 distance, carries its waters off to the sea. Another canal is 
 now met, the water of which flows in precisely the opposite 
 direction to the former ; and, passing off to the sea, then 
 another begins, the waters flowing the reverse direction to 
 the last all showing the engineering skill with which these 
 almost level marshes have been attempted to be reclaimed. 
 Our driver proceeded with rapidity over the marshes, it 
 being extremely dangerons to pass them after night. At 
 length the mountains on the left approached the road and 
 the sea, and portions of their slopes were covered with olive 
 orchards. One very large orchard of olives we noticed, 
 which belongs to Cardinal Antonelli, the Pope's Prime 
 Minister, he being a native of this portion of the Pupal 
 territories. The profit of the olive is said to average one 
 scudo, or a little over a dollar to each tree. At length we 
 drew near Terracina, a celebrated station for ships in the 
 times of the Roman Empire. It is on the side of a moun- 
 tain, where it projects toward the sea. Near it are old ruin* 
 of what appear to be tombs; and above, on the crest of the 
 mountain, frowns an ancient castle in ruins: and in the 
 town are ruins of towers, walls and castles of many ages 
 and eras. The Pontine Marshes here terminate, and the 
 climate seemed almost changed. .The graceful palm grew 
 on the lower slopes of the mountain ; the orange and lemon 
 seemed to rise out of ancient ruins; the aloe and pome- 
 granate also flourish. Just on one side of the hotel next to 
 the mountain is an immense mass of perpendicular rock, 
 detached from the mountain and standing out toward the 
 sea. It is wooded on the top, and on its side is a cave, in 
 which dwelt of old a hermit. The sea, the blue Mediterra- 
 nean, here burst upon our sight like a glorious mirror of a 
 glowing sky. Arriving some hours before night, and 
 having completed our arrangements at the hotel, we began 
 to ascend the steep, rocky, limestone mountain, covered 
 with ruins of walls and citadels of the Goths, among which
 
 548 ROUTE TO NAPLES. 
 
 now grow olive plantations. Arriving at the summit, we 
 came upon the ruins of the Palace of Theodoric the Goth, 
 one of the Gothic kings of Italy, who, after the taking of 
 Rome, ruled in Italy for three quarters of a century. Theo- 
 doric himself reigned from A. D. 493 to 526. The scene of 
 enchanting beauty and sublimity here disclosed to the eye 
 is almost unparalleled. The great blue sea on the west, 
 with its islands glowing in the sunset rays; the sea, casting 
 its waves in gladness on the shore; Monte Circe, rising in 
 romantic majesty against the western sky ; the numerous 
 clouds, in gilded strata, hanging like rich drapery around 
 the sun ; the Pontine Marshes, on the north, dark, aud 
 level, and mist-clad; the tops of mountains behind us, 
 glimmering redly in the sun; little embosomed lakes within 
 them, sleeping, as it were, in adoration all wore a glory 
 and gladness fit for a God to create. On the left the view 
 embraces several islands in the Bay of Naples. This sunset 
 scene can only depart from the mind with the obliteration of 
 memory. Long lines of bright and red light, like plumes, 
 radiated from the gilded clouds over the sea, as if there were 
 other suns beneath. The old castle, on whose grass-grown 
 terrace we stood, is itself interesting. Its ruins are sup- 
 ported by twelve immense arches in front or toward the 
 sea; back of these is a narrow passage, then a wide and 
 very long corridor. Here history went on in the long ago. 
 The Bay of Terracina, which once held the Roman fleet, ia 
 now filling up with sand ; the glory of the Goth is no more, 
 and Desolation now is king in these kingly halls. But this 
 beautiful prospect, this sea and land view, and this sky, are 
 lovely now as then! Man and his works pass, but Nature 
 lives and glows in youth and beauty over his tombs! The 
 view from the " castled crag of Drachenfels" on the Rhine 
 is beautiful; those from. Mount Righi or La Flegere, in Swit- 
 zerland, are sublime; but this view of the Italian sunset 
 scene ou the sea, while standing on the ruins of the Gothic
 
 ROUTE TO NAPLES. 549 
 
 Palace of Theodoric, seemed to me to have in it all the 
 essence of the lovely. Descending the steep, rocky moun- 
 tain on which Theodoric's palace was situated, and which 
 was perhaps impregnable, except by the assaults of Time, 
 we came upon numerous clusters of flowers, revelling in 
 this sunny climate; and below this scene of beauty in 
 nature we came to a part of the town on the hill-side, where 
 there seemed to be every variety of wretchedness and 
 poverty. Except in Ireland, I think I have seen nowhere 
 such miserable hovels. They consist of a circular, low wall 
 of stone, a foot or two in height, above which is a thatched 
 superstructure, not admitting a man to stand ; there is no 
 chimney, only a small fire in the centre of the hovel on the 
 ground. The inmates, who are ragged children and half- 
 clad women, come out of those places as if to remind you 
 and themselves that they once were human too and beg. 
 Returning to our hotel, we found our dinner nearly pre- 
 pared, which we discussed with the waves of the tideless 
 sea of the south beating on the rocks on which our hotel 
 stood, on one side, while on the other side the moonlight 
 from the blue sky of Italy glimmered on the bare and rug- 
 ged rocks, jutting out almost into the sea, while, high above, 
 looked down, in the grandeur of decay, Theodoric's ancient 
 tower. We had travelled about forty miles. 
 
 This morning, Friday, February 26th, we were aroused 
 at an early hour, having forty-two miles to go, and besides, 
 expected to have several detentions on the route. The road 
 passes through the gate of Terracina, which is between the 
 high rock, six hundred feet high, and the sea, and then con- 
 tinues for some distance along a narrow pass with the rush- 
 ing, bounding, blue Mediterranean on one side, and the 
 bleak mountains on the other. This pass Fabius Maximus 
 maintained successfully against Hannibal. Passing some 
 six miles, we came to the boundary of the "States of the 
 Church," and entered the Kingdom of Naples, or that of the
 
 550 ROUTE TO NAPLES. 
 
 "Two Sicilies." Our passports were here demanded and 
 examined, and in a few moments we were no longer in the 
 domains of the Popedom. The States of the Church are 
 twenty in number, comprising the central portion of Italy. 
 The whole population is about three and a quarter millions. 
 The Pope's army consists of about sixteen thousand men. 
 We were now in the dominions of King Bomba, the most 
 contemptible, perhaps, of all the sovereigns in Europe. Our 
 route now left the seaside, and advanced into the interior, 
 among mountains presenting a succession of separate coni- 
 cal peaks, some of which had snow on their high summits. 
 Nearly the whole route was along the Appian Way, some 
 of the large paving stones of which appeared in various 
 places, and also the gigantic tombs, built of large stones and 
 overgrown with shrubs and trees, and otherwise tenantless. 
 The region through which we now passed, as well as that 
 passed yesterday when approaching Cisterno, was in years 
 past a noted resort of brigands, who robbed and murdered 
 travelers, and concealed themselves in ruined castles among 
 the mountains. Our vetturino conductor states that some 
 thirty years past, when taking a party to Naples, as now, he 
 was attacked at this place, and in a desperate conflict with 
 the robbers, two of the latter were killed. A mile or two 
 further on we were again stopped by a uniformed official, 
 who visaed our passports, and required two pauls for the 
 effort. Each of us paid one paul last night, in Terracina, 
 for the same visa. A few yards further on there was 
 another detention to procure a permit to go to Naples, for 
 which another fee was demanded. These are specimens of 
 some of the exactiorrs of King Bomba's government. Our 
 passports had each been declared " buono per Napoli " some 
 seven or eight times. While officials were screaming on 
 one side in regard to passports, beggars on the other were 
 screeching in regard to their " poveri " both being 
 equalled in contemptibility only by the other. It is best,
 
 ROUTE TO NAPLES. 551 
 
 -in general, to submit to all these exactions with fortitude 
 and resignation. The police, or armed force of the country, 
 have always some of their numbers near the dnqana, as 
 these custom-houses are appropriately named, who would 
 soon add force to injustice. Most travelers, therefore, 
 gravely pay every exaction rather than be subjected to 
 such humiliating contact. Passing these places, we had fine 
 views of the very singular-looking stone village of Mon- 
 tralto, built all over the almost inaccessible peak of a 
 mountain, the houses almost all windowless, or at all events 
 without glass in them. We soon approached the town of 
 Fondi, where our passports were again demanded, and our 
 luggage would have been examined, thereby causing a 
 vexatious delay of more than an hour in this most misera- 
 ble and filthy of all towns, apparently inhabited only by 
 beggars and brigands, but a fee of eleven pauls to King 
 Bomba's officers of law, paid openly, as a matter of course 
 and custom, procured exemption. The town is among 
 mountains; there are lovely orange groves, fig trees, and 
 olive orchards in the vales. The old Appian Way may 
 here be seen; there are massive walls, ruins of Roman 
 tombs and villas. There are some green wheat fields, 
 gardens, avenues of poplars; yet the town looks like a 
 section cut out of the heart of hell. The streets are narrow 
 each house is independent of the line of the next one. 
 The streets are covered with dirt, and looking down one of 
 them, you may constantly see filthy water cast from the 
 windows into it, as if the street were designed to be a com- 
 mon receptacle for filth. The inhabitants seem to be half 
 human beings blear-eyed, crippled, deformed. They sur- 
 round the carriage like a detachment of imps, begging, 
 whining, crying, holding up and exposing sores on their 
 legs, distress and want, hunger, famine, cold, vice, falsehood, 
 all embodied, and all expressions of wretchedness cultivated. 
 A sore is here a capital, want is a fund, and a disgusting,
 
 552 ROUTE TO NAPLES. 
 
 loathsome countenance is at a premium. Human nature is 
 infinitesimal in its possible degrees of degradation and ex- 
 altation. This, as well as the next town through which we 
 are to pass, have been known for many ages as the resort 
 of robbers, who infest the mountain passes and ascents into 
 which we now entered. The walls and towers around the 
 city are in some places high and majestic, in others gray 
 and tottering ; the lower parts of them show the strong, 
 massy, Roman blocks, the upper the smaller and slighter 
 constructions of the middle ages. Some of the houses have 
 for their exterior walls those of the town. The women 
 here wear highly colored costumes; they carry every thing 
 on their heads, even large burdens, and many of them were 
 seen standing up to their knees washing clothes on wooden 
 racks. The vine grows well here, and produces good wine; 
 the fig also flourishes finely. Ascending through the 
 mountain pass the scene was very wild, almost Swiss-like, 
 the mountains being very bare and bleak. The slowness 
 of the carriage on ascending the mountain afforded us facil- 
 ities for walking up the ascent, and for examining some 
 local ruins. The road is now well guarded the danger 
 from robbers is less. Yet I saw several sinister-looking 
 persons approaching us at certain places, and disappearing 
 among the ruins on their being discovered. When Tasso, 
 the poet, was desirous of traveling this route, the robbers 
 showed their appreciation of literature, by sending him 
 word that nothing should harm him, and that they would 
 be proud to execute his orders. A lady of the Colonna 
 family, residing near this in a castle, was so renowned for her 
 beauty that it reached the ears of the Sultan of Turkey, 
 and a descent was made on the castle at night, by a noted 
 brigand, to carry her off and make a present of her to the 
 Sultan. She escaped, however, and fled, naked, to the 
 mountains, where she concealed herself. So that it is a 
 dangerous thing, sometimes, to be too handsome. Our
 
 ROUTE TO NAPLES. 553 
 
 party was composed of the best materials, both of refine- 
 ment and intellect, for enjoying and giving enjoyment; and 
 our little friend Flora, a gem of a child, only seven or eight 
 years old, with her prematurely thoughtful remarks, her 
 mental and physical loveliness, her capacity above most 
 children of being interested, gave an additional charm, 
 while the grand mountain peaks invading the blue sky of 
 Italy, the fresh and pleasant air, and the joyous sunlight, 
 the lower slopes of the mountains arrayed in olive groves, 
 with their dark and yet unpicked fruit hanging over the 
 road, the bright green of the small leaf contrasting well 
 with the black fruit, on which the sun shone all made a 
 tout ensemble of agreeable sensations. The soil here, not- 
 withstanding its rocky appearance, produced the finest 
 olives I have yet seen ; the fruit is somewhat less in size 
 than a cherry. The scenes, as usual, present gray Roman 
 remains, carrying the mind back to a great people and a 
 great Roman past. The next place through which we went, 
 is Itri, another resort of brigands. It is a most picturesque 
 place, however, being on an immense rock, in chasm, around 
 which are lofty limestone mountains. The road passes 
 around and below it, along the margin of a stream of black 
 waters, over which are several stone bridges of singular and 
 strong masonry. A lofty and grand castle, with a strong and 
 embattled wall passing up the rock, surmounts the rocky 
 steep. Much of the town is outside the wall, on the sloping 
 ledges of rock. The people here look grim and haggard, 
 and beg naturally, spontaneously, and instinctively, as if it 
 were their only inheritance. Advancing, our course de- 
 scended through lovely olive groves, rich in their oblong, 
 dark fruit, the shining sea suddenly reappeared, skirted 
 with rocky mountains, and sooon the bright and beautiful 
 bay, on which Moli di Gaeta is situated, was in full view. 
 But on the right of our course there was, in an olive 
 orchard, a circular mass of masonry, nearly ^seventy feet 
 
 2 w
 
 554 ROUTE TO NAPLES. 
 
 high, and perhaps twenty feet in diameter. It is in ruins, 
 however; early spring flowers grow around it, like a neck- 
 lace of memories ivy hangs around it as if it ought to be 
 immortal, and trees grow around it as if to protect it. It 
 consists of two stories, with a strengthening tower within, 
 supporting the second floor. The first story consists of 
 solid masses of large stones. I entered the first story, and 
 climbed up to the second on the outside, over the flowers 
 and ivy, to the tomb-like apartment on the second story. 
 Braving the sea blasts, strong and stately in its age and his- 
 tory, it has stood for eighteen hundred and eighty years, 
 preserved by and enshrining a memory as proud and 
 sublime as any in Europe, or that ever will be there a man 
 basely and ungratefully murdered on this spot, murdered 
 by a man whose life he had saved, abandoned by a country 
 which he had preserved. It is the Tomb of Cicero ! When 
 escaping to the seaside, the great orator was overtaken here 
 and murdered that eloquent tongue which had charmed 
 all Rome, and which uttered sentences that have reverbera- 
 ted through all time, was cut out and presented to Fulvia, 
 the wife of Octavius Ca3sar, at her request out-Ileroding 
 horror itself. Strangers from a far land, however, that ap- 
 preciate his genius and greatness, cull flowers from his 
 tomb, and bear them away as mementoes of unfortunate 
 greatness, that left, however, a literature to a world. The 
 ruins of Cicero's villa are now occupied in part by a hotel, 
 on the seaside, where we rested some hours. The views are 
 most magnificent, and the scenes are immortalized in the 
 poetry of Homer, Virgil, and Horace. On the rear are 
 irregular, rocky mountains, almost bare of verdure, except 
 moss, and in the distance, snow. In front is this splendid 
 sea ; the view extends to the islands in the Bay of Naples. 
 From the hotel descends on the slope to the seaside one of 
 the finest orange gardens, intermingled with lemons, olives, 
 figs, apricots, pomegranates, that I have ever seen; the
 
 ROUTE TO NAPLES. 655 
 
 orange trees are full of the golden fruit the lemons and 
 olives are' in their glory. The yellow fruit lies ripe on the 
 ground, and falls frequently from the trees like ingots of 
 gold. The waves beat upon the garden walls. On the 
 right is Gaeta, with towers and castles on conical hills. On 
 the left is an orange villa belonging to the King of Naples. 
 We strolled through the golden groves, saw the Roman 
 reticulated masonry of Cicero's villa, where he dwelt with 
 his friends in his prosperous days, surrounded by all that is 
 lovely in nature. In one place on these grounds I came 
 suddenly upon a small urn-like sepulchre, on the lid of 
 which I read, with some surprise, a very pretty epitaph, in 
 English, on a child. The lid of the tomb stood partly open, 
 and within you saw the small coffin. The child's name was 
 "Minna"; there were three verses; no name, date, or in- 
 scription; all was, however, simple, sad, and affecting a 
 solitary child tomb in an orange grove, in so celebrated a 
 spot. The lines were copied for an amiable lady of onr 
 party, and were as follows : 
 
 " Here Minna calmly lies 
 
 Far from their loving eyes 
 And tender hands who laid her in the grave, 
 
 And strewed her couch with flowers 
 
 From perfumed orange bowers, 
 And myrtle groves, that stoop to kiss the wave. 
 
 "0 gentle passer-by, 
 
 The tribute of a sigh 
 Leave, as an offering, in this flowery dell ; 
 
 And as you turn to go, 
 
 A kindly tear bestow, 
 On Minna's grave, lost because loved too well. 
 
 " But yet, a moment stay, 
 
 And bear a flower away 
 A flower of hope from Minna's grave that springs ! 
 
 Learn not to rest your heart 
 
 On joys that soon depart, 
 Nor give too much of love to earthly things."
 
 556 ROUTE TO NAPLES. 
 
 The singularity of meeting this solitary grave here, with an 
 English inscription, struck us all as being a bea-utiful and 
 affecting incident. They were English or Americans, per- 
 haps, who were traveling in Italy, and at this place lost 
 their child, and departed on their way without her. She 
 rests afar from her parents, who, perhaps, often think of her 
 valued dust on this seashore of Italy the memory of whose 
 beauty is to them darkened by such a loss. The little coffin 
 of the unknown Minna indicated her to be about five or six 
 years old. 
 
 Leaving this fine hotel, where we took our breakfast, or 
 dejeuner a la fourchtlle, we departed on our course, which lay 
 along the sea, blue and boundless, and near a vale of olive 
 orchards, ruins, gray and hoar and desolate, rising among 
 them. Arriving at the Mola, passports were again exam- 
 ined into, and the desire of the officers to examine our bag- 
 gage was commuted into a desire for six pauls, which we 
 paid and parted. Of course all begged if you looked at 
 them. They lay in the sun, and women sat in the doors 
 divesting each other of vermin. But there appeared to 
 be ragged happiness, and they enjoyed the wealth of a fine 
 climate, and we saw forms and faces among them that 
 would not disgrace a Roman ancestry. We now passed 
 through a very extensive and beautiful region, where figs, 
 olives, vines, citrons, etc., all grew in great profusion. The 
 sea was on one side, and on the other barren, rocky, moun- 
 tains, with, occasionally, a comfortless town on one of the im- 
 pregnable peaks. At length we approached the beautiful 
 river, Garigliano, which runs through a large plain of great 
 beauty. Here are vast ruins of Roman aqueducts, on 
 arches, striding across the plain, like those of the Campagna 
 of Rome. Many hundred arches yet remain, perhaps thirty 
 feet high, supporting the large brick canal in which the 
 water ran. Ilere also are extensive ruins of theatres and 
 amphitheatres, and Roman reticulated, or net-like brick-
 
 ROUTE TO NAPLES. 557 
 
 work, exhibiting all the strength and energy possessed by 
 that powerful, passed-away people. Thefte is no city here 
 now, nothing but these unsightly ruins, through which we 
 walked, to mark its place. It was the Roman city Min- 
 turnde that stood here. It was near this city, in the marshes 
 of the river, that Cams Marius concealed himself, and when 
 pursued by order of his enemy, Sylla, was discovered 
 almost sunk in the marsh by a soldier, who, stimulated by 
 the reward for his head, was about to kill him, when Marius 
 sternly demanded of him, how he dared to kill Caius 
 Marius, with an attitude so imperial, that the soldier fell on 
 his knees and implored pardon. We crossed the river here, 
 and some miles further brought us to Saint Agata, where we 
 remained all night. We saw on our route many persons 
 in most ragged costumes women as well as men at work 
 in the fields, using a small, three-cornered shovel as a spade, 
 to turn up large fields. I have seen but one plow in this 
 country, and that was of wood. The moon had arisen as 
 we drove through the arched gateway of our hotel, near St. 
 Agata. Our first feeling was dislike of the dirt we encoun- 
 tered everywhere many of the lower apartments of the 
 inns in Italy being stables. The landlord then showed us 
 suits of cloister-like rooms the hotel looking as if it had 
 been an ancient convent. None of the rooms being very eli- 
 gible, we were much disposed to quarrel with our vetturino 
 conductor, but at length we concluded to be satisfied, ordered 
 our dinner at a certain hour, examined the Register, and 
 seated around the fire, the latter a luxury the Italians do not 
 seem to require, we could discuss the scenes through which 
 we had passed during the day ; so we gave up our passports, 
 paid all the fees, and deported ourselves humbly and meekly. 
 Every traveler writes his name in the Register, his nation, 
 and generally, in addition to that, makes some remarks 
 about the hotel ; these are, sometimes, outrageously con- 
 demnatory, sometimes amusing, sometimes approbatory; 
 
 2 W2
 
 558 ROUTE TO NAPLES. 
 
 but the landlord and waiters, knowing nothing of English, 
 retain these notices of their own hotel, often against their 
 own interest, for years. These remarks in the Register are 
 often useful to travelers, as they direct his attention to the 
 best or worst hotels on his route. On the whole, we were 
 rather pleased with the hotel, notwithstanding our first im- 
 pressions, especially with the coffee, and on our departure 
 next morning wrote, after describing our reception by the 
 landlord, 
 
 " If to his share some human errors fall, 
 Drink of his coffee you'll forget them all !" 
 
 As we addressed our landlord in French, and stated our 
 objections pretty plainly, he, after replying to us civilly in 
 French, relieved himself by privately cursing us in Italian, 
 not knowing we understood him. Dinner, which we 
 ordered at seven o'clock in the evening, being over, we 
 strolled through the ancient town, with its towers and ruins 
 rising high in the soft moonlight. It is on a hill, and its 
 peaceful and poor inhabitants seem to be sufficiently happy 
 in the luxury of such a climate, and such scenes, without 
 requiring such things as comfort, plenty, or a good govern- 
 ment, all of which people in other countries may have, and 
 yet be dissatisfied. The climate seems almost changed, and 
 even the Italian language is not the dialect of Florence or 
 Rome, but is softer, and one begins to feel that he is in the 
 South of Italy. 
 
 Leaving here the next morning, Saturday, February 
 28th, at half-past seven o'clock, the morning being clear, 
 though cool, we began to ascend a ridge, on our left appear- 
 ing several old, changeless villages, perched on the moun- 
 tains around us the barren and rocky mountains sometimes 
 enclosing fertile vales of greenness below the villages. 
 Descending this elevation, an immense horizon spread out 
 in front a grand central object appeared suddenly before us
 
 ROUTE TO NAPLES. 559 
 
 a mountain, beautiful and regular in its outline, like a 
 pyramid. It was Vesuvius, rising high in the air, with a 
 vast jet of smoke issuing from it. The wind was from the 
 sea and carried the vast volume of smoke landward, and 
 the sunlight gilded its surface and clouds mingled with 
 it. : Sometimes it resembled an inverted cone of variegated 
 darkness, sitting on the summit of the upright cone of 
 Vesuvius sometimes like a storm-tossed, lightning-rent 
 cloud ; and then it become more peaceful, as if it were a lad- 
 der ascending to heaven then like towers and battlements 
 of a city of old. On our right was the sea with its islands, 
 on the left the bare, scathed-looking mountains, with some 
 snow on their cold summits. 
 
 We arrived at Capua, on our route, about ten o'clock, 
 where we remained some hours, taking a poor dtjtuner, in 
 dirty rooms, at a miserable hotel ("La Posta"), worse than 
 the one in which we stayed last night, yet the best in this 
 strongly fortified town. This city does not occupy the site 
 of ancient Capua, where Hannibal led his army after the 
 battle of Canna3, instead of marching them to Rome, and 
 terminating the existence of the Roman empire, as is 
 thought he could have done, since, in that battle, he slew 
 eighty thousand of their best soldiers. The city of Capua, 
 the residence in which so enervated his army, is within two 
 miles of this place, disclosing ruins of amphitheatres even 
 more extensive than the Coliseum. Modern Capua, in 
 which we now are, is almost surrounded by the river 
 Volturnus, which runs with a very swift current ; the city 
 is further defended by double walls and moats. We passed 
 the river and moats on several drawbridges; and if old 
 Hannibal were to rise out of the dust of Asia in which he 
 lies, and where he voluntarily, by his death, "freed the 
 Romans from their anxiety, since they had not patience to 
 wait for an old man's death," he would find 'such imple- 
 ments and arts of war as he never dreamed of, when his old
 
 560 NAPLES. 
 
 Africans made their furious onslaught into Italy by first 
 conquering the Alps themselves, the first time the hoar 
 mountains ever felt the tread of an army. "We walked 
 through the dirty, beggarly city, full of soldiers, and entered 
 the Cathedral, now undergoing repairs in a very elegant 
 manner. It has, in a recess below, a fine recumbent statue 
 of a dead Christ and his Mother (called a Pieta), some 
 stained glass windows, and some rather good paintings. 
 We left Capua at one o'clock. Approaching Naples (one 
 hundred and twenty-nine miles from Rome), we found the 
 roads very wide, the land level, fertile, and one continued 
 vineyard, the vines festooned to elms, and the land under- 
 neath green and lovely with grain. This is the " happy 
 Campagna," which is said now, and was said two thousand 
 years ago, to be the finest land in Italy. It looks not unlike 
 the Campagna of Rome in respect to quality of soil, and 
 perhaps resembles, in regard to cultivation, what the Roman 
 Campagna once was, ere neglect and war had allowed the 
 malaria to possess it. It is the finest vineyard in the world. 
 This is the finest road I have ever seen anywhere. There 
 are three rows of trees on each side, and two ditches on 
 each side ; it is broad enough for seven or eight carriages to 
 be driven abreast, is throughout of equal hardness, and 
 descends gently from the centre to each side. Approaching 
 Naples the scene is very different from that approaching 
 Rome. There every thing is dead and departed, and the 
 autumn of time seems resting. But here we were met by 
 a most singular sort of population, motley and monstrous ; 
 there was an accumulation of gay ragged ness and beggar- 
 dom almost ludicrous. The broad road was almost 
 thronged with various kinds of vehicles, generallv one- 
 horse concerns with two wheels, on which were fifteen or 
 twenty ragged persons clinging on, in, and under the vehi- 
 cle. These are, probably, sections or detachments of the 
 "ragged regiment," or lazzaroni of Naples, thirty thousand
 
 NAPLES. 561 
 
 strong, of whose business, means of living, or concerns, 
 beyond the mere fact of their being alive and ragged, no 
 one knows any thing. There were vendors of oranges, 
 flowers, all kinds of large and small things portable or pos- 
 sible ; women in antique and curious stages of ugliness, and 
 occasionally girls of rare, dark, and spiritual beauty all 
 was a stunning conglomeration of astonishing individuali- 
 ties. At the Dogana, or Custom House, we paid for the 
 non-examination of our baggage ; further on, our passports 
 were demanded taken from us this time, a receipt given us 
 in exchange for them, for which we paid a fee, and the 
 name of the hotel where we expected to stop required. The 
 billet we received required us to undergo certain formalities, 
 and pay certain fees, and procure certain papers before we 
 could stay in the city, or go away from it, or get our pass- 
 ports again. When in the city, it impressed us rather 
 favorably. The streets through which we passed were 
 crowded with the great population of Naples (it has four 
 hundred and fourteen thousand inhabitants); they were 
 spacious, wide, and roomy, though as we passed along the 
 principal streets we could see glimpses of long and more 
 narrow ones on each side, with very high houses; there 
 were rents in some of the walls of the houses and churches, 
 occasioned by earthquakes, the walls being propped up. 
 The great Asylum for the Poor, one of the largest build- 
 ings in the world, with its dependencies accommodates five 
 thousand persons ; then we came to the building called the 
 Museo Borbonico, second only to the Vatican in the inter- 
 esting nature of its collections. We then entered the Strada 
 Toledo, the principal street in the city, with very lofty 
 houses, few of them having any chimneys, on account of the 
 mildness of the climate, but all having iron balconies before 
 each window, on which to sit and enjoy the climate and the 
 views. Occasionally, as you pass, there are glimpses of the 
 strong castle of St. Elmo, occupying a high hill in the 
 36
 
 562 NAPLES. 
 
 centre of the city. We soon came to the Royal Palace, a 
 magnificent building, in front of which is a beautiful Largo, 
 or Square, semi-surrounded by a grand colonnade ; then on 
 your left, across an arm of the bay, you have fine views of 
 Vesuvius, appearing quite near, though it is five or six miles 
 to the base of it, looking like the chimney of hell; there 
 are several peaks on its left, and around the base of the 
 volcano is the thickest population in Europe. Then you 
 come to the main part of the bay, extending before you in 
 its unparalleled beauty. Solemn old Rome, with its over- 
 shadowing greatness in the past, is left behind, and we are 
 under a brighter sky, with a broad, beautiful sea-like bay 
 before us, on which the sunlight sleeps as if it loved it; the 
 laud, too, embraces the bay on three sides, as if protecting 
 it, and in front reposes the island of Capri, its irregular out- 
 line against the sky, like a sleeping giant, while Vesuvius 
 is on our left, its smoke ever ascending from it, and some- 
 times throwing upward sparks of fire there being a small 
 bay between the main part of the city and the base of the 
 mountain. Several villages, regardless and unconscious of 
 danger, cluster around the base of Vesuvius. We selected 
 the " Hotel de Russie," in the quarter Santa Lucia, fronting 
 on the bay. The hotels here are all good : their wide, mar- 
 ble staircases, lofty rooms, balconies, and paintings, indicate 
 elegance and comfort, especially to us who have been for 
 four days among the vetturino inns of Central Italy. There 
 are no drawbacks or discomforts in Naples but earthquakes 
 and red-hot lava. This evening I walked in the Villa 
 Reale, or the King's Villa, in frout of the bay this being 
 the favorite evening resort of the Neapolitans, like the 
 Pincian Hill at Rome. It is enclosed by iron railings, and 
 guarded at its entrances by soldiers, who allow no servants, 
 peasants, or beggars to enter it, except on one day in the 
 year. It has numerous long and winding walks, fine trees, 
 consisting of the evergreen oak, the palm, various kinds of
 
 MUSKO BORBONICO. 563 
 
 pines. Some of the trees are now out most beautifully in 
 bloom. On one side it has the lovely bay, with its waves 
 dashing against it, and far out is seen the great dragon-look 
 ing island of Capri, rendered so notorious by the residence, 
 the vices, and the temples of Tiberius; Vesuvius is also in 
 view, and the Castle of Ova on a huge rock near the shore, 
 and the very bluff sand rocks, with castles above them, on 
 which the modern city is built. The sea air here is delight- 
 ful. Below this promenade is another, much inferior, in- 
 tended for the lower classes. As in all other places on the 
 Continent, there is English Protestant service. It is held in 
 the Palace Calabritto. llere, as at Florence, the only two 
 places where payment is compulsory, though in all other 
 places it is expected one must pay before entering the door, 
 the price is four carlini, or about thirty-two cents for a 
 seat; this is exacted at the door. We had a good sermon, 
 however, in return. There was also a sermon delivered to- 
 day, in English, by a Catholic priest, in the church San 
 Francesco di Paolo, opposite the Royal Palace in the Largo 
 (or Square) Heale. This was one of the weakest sermons 
 ever delivered, as have been most Catholic sermons I have 
 heard in Europe. Their object seems to be to bewilder 
 rather than inform, and unsettle that they may then settle 
 by the mere authority of the Church, rather than instruct. 
 The Catholic as well as the Episcopal Church is stronger in 
 the service than in the sermons. 
 
 To-day, Monday, March 1st, our party began to sight-see 
 in Naples, We visited the Museo Borbonico, or Borbon 
 Museum, passing along the Strada Toledo, the noisiest 
 street in Europe, and for a certain extent the most densely 
 peopled. We went first into the Museum of Ancient 
 Sculpture. This consists of four or five long galleries filled 
 with choice remains of Greek and Roman sculpture and 
 mosaic work. Some have been found in various villas 
 around Naples, some brought from the Farnese Palace in
 
 564 MUSEO BORBONICO. 
 
 Rome, but the most have been brought from the disinterred 
 Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The statues 
 and busts are generally in fine Greek marble, some are in 
 porphyry, and consist of the Roman emperors, Roman and 
 Greek philosophers, poets, and orators, and also numerous 
 subjects drawn from their mythology. Many of them are 
 very fine, possessing strongly delineated features ; few are 
 merely handsome, but many highly characteristic of a peo- 
 ple and of persons who left so conspicuous an impression on 
 this world's history. We may see in these busts that they 
 were a people of strongly defined feelings, and powerful in 
 intellect or character for good or ill not negative, unde- 
 cided, half-way, or handsome men, but bold, strong, and 
 influential. The statues that seemed most remarkable were 
 those of Julius Caesar, Aristides, Caligula, Tiberius, the 
 goddess Flora, a mosaic of the Battle of Issus, representing 
 Darius, Alexander the Great, a Grecian War Chariot, also 
 many persons in deadly conflict, found in Pompeii, and 
 reckoned the grandest mosaic of ancient times in the world. 
 Many of these statues stood in the houses and theatres of 
 the lava-buried cities. The statue of Aristides is reckoned 
 the finest in the collection. The grace, dignity, and nobility 
 of the posture, attitude, and expression, are wonderful. 
 The drapery is fine. The whole is perfectly exquisite and 
 marvelously remarkable. His attitude is most impressive 
 and intellectual. Some regard it as vEschines, the Greek 
 orator, one of the most honorable men of antiquity. The 
 statue of Caligula is a very rare one indeed the Romans, 
 to show their abhorrence of that merciless and mean impe- 
 rial scoundrel, having destroyed every memorial of him at 
 his death. It expresses low, dangerous cunning. The bust 
 of Julius Caesar is most impressive and commanding. All 
 rivalry must have ceased in the presence of such a man. 
 The sitting statue of Agrippina, lamenting in acute, hope- 
 less, despairing anguish the death of Germanicus, is a
 
 MUSEO BORBONICO. 565 
 
 splendid representation of imperial agony. Those of Homer, 
 Herodotus, Demosthenes, Thuoydides, are fine. Many of the 
 statues have been sadly mutilated, and required extensive 
 restorations. Some of the statues are in green basalt, some 
 in porphyry, some in Oriental alabaster, but the most in 
 fine Greek and Carrara marble. The worst of them seem 
 superior in real executive and admitted genius, in the fer- 
 tility and lavishness of artistic power, in Homeric grandeur 
 ami Virgilian grace, to most of the modern works 1 have 
 seen. There was a largeness about old Greek and Roman 
 power that the human mind seems to have lost. We live 
 in the Composite age of the world. 
 
 We went also into the Egyptian department, consisting 
 of mummies old, very with the linen folds around them, 
 grinning horribly, all; some mere bones, some mere rags 
 or old clothes, some in their curiously carved stone or wood 
 coffins, lying as left four thousand years ago in Egypt, 
 others separate from the coffin. There were Egyptian gods, 
 idols, priests, .priestesses, in marble in black and green 
 basalt sarcophagi in black granite; there were presses 
 containing Egyptian charms or instruments of magic, 
 papyrus with Greek characters on it sixteen hundred years 
 old Isis and Osiris things strange, dreary, and entirely 
 different from the present of this world. Many of them 
 from Thebes, in Egypt; they are interesting, horrid, and 
 wonderful. 9 
 
 We went also into the apartments containing no less 
 than sixteen hundred fresco paintings, all found in the 
 buried cities. This is the famous collection of ancient 
 frescoes. They are generally of small size, which were on 
 the walls of the houses in Herculaneum and Pompeii, and 
 on the disinterment of those cities from their seventeen 
 hundred years burial in ashes, these fresco paintings, with 
 the plaster on which they were, were detached from the 
 walls with great care, and removed to this place. They
 
 566 CATHEDRAL. 
 
 represent all possible sorts of subjects some historical, 
 many mythological, some very much faded, almost indis- 
 tinct, some restored and repainted in modern times, so as to 
 render the desjgri more evident, some very beautiful and 
 life-like. The eve almost wearies with the number of 
 objects. The interment of these cities has been a fortunate 
 thing for the moderns, as it has thus preserved these works 
 of ancient art almost perfect, which, otherwise, would have 
 been lost in the convulsions of a living city, as those of 
 Rome and many other places have been. As statues of the 
 finest kind have been dug up every where throughout Italy, 
 we see thereby the splendor, wealth, and refinement of the 
 Roman Enpire, notwithstanding the vast numbers destroyed 
 by inappreciative barbarians, who, in their irruptions, 
 ground down the statues, and sometimes used them in their 
 lime kilns. Many of the paintings in this hall represent 
 scenes from Homer. One representing Achilles delivering 
 Briseis to the herald of Agamemnon, is considered the finest 
 specimen extant of ancient painting. There are thirteen 
 that represent dancing girls, all remarkable for their grace 
 of attitude. Some of the paintings are very fine and ex- 
 pressive, but they are principally remarkable on account of 
 their having been buried for many centuries, and for the 
 direct contact they bring us to in regard to the interior 
 adornments of the Roman houses. There is a gallery of 
 mosaics, also, iato which we entered. One, a "Cat devour- 
 ing a bird," is considered very fine; a "Skeleton grasping a 
 vase in each hand " is thought to be one of those warnings or 
 emblems the ancients had at their feasts, to remind them 
 of the mutability of happiness. With our mind almost 
 fatigued by the number of the objects in this Museum, we 
 reserved the remainder of its seventeen great divisions for 
 other days. 
 
 We walked to the Cathedral church, in the most dense 
 part of the city. It is a Gothic edifice, is very old, though
 
 CHAPBL OP SAN QENNARO. 667 
 
 i 
 
 much inferior in antiquity to many churches in Rome. It 
 has some fine paintings. It was originally built on the 
 ruins of a Temple of Apollo, and some of the columns of its 
 fine chapels, consisting of African and Egyptian granite, are 
 portions of the ancient temple. It has been much damaged 
 by earthquakes. The appearance of the church in the 
 interior is very imposing, on account of the great height of 
 its flat, gilded ceiling, and in the height of its multiform 
 columns. The baptismal font is an antique vase of 
 Egyptian basalt, resting on a pedestal of porphyry, and was 
 originally designed for a less sacred use than that to which 
 it is now appropriated, as it is sculptured over with Bac- 
 chanalian emblems. Connected to it is the subterranean 
 tomb of San Gennaro, and an entrance from the church leads 
 into a remarkable, old-looking church, which was the an- 
 cient Cathedral, which has many mosaics twelve hundred 
 years old, which have a peculiarly grave and ghostly appear- 
 ance. Opposite to the entrance to this chapel, is that to the 
 chapel of San Gennaro, or St. Januarius. This saint is held 
 in the greatest possible regard at Naples. His blood is con- 
 tained in two small vials, and its reliquefaction, which takes 
 place twice a year regularly, is the greatest religious festi- 
 val in the kingdom. St. Januarius, according to the tradi- 
 tion, was exposed to the lions in the amphitheatre of Poz- 
 zuoli the lions, however, in admiration of the Saint, 
 refused to devour him, and prostrated themselves before 
 him. He was then decapitated, and a part of his blood has 
 been preserved for fifteen hundred years. If the liquefac- 
 tion is delayed, it is esteemed some curse impends over the 
 city. During the recent alarm of earthquakes, the blood, 
 on being consulted, as it generally is on occasions of sup- 
 posed crises, was found to liquefy readily, which immedi- 
 ately diffused joy through the city. The vials are kept in 
 a tabernacle in this chapel, secured by two locks, the key 
 of one being kept by the Cardinal Archbishop, the other by
 
 568 NAPLES. 
 
 the municipal authorities. When the blood is to be con- 
 salted, the vials are brought out under a glass case, Mass 
 is said until the liquefaction takes place ; and if it is delayed, 
 old, rowdy-looking women of the lowest classes, who assert 
 themselves to be relatives of St. Januarius, after exhausting 
 Pater Nosters, Aves, and all sorts of prayers, begin to abuse 
 the Saint, call him the most offensive names, and howl and 
 shriek in a horrid manner, scolding the Saint. After a 
 number of Masses have been said, and all have gotten suffi- 
 ciently excited, the miracle takes place; the small clat of 
 blood in the vials becomes liquid, the people are then paci- 
 fied, the danger is thought to be over, and the Saint is blessed 
 by those who .had just been cursing him. Of the fact of 
 the liquefaction of something in the vials, there is no doubt, 
 but it probably is accomplished by means of some secret 
 machinery. When the miracle is complete, it is announced 
 by the roar of cannons. When the French got possession 
 of Naples, the blood was consulted, and the liquefaction 
 delayed a long time, insomuch that a tumult began, and it 
 was thought there would be an insurrection, as the Saint 
 was thought to be displeased that the French were in the 
 city. Whereupon the French commandant sent word to the 
 officiating priest that if the liquefaction were delayed ten 
 minutes, he would have the priest shot and the chapel 
 destroyed. The liquefaction took place immediately, and it 
 was ascribed to the goodness of the Saint, who wished to 
 spare the effusion of blood. So the Saint got the credit of 
 it at last. We did not see the vials containing the blood. 
 This chapel contains no less than seven altars and forty-two 
 columns of fine marbles. There are many tombs in this 
 church, some of kings, Popes, and cardinals. 
 
 From this we returned toward our hotel, passing through 
 the great, dirty, narrow-streeted city, with the constant 
 crowd, the cataract of population. It is half Oriental, partly 
 Southern, a little European, and thoroughly Italian in its
 
 HERCULANEUM. 569 
 
 appearance in this, the old part of the city. We went 
 along the Mole, or embankment, partially protecting the 
 harbor, which is strongly guarded and defended. We saw 
 the great and strong Castello Nuova, defending that portion 
 of the bay and the part of the city adjoining the King's 
 Palace. The king is said to be universally disliked, except 
 by the beggars and those who are immediately subservient 
 to him. Opposite the palace of the king is a fine, new, 
 modern church, forming part of the Royal Square. It is 
 exactly the shape of the Pantheon in Rome, and resembles 
 it much in its internal arrangements. It has some beauti- 
 ful modern paintings, and is highly ornamented. 
 
 To-day, Tuesday, March 2d> we have been, indeed, face to 
 face with the past, in its grave. Having made all our 
 arrangements with respect to carriages, we proceeded from 
 Naples, passing along the extreme end of the bay, where, 
 occasionally, we had fine views of the waters dashing in 
 their beauty against the shore. Vesuvius, always a promi- 
 nent object in the views around Naples, showed in clear 
 outline against the sky, immediately on our left, the road 
 passing around the base, from which the mountain ascends, 
 gradually, on all sides, for several miles, after which the 
 sloping ascent of the cone is very steep. A vast volume of 
 smoke arose constantly from the crater. The part of Naples 
 "through which we passed abounds in the lazzaroni, fisher- 
 men, sailors, women of most strange costumes and appear- 
 ances here live in the open air, beg when they can, enjoy 
 life, and suicide would be the last of their thoughts. There 
 were many small shrines, with beautiful portraits of the 
 Madonna and Child, which at night are illuminated by a 
 lamp, affixed to the houses, and defended from the weather 
 by a glass cover. These meet the eye everywhere in 
 Naples. A statue of St. Januarius, who is the Patron Saint 
 of Naples, and shares with the Virgin their devotions, 
 stands on the bridge over that ancient river, the Sebeto, 
 
 2x2
 
 570 HERCULANEUM. 
 
 with one hand directed toward Vesuvius, in a threatening 
 manner, as if averting destruction from his favorite city. 
 Further on we entered the long, straggling villages of Por- 
 tici and Resina, built on the lava of Vesuvius, which 
 overwhelmed Herculaneum, which latter lies immediately 
 underneath the knowledge of it having been lost for fifteen 
 hundred years and on its lava covering of eighty feet in 
 thickness other cities having grown up. It is recorded that 
 from the fifth to the eighteenth century, Herculaneum and 
 Pompeii were both forgotten. Ilerculaneurn was originally 
 a Greek city; it was conquered by the Romans, and became 
 celebrated among them as a place of enchanting sojourn, 
 but it disappeared all at once in the year A. D. 79; the 
 ashes and torrents of fire leaping from various mouths of 
 Vesuvius devastated the entire city. The volcanic mud 
 filled the buildings nearly to their roofs, after which came 
 showers of ashes and lava, which hardened into solid rock, 
 varying in depth from seventy to one hundred and twenty 
 feet. The city beneath was discovered by a person who was 
 digging a well, and who came upon numerous statues and 
 different kinds of marbles; this being communicated to the 
 Prince d'Elbeuf, who, about the year 1720, was construct- 
 ing a palace near, for which he wished to procure some fine 
 marbles. Further excavations were made during a space of 
 five years, by the prince, and numerous fragments of mar- 
 ble recovered, without his knowing what lost city lay 
 beneath. Since then numerous excavations have been 
 made and many ancient works found; but owing to the 
 difficulty of excavating under the towns above, the work 
 has nearly been discontinued, and the places filled up, in 
 order to render secure the property above. It is ascertained 
 that the city was originally built on a crust of lava. Pass- 
 ing through a very dirty, modern street in Rosina, paved 
 with lava stones, we came to the entrance of. the descent 
 into the buried city. The guide appointed by the govern-
 
 HERCULANEUM. 571 
 
 Jnent, and stationed here, gave to each one of the party a 
 candle, and preceded us into the cave-like aperture, descend- 
 ing by st-ps cut into the lava. After a descent in this way 
 of some distance, we came to the excavated theatre, about 
 sixty-five feet below the level of the streets above, the 
 rattling of the carriages over which we heard distinctly 
 all the tumult of a modern city going on above, while we 
 were threading the avenues of a buried one below a city 
 of silence. We descended the original stone steps, once 
 adorned with marble statues, and we wound along numer r 
 ous passages cut through the solid lava. We trod on the 
 stage, the place for the orchestra, seats for the spectators, 
 saw the niches for the statues, some of the frescoes, marble 
 cornices, saw the impress of a human face in the lava all 
 buried suddenly, with eighty feet of solid lava above them, 
 and eighteen centuries gone by since. The whole of the 
 theatre has not been excavated. The lava rock above is 
 supported in some places by buttresses. The theatre was, 
 probably, larger than any now in Europe. Some assert it 
 would seat thirty-five thousand persons. Here, then, they 
 sat and enjoyed the scenes till the flood of lava came. 
 Other buildings, basilicas and temples, and portions of a 
 street which led down to the sea, were partially excavated. 
 Returning along an ancient corridor cut in the lava, by 
 which the Romans left the theatre, we ascended the steps to 
 the light of day, and walked along the dirty modern street 
 to another excavation in that part of the city lying next, to 
 the sea. Here we entered and descended, to the level of the 
 ancient city, some forty feet thickness of lava, as hard as 
 any stone, having been removed from a space equal to 
 several acres, and the whole scene lay exposed to the sun. 
 The scene was most sad and singular. We walked through 
 the houses of the extinct Herculaneans ; they were, in gen- 
 eral, but two stories high, being built almost universally of 
 Roman brick and volcanic stone. In some places the stone
 
 572 HERCULANEUM. 
 
 had decayed into sand, while the mortar remained. We 
 saw the carbonized wooden parts of the houses, the stucco 
 and marble pillars surrounding the internal portico of the 
 houses, the bed chambers with their walls in vivid colors 
 of fresco paintings. The houses that have been disinterred 
 have received different names, referring to the paintings, 
 or some circumstance attending the exhumation. The 
 paved street is here laid bare with the raised side- walk for 
 foot-passengers. We went into numerous bed-chambers of 
 the Romans. The roofs were crushed in by the lava, and 
 were removed in the excavations. There were many arti- 
 cles of household use, vases of pottery one piece that had 
 been broken, and was ingeniously mended ; also a small 
 marble table in a garden, by the side of which was found 
 the skeleton of a lady seated, with a golden bracelet on her 
 arm. In another place was shown an excavated apartment, 
 serving as a prison for the slaves belonging to the family ; 
 under this was the dungeon for criminal slaves, four of 
 whose skeletons were found here with the chains around 
 their ancles. In another apartment was the altar on which 
 sacrifices were offered; the niche for the idol and the priests' 
 room were adjoining. Many of the floors of the rooms 
 were in beautiful mosaic. Rare and beautiful wild flowers 
 are growing over this scene, and some roses are in bloom in 
 the recultivated gardens of the Herculaneans, on which fifty 
 feet of lava had lain for seventeen hundred and ninety 
 years. There is more than half a mile of lava between the 
 city and the sea, though in some places are to be seen shops 
 and wharves, once immediately on its waters, showing an 
 extension of the banks seaward as the lava rolled down. 
 As only a small part of the ancient city has been dug into, 
 there is thus evidently a whole unexcavated city lying 
 under the modern one. The mountain burns above it as of 
 old, but the people have passed and perished, and the city 
 has had the fate of Sodom. Vesuvius has cast out of its
 
 POMPEII. 578 
 
 boeom pumice stone, cinders, ashes, and mud enough to 
 make ten times its own bulk. Whence comes the supply 
 to keep in activity a volcano for thousands of years? The 
 lava here is extremely hard and difficult to excavate into. 
 In this place, as* well as in the underground theatre, the 
 custodes point out the different places where the most cele- 
 brated paintings and statues, now removed to the museum, 
 were found. Herculaneum, about the time of the Christian 
 era, was a place of great trade and commerce. 
 
 To-day, Wednesday, March 3d, we have stood in another 
 sepulchral city of the olden. Our party, consisting of seven 
 persons, left Naples by railway, and passed along the base 
 of Vesuvius. We had splendid views of Naples of that 
 part of the city situated on the seaward slope of the hill, 
 which is surmounted by the Castle of St. Elmo. On our 
 right we had also fine views of the sea waves, break- 
 ing and dashing in white foam on the black lava beach. 
 The railway passes through the cities of Portici and Resina 
 over Herculaneum through Torre del Greco and Torre 
 del Annunziata. On the left were the rugged, bold, scorched 
 sides of Vesuvius, with the various rivers of dried-up lava, 
 the eruptions of various eras. An upward stream of black 
 smoke rose constantly from the crater, high above us. The 
 view of the volcano at night is very interesting. The great 
 volume of smoke is interspersed with frequent bursts of 
 flame, rising and falling at intervals, as if they were great 
 throbbings of some vexed, remorseful heart beneath. Much 
 of the ground near the city of Naples, on this side, is covered 
 with fine gardens, now green with spring vegetables for the 
 city market. These gardens are irrigated by water elevated 
 mechanically a few feet into cisterns, built of brick, from 
 which extend to various parts of the grounds small aque- 
 ducts. Parts of the coast consist of small villages, inhabited 
 by boatmen. More than seventy thousand persons live im- 
 mediately about the base of Vesuvius. Much of the soil is
 
 674. POMPEII. 
 
 very rich. In some places are successive layers of lava and 
 rich soil, showing how indefatigable Nature had, in the 
 course of years, garmented the fierce lava with greenness 
 and arable soil, to^be in after ages overwhelmed by the 
 destroying mountain. There are many fine fig and olive 
 orchards and splendid vine plantations along the base of 
 the mountain; and at some places could be seen ruins of 
 llomun villas, peering above half excavated ruins. Leaving 
 the railway at the "Stazione Pompeia," we procured a guide 
 for the day, and, entering a gate near a restaurant,, we walked 
 up an ascent, which is part of the immense tumulus of ashes 
 inclosing the unexcavated walls of the city on the side next 
 to the sea, which latter once washed the walls of the city, 
 though now over a half a mile distant. We then passed 
 through a fertile field, interspersed with numerous mulberry 
 trees, on which the vine is pendent, this field being on 
 and around the unexcavated part of the city. The ruined 
 city of stone and Roman brick, roofless and gray, and of 
 considerable size, with long, silent streets, destitute of in- 
 habitants, appeared on our right the skeleton of a city. 
 This was Pompeia. Nothing could be sadder looking in 
 that bright Italian air, in presence of that glistening sea, 
 and that yet threatening mountain, than this aspect of gray 
 ruin, this city of the departed, this unrolled mummy of a 
 city, on which we gazed. Our guide conducted us to the 
 Street of the Tombs a broad, paved Roman way an ex- 
 tension of the Via Appia, which led to this city. It has nu- 
 merous deep ruts or marks of wheels in the solid pavement, 
 and it is lined on each side with tombs. The street is paved 
 with blocks of lava, closely fitted together, and on each side 
 is a raised thoroughfare for pedestrians. This street has 
 been likened to what the Via Appia must have been in the 
 days of its glory, when it emerged from Rome on the Cara- 
 pagna. It presents the appearance of a long line of tombs, 
 on each side of the street. They are of various designs,
 
 POMPEII. 575 
 
 bat are generally elegant marble urns, adapted to contain 
 sepulchral vases, which had the ashes of the dead, with 
 marble doors, bas reliefs, and Latin inscriptions. This 
 street is excavated in its entire length, but the side streets 
 are not; and consequently many of the houses are partly 
 covered, and trees and shrubs are growing over them. 
 Here one sees the interior life of the Romans. Here are 
 houses and tomb-like houses mingled together in the street. 
 There was nothing offensive in the Roman cemeteries ; the 
 bodies were burned, (though some families, as the Scipios, 
 did not have this custom) the ashes preserved in elegant 
 vases, and affection could linger around them without hor- 
 ror. The Villa of Diomede, as it is called, on account of a 
 tomb near having that name on it, is on this street. We 
 entered it saw the interior arrangement, the court-yard 
 surrounded with columns, the impluvium or cistern to catch 
 the rain water, the marble fountain near, places for baths, 
 hot, cold and vapor, the dining-rooms, bed-chambers, with 
 graceful paintings, arabesques, etc. The well in the yard 
 was also seen, with the groove in the stone made by the 
 rope in drawing water. We saw the secret stairway. Most 
 of the houses were of large extent, but had only one or two 
 two stories. In this Villa of Diomede there appears to have 
 been three. Entering the cellar, we saw many wine jars 
 leaning against the wall. Nineteen skeletons were found 
 in the cellars, as if they had sought refuge there. They 
 were females, and had a profusion of gold ornaments on 
 their necks; some were children, part of the hair on their 
 heads remaining when first discovered; also the skeleton of 
 a young girl of great beauty of form. These have been 
 removed to the Museum of Naples. The skeleton of the 
 presumed owner of the villa was found near the garden 
 gate the key of the villa in his band, and a purse contain- 
 ing one hundred gold pieces. One of the rooms was a 
 lady 's toilet-chamber, with rouge, cosmetics, and a little
 
 576 POMPEII. 
 
 mirror. Another room was lighted with four panes of 
 glass, six inches square. Continuing our walk along this 
 street, we entered several other houses, and saw nu- 
 merous tombs, one of which recorded the death of a child 
 twelve years old. One could not but be struck with the 
 difference between this and a modern grave-yard nothing 
 here about Jesus Christ rising from the dead, or a hope of 
 immortality. The age of the world has changed. Some of 
 the tombs are called Columbaria, or dove-cotes, consisting 
 of numerous places not unlike pigeon-holes, where, in small 
 vases, the ashes of a whole family, or, where the slaves 
 were numerous, all the ashes of the servants of a family 
 might be seen at one glance. The places where the hinges 
 of the marble doors had been were very distinctly seen. 
 Many of them had fine bas reliefs or pictures cut in the 
 marble, some representing gladiatorial shows. We now 
 approached the city walls, these tombs and houses being 
 outside. Near the wall was found the skeleton of a Roman 
 soldier, in complete armor, who appeared to have been on 
 duty at this gate, and, Roman-like, refused to quit his post, 
 notwithstanding the eruption. The walls of the city are 
 visible in only some places. They are nearly three miles 
 in circuit. The area inclosed by the walls was about one 
 hundred and sixty acres. There were eight gates. Within 
 the walls the scene of ruin was utterly unparalleled. Here 
 were houses, indeed, but no inhabitants. Over some of the 
 entrances was written " Salve !" or " Welcome !" but the 
 entertainer and entertained had alike departed. There were 
 fine mosaic pavements, which were covered with gravel. 
 This was swept away by some boys at our approach, dis- 
 closing various designs in the floor, which they cover again 
 on our departure. In this way they exact a few baiocchi 
 from each party. A number of female ornaments were 
 found in this house. There is an altar here, on which it is 
 supposed the sacred fire was kept burning this house
 
 POMPEII. 577 
 
 being called that of the Vestal Virgin8. Near this is the 
 " House of the Surgeon," where no less than forty surgical in- 
 struments, now in the Museum at Naples, were found, some 
 of which are exactly similar to instruments patented of 
 late years as new discoveries in science. There is a little 
 garden in the interior court of this house. Thus we 
 went into very many houses, perhaps forty in all. The 
 effect is singular. Any one who. has entered a large, and 
 to him strange city, in a midnight moonlight, when the in- 
 habitants have all retired, and every thing is dead and 
 silent, can have some idea of the impressions on the mind 
 when wandering through Pompeii. It seems like an im- 
 possible reality a moonlight come out into broad day- 
 light a disrupted century of the past rolled back upon 
 us a place all human but without humanity : every thing 
 is so full of life suddenly left the paintings on which they 
 had just gazed; the marks on the marble counters of wine 
 glasses, just drained. It is a genuine Roman city, that has 
 not gone out with Time embalmed one thousand seven 
 hundred and eighty years ago. We now unroll its rags, 
 and look at the wonder of^a long-lost city. 
 
 Pompeii, as also Herculaneum, from which it is distant 
 about six miles, were Greek cities. The Oscans occupied 
 it, the Etruscans also, and the Samnites, and it was eventu- 
 ally conquered and annexed to the Roman Empire the 
 Romans being the great filibusters of those times. It 
 became a commercial place, for which its facilities were 
 admirable, being on the sea at that time, and having all 
 around it a splendid vine, grain, and olive country. A 
 terrific earthquake in the year of our era, 63, threw down 
 a great part of the city, deprived many people of their 
 reason, and induced many of the inhabitants to abandon the 
 city for a time. They returned, however, and began to- 
 repair the damages, and at the present time one can trace 
 the original damages, and the subsequent hasty repairs 
 37 2 Y
 
 578 POMPEII. 
 
 which they were constructing when the dreadful eruption 
 of Vesuvius took place, A. D. 79, when the city was buried 
 by showers of red-hot cinders, pumice-stone, and ashes, no 
 lava having reached it this being the same eruption, the 
 lava of which destroyed Herculaneum. After this erup- 
 tion, Vesuvius was quiet for four hundred years, and it 
 appears that the site was, during this period, occupied by 
 houses belonging to the lower classes. Another eruption 
 occurring at this time, the site was abandoned, and Pompeii 
 forgotten, though the upper wall of the great theatre was 
 never entirely buried. A countryman, in 1748, digging a 
 well, and having discovered a painted chamber containing 
 statues and other objects of antiquity, a real interest was 
 excited, and since then, a period of one hundred and nine 
 years, about a sixth part of the city has been excavated. 
 No houses have yet been discovered which can be regarded 
 as the dwelling-places of the poor, and it is conjectured that 
 want and misery were unknown in Pompeii. The roofs 
 were flat, and on them, in the inner court, surrounded by 
 columns, and embellished with fountains and flowers, and 
 in the Forum, the inhabitants appear to have spent much of 
 their time, the soft and pleasant climate rendering the open 
 air the most desirable place. The fronts of many of the 
 houses, next the streets, were occupied as shops the better 
 parts of the houses were those surrounding the inner court, 
 or peristyle. In the narrow streets the ruts made by the 
 wagon wheels are extremely deep in the hard lava stones of 
 which they are all paved ; in the wider streets the ruts cross 
 and recross each other in every manner. At various places 
 are stepping-stones for foot travelers, to enable them to cross 
 the streets in wet weather; and holes are found in some 
 places in the curb, supposed to be for fastening the halters of 
 horses. It is thought the greater part of the inhabitants of 
 Pompeii escaped. The population was about seventy 
 thousand. It is said they were in the Amphitheatre when
 
 POMPEII. 579 
 
 the eruption took place, and from this could escape to the 
 surrounding country, beyond the sphere of the shower 
 which overwhelmed the city. Many skeletons, however, 
 were found. Sixty-three Roman soldiers, in one place, re- 
 fused to desert their post. Many of the skeletons were 
 highly ornamented. One young lady had four gold rings 
 on her finger, set with engraved gems had on five gold 
 bracelets, two ear-rings, and thirty-two pieces of gold were 
 lying near. Three other skeletons, supposed to have been 
 her slaves, were near. Another small house had five skele- 
 tons in it, with bracelets and rings of gold. In another 
 room were eighteen skeletons of men, women, and children, 
 and some of dogs. Many of the houses yet bear the names 
 of their original owners, written above the door, in red 
 paint In the "House of the Physician," as it is called, were 
 found seventy instruments, rolls prepared for cutting pills, 
 marble slabs for making the rolls, and others for making 
 ointments. In the " House of Sallust," we saw splendidly 
 painted sleeping apartments colors very red and bright, 
 notwithstanding their burial of near two thousand years. 
 The floors was of Greek marble. Most of the fine fresco 
 paintings were removed to Naples. One still remaining 
 represents the Greek story of Diana and Actseon. There 
 are here to be seen niches in the walls for the Lares, or 
 household gods ; also a splendid fresco of Bacchus one of 
 the Cornucopia, or horn of plenty. Into the kitchens and 
 dining rooms we also entered. There had been found here 
 orange trees, small tables, or platforms, for reading ; and in 
 the inner court there were borders for flowers and small 
 fountains. This street is but little over twelve feet wide 
 the side or foot-walks are about four feet wide, and are ele- 
 vated one foot above the street the paving is of the an- 
 cient Roman kind, consisting of square blocks of lava stone, 
 about one foot each way. The houses, like those of modern 
 Naples, are not entered by doors, but by arched gateways,
 
 580 POMPEII. 
 
 leading into the inner court of a quadrangle. This house 
 occupies an area of forty square yards. One street which 
 we entered is called the " Street of Fortune." We entered 
 here the " House of the Tragic Poet," so called from its 
 interesting fresco paintings, representing the combats of the 
 gladiators ; there are here, also, fine mosaic floors. In this 
 street are also large public baths, with waiting-rooms, which 
 have seats in them, rooms for anointing, places for steam or 
 vapor baths, fountains, marble basins, etc. The roof was 
 vaulted and lighted at one end by a single pane of glass, 
 three feet eight inches broad, two feet eight inches long, and 
 two-fifths of an inch thick. Another street near this is 
 fifteen or eighteen feet wide, the raised side-walks six or 
 eight feet broad. It was bordered by shops of the first 
 class. Over the street was a triumphal arch made of brick 
 and lava and lined with marble. We also entered the 
 " House of the Large Fountain," with a large fountain 
 encrusted with mosaics of different colors ; the water flowed 
 through a mask. In the street of Mercury we entered the 
 " House of Castor and Pollux," a large house with an interior 
 cortile of finely sculptured marble columns. Some of the 
 houses have the ancient entrances bricked up, and a door 
 made, which has for its keeper a beggar, who unlocks it for 
 a small consideration, thus begging with a pretext. We 
 entered a house called that of Meleager, which has a 
 splendid marble table, supported by elegantly carved marble 
 figures; -there was a fish pond in the inner court, the water 
 of which was so arranged as to fall over eight steps. The 
 area of the court was surrounded by twenty-four columns. 
 One door here consisted of four folding leaves. There is 
 here a dancing-room with fine mosaic floor. Then we 
 entered the " House of the Great Mosaic," where the mosaic 
 representing the Battle of Issus was found. There are here 
 floors of variegated marbles, principally of Oriental marble 
 and alabaster of different colors. A great number of do-
 
 POMPEII. 581 
 
 raestic utensils were here found, some of which were of 
 silver; gold bracelets, necklaces, and ear-rings of unusual 
 elegance were found. There was here also a large and fine 
 garden, surrounded by beautiful columns. Near this is the 
 "House of the Chase," in which remains a fine fresco of a 
 bear hunt. We also passed through the long street, called 
 that of " Commerce," from the number of shops. We saw 
 some public bake-houses, where were four flour mills, of 
 lava stone, arranged not much unlike a common coffee mill ; 
 there were wooden bars, to which asses, and sometimes 
 slaves, were attached, to turn the mills. Ascending from 
 this sepulchre of streets, we stood on the soil over the unex- 
 cavated city. Pompeii stood on a fertile plain, surrounded 
 by mountains, except one part open to the sea. Some of 
 the mountains have snow on them at present. Vesuvius is 
 one of the surrounding mountains, with his ever-smoking 
 summit. On the lower parts of the mountains are seen little 
 villages and villas, embraced in olive groves. It is about 
 six miles, in a straight line, from Pompeii to the top of 
 Vesuvius. There is now a fine vineyard on the unexca- 
 vated part of the city. There are workmen engaged at 
 present in the excavation ; they sift the soil to ascertain if 
 any thfhg valuable is contained. We saw them excavating 
 a house, the fluted columns reappearing, and the frescoes on 
 the walls bright and vivid after eighteen hundred years 
 burial. We now walked some six hundred yards over the 
 soil which covers the city, by a path which was beset with 
 . beggars, and came to the Amphitheatre. It is an immense 
 building of stone, oval in form, open at the top; the seats 
 are in sloping tiers around the interior, capable of accom- 
 modating twenty thousand spectators. It has many cor- 
 ridors, passages, and dens within the basement. The seats 
 gradually decline backward from the central arena to the 
 highest part of the walls there being four rows of seats for 
 the different classes of the population. The eruption ap- 
 
 2Y2
 
 582 POMPEII. 
 
 pears to have just covered the space within the walls. The 
 entrances at each end of the arena, for the admission of the 
 gladiators and wild beasts, and for the removal of the dead, 
 are yet perfect. This Amphitheatre is more ancient than 
 the Coliseum at Rome, though not near so large. The peo- 
 ple were assembled here at the outbreak of the eruption. 
 Returning to the excavated part of the city, we saw the 
 aqueduct through which flows the Sarno, then entered the 
 remains of the Temple of Isis, the worship of which Egyp- 
 tian god appears to have prevailed at Pompeii. We saw 
 the altar of sacrifice, on which, when first discovered, the 
 bones of some of the victims were found. We saw the 
 secret passages by which the priest ascended and stood in 
 the large statue of the god, and made the responses which 
 they pretended came from the god. Here was found the 
 skeleton of a man with an axe in hand, by which he 
 had cut through two walls to escape the eruption, but* 
 had perished before he could get through the third. In 
 another room was found a skeleton, with bones of chickens, 
 egg-shells, bread and wine, as if he had just been at dinner 
 when the eruption took place. We then entered the Tragic 
 Theatre, which it is thought could have seated five thousand 
 persons; the seats had all been lined with Parian marble, 
 and admitted the spectators to a fine view of the bay. 
 Near this are the Comic Theatre and the Ancient Forum, 
 with several stately columns of marble yet standing around 
 three of the sides. Near this is the Triangular Forum, 
 which has a portico of ninety columns on two of its sides; 
 and then we saw the Temple of Jupiter, an imposing con- 
 struction, one hundred feet long and forty-three wide; also, 
 the Temple of Venus, on a wide street leading to the sea, 
 and a Basilica, or Temple of Justice, supposed to be the 
 work of Greek architects. It is two hundred and twenty 
 feet long and eighty broad. This appears to have been the 
 finest part of the city ; the architecture is splendid, and
 
 POMPEII. 583 
 
 much of it in the Greek style. Some of the buildings are 
 of Roman brick and lava stone, covered with very fine and 
 smooth stucco work, or faced with marble. Not far from 
 this were the dungeons where the skeletons of two men 
 were found, with iron shackles on their ankles. Having 
 gone through many ruined streets, we now descended to the 
 railway station. The weather was extremely pleasant and 
 suitable for wandering through these gray, grave-like ruins, 
 silent and yet eloquent of their past. One could scarcely 
 separate himself from the idea of a luxurious, voluptuous 
 people, joyous, and with all that this world could give, and 
 with no fears of a hereafter, suddenly bereft of all existence 
 in the midst of its pleasures. It is said the place is fated, 
 and that an impression prevails that when the excavations 
 are completed, it will be again destroyed by the mountain. 
 No less than seven distinct strata of ashes and pumice-stone 
 have been found, one above the other, on the city. There 
 is no place that exists in which one can get so forcible an 
 impression of the manners and customs of the ancient 
 Romans as in this exhumed city. None of the houses had 
 any chimneys; the ordinary building materials were Roman 
 brick and large lava stones, the latter in front and without 
 cement. Thus departed Pompeii in its bustle, pride, and 
 pleasure. The mountain sent out a huge, unprecedented 
 shower of ashes, stones, and volcanic mud, which darkened 
 the air for three days, turning day into night, and emitting 
 sulphurous and deadly fumes, immediately destructive of 
 life. The waves of the sea rose into mountains ; and on the 
 third day, when it became light, the plain was strewed with 
 the dead, among whom was Pliny, the Roman Philosopher, 
 who had been unable to escape. Pompeii, Herculaneum, 
 and Stabiae, another overwhelmed city near the former, were 
 no more. It was a Sodom and Gomorrah scene re-enacted. 
 But life still goes on here along this lovely coast gay, but 
 not so grand as then. Other cities are here, and the moun-
 
 584 NAPLES MUSEO BORBONICO. 
 
 tain, unextinguished and vmsated, fumes yet up into the 
 pleasant Italian air. 
 
 To-day, March 4th, we returned to the Museo Borbonico, 
 to view the interesting remains brought from Pompeii, 
 which we visited yesterday. We saw the singular-looking 
 mosaic which lay at the threshold of one of the houses we 
 were in yesterday, representing a dog guarding the entrance, 
 with the words, "Cave canem!"or, "Beware of the dog!'* 
 We saw here very many things brought from Pompeii 
 charred bread, brought from the bake-house, having the 
 proprietor's name stamped on it, certainly the oldest loaf of 
 bread in the world; there were also fruits, nuts of various 
 kinds, silver ornaments, a sun-dial in the form of a ham to 
 hang in the kitchen, a glass lens ; also, moulds for pastry, 
 forks and spoons of silver, a mirror of silver, drinking-cups 
 for the table; censers for incense found in the Temple of Isis ; 
 ornaments of gold, bracelets, a purse found full of money, 
 old Roman coins, ear-rings and ornaments found in the 
 Villa of Diomede, marriage-rings, necklaces, all of pure 
 gold, some with the name of the owner, one with the name 
 of Cornelia engraved all in the perfection of jewelry work; 
 there were glass vases for perfume, gold leaf, etc. There 
 were also very fine cameos here of great value and of 
 Greek workmanship : one, the largest cameo in the world. 
 In another press or secretary were displayed eggs from one 
 of the houses, meat vitrified in the process of. being cooked 
 by steam, onions, jumbles, pomegranates with their flowers, 
 olives, roses for oils, instruments for netting like those used 
 now, moulds for making small cheeses, skeins of silk, fine 
 linen, buttons for mantles, sponges, silk wound on balls, 
 mats for the doorways,, pots with paints in them, rouge for 
 painting faces, linen fire-proof to wrap up the dead, figures 
 in ivory, numerous gold rings found on the fingers of skele- 
 tons, rings to carry poison in. Then we saw in one room 
 beautiful mosaic floors, brought with great care from some
 
 MCSEO BORBONICO. 585 
 
 of the houses in Pompeii. The collection of uncut glass is 
 very extensive. There were wine bottles, scent bottles, 
 urns containing human bones, window glass, etc. The col- 
 lection of terra-cotta, or pottery, is also interesting. There 
 are here many household utensils household gods, ink- 
 stands, bird fountains, money bags containing coins. We 
 then went into the Hall of the Bronzes, the most ex- 
 tensive and interesting collection of the kind in the world. 
 These were principally found at Herculaneum and Pompeii. 
 The bronze statue of " Mercury in Repose" is reckoned the 
 finest bronze statue in the world. It is admirably true to 
 nature. Nothing is wanting limbs all perfect. There is 
 here a large bronze water-cask, which, after the lapse of 
 eighteen centuries, yet contains water hermetically sealed. 
 The ''Dancing Faun" is also a splendid statue, so thoroughly 
 life-like; the "Sleeping Faun" also; statues of "Alexander 
 the Great," of "Plato," and many others. Leaving out 
 those great exceptions the printing press, which dissemi- 
 nates and multiplies knowledge ; the telegraph, which en- 
 ables us to talk across continents and oceans; the steam- 
 engine, which gives us wings; and Christianity, which has 
 supplanted the gods of Paganism by a " better hope" I do 
 not see wherein the vaunting modern times have advanced 
 except in vanity architecture and works of art and genius 
 seem to have reached perfection before modern times were 
 born. In another hall we saw the every-day household 
 utensils of the Pompeians. They occupy in all seven halls. 
 They are of bronze and sijver, and are of exquisite work- 
 manship. There are kettles, saucepans, frying-pans, a 
 bronze furnace like a modern cooking-stove, several very 
 elegant and ingenious candelabra and lamps, steelyards, 
 weights and scales, a beautiful bronze tea-urn found in 
 Herculaneum, carpenters' tools, planes, instruments of agri- 
 culture, bronze bells for cattle, loaded dice, tickets for the 
 theatre, stocks by which persons were confined, skulls and
 
 686 MUSEO BORBONICO. 
 
 skeletons found in Pompeii, musical instruments, among 
 them the flute. Most of the instruments were found as if 
 just in use, indicating how sudden and unexpected the 
 catastrophe. 
 
 To-day. March 6th, we returned to the Museum, the 
 weather being rainy. We went into the rooms, six in 
 number, containing the great collection of sepulchral vases, 
 the most extensive in the world. They consist of Greek 
 and Roman vases, two thousand years old, Etruscan ones 
 three thousand years old, and Egyptian ones four thousand 
 years old. They are of all shapes, made of burnt clay or 
 terra-cotta. They were to hold the ashes of the dead. 
 They are painted on the outside with many scenes, historic 
 or poetic, illustrative of ancient manners; some highly 
 obscene and unsuitable. They consist generally of red 
 paintings on a black ground ; or black paintings on a red 
 ground. They have been found in tombs all over Italy 
 and the countries adjoining. Some were found among the 
 ruins of Carthage. One represents a tomb in the form of 
 an Ionic column, which a young princess is embracing with 
 great tenderness; another female figure bears a crown; 
 on the other side is an aged figure, with white hair and a 
 sorrowful countenance. Another represents a tomb em- 
 braced by a female figure in a black robe, while a man is 
 on the point of stabbing her. Much of ancient Theogony 
 and heroic history is shown on these vases. It is probable 
 most of these vases contained the ashes of the early Greeks, 
 who founded colonies in this part of Italy. It is said there 
 are three thousand three hundred vases and cups, in all, 
 in this collection. Many have Greek inscriptions. Many 
 of the vases have three handles. One vase has no less than 
 forty-three figures painted on it. I have seen few things 
 more interesting than these sepulchral vases. The designs 
 on some of them are utterly unknown or conjectural. Some 
 of them seem to represent the labors of Hercules, some the
 
 VESUVIUS. 587 
 
 Amours of various gods. The Greek word " Kalos," or "beau- 
 tiful," is on those vases which, in the opinion of the an- 
 cients, deserved the public approbation. There are in these 
 halls Etruscan tombs showing the position of the bones, 
 when the tombs were first opened, where the body was 
 buried entire; also the position of the vases when only 
 ashes were kept. 
 
 We entered also the great collection of paintings which 
 are in about seventeen or eighteen rooms, and consists of 
 more than nine hundred paintings. The Neapolitan school 
 of painters does not rank so high as some others. There 
 are many here of that school, many of the Byzantine school; 
 nearly all of the latter being sacred subjects legends about 
 the Virgin, or the sainta, or the crucifixion there being 
 but little action in them or variety of expression, but a cer- 
 tain peculiar, staring, intense ghostliness of expression, 
 showing the superstition of the middle ages. There is a 
 celebrated " Holy Family," by Raphael, showing much of 
 his extraordinary power; a fine painting by Demenichino 
 "A Good Genius shielding a Child from evil" a splen- 
 didly executed subject. There is a copy of Michael An- 
 gelo's "Last Judgment" in the Sistine Chapel at Rome 
 a grand copy of a great production. One of Titian's cele- 
 brated Magdalenes is here " The Weeping Penitent," re- 
 morseful beauty. 
 
 But we are off this morning, Saturday, March 7th, for 
 Vesuvius. The morning is slightly cloudy after the rain 
 of yesterday; the sun of Naples comes out, however, though 
 the winds are somewhat cool. On then through the streets 
 of Naples, crowded with creatures in whom intense, ardent, 
 vigorous life goes on, mindless of the past and reckless of 
 the future. Then along the beech, with the mad waves 
 laughing on one side ; on the other, ancient Naples, where 
 the Greek colony settled originally nearly three thousand 
 years ago. This is the lazzaroni quarter, and the ragged
 
 588 VESUVIUS. 
 
 wretches beg of you as you pass to " eat maccaroni for you." 
 You buy the maccaroni for them, and the way they eat it 
 is as curious as it is disgusting. Then over the bridge, 
 where the statue of St. Januarius looks so menacingly at 
 Vesuvius; then through the long villages of Portici and 
 Resina. At the latter place the ascent to Vesuvius begins. 
 Here we are assailed and almost assaulted by guides, who 
 want to assist us in "doing Vesuvius." Having resolved 
 beforehand to engage one Cozzalino, we found that every 
 one was Cozzalino. At last one rather demure-looking man, 
 asserting that he was the real Simon Pure "Cozzalino" who 
 attended Baron Humboldt and others of distinction, and 
 now wanted to attend us, and who was desirous to prove it. 
 We went with him to his house, leaving one chivalrous 
 gentleman of our party in charge of the ladies. We went 
 up steps and ancient lava-built places, and finally came to 
 a room, in which was an ancient gentleman, who seemed to 
 be a regular feature of Vesuvius. His age was over eighty, 
 and he looked as if he and Vesuvius were on the best pos- 
 sible terms, and had made a mutual agreement that neither 
 was to harm the other. He declared himself to be the great 
 Cozzalino, and that his virtues had descended to his son, 
 who stood before us. Up Vesuvius he could never go 
 again ; and his chief regret, when called on to depart this 
 life, would be in leaving it. Their Guide Book was then 
 produced, where we found many enthusiastic travelers had 
 recorded their virtues, and recommended them. The moun- 
 tain is more profitable than if it were a gold mine, as it sup- 
 ports the villagers, who act as guides, hire carriages, let out 
 mules, etc. Driving through dirty, wet streets, paved with 
 lava, and at each side high old houses, we left the town be- 
 low ; then we came upon vineyards, peach orchards, the trees 
 now in bloom, olives, the cactus, oranges, long high walls 
 overgrown with ivy and fern, the walls all of lava, stone 
 and cinders. Then the paved way ceased, and our course
 
 VESUVIUS. 589 
 
 lay over a narrow, rough road : the views of Naples and 
 its lovely bay, white and beautiful, on our left, were splen- 
 did; while on our right, and before us, was the rugged, 
 earthquake-maker and city-destroyer, Vesuvius. The vine- 
 yards through which we passed produce the fine wine 
 known as "Lachriraae Christi," or "Tears of Christ." The 
 soil appears to be of great fertility. Further up, upon our 
 left, we came upon great fields and acres of lava of many 
 ages and colors. We crossed the lava of A. D. 1770. The 
 walls on each side of the road were made of it; and during 
 the course of the last few years pale, moss-like flowers, had 
 grown over it the first attempt of Nature to civilize it, and 
 eventually convert it into arable soil. On some cleared 
 portions there were fig orchards, near which were vineyard 
 villas. Higher up all cultivation nearly ceased, and the 
 products of the fifty-six eruptions of Vesuvius, during the 
 seventeen hundred and eighty years it has been an active 
 volcano, were strewn around us in scorched savageness. 
 The road in some places is very smooth and in good order, 
 winding around in order to avoid too steep an.ascent. On 
 our right the guide showed us the lava of the eruption of 
 1829, in a deep hollow; and our road then passed over 
 ashes which the guide said were deposited at the period of 
 .the eruption of A. D. 79, which overwhelmed Herculaneum 
 and Pompeii, and which was the first eruption of Vesuvius 
 within historical periods, though evidences exist that it had 
 been an active volcano one thousand years previous. During 
 the long period of its quiescence it had become garmented 
 with vines to its extreme summit. There were numerous 
 artificial caves in the rocks and lava along the road-side, 
 which the guide asserted were for the convenience of 
 laborers in the vineyards below in rainy weather. We 
 then passed near the lava of 1631, and that of two years 
 ago the latter looking black, like a dried river of cinders. 
 It took, as the guide said, a "bad direction," having moved 
 
 2 z
 
 690 VESUVIUS. 
 
 toward Naples. Immense fields of the lava of 1822 and 
 1839 were now seen on the right, slightly covered with pale 
 gray moss. On the portions spared by the lava, however, 
 could be seen, small terraces, with mulberry trees and vines, 
 or small patches of wheat. The view of the bay, as we as- 
 cended, opened far out into the Mediterranean, embracing 
 Capri, and the white waves laughed as they leaped on the 
 beach of Naples, and farther on our left extended the 
 "happy Campagna." Ascending higher, we came to the 
 "Hermitage" a church and convent built many years 
 ago on a ridge projecting from Vesuvius. Here we leave 
 the carriages, the ascent to the base of the cone having to be 
 performed on foot or on mules. The guide here showed us 
 the long ridges of lava, the eruption of three years ago ex- 
 tending two miles down the mountain. It is black in color, 
 and on it, at various places, collects or exudes a peculiar 
 sulphurous substance. It is seen in a deep hollow at the 
 left of the " Hermitage." We walked into the old church, 
 built here amidst the lava, and right in the road up Vesu- 
 vius. We ajso purchased refreshments from the priests; 
 and, like others who were making the ascent, immortalized 
 our names in the travelers' book. From this we walked 
 some distance, passing over the lava of 1834, and afterward 
 over that of two months ago, the eruption accompanying 
 the earthquake of last December. We saw where there had 
 been great currents, or rivers, and even cataracts of lava. 
 There were irregular hardened rocks of former fluidity, 
 looking like a suddenly frozen sea, when the mad storm 
 had collected it into surges and heaps. Some of its black 
 mass looked like drapery blown about by the wind. We 
 now entered a cloud of mist, and walked over portions of 
 the lava of 1820, the lava of 1834 being on our left, like a 
 black glacier. Naples now appeared far below us, its 
 double bay looking like the upper part of a heart. We 
 could see it in a patch of sunlight, through a cleft cloud
 
 VESUVIUS. 591 
 
 the island of Capri in front, those of Ischia and Procida on 
 the right. The lava over which we walked showed all 
 kinds of colors. There were immense openings in the shell 
 or crust of the lava. Vast spectral clouds floated all around 
 us, revealing glimpses of a mountain on our left, on which 
 lay some snow. This is Monte Somma, and we were now 
 in the Atrio del Cavallo, a narrow valley or passage be- 
 tween it and Vesuvius, which was formed at the era of the 
 destruction of Pompeii, being the same whence probably 
 was obtained the vast quantity of ejected matter which 
 overwhelmed the cities. "We now saw immense rocks, 
 which had been thrown out of the mountain some large 
 enough to crush a cathedral. Passing over a gentle ascent, 
 composed of gravel, we at length reached the base of the 
 cone of Vesuvius. A scene of utter savageness was around 
 us not the savageness of vast glaciers, but that of cinders 
 and lava. The cone of Vesuvius rose above us, an ascent 
 exceedingly steep, in some places certainly sixty degrees 
 from the horizontal, and adown its course we could see the 
 scorched, and scarred, and blasted-looking rivers of con- 
 gealed lava ; and at some places on the side could be seen 
 former craters, now relapsed into inactivity ; and deep in 
 the mountain could be heard the roaring of subterranean 
 fires, while from the summit came down directly on us a 
 tempest of sulphureous smoke and mist. Here the real 
 labor began. Several parties were met descending, being 
 deterred from making the ascent by the inclemency of the 
 weather. Our party, however, had no "back out" in them, 
 and accordingly we entered the dark cloud, enveloping 
 Vesuvius like a shroud, and began to toil up the lava rocks 
 and cinders, piled as steeply as they could lay. Two of our 
 party employed each a portontina, that is, a chair carried 
 by four porters, to carry them up to the summit. The 
 guardian angel of the party, as it proved afterward, little 
 Florence, was carried on the shoulders of one of the stalwart
 
 592 VESUVIUS. 
 
 Neapolitan guides. Besides our party there were some half 
 a dozen or more lazzaroni, who persisted in following us. 
 Some carried baskets of provisions, wine, oranges, bread, 
 offering to sell us; others, eggs, which they were to roast 
 for us on the edges of the crater ; others offered all kinds 
 of miscellaneous service, such as assisting us from behind 
 or pulling us before by means of ropes or handkerchiefs 
 they held in their hands all offering, proffering and beset- 
 ting us with service not gratis, however, the price being 
 always, in every case, as much as they could extract from 
 our necessities or generosity. The ascent was over large 
 and small masses of black lava stone, which moved under 
 our feet at every step, rendering the walking very difficult, 
 besides the additional inconvenience of being involved in 
 the sulphureous smoke of Vesuvius, and the mist which 
 concealed every thing at a distance, and frequently rendered 
 the various members of the party invisible to each other. 
 Ascending for at least an hour, in this manner, we came 
 near the top, after efforts that would have been considered 
 hard work in any country. The sulphureous gas now 
 increased to such a degree as to render breathing difficult, 
 and our exertions in climbing obliged us to inhale large 
 quantities of it; pains were felt in the chest; one or two of 
 the party became insensible for a moment, but revived on 
 the application of some snow, which was fortunately found 
 in a crevice near, to the forehead. The scene began to 
 assume the form of the recklessly dangerous. A storm 
 of wind and hail came down upon us, which at times parted 
 the smoke and mist in such a manner as to reveal spectral 
 glimpses of Naples, far below, and also of Monte Somma, 
 on the opposite side of the deep valley. We approached 
 death, however, as if we were working for life; and at 
 length fainting, exhausted and half suffocated, stood on the 
 very summit of Vesuvius, and were within a few minutes' 
 walk of the crater, which boiled over with smoke. We
 
 VESUVIUS. 593 
 
 
 
 presented a disconsolate sight, however. A second time a 
 kind of fainting or insensibility seized some of the party. 
 The darkness around, occasioned by the dense smoke and 
 mist, increased to such a degree that no one could see 
 another at a foot's distance, while the sulphurous gas was 
 so strong that each one was obliged to hold a handkerchief 
 to his mouth to prevent breathing it and escape suffocation. 
 It then appeared fortunate that the lazzaroni had so perse- 
 veringly followed us. Their oranges were seized, their 
 wine drank, without the ceremony of a bargain as to the 
 price. The lazzaroni could have robbed us all, and left us 
 as victims sacrificed to temerity in invading the outraged 
 majesty of Vesuvius, when not in a placid humor, with in- 
 finite ease; but in this, our extremity, they did nothing but 
 clamor about their pay. Vesuvius was fairly "smoking us 
 out." Our proximity to the crater was indicated by one of 
 the guides roasting his eggs on a rock of lava. The rocks 
 we stood on were hot. Nothing was visible but the vol- 
 cano, portions of which, oh the summit, are liable at any 
 time to fall in. Some, however, having for a moment 
 recovered sensibility, though not sense we allude to our- 
 selves proposed advancing to the jaws of the crater; others 
 proposed descending. The cry of our little friend Flora, 
 who had borne the fatigue like a heroine, decided us in a 
 moment; and as nothing was visible but darkness, and it 
 was madness to proceed, we began the descent; the guides, 
 who were anxious to do so, acceded with tremendous 
 alacrity Vesuvius having become "too hot to hold us." 
 Our descent was fearfully ludicrous. With the strong arm 
 of a guide assisting the weaker ones, we began to slide down 
 the steep mountain at a different place from that by which 
 we ascended, and where we suuk at almost every step 
 "several feet" down deep into the ashes. Between sinking 
 down, rising up, and the accelerated motion down such a 
 declivity, our motions were not the most graceful. Slipping,. 
 88 2 z2
 
 594 VESUVIUS. 
 
 sliding, shuffling, running, falling all combinations that 
 gravitation and will could produce, operated upon us. 
 Vesuvius builds itself up by the lava and ashes ejected 
 from the crater ; consequently it is as steep as it is possible 
 for detached rocks to lay. These lie outside of the crust, in- 
 side of which may be heard the hollow rumbling and roar- 
 ing of the restless fires. We passed several ancient mouths 
 of the mountain, out of which, at various eras, lava had 
 been ejected ; and at length, very glad, indeed, we emerged 
 from the dark cloud enveloping the cone, and breathed a 
 fresher and better air. A gradual descent now led us over 
 various fields of lava, of ancient and more recent years, 
 where we had leisure to examine the strange appearances 
 the white sulphur exuding from it, the various forms it as- 
 sumes in cooling, the direction the streams of lava had 
 taken. Descending, we reached the Observatory above the 
 "Hermitage," on a ridge two thousand and eighty feet high. 
 We then came to the " Hermitage," where we had ordered 
 our carriages to wait for us. We thought ourselves deserv- 
 ing of some refreshment after our exertions. The wine, 
 "Lacrimas Christi," grown on the vineyards of Vesuvius, 
 assisted to restore us, and we reached Naples at six o'clock, 
 glad and thankful that we had escaped, and firmly resolved 
 never to undertake to "do Vesuvius" in bad weather lest 
 we should be "done for." But at the fine table d'hote 
 of the " Hotel de Russie" discussing "pdlti foie de gros," we 
 found it not a little pleasant to recur to the scenes of the 
 day, especially our discomfited, disconsolate appearance on 
 the summit of Vesuvius, half-suffocated and senseless. The 
 height of Vesuvius above the sea is about four thousand 
 feet. It has been in activity for eighteen hundred years; 
 but previous to that time it appears to have been dormant 
 for one thousand years. Vines had grown all over it; and 
 on Monte Somma, then near the summit of the cone, was a 
 Temple of Jupiter. Traces of the ancient eruptions of lava
 
 EXCURSION. 595 
 
 yet exist. The lava, in running down the mountain, pro- 
 ceeds at first very rapidly; then, as it is cooling, very 
 slowly. Persons can roast eggs on it, or encrust pieces of 
 coin in it and break them off. Previous to an eruption the 
 water in all the wells and springs around Naples diminishes. 
 Sometimes mouths open along the sides of the mountain : 
 fifteen have been counted at one time discharging smoke 
 and lava, the noise being terrific, and the ground heaving 
 around them for some distance. The smoke arising from 
 the mouths is highly electric, and discharges constantly 
 livid flashes of lightning. Sometimes the lava, advancing 
 near Torre del Greco, one of the towns at the base of the 
 mountain, rushes into the sea in a stream of burning matter 
 from twelve to forty feet in thickness. The sea was in a 
 boiling state at the distance of one hundred yards from the 
 shore. Sometimes a stupendous column of fire rises from 
 the mountain, twelve thousand feet high, illuminating the 
 whole country around at night for ten miles distant. The 
 ashes of some of the eruptions fall one hundred miles off 
 a space they have traversed in two hours. Sometimes the 
 burning stream of liquid lava is six miles long, two broad, 
 and seventy feet deep. From 1510 to 1631, Vesuvius was 
 altogether silent, and the sides of the crater were overgrown 
 with brushwood, and became the resort of wild boars. 
 During this period, however, ^Etna was in a state of extra- 
 ordinary activity. When an eruption is threatened, the 
 relics of St. Januarius are carried in procession about in 
 Naples. That Naples, with her four hundred and twenty 
 thousand inhabitants, is in great danger at all times, either 
 from earthquakes, or showers of ashes such as destroyed 
 Pompeii, there can be no doubt, but it is hardly possible, 
 from her position, that a stream of lava could reach the city 
 in any ordinary circumstances. 
 
 This morning, March 9th, which has all the accompani- 
 ments of sunshine, blue air, and brightness generally, we
 
 596 EXCURSION. 
 
 are off on an excursion, west of Naples. The waves dash 
 upon the shore on our left, as we pass along the crowded 
 streets. We approach the Grotto of Pasilipo, an ancient 
 tunnel, excavated in the old volcanic rock. On our left is 
 seen, on high, the Tomb of Virgil, old and ivy-grown. The 
 grotto is twenty-two hundred and forty -four feet long. It 
 is lighted with lamps night and day, and has two circular air- 
 shafts for ventilating it. It is as old as Nero, and is paved 
 throughout, the main road passing through it. In one place 
 is a chapel of the Virgin, before which lamps are burning. 
 The route over which we passed is one of the most classic 
 regions in Italy. 
 
 After passing the grotto, we came upon fruitful plains of 
 wheat fields, vine-clad hills, then entered deep cuts through 
 high hills, with ivy and ruins upon them. The names of 
 the towns and places along this route are said to indicate a 
 Phoenician settlement of this coast, anterior to Greek occu- 
 pation. It is here the demonology of Homer was enacted, 
 and through this region Virgil makes ^Eneas explore the 
 eternal secrets of the spirit lands. Here are the craters of 
 many extinct volcanoes, and here are lost cities underneath 
 lava. We came to a dark-looking lake, about three miles 
 in circuit that of Agnano. It is the crater of an extinct 
 volcano; gas always bubbles from it, and a horrid sulphur- 
 ous smell and malaria rise from it, though there are many 
 water birds upon it. Near it we entered a singular grotto, 
 called that of San Greinano. We passed through several 
 chambers in it, the heated air and the sulphurous gas ex- 
 haling through the seams in the floor and the sides of the 
 caves. The hot, sulphurous vapor is one hundred and 
 eighty degrees of Fahrenheit in temperature. On the other 
 side of the road is the celebrated Grotto del Cane, or of the 
 dog. A stratum of carbonic gas, about a foot high, lies on 
 the floor of this cave. These two caves were kept by an old 
 woman, the ne plus ultra of ugly cruelty. The little dog
 
 EXCURSION. 597 
 
 that makes a living for himself and her by dying, came 
 running briskly along. She seized it it manifested great 
 reluctance to die. She unlocked the door of the grotto, 
 held the poor animal down in the gaseous portion ; at first 
 it struggled, but in a minute or two appeared really to die 
 the air being unable to support animal life. Afterward, she 
 brought it out into the open air, when it revived, ran about, 
 and seemed, upon the whole, well satisfied to live and die 
 daily, to illustrate the properties of carbonic acid gas. 
 Torches were extinguished when first lit, and then immersed 
 in it. We walked about in the cave, however, the upper 
 part being free from the noxious air, which exhales from 
 the sides and falls down to the bottom. Prisoners have 
 been executed by being shut up here and left to die by suf- 
 focation. Our route was now toward Pozzuoli, Vesuvius 
 appearing behind us in the blue air one white, conical 
 oloud piled up, sitting on its summit, sun-gilt and grand. 
 Much of our road was in a deep cut, with vineyards on the 
 slopes, avenues of ornamental trees, castles and villas on the 
 high points, and God's sunshine over all. The road itself 
 was superb. Then we came to the sea again, to Bagnuoli, a 
 bathing place on the Bay of Baiae, with a rocky island be- 
 fore it. Our way lay along the sea-waves for some distance 
 three tiers of melodious waves swelling in from a tranquil 
 sea, constantly. In one place the road cuts through a 
 mountain of lava, ejected by an extinct volcano near, the 
 lava of which is suid to have entered the sea, with a front 
 a quarter of a mile long and seventy feet deep. We soon 
 came to Pozzuoli, or Puteoli. where St. Paul landed, on his 
 way to Rome, and " found brethren with whom he tarried 
 seven days." There has been a town here for nearly twenty- 
 eight hundred years. In the Roman times it was an exten- 
 sive place, and it is still the most lovely region on earth. 
 The number of inhabitants is about eight thousand a more 
 beggarly set of beings we never saw. The carriages were
 
 598 EXCURSION. 
 
 surrounded with them, with horrid countenances. Some 
 had cultivated a leering, knowing smile of utter misery 
 stood and looked at you mutely, with dirty faces, unshaven 
 beards, hair never combed, and a general disposition to be 
 hideous. Misery and utter ugliness are here profitable. 
 From Pozzuoli we again passed through vineyards, gardens, 
 and fig orchards. Leaving our carriages on the hill above 
 Pozzuoli, we ascended by an ancient, paved, Koman way, 
 to an eminence from which extends a view of inexpressible 
 loveliness of sea, volcanic regions, and classic shores. From 
 this we descended to the crater of Solfatara. It is a large 
 crater of a semi-extinct volcano, like a saucer in shape, 
 being surrounded by high hills. We walked through it. 
 At one side issues a volume of white vapor, like a cloud of 
 mist. The noise is similar to that of a steam-engine. There 
 is a Saltpetre manufactory in the crater. A hollow sound is 
 given forth when a rock is thrown down on the ground. It 
 is not a desirable locality. When Vesuvius is quiet for a long 
 time, this crater begins to show symptoms of agitation, as if 
 preparing itself for an eruption. When Vesuvius is active, 
 this is dormant. It poured forth a tremendous eruption, 
 A. D. 1198. Trees are now growing in and around the 
 crater. In and around Pozzuoli are many ruins; nothing is 
 sadder than these scenes. We entered the ruin of the Amphi- 
 theatre. In form, it is not much unlike the Coliseum, but 
 it is an over-grown ruin. There were triple rows of 
 arcaded porticoes covered with marble. The building was 
 composed of three rows of arches. The legend runs that 
 St. Januarius was, in the reign of Diocletian, exposed to 
 wild beasts here, which would not devour him. There is 
 now a chapel in that part where he was confined. He was 
 beheaded on a hill near this, the stone on which he suffered 
 being shown in his chapel. Passing along roads of ruins, 
 nameless and grand, in the tombs of which sepulchral vases 
 and elegant mosaic floors have been found, the Roman
 
 EXCURSION. 599 
 
 
 
 paving peers out from the roadside, and you see on the lava 
 blocks the indentations of ancient carriage wheels. The 
 deities of the mighty Roman empire are here scattered 
 around in mournful profusion. After this we came to ruins 
 of temples, then to a cnurch of the middle ages, in the 
 Lombard style, rather singular-looking, as that style is not 
 common in this part of Italy, then to the ruins of a villa 
 of Cicero, on a projection toward the sea, the view from 
 which is described with rapture by Cicero himself. All 
 things have conspired against this lovely region. Time has 
 called to his help the subterraneous fires beneath they 
 have burnt it. The sea has encroached on the shore, and 
 there are temples under water, with just the upper portions 
 of the columns visible. We now came to a most majestic 
 ruin, among the most remarkable in the world the Temple 
 of Serapis with its marble floor underneath the sea water. 
 Its splendid columns of costly marbles stand in circles 
 around the various departments some of them eaten into 
 by the salt sea waves. Here the worship of Egyptian gods 
 was carried on. The ground on which the temple stands is 
 now sinking into the sea. In former ages it was much 
 higher than at present. An ancient pavement of mosaic 
 work, with channels for carrying off redundant water to the 
 sea, has been discovered, six feet below the present one, 
 which is below the level of the sea. The sea wants to 
 swallow this beautiful ruin. But in former years there was 
 an upheaval of the soil, as is proved by appearances on the 
 columns. There have been local elevations and depressions, 
 alternately, of either the land or the sea, since this temple 
 has been standing. The lava from the adjacent volcano of 
 Solfatara ran over the court of the temple, and filled it to 
 the depth of twelve feet. The temple continued to sink till 
 nine feet of the columns were submerged, and they re- 
 mained subject to the action of the water for three centuries 
 and a half. There are numerous perforations in the
 
 600 EXCURSION. 
 
 
 
 columns, made by sea- water animals. Then an elevation 
 of the soil began, continuing for three hundred years, since 
 which the sinking has begun again. It is calculated the 
 subsidence is at the rate of an incka year. The site of this 
 noble ruin was, about two hundred and seventy-five years 
 ago, overgrown with trees and brushwood, when the -upper 
 part of three marble columns was seen projecting above the 
 soil. Orders were then given by the King of Naples that 
 the whole should be disinterred. There were forty-eight 
 columns some of marble, some of granite ; beneath them 
 were thirty-two small chambers. Some' of the columns are 
 still extant, and are of one piece of marble, and are forty 
 feet high. There are some vases with small spiral flutings, 
 supposed to be for holding the blood of the victims. From 
 this we drove along a beach now level and covered with 
 vineyards, but over which, anciently, the sea rolled, the 
 ground here having risen. We saw the ancient beach, with 
 its ruins of baths, tombs, and its caves. As the ground is 
 sinking again, it is calculated it will, in process of time, 
 wash the ancient shores. Ascending, we came to Monte 
 Nuovo, or the "New Mountain," heaved up in an eruption 
 of the now extinct volcano Solfatara, in 1538. This new 
 mountain has in its bosorn an extinct crater, four hundred 
 and nineteen feet deep, almost as deep as it is high. At 
 this time, this whole coast is described as having been also 
 raised, so that the sea retired two hundred feet. The moun- 
 tain, or hill, is in shape what is called a truncated cone. It 
 is a mile and a half around. Passing on further, we came 
 to the Lake Avernus, in a circular basin, one and-a-half 
 miles around, and partially embosomed in hills clothed with 
 chestnut trees and vines. It looks extremely like a volcanic 
 crater. Here Homer and Virgil place the entrance to hell, 
 and in these sunless retreats the Cimmerians dwelt. The 
 oracles of the infernal deities were here pronounced. We 
 saw the ruins of the Sybil's Cave, into which Virgil makes
 
 EXCURSION. 601 
 
 ./Eneas pass, to consult the infernal deities ; also, the ruins 
 of the Temple of Apollo, on the opposite shore of the lake. 
 Beyond this lake is seen the sea. Proceeding on our route, 
 we passed over portions of the Phlegraeon, or Fire Fields of 
 the ancients; there were ruins of Roman tombs on each. 
 We then came to an ancient arch of solid and majestic 
 Roman construction the Arco Felice. The walls and 
 aqueduct, which latter once passed over the arch, have all 
 disappeared. The arch is mainly of brick, and is sixty feet 
 high. We then came upon the ancient Roman pavement, 
 similar to that of the Appian Way. The hills around 
 were all picturesque, irregular, volcanic, with pines, vines, 
 romantic towns, old and ruined, stone modern villas, holes 
 in the hills, old tombs, Roman reticulated work, peering 
 through ivy and earth. We were now within the limits of 
 the ancient city of Cum, reckoned by some the most 
 ancient of all the Italian Greek cities. It extended over a 
 vast space around, now vacant, excepting ruins and tombs, 
 half-earthed walls of ancient masonry. Many of the inter- 
 esting objects, sepulchral vases, etc., of the Museum at 
 Naples, were dug out of this ancient city, once filled with 
 wealth and wickedness. It was the seat of the primitive 
 Italian civilization all essentially gone now. The Romans 
 conquered it, after which it declined rapidly, and was called 
 ' the " Vacant Curaa3." It afterward became a nest for 
 pirates and robbers of the thirteenth century, when the sur- 
 rounding inhabitants razed what remained of the ancient 
 city to the ground. The situation, however, is lovely, 
 despite the desolation. It is supposed to have stood once on 
 the sea, but the local changes of this volcanic region have 
 removed it inland. We walked about the Amphitheatre, 
 now covered almost with earth and trees. It is an oval 
 building, with tweuty-one rows of seats leading down to the 
 arena. There are confused and scattered ruins of temples, 
 where Egyptian colossal statues of divinities were found 
 
 3 A
 
 602 EXCURSION. 
 
 then the Necropolis, with tiers of tombs above each other, 
 the whole a miserable-looking scene. Some of the skele- 
 tons found here were embroidered with cloth of gold, 
 asbestos, necklaces of gold beads. We now came to the 
 Lake Yusaro, looking also like an extinct volcano. There 
 are picturesque-looking hills all around it, ruins of Roman 
 work, arches, terraces, walls of baths now covered with 
 vines, fig trees, the cactus all desolate, old, and sad on 
 which the earthquake, time, battle, volcano, have warred 
 relentlessly. The lake is now famous for its oysters; it 
 communicates with the sea. We saw the remains of a 
 canal, constructed by Nero, now underground, peering out 
 from the roadside. There were Patrician villas all around 
 here in old ages. We passed over the region known to the 
 ancients as the Elysian Fields. Cicero, Seneca, and others 
 had villas here. Our road then passed along the sea, and 
 we came to the lovely Bay of Baiae, the seat of the dissipa- 
 tion and follies of the Romans, the entrepot of all the vices 
 of the emperors and of opulent persons in Rome. It is 
 only recognizable now by sumptuous ruins. There is an 
 enormous quantity of ruins all around here. The earth, 
 the hills, and the mountains cannot contain them they 
 appear under water in the sea. Sylla died here, and Nero 
 attempted to murder his mother, by causing her to embark 
 in a leaky vessel ; and Josephus relates that here Herod, 
 accompanied by the charming Herodias, met Caligula, to 
 ask the crown of Judea. Crassus, Cato, Pompey, and Julius 
 Caesar had villas here. The masters of the world, when 
 sated with ambition, retired here to indulge their passions. 
 We entered the ruins of the temples of Mercury and Venus, 
 vaulted buildings overgrown with weeds and ivy, and 
 stripped of their marbles and their pillars, and wretched, 
 sad, and suggestive beyond description. There were curious 
 echoes in some of them. While we were in one, a group 
 of Italian peasant girls came in. They had a kind of tarn-
 
 EXCURSION. 60S 
 
 borine, and some were clad in strange costumes. They 
 began an old Greek dance, and the ancient Temple of Venus 
 resounded with mirth and music, as a pretext for begging. 
 The bay is nearly surrounded by hills, on which are temples 
 of great size, fallen or covered with trees ; there are grottos, 
 baths, orange and lemon groves, horrid beggars, flowers 
 among and over the ruins. These are on every spot of 
 ground and in the sea. It is vain to ask whose villa is this, 
 and this, and this. The Roman Empire has been dead and 
 voiceless for a thousand years, but earth is scarcely exten- 
 sive enough to bury it. This is the empire of the tombs. 
 We then entered the miserable village of Bocoli; after 
 which to the Lago Monte, or " Dead Lake," a volcanic lake, 
 on our right, and on our left long rows of ruined Roman 
 tombs. We came to the place where we saw, in a kind of 
 museum, a vast number of small and large sepulchral vases, 
 taken from the various cemeteries around ; there were 
 broken busts and inglorious mementoes of ancient ruins. 
 Next we entered a most singular department, a grove of old 
 columns of Roman brick-work, which supported a reservoir 
 of water to supply the Roman fleet which was stationed in 
 this harbor. It seems as solid as it was eighteen centuries 
 ago. Next we entered the hundred chambers of Nero, a 
 most extensive building underground, sometimes called the 
 " Prisons of Nero." We went through long, subterranean 
 corridors, narrow and dark, and only capable of admitting 
 one person at a time. The passages are very intricate. 
 We had a guide, with torches, to show us the way. The 
 views from some of these melancholy ruins, over the blue 
 Mediterranean, are extremely beautiful. There are flowers 
 everywhere around, though the very spirit of destruction 
 seems to have sat here for a thousand years. Hadrian and 
 Tiberius both died here. The mineral water's healthful- 
 ness, and the beauty of the coast, were unsurpassed. Leav- 
 ing this, we rode along the Bay of Baiaj, the waves on our
 
 604 MUSEO BORBONICO. 
 
 right beating over ruins. Traces of the villa of Julius 
 Csesar were on our left; Roman baths were along the 
 water's edge. The stone has decayed, but the carved work 
 remains. The villa of Marius, the fierce Roman, was here, 
 and that of Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi. Further 
 on, alongside of a steep tufa or volcanic rock, projecting 
 toward the sea, we came upon what are called the " Baths 
 of Nero." There are numerous chambers in the tufa rock, 
 passing in all directions, and descending to a lake of hot 
 water. We passed into some of them, being obliged to 
 stoop, as the heated air and vapor occupied the upper part 
 of the narrow passages. We soon returned, however, not 
 caring to penetrate dark and smoking passages, filled with 
 suffocating gas, and leading into hot, volcanic rocks. The 
 guide, however, who showed the place as a kind of pecu- 
 liurn, taking a bucket and some eggs in it, descended into 
 the narrow, dark, and smoking corridors, and in a few 
 minutes reappeared, puffing, exhausted, and in a profuse 
 perspiration, like a foul spirit out of the darkness, having 
 descended to the dark, hot lake, and filled the bucket with 
 water, which had thoroughly cooked the eggs, as some of 
 our party proved, by eating them. Heated air and vapor 
 issue from all the passages, and they were celebrated in the 
 Roman times for the cure of diseases. Next we passed 
 along the narrow road between Lake Lucrina and the sea. 
 Priests and beggars met us, the former in long gowns, the 
 latter in an appalling accumulation of curious raggedness, 
 begging because it is their nature. Some content them- 
 selves with a private, prolonged howl, never looking up or 
 turning around, or asking for any thing. We then returned 
 to Naples, arriving at five in the evening. We employed a 
 general guide, who took us to each place, whicli had also its 
 own local custode, all requiring a fee. The scenes we had 
 been over are the most classic in the world. It is now the 
 charnel house of a past Paradise.
 
 PAPYRUS. 605 
 
 To-day, Wednesday, March 10th, our reduced party, con- 
 sisting now of but two, revisit the Museo Borbonico for the 
 last time. Yesterday was a day of parting with some 
 pleasant traveling friends, some of whom departed for North 
 Italy, others to Marseilles. Little Flora, too, is gone! 
 These friendships that originate among travelers, by con- 
 genial pursuits and attractions, are often extremely pleasant, 
 and parting is painful. As we wander through the vast 
 halls of this Museum, where every thing is associated with 
 those who have gone, and where we can almost hear their 
 words in the air, we feel the truth of the latter remark. We 
 have walked again into the gallery of paintings. It is not 
 so grand as those of Rome, Florence, or Dresden. Yet there 
 is a pleasantness in the contemplation of these works of art. 
 A cartoon of Moses, by Raphael, struck me as wonderful 
 in its expression of majestic sadness. We walked through 
 many of the rooms again. It is a disadvantage in this 
 Museum that the fees are so numerous each room has a 
 custode, who expects several carlini. It is very impressive 
 to stroll through the rooms containing collections of the 
 household utensils of the Pompeiians vases, lamps, baths 
 all as the Pompeiians left them and the lava-burnt 
 bronze plates, armor, inkstands with remains of ink in 
 them, bread with the baker's name on it, charred hair, 
 purses of gold left in haste, etc. The gallery of the 
 Papyrus is very interesting. In some of the rooms in 
 Herculaneum were found what appeared to be pieces of 
 charcoal ; Greek letters were found on them, and it was dis- 
 covered to have been a library. Then workmen, who were 
 necessarily men of science and antiquarians, were employed 
 to unroll and decipher them. Several ancient and pre- 
 viously unknown works have been thus recovered. A 
 work of Philodemus, on the Virtues and Vices, has been 
 thus restored. The black-looking sticks, constituting the 
 rolls, are unrolled very carefully by means of a small 
 
 3 A2
 
 606 MUSEO BORBONICO. 
 
 machine and certain oils or chemicals. As in most cases 
 parts of the pages are burnt and undecipherable, it requires 
 much learning and some conjecture to restore and read the 
 lost parts, supplying the unknown from the known. The 
 unrolled parts are spread out, and look like blackened 
 shreds, and one looks at them for some time before he 
 recognizes a Greek letter. Their unfortunate resemblance 
 to carbon, or charcoal, caused many of these rolls to b,e 
 destroyed before their design was understood. The rolls 
 are so torrefied and friable that one cannot touch them but 
 with extreme caution. The machine to unroll them was 
 invented by a Neapolitan. It is said twenty-four of the 
 rolls were sent into France and England, and nobody was 
 there found who could decipher one word. The rolls of 
 Papyrus are about five hundred, and some fifteen or twenty 
 works of the ancients have been recovered. No work of 
 much historic value has, however, been recovered. I saw 
 a printed copy, exhibiting the writing on the unrolled 
 Papyrus in a parallel column the whole page in Greek as 
 conjecturally restored, and alongside a Latin translation. 
 In the ground floor of the Museum we saw the epigraphic, 
 or inscription collection, consisting of fifteen hundred and 
 eighty inscriptions on marble, distributed into eight classes. 
 Some are Arabic, Greek, Oscan, and Carthagenian, and 
 many early Christian and sepulchral. The celebrated work 
 of the highest Greek art, the Toro Farnese, is here. It is a 
 most wonderful group, though many of the figures have 
 undergone modern restorations. It represents the revenge 
 of the two sons of a Theban king, on Dirce, who had 
 seduced the affections of the king from their mother; they 
 tied her to the horns of an outraged and angry bull, but by 
 the persuasions of their own mother released her. It was 
 found in the baths of Caracalla, at Rome. The great statue 
 of the Farnese Hercules is also here. It was highly cele- 
 brated in antiquity. It was also found in the baths of
 
 EXCURSION TO PJE&TU*. 607 
 
 Caracalla. It is a most remarkable statue. Hercules is 
 represented in repose, as leaning on his club: an expression 
 of fatigue is on his countenance. The size is colossal ; the 
 muscles are all firmly pronounced; the hardness of the 
 style, the truth to the science of Anatomy, the regularity 
 of the outlines and the firmness of the body are remarkable. 
 There is here, also, an antique almanac, in marble; and the 
 inscriptions on tombs might detain one for many a day. 
 
 But this pleasant afternoon we are off in the railway, to 
 visit Paestum, going by railway to Cava, thence by omnibus 
 to Salerno, where we sleep to-night ; thence by carriage to 
 Paestum to-morrow, returning to Naples in the evening. 
 The railway is the same as that to Pompeii the ruined, 
 gray, roofless houses and temples of which we saw in pass- 
 ing the great sea on one side, on the other Vesuvius, with 
 its cataract of ever-ascending smoke. The various strata 
 of alternate lava and fertile soil were seen. Then we 
 entered a fertile vale, cultivated and rich as a garden, 
 part of the plain of old Pompeii; the ground had reservoirs 
 of water in many places, from which pipes descended in 
 numerous passages along the beds, to irrigate them. There 
 were also avenues of poplars and mulberries, cropped of 
 their tops, on which vines were festooned. We passed 
 through several ancient, miserable-looking towns, over 
 plains famous in battles of old ; the fertile vale ceased, and 
 we were among the high mountains, south of Naples. One 
 town is called Pagani, or the Pagan, supposed because its 
 inhabitants adhered for many ages to the rites of Paganism. 
 The railway appeared to be wondering at itself for getting 
 into such old, out-of-the-way places. The ruined towers on 
 the hills began to be of the Gothic and Lombard archi- 
 tecture of the middle ages. There were on many of the 
 the hills singular towers, used to ensnare birds. These con- 
 ceal persons, who, on the approach of a flock of birds, 
 throw small, white stones toward such parts of the field as
 
 608 SALERNO. 
 
 have nets on them the birds follow the supposed bait, and 
 are taken. The railway terminated at Cava, an old town, 
 consisting of one long street, the houses of which are on 
 gloomy arcades, not unlike those of Berne. There is a 
 monastery here on the mountain near, having extraordinary 
 treasures of historical archives, relative to the Popes and 
 the middle ages. It also contains the manuscript Latin 
 Vulgate of the Scriptures, after the text of St. Jerome. It 
 is as old as the seventh century, and probably older. It 
 contains the verses in the first Epistle of John, relative to 
 the "three heavenly witnesses." It is said these verses do 
 not appear in any Greek manuscripts down to the sixteenth 
 century, and are in two only of the one hundred and fifty- 
 one Greek manuscripts known to exist. As it may have 
 been omitted from these by the Arians, this ancient version 
 is of high authority. There are here some of the earliest 
 printed works, in Gothic type, four hundred years old. 
 Here we got into an omnibus, and descending a long hill, 
 through scenery of extreme beauty, we reached Salerno, on 
 the seaside, where we found a good hotel (the Vittoria) and 
 spent the night within hearing of the loud sea waves, 
 making music as they fell in foam on the beach. Salerno 
 has sixteen thousand inhabitants, and is well situated on the 
 slope of hills descending to the Gulf of Salerno, one of the 
 numerous, beautiful bays into which the Mediterranean 
 divides itself on this coast.- The Cathedral here, partly 
 ornamented with the spoils of Psestum, contains the body 
 of St. Matthew, brought here from the East, A. D. 930. 
 Gibbon says "the men of Salerno are honest, and the 
 women beautiful." We saw but little of either, but were 
 terribly pestered with guides. The earthquake of last De- 
 cember was violent here, and some of the houses cracked. 
 This town was celebrated for its school of medicine during 
 the middle ages. At the hotel here we fortunately found 
 some American travelers, whom we had met at Rome, and
 
 RUINS OF PuSSTUM. 609 
 
 with whom we soon formed a party for the ruins of Paestum 
 on the morrow. 
 
 This fine morning, Thursday, March llth, we set off at 
 an early hour, having given directions to our landlord to 
 call us, and have our " cafe et des oeufa " ready at a certain 
 hour, as also a carriage which would contain our entire 
 party, five in number, and a collation which we expected to 
 take at the ruins. The road passed along a fertile vale, with 
 rough, rugged, bleak mountains on our left, in the crevices 
 of which we saw nestled little, old, antediluvian-looking 
 villages. On our right was the sea, while around were 
 wheat fields, green and beautiful, and vines festooned from 
 tree to tree, like a continuous summer-house. We met on 
 the route many Italians, some riding lazzaroni-like as 
 many as possible piled on one vehicle and often the car- 
 riages had four horses abreast of each other. Ours had three. 
 Much of the soil exhales miasma, as indicated by the sallow 
 countenances of the people. At length, after passing a yel- 
 low, rapid river, the Salarus, which we did by a primitively 
 contrived ferry boat, moved by a resolution of forces, we 
 came upon a lone, ancient plain, opening to the sea, where 
 appeared low, thick walls, looking as if the earth had grown 
 up around them, and further on we saw the ruins of the 
 Temples of Paestum. The road approaches it through ruins 
 of tombs, utterly nameless and noteless. The ruins of the 
 first temple seen are those of Ceres; next, in the midst, and 
 the best preserved of all, you see the ruins of that of Nep- 
 tune, and further on those of the Basilica. The vast rows 
 of columns around the temples are all that remain. These 
 ruins are in the midst of a plain, desolated by the miasma, 
 and deserted for one thousand years. The sea, that part of 
 it sung by Homer, roars around the ruins. Briers, and 
 weeds, and beautiful wild flowers, grow over the floors. 
 East are the rough, high mountains, on which is some 
 gnow. There is a quiet, old, Italian village there, built high 
 89
 
 610 RUINS OF P^ESTUM. 
 
 up to escape the malaria. The columns of the temples are 
 all of travertin, the calcareous stone which forms the under 
 surface of the plain. They are in the earliest Grecian 
 style, and are reckoned the most remarkable existing of the 
 genius and taste which inspired the architects of Greece, 
 with the single exception of one building at Athens. They 
 look as if ages of ages had inflicted their silent destiny on 
 them, rising as they do, mute, impressive, stern, and elo- 
 quent the fragments of a city three thousand years old. 
 I have seen nothing so impressive in Italy as the Temples 
 of Paestum. It has been remarked that they look super- 
 natural they are so lofty and grand, and so stern and noble 
 in their proportions, of such unquestioned antiquity and 
 yet there is nothing in character with them around, nothing 
 that could have erected them. The plain is deserted and 
 silent. The old walls of the city, with occasionally an arch 
 to be seen at some of the gates, are overgrown and sunk 
 into the earth. All seems to belong to a past age. The 
 Koman Emperor, Augustus, about the time of Christ, gazed 
 with admiration on these Doric temples, regarded then as 
 of rare and prodigious antiquity. It certainly existed seven 
 hundred and six years before Christ, and probably much 
 earlier. Its origin is assigned to the Phoenicians. The 
 Romans conquered it about two hundred and seventy-three 
 years before Christ, and the Greek rites and customs were 
 suppressed. Ancient writers assert that on an annual, 
 solemn occasion, the old inhabitants assembled to weep in 
 common over the loss of their independence, customs, and 
 language. The Romans delighted in it as a place of resi- 
 dence, and the poets have celebrated its roses, which 
 bloomed twice a year. Its violets are also celebrated. The 
 old ruins are now full of beautiful wild flowers, though I 
 did not observe roses or violets. The Saracens attacked it 
 in the ninth century, and desolated it ; the air became in- 
 fested with the malaria, the diminished inhabitants removed
 
 RUINS OF PJBTDM. 611 
 
 to the mountains, and the once flourishing, commercial, and 
 elegant Greek city has been a desert for one thousand years. 
 The fallen-down ruins of the walls can be traced for two- 
 and-a-half miles. We sat down on the fallen columns in 
 the middle of the Basilica. The day was pleasant, though 
 the sunlight was dim. The wilderness of fluted Grecian 
 columns is in view. The desert, time-cursed plain, whence 
 death exhales, is all around. The Basilica presents the 
 appearance now of quadrangular rows of columns support- 
 ing the architrave, the roof and all the marble ornaments 
 being gone. The length is one hundred and seventy-nine 
 feet, the breadth eighty feet, the height of the columns 
 twenty-one feet, diameter of the columns at the base four 
 feet. The number of flutings in each column is twenty. 
 There are fifty columns in all, sixteen on each side, and 
 nine on each front. The shafts of the columns diminish 
 from the base to the top, in a curve. I also stood on the 
 fallen-down walls, composed, as are all the basement walls 
 of the temples, of huge blocks of travertin. Beyond 
 stretched a suffocated river, lost and choked in a swamp, as 
 it attempts to find its way to the sea being obstructed by 
 the fallen ruins of the city. The dismal croaking of a frog 
 seemed a proper accompaniment to the scene. The beggars 
 along the road beg, and nothing is Grecian, or gay, or glad, 
 but the birds and the wild flowers, and the venerable tem- 
 ples. The Temple of Neptune is the largest of the three 
 It is regarded by some as the most majestic and ancient in 
 all Europe. It presents an architecture simple and primi- 
 tive. The general form of the edifice is an oblong rect- 
 angle. It is one hundred and ninety-five feet in length, 
 aatfcnty-nine in breadth ; height of the columns twenty-nine 
 feet ; diameter of the columns at base, six feet ten inches ; 
 number of flutings in each column, twenty -four. There 
 are six immense Doric columns on each front and twelve on 
 each side. There is part of a second row of smaller
 
 612 RUINS OF P^ESTUM. 
 
 columns, constituting a second story, standing on top of the 
 lower entire row. The roof, the walls of the side, the mar- 
 ble casing, are all gone ; nothing but the foundation floor 
 of stone, and these thirty-six grand columns with the 
 smaller ones all perfect in their perpendicular, though they 
 have stood at least twenty-five hundred years remain. 
 One can see the place of the principal altar, and where the 
 blood of the victims was poured out. The other temple is 
 called that of Ceres; it is one hundred and eight feet in 
 length, forty-seven feet seven inches in breadth ; height of 
 columns, twenty feet; diameter at base, four feet; number 
 of flutings, twenty in each column. This is the smallest, 
 but the most elegant in style, of the temples. The columns 
 of these temples stand firmly on their bases, not having 
 moved a particle. Time, with respect to them, would seem 
 to be almost a mere illusion, as they have stood for nearly 
 half the commonly recognized period of humanity. The 
 travertin of which they are built seems remarkably fresh 
 in some places, where it has been broken. East of the 
 temples, toward the mountains, may be seen a solitary arch, 
 being a portion of the gate of the city that led to the moun- 
 tain. Around it are ruins of walls, like hills, and also re- 
 mains of aqueducts, intended to convey water from the 
 mountains to the city, across the plain. There are some 
 other ruins within the walls, degraded, however, so much as 
 to be scarcely visible; there are vestiges of the ancient 
 streets, there are ruined towers along the city walls, secret 
 passages, etc. Near the road is a small hotel ; and there is 
 a church and convent near. It is impossible to describe 
 how small, and mean, and destitute of style these modern 
 buildings look, in contrast with these grand, Greek ruins 
 
 Where the green sea comes and shivers 
 
 Out in shredH upon the shore, 
 And its ocean wail delivers 
 
 To cold rocks forever more.
 
 RUINS OF PJBSTUM. 613 
 
 There a plain, malaria stricken, 
 
 Grows Qreek temples, strange and old, 
 
 Rains round the pathway thicken, 
 That have had a life untold. 
 
 Thrice a thousand yean have hasted, 
 
 Unman things, like empires, fled 
 Fell, and into atoms wasted 
 
 These alone dare not be dead. 
 
 Crowds that lingered round each portal 
 
 Priest and victim, minstrel, king 
 All of these, as merely mortal, 
 
 Went to their own withering. 
 
 Aged and grim, and grand and solemn, 
 
 Here these temples stand sublime, 
 Proudly on its base each column 
 
 Seems to mock at moving Time. 
 
 Here the tired old earth seems keeping 
 
 These as relics of her heart 
 Something she can turn to weeping 
 
 Since all other things depart. 
 
 Certes it is that certain places are haunted, that is if you 
 understand haunting properly. Their past lingers around 
 them, and is immortal. You feel their physiognomy and 
 say, " I do not like," or " I do like such a place, but cannot 
 tell the reason why." You seem to be unconsciously taking 
 up ideas or acts that are skadowly enacting there yet. Why 
 riot? Is not every thing that has been, acting yet ? Is an 
 atom eternal, and not an action ? If the memory of the act 
 exists, why not the act? I have been in places, and Paestum 
 is one, where you feel the past could read it, and write its 
 history. Is it because it is all there yet though in the 
 shadow land ? Is there any thing past ? Are not all things 
 haunted? The refined, subtle, enjoying Greek seems here 
 with his genius, and the ruination around seems the phan- 
 
 SB '
 
 614 TOMB OF VIRGIL. 
 
 tasra. Is not the phantasm of one world the real of the 
 other ? and the desolation here now, the mere shadow of the 
 unseen world ? 
 
 Leaving the temples on their desert plain, listening to the 
 sea roar, and to be the wonder of a thousand years to come, 
 we returned on our way to Naples. Near our road a lady 
 and gentleman, who had been visiting the ruins, were, a few 
 years ago, waylaid and murdered by a party of eighteen 
 Italians. They were seen by a shepherd boy, concealed in 
 some underwood. Seventeen were executed for it, and the 
 eighteenth confessed the murder on his death-bed. We saw 
 the remains of a bridge, constructed across the Silarus, by 
 Murat, when King of Naples. We returned to Naples the 
 same evening, having fine Italian views on our way of the 
 Homeric sea, with a cloud gilt sunset, unprogressive Italian 
 villages, fertile plains, rugged mountains, and lastly of 
 Vesuvius, and the great heaps of ashes and cinders under 
 which lies buried Pompeii. 
 
 To-day, Tuesday, March 12th, we visited the resting 
 place of him who was one of earth's greatest geniuses, and 
 worthy of the greatest age of the Roman Empire Virgil. 
 It is at the west end of the city, on the hill, above the 
 entrance to the Grotto of Pausilipo. It is extremely prob- 
 able that it is his tomb. Ascending a long, winding stair- 
 case from the street, near the entrance to the grotto, you 
 then enter a garden on the hill-side, passing along the nu- 
 merous openings and caves in the soft tufa, or volcanic 
 rock, you came to some modern tombs, with epitaphs in 
 Hebrew, Italian, French, and Latin. These are admirers of 
 Virgil. You then descend to a small, circular building of 
 stone, in the Roman style of architecture, and this is the 
 Tomb of Virgil. The ^Eneid was written at Naples. How 
 small does all modern poetry appear by the side of this, and 
 that greater one, the Iliad of Homer. Like the Temples 
 of Peestum, they come out of the past with a Doric, intel-
 
 KINGDOM OF NAPLES. 615 
 
 lectual grandeur, before which all competition pales. There 
 is ivy around the tomb, and small trees are growing on it. 
 Entering, you see a small, vaulted, stone chamber, around 
 the walls of which are niches, to contain the vases which 
 had the ashes of the dead. They are all utterly empty 
 the dust of Virgil has been scattered long ago. There is 
 a small marble slab on which is inscribed the epitaph writ- 
 ten by Virgil the original slab being lost in the night of 
 ages. A free translation of it amounts to this : " I was born 
 at Mantua, I died in Calabria, and now Naples holds me. 
 I sung of shepherds, pastoral scenes, and generals." The 
 scene around is most lovely. It embraces Naples, Vesuvius, 
 the bay, with its fringe of white water foaming on the 
 shore. Near are numerous caverns in the tufa rock, and 
 the great one of Pausilipo, just below the rocks, on which 
 the tomb stands. Violets, rich in fragrance, bloom. You 
 pluck some ivy from the tomb, and walk away. For six 
 centuries pilgrims have come to this spot for where im- 
 mortal genius rests, lingers an immortal charm. From this 
 extends around the hill a most pleasant walk along the 
 beach, with the bay on the left, and on the right, the hill, 
 with its splendid old palm trees, its modern villas, and its 
 ruins of ancient ones. But for Italy fallen, glorious, 
 ancient, noble, able, yet incompetent Italy the world 
 should do something. 
 
 The Kingdom of Naples, or as its proper name is, that of 
 the " Two Sicilies," consists of the southern part of the 
 peninsula of Italy, and of the Island of Sicily. There are 
 fifteen provinces in the former, with a population of nearly 
 9,000,000 ; in the latter, seven provinces, with a population 
 of 2,231,020. The total army consists of about 144,000 
 men. The population in the continental, or Italian portion 
 of the kingdom, are classified as follows: 29,783 secular 
 clergymen; 12,751 monks; 10,449 nuns; 25,572 civil and 
 military officers ; 5,981 engaged in public instruction ; 7,920
 
 616 FAREWELL TO ITALY. 
 
 lawyers; 15,906 physicians; 12,666 merchants; 13,476 
 artists; 536,320 artisans; 1,823,080 agriculturists; 70,970 
 shepherds ; 31,190 seamen. The vine is of universal growth. 
 Tt is propagated by either layers or cuttings. It begins to 
 produce the third year. The vintage begins at the end of 
 September. The grapes are collected in a vat sunk beneath 
 the floor, where they remain a few days, till trodden out. 
 The olive also grows universally ; best, however, in slopes 
 or stony districts. It is propagated by slips, by shoots, and 
 by grafting slips on the wild olive. Shoots require many 
 years. Grafting is performed in March or April, and the 
 fruit is produced in about five years. If intended for oil, it 
 is allowed to remain on the trees till it reaches maturity. 
 The government of the kingdom is that of an absolute 
 hereditary monarchy. 
 
 But adieu to Italy fair and dear Italy forever ! The 
 return steps have been taken. It is time to consider the 
 " eye as satisfied with seeing." Though life is said to be a 
 travel, traveling is not the business of life. At this point I 
 resolve to suspend my wandering for the present, and direct 
 my steps to the west. The south of Italy is, of all countries 
 on earth, perhaps, the most pleasant. No person has ever 
 left Italy without regrets. There is an enjoy ability, a 
 charm in the air; the ear grows accustomed to the soft 
 language; the scenes are so ancient the mellowness of 
 great age and historical renown is on them the natural 
 beauties of hill and mountain, cloud and sky, are ever ap- 
 pearing The three months and a half I have spent here, 
 the scenes I have been through, and the friends with whom 
 I have seen them, must remain among the chief delights of 
 memory. I procured to-day the requisite visas to my pass- 
 port, that of the American Consul, the Neapolitan Police, 
 and the French Minister, averaging about a dollar each 
 that of the American Consul being the highest. At four 
 o'clock I took the parting hand with one of my companions,
 
 THE SEA. 
 
 who attended me to the water, and I can look back at my 
 last act in Italy, at all events, with pleasure, as it was to 
 bestow a gratuity on a hoary-headed beggar. Previous to 
 this I paid the Custom House officers the usual fee for not 
 examining my baggage they attending the departure of 
 each traveler as pertinaciously as the beggars. I then em- 
 barked on the steamer Bosphorus, for Marseilles. As we 
 sailed out the bay, I saw the last of that classic scenery 
 Vesuvius smoking in the air, a great, wonderful spectacle 
 then we passed the islands of Capri, Ischia, the Bay of 
 Baiae, with all the scenes connected with many delightful 
 associations of memory with friends in Naples, were soon 
 no more in view, and that old, respectable sea, the Mediter- 
 ranean, whose waves began to make me terribly sea-sick, 
 was alone in view on one side. We kept close along the 
 shores of Italy, and early next morning arrived at Civita 
 Vecchia, the port of Borne, and only forty miles distant 
 from the Eternal city. It has artificial harbors, moles, piers, 
 castles, like Leghorn. I did not land, however, but here I 
 had the last view of fair Italy. We remained here some 
 hours. It is noted by travelers on account of the extraor- 
 dinary vivacity of its beggars and police-officers, and the 
 great inconveniences thrown in the way of travelers. Our 
 course now lay north of the Island of Corsica, which we 
 saw, as also the islands of Elba and Monte Christo, with 
 their historic, biographic, and romantic memories. The 
 latter is apparently a vast desert rock, rising out of the 
 .deep sea. We then passed directly toward the coast of 
 France, and steamed vigorously all night. The next morn- 
 ing at four o'clock came on a regular, or rather irregular, 
 war of the elements. The sun was very bright, but the 
 winds were most furious. Whether it was the Vent d bise, 
 Mistral, the Euroclydon, or other peculiar wind of this sea, 
 I could not determine, being quite incapable of exercising 
 any analytical powers, as the waves were high and awful, 
 
 3s2
 
 618 FRANCE. 
 
 beat entirely over the vessel, and came down into the 
 cabin like an Alpine torrent. The storm continued all 
 the day. 
 
 Toward evening we began to discern the bluff coasts of 
 France, and at seven o'clock we landed at Marseilles, and I 
 stood on the soil of France again. It impresses one quite 
 favorably, after being in Italy the streets are so much 
 cleaner, the inhabitants more industrious and civilized. It 
 strikes one that the people of France speak very good 
 French, after one has heard it in other parts of the conti- 
 nent, and the sound of sous, franc, and centime, is pleasant 
 after one has been pound, shilling, and penced in England ; 
 guildered and stivered in Holland : florined and kreutzered 
 in Germany ; livred, thalered, and silver groschened in 
 Prussia; guldened in Austria; and pistareened, scudoed, 
 bajocchied, ducated, piastred, and carlinoed in Italy. I 
 have usually found it best to change my circular notes into 
 French Napoleons, gold coins worth twenty francs, or three 
 dollars and eighty cents, and as these are current every- 
 where in Europe, procure with them the smaller change of 
 each country. We proceeded to the Hotel des Empereurs, 
 a miserable hotel, though with a vast sounding name, great 
 pretensions, and in a fine situation. Travelers often meet 
 again who had met before, like clouds careering over the 
 sky, and on the steamer I met with a former fellow-traveler 
 whom I had seen in Rome. We spent a day or two in 
 Marseilles. It is a large city population one hundred and 
 ninety thousand built on barren sea rocks and cliffs. It is 
 the first and finest seaport of France and the Mediterranean. 
 The first settlement of Marseilles is claimed as being by the 
 Phoenicians, three thousand years ago. The harbor is a 
 natural one, but has been vastly improved. The old harbor 
 occupies about seventy-six acres, and could contain twelve 
 hundred vessels. This is the great Steam Packet station of 
 the Mediterranean, and from hence depart vessels every few
 
 FRANCE. 619 
 
 days across to Africa, and to the East, touching at the vari- 
 ous ports, landing passengers in Sicily, Italy, Alexandria in 
 Egypt, and Jaffa, Smyrna, Constantinople, Athens, etc. The 
 rates of fare on these vessels are high. The price, first-class, 
 from Naples to Marseilles is about thirty-six dollars, though 
 ordinarily the passage should be made in about fifty hours. 
 The second-class passage is twenty-five dollars. A new 
 harbor is being constructed here, which is a most stu- 
 pendous work. "We walked along the quays and harbors, 
 saw the immense crowd, the costumes of various nations, 
 Turks, Greeks, Algerines, and immense quantities of the 
 finest oranges, and other kinds of fruits, for sale. We 
 entered some of the fine steamers bound for the East, and 
 began to feel a spirit of Oriental rambling bestir within us. 
 In visiting the Custom House to reclaim our baggage and 
 passports the latter having been taken from us at Naples 
 on embarking we were agreeably refreshed by an accession 
 of morality on the part of the officers of the police ; they 
 courteously examined our baggage, without requesting pay 
 to omit their duty. The morality of the government in the 
 " States of the Church " is susceptible of further emenda- 
 tions. One decided proof of being in France is the presence 
 of numerous, good, and well-lighted restaurants and cafe's. 
 The French are a restaurant and cafe* people. They are 
 very convenient for travelers, who, fatigued with rambling, 
 or disgusted with the cuisine of his hotel, can here study 
 the costumes and manners, and drink the best coffee that 
 could be made. We walked through some of the old, dirty, 
 narrow streets of the old city, and saw the shrines to the 
 Virgin. We then hired a coach, and drove around the bet- 
 ter parts of the city many of the streets there being wide, 
 and planted on each side with rows of trees. We visited 
 the Zoological Gardens, which are interesting, as containing 
 some rare animals, among which I noticed a white peafowl. 
 The views frome some points are splendid, embracing the
 
 620 FRANCE. 
 
 blue sea, several islands that of If, with its castles. We 
 begin to find that we are now under a government with a 
 man at the head of it, as many of the improvements, evident 
 everywhere, are commenced and worked forward by the 
 present emperor, who has almost remodeled some parts of 
 the city. There is a grand triumphal arch in one of the 
 streets, extremely laudatory of him. All works of art, 
 however, pale before those of the Italians and ancient 
 Greeks. We left Marseilles the second morning after our 
 arrival from Italy. The railway station at Marseilles is the 
 paragon of railway stations. It is an immensely solid 
 building the upper story and roof of iron frame and glass 
 plates, and every thing is admirably managed. There are 
 waiting rooms for the first, second, and third-class passen- 
 gers, all separate restaurant rooms ; the grounds around are 
 planted in trees, and kept like a private villa, and every 
 thing is comme il faut. We left the city in the clear air of 
 a most lovely sunlit morning. The climate of the south of 
 France is deservedly celebrated. There is a kind of mellow 
 whiteness in the air that one may see at times during the 
 early fall or late summer days of New Orleans, which is 
 delicious. Near the city splendid scenes of cultivation 
 appear the city being surrounded with outside villas, 
 called Bastides. These are very small, and look like bijoux 
 of country seats. The merchants and others do not stay in 
 the city during the summer season the climate being 
 intensely hot, the stench almost a visible horror, and the 
 mosquitoes a feeling institution. They retire to these 
 places and ornament them with a kind of foppish, French, 
 artificial taste flowers, umbrella pines, olives, and almonds 
 the latter are now in bloom insomuch that the scene looks 
 like a continued garden, dotted with summer-houses. The 
 English have many villas on this coast, and it is the invariable 
 resort of an eloping pair from England. Lord Brougham's 
 villa, near Marseilles, is a beautiful one. The old prison,
 
 ARLKS. 621 
 
 where the " Man with the Iron Mask," the reputed twin 
 brother of Louis XIV., was confined, is an interesting place. 
 We passed through vineyards and wheat fields, sloping 
 toward the sea. There were cheerful, glad, clean young 
 ladies, dream-of-love-in-a-cottage-looking places, long ave- 
 nues of pines, and the sunny, southern, tideless sea beyond, 
 and far over its waves is Africa, which this coast is said 
 very much to resemble. The soil is really very sterile and 
 rocky, but industry will always find a reward and a profit 
 wherever bestowed, and can transform the places abandoned 
 and neglected by nature, into "Happy Valleys." Inlets 
 from the blue and tranquil sea, along which are seen little 
 and romantically situated villages, continued in sight for 
 some time. But at length we bade adieu to the sea, near 
 whose shores we had been so long, and which Dr. Johnson 
 stated on his death-bed it was one of the regrets of his life 
 that he had not seen. We then entered upon a large tract 
 of utter stony sterility, called " the Crau," said to be thor- 
 oughly like Africa. It is covered with rolled boulders, or 
 pebbles, and is mentioned in ancient authors as the place 
 where Hercules fought the Ligurians, and Jupiter, his 
 father, sent for his use a shower of stones from heaven. 
 The Mirage of the African deserts is often seen here an 
 atmospheric phenomenon resembling inland lakes. I enter 
 a prediction, however, that before ten years the French 
 Emperor will transform the most of this into a garden, if 
 those rascally revolutionists, who are the real enemies of all 
 governments (like the fanatics at the North, of our own 
 country, and the fire-eaters at the South), will let him live. 
 Then we entered upon a level country of unsurpassed 
 beauty and cultivation, with avenues of poplars, mulberries 
 to which the vine is trailed, and all the other adornments 
 of taste. About eleven o'clock we came to the small, old, 
 lonely town of Aries. Like many other places unprogres- 
 sive at present, it invites you back to its past, as the most
 
 622 ARLES. 
 
 interesting. It is on the Rhone, here a wide and rapid 
 stream, whose source I saw last summer in a tremendous 
 glacier in the higher Alps, near the frightfully savage Pass 
 of the Grimsel. At Aries we remained some hours', visiting 
 first the ruins of a theatre of the Roman times, with its 
 semicircle of stone seats yet remaining, almost entire ; and 
 in the centre are yet standing two lofty columns of marble, 
 with remains of chapiters and marble entablatures scattered 
 all around. There is nothing so mournful as the relics 
 of a mighty institution like the Roman Empire, which, for 
 twelve hundred and twenty-nine years controlled the politi- 
 cal destinies of this world. The ancient ruins in some cities 
 exhibit workmanship and art of so superior a style, in con- 
 trast with such wretched, mean, modern buildings, that one 
 is tempted to think the present is a degenerate and degener- 
 ating age, and that Europe was greater when the Roman 
 dominions extended from the Euphrates to the Thames than 
 it has ever been since. It may be, however, that every 
 generation gets weaker and wiser, as saith the old motto. 
 This theatre has been disinterred from the earth, and the 
 accumulated rubbish of ages cleared out. We next saw the 
 Amphitheatre, which is of vast size, and in rather better 
 preservation than the Coliseum at Rome, which it resembles. 
 It has two tiers of lofty Roman arches, sixty arches in each 
 tier, surrounding an oval arena. The numerous and wind- 
 ing corridors and passages for the gladiators and beasts yet 
 remain, to a great extent. The old Roman masonry, mas- 
 sive and without cement, time-eaten with the tooth of ages, 
 is very fine. We went through some of the long passages 
 admitting ingress and egress. It, like the Coliseum, was 
 used, during the middle ages, as a fortress. It is sur- 
 mounted by some Visigoth towers of the middle ages. It 
 is calculated twenty-five thousand persons could sit on the 
 seats within. It has fbrty-three rows of seats. It is about 
 the age of the Coliseum about seventeen hundred and
 
 ARLES. 623 
 
 eighty years. Until recently, it was surrounded and choked 
 up by an accumulation of mean, modern houses ; these have 
 been removed since travelers have begun to perambulate all 
 Europe, and wonder at the ruins of the Roman Empire. 
 We next saw the falling walls of the city, with Lombard 
 towers, the whole rebuilt on the yet older Roman founda- 
 tion, the repairs having become aged, and the restorations 
 needing renewal. Outside the walls we visited a very 
 singular ruin of an old abbey, said to have been destroyed 
 by the Saracens in the seventh century. Around it lie vast 
 numbers of stone sarcophagi of the middle and earlier ages. 
 In some places they are three tiers deep, and the earth has 
 grown up around them, and their cornices look out from 
 the sides of the excavations. The passages to the ruins are 
 lined with them, and you walk along a wall of coffins. 
 There are no bones in them, and a few of the inscriptions 
 are half legible. Few things that I have seen have seemed 
 so impressive as these numerous, empty, stone tombs, piled 
 on each other, scattered about, and peering from excavated 
 places. They are "Roman, Greek, Saracen, middle aged, 
 and early Christian, and probably have been used in suc- 
 cession as resting-places for the bones of different nations 
 and creeds that warred in life, and at death, the dead being 
 conquered too, were ousted to make room for the bones of 
 the conquerors. It was esteemed an almost certain passport 
 to heaven to be buried here. It was called Aliscamps, or 
 the Elysian Fields. During the middle ages it became the 
 most remarkable burying-ground of Christendom, and it 
 was considered a vast honor to be allowed a bury ing-place 
 here. Certain corpses would not allow themselves to be 
 buried anywhere else. The chronicles state, also, that the 
 bodies and the money necessary for the funeral expenses 
 were embarked in tight stone coffins, and sent down the 
 Rhone, and when they arrived near this place, they were 
 stopped by a supernatural force, and were interred. If any
 
 624 AKLES. 
 
 wicked person robbed the coffin of the money it contained, 
 it would sternly refuse to continue its course down the 
 waves. After several hundred years the reputation of the 
 place declined, and was abandoned, and for a while forgot- 
 ten. The Roman tombs, which had been at one time viola- 
 ted to receive the bodies of Christians, had beeu despoiled 
 anew, and the ancient urns, the moneys, and the utensils in 
 bronze, made a lucrative sale, and the holy resting-place of 
 ages gone was sacrilegiously seized as a mine of profit. The 
 archbishop anathematized in vain ; the rich sarcophagi and 
 fine marbles were soon gone, and at present the most 
 modest and heavy coffins remain, and some are used in the 
 adjoining fields as troughs to water cattle in, and this last 
 chamber of repose, once so rich in urns and medals, is now 
 but the debris of a ruined cemetery. There is a propensity 
 in mankind to rifle costly tombs, of which those who wish 
 to be buried in grandeur do not seem to be aware. The old 
 church near the cemetery is in ruins. Rows of dark pines 
 are around it. From this we went to the museum, where 
 we saw numerous sepulchral vases, Roman and Greek, por- 
 tions of capitals of columns, mutilated statues, bas reliefs, 
 and old inscriptions of all times some found in the theatre, 
 amphitheatre, or in the Rhone, which runs near, in the daily 
 excavations into the past which they are now making. 
 Aries was once the capital of Provence. It has a popula- 
 tion of nearly twenty thousand, said to be on the decrease. 
 The women are remarkable for their beauty, piquancy, and 
 grace, being a mixture of three races Greek, Roman, and 
 Saracen the grace of the Spanish, the deep thought of the 
 Greek, and the strength of the Romans are all ascribed to 
 them. We saw the singular-looking church of St. Trophimus, 
 who is said to have been a disciple of St. Paul. The portal 
 of this church is most singular a deeply recessed semi- 
 circular arch, with singular mouldings, resting upon a sculp- 
 tured frieze, sustained by six pillars, based upon carved
 
 FRANCE. 623 
 
 lions. The stone is of a metal color. The pictures in stone 
 carvings are singular, evidently trying to impress that holy 
 terror on the people on which the priests relied in the mid- 
 dle ages for their temporal influence. The horrible and the 
 grotesque touch each other. There are many other inter- 
 esting ruins in this old provincial town; the Imperial 
 Palace of Constantine whose residence was for a while 
 here, and where his eldest son was born, and here he caused 
 his favorite son, Crispus, accused of adultery, to be put to 
 death the aqueducts and the ruins of the Forum. We 
 strolled along the Rhone, which is here about the size of the 
 upper Ohio. 
 
 At three o'clock we left in the train, the day being most 
 lovely, and with a peculiar brightness which added much 
 to the enjoyment of the scene over which we passed. We 
 traveled over the beautiful valley of the Rhone, the railway 
 being lined on each side with rows of pine trees the station- 
 houses on the way being very extensive and highly orna- 
 mented with shrubbery around all indicating our being in 
 a very different region from ancient and unchanging Italy. 
 We passed Tarascon, a city on the Rhone, with several very 
 strong and ancient castles of Lombard ages ; also Beaucaire. 
 celebrated for an annual fair, which dates back to A. D. 
 1168, and for its ancient and romantically situated castle, 
 now a complete ruin, one chapel alone remaining, in which 
 St. Louis heard Mass the night before he embarked for the 
 Crusades. These are all old places ; the scenery of many a 
 romance are placed in these regions. We crossed the 
 Rhone here on a strong stone bridge, and entered upon a 
 scene of exquisite loveliness, stretching to the sea. It is a 
 reclaimed region in part, which consisted in former years of 
 vast salt marshes and lagoons, over which African animals, 
 as the ibis and pelican, stalked, and the soil was in summer 
 covered with a saline efflorescence several inches thick, and 
 the deceptive mirage constantly occurred. Now we savr 
 40 3 c
 
 626 NISMES. 
 
 vines cropped down low, almond trees in bloom, vast olive 
 plantations, and wheat fields. 
 
 At length we came to Nismes, one of the most interesting 
 towns in the south of France. It has broad streets, with 
 boulevards, having avenues of trees in them. Like Aries, 
 its chief objects of interest are its Roman ruins. Nismes is 
 richer in well-preserved antiquities than any other town in 
 France or northern Europe. The name of the Roman city 
 was Nemausus, from which the present French name is 
 derived. It has a vast Roman amphitheatre, in the usual 
 oval style. It is two thousand years old, and stands in the 
 centre of the town, and looks decayed, like the Roman 
 Empire, but mighty still, like its memory. Its exterior is 
 in better preservation than the Coliseum, though not so 
 high nor so large and grand. Its length is four hundred 
 and thirty-seven feet, width three hundred and thirty-two 
 feet, height seventy feet. It has two stories of sixty arches 
 each is built of hard, massive limestone. The lower 
 arches serve as doors. It has many corridors and passages 
 still entire, which look like vast natural caverns. It is in- 
 teresting, as we did, to go all through it to penetrate the 
 wedge-shaped passages radiating from the centre and widen- 
 ing outward ; to clamber over the broken seats, some still 
 marked with the line showing the space allotted to each 
 spectator; to scare away the frightened lizard, or see the 
 tufts of grass springing out of the masonry; and finally 
 stand on the rim of the huge oval basin, and survey the 
 dismantled interior. It was used as a fortress by the Sara- 
 cens, till Charles Martel drove them out by filling its pas- 
 sages with straw and wood, and setting them on fire, which 
 has blackened some of the walls to this day. The interior 
 is not near so perfect as those of the Verona Amphitheatre. 
 The style of these Roman amphitheatres is vastly superior 
 to that of any modern theatre. Nearly all the people could 
 leave the Roman buildings at once. The modern places of
 
 NISMES. 627 
 
 entrance and egress are quite contracted and contemptible 
 in comparison. As they were open at the top to the sky, a 
 vail or awning was so arranged as to be spread over the 
 entire space, to protect the spectators from the sun, the ex- 
 hibitions being generally in the day time. About twenty 
 thousand persons could have been seated in it, which indi- 
 cates the great population of Nismes when a city of the 
 Roman province of Gaul. Not a sixth part of the popula- 
 tion would at any one time be assembled, probably, within 
 it. Formerly this Amphitheatre was surrounded by mean 
 houses, the inhabitants of whom burrowed in it like rats. 
 They are now cleared away, and an elegant iron railing 
 quite surrounds it, and a gendarme or policeman acts as 
 guardian. Then ascending a hill, elegantly adorned with 
 walks and terraced promenades, pines, cedars, olives, etc., 
 we came to the Tour Magne, or Great Tower, a ruined and 
 dismantled tomb- like structure, supposed to date beyond 
 the Roman times, and probably used as a tower of observa- 
 tion by which to communicate signals from one part of the 
 country to another, an ancient kind of telegraphing; as by 
 means of these towers on high hills, and understood signals, 
 the approach of an enemy or other important event might 
 be communicated. It forms a singular profile in the heav- 
 ens, as it were, when one approaches it, and is seen from 
 all parts of the horizon. Like most other ancient buildings, 
 it has, in the long course of time, subserved many purposes. 
 It was supposed at one time to have been a treasury; and 
 the earthy matter (it is hollow) that had accumulated within 
 was cleared out, but no money found. There is a light and 
 elegant staircase, constructed in modern times, by which 
 you may pass to the summit, one hundred and fifty-six feet 
 high. The view from the top, in the lovely air and sun of 
 this region is grand. Below is the city, with its wide 
 streets, planted with trees; and conspicuous is the great 
 Roman ruin, grandly preserved the Amphitheatre; the
 
 628 NISMES. 
 
 gardens near the base of the tower, with many trees in 
 bloom; the green fields of the plain of the Rhone; the 
 vineyards, in which the peasants were at work with their 
 wooden plows; also a singular tooth-like mountain, one 
 can see afar off the commencement of the Pyrenees 
 range in Spain ; the mist over the Mediterranean ; the ram- 
 parts of old towns. The tower is of a conical shape, and is 
 greatly in decay, and a most interesting ruin. Near the 
 base of the hill are most beautiful public gardens. A very 
 large fountain of pure water bursts from the base of the 
 hill, which is carried in canals around the gardens among 
 ancient elms, beautiful flowers and shrubbery ; some fine 
 statues; and near are some majestic Roman ruins, called 
 the Temple of Diana, built by Augustus, the Roman em- 
 peror. The Roman ruins look like eternities, with their 
 arches and their strong, unyielding masonry. The orna- 
 ments and marbles are all gone, or a few detached frag- 
 ments remain, with inscriptions half legible. Some regard 
 this ruin as a remnant of one of those great buildings, called 
 Roman Baths by us for want of a better name. They were 
 in general public places, to which the better sort of the citi- 
 zens retired to enjoy the higher pleasures of life, according 
 to their tastes, whether exercises of the body or of the mind. 
 They comprehended promenades, libraries, galleries of the 
 arts, theatres, etc. Europe shows us the results of time, 
 which are in progress merely in America. Each age im- 
 proves, adds, and imitates ; and the same ideas work them- 
 selves out in a new field. The Romans and Greeks had 
 their Baths, Forums: we have our Exchanges, Cafes and 
 Saloons. The mind of man has a more diversified scope in 
 later ages, but has lost in strength, sublimity and originality. 
 Such constructions as those of old Rome or Greece will 
 never again be reared on this earth. We also visited the 
 house called " Maison Carre," or square house. It is a gem 
 of Roman architecture, with the perfect unity of style for
 
 MSMLS. 629 
 
 which the ancients were famous. It is in a state of wonder- 
 ful preservation. Like all ancient buildings, it has been 
 appropriated to many and various uses. Originally a tem- 
 ple, it then became a Christian church; then a Mayor's 
 palace; then a stable was afterward used as a house for 
 burial ; then a revolutionary tribunal ; a corn warehouse ; 
 and it is now a museum. It is surrounded by thirty ele- 
 gant Corinthian columns, ten of them being detached from 
 the portico. It is so beautiful, elegant-looking and tasteful, 
 that it is said Napoleon entertained the idea of carrying it 
 bodily to Paris, to adorn the Champs Elys^es. It is about 
 seventeen hundred years old. It is a rectangle, about one 
 hundred feet long and sixty-five broad. The height of the 
 columns is about fifty feet. The ornaments of the cornice 
 and the mouldings recall the most beautiful works of the 
 Greek artists at Athens. It is used as a museum, and con- 
 tains paintings and Roman remains. Some of the paintings 
 are by Italian masters, and remind one of the larger and 
 greater galleries of Rome and Florence. The two finest 
 paintings are " Cromwell uncovering the Coffin of Charles I.," 
 and " Nero trying on a Slave the Poison he intended for 
 Britannicus." The former is a great painting; Cromwell 
 is coolly but curiously contemplating the remains of the 
 beheaded monarch, as if to dare any thing remorseful to 
 come out of that act. We also visited the Gate of Augus- 
 tus, a half-buried remnant of the old city gates, bearing a 
 Latin inscription that Augustus decreed its erection. It 
 consists of two great arcades, and two smaller ones. It was 
 erected sixteen years before the birth of Christ. Not far 
 from this is also a resuscitated Roman reservoir. We gazed 
 on some of these ruins, while a shred of a coppery moon, 
 with a garniture of dazzled clouds around, hung in the sky 
 over the ruins, and cast on them a drear, tender light, 
 while they seemed to invoke sympathy for their two 
 thousand years of age. In the centre of the principal square 
 
 3c2
 
 630 FRANCE. 
 
 of Nismes is a most beautiful monumental fountain. There 
 are five statues in marble by Rodier, the French sculptor. 
 They are abundantly beautiful. One of them struck me as 
 being among the greatest works of modern art. It is a 
 female figure allegorizing the city of Nismes. 
 
 This morning, March 19th, I left our pleasant hotel 
 (du Luxembourgh) at Nismes, and proceeded in the train 
 for Lyons, passing near the picturesquely situated ruins of 
 Beauvais, then the town of Avignon, where I saw the vast 
 old historical Castle and Palace of the Popes in the middle 
 ages, who lived here during seventy years, which they call 
 the Babylonian captivity. The city is surrounded with its 
 old embattled walls and watch towers. Avignon has about 
 thirty-five thousand inhabitants, and is smaller than Nismes, 
 which has about forty-six thousand. Many of the streets 
 are dirty and narrow, but there are some lovely flower- 
 gardens, adorned by almond trees in bloom. The country 
 around was formerly Papal territory, and five French Popes 
 are enumerated as in the direct line from St. Peter. They 
 reigned here from A. D. 1305 to 1376. On their departure 
 for Rome, three schismatic Popes ruled in succession at 
 Avignon. The ancient Palace of the Popes is now degraded 
 into barracks and a prison. It induces a kind of instinctive 
 terror, which its history justifies. There is something sin- 
 gularly menacing about this Palace, in which dwelt those 
 aspiring to represent the God of peace and pardon. The 
 middle ages, alternately warring or trembling of fear, are 
 indicated in the thick walls, the subterranean passages, the 
 secret issues, the unknown gates, and the broken passages. 
 The Papacy was at this time most degenerate, and became 
 a passive instrument in the hands of the French kings, and 
 Rome ceased for a while to sway the religious sceptre of the 
 world. Every precaution secins to have been taken in this 
 Palace against attack from without a net surprise within. 
 The balcony from which the Popes bestowed their blessing
 
 FRANCE. 631 
 
 is seen above an entrance defended by drawbridges, port- 
 cullis and iron gates. The walls of the Palace are one hun- 
 dred feet high. Some of the towers are one hundred and 
 fifty feet high, with a proportionate thickness of masonry. 
 Uere is also the torture room of the Inquisition, with funnel- 
 shaped halls, designed to drown the cries of the miserable 
 victims. There are in the wall the remains of a furnace for 
 heating the torturing-irons. There are holes, to which was 
 attached a pointed instrument, on which the condemned per- 
 son was seated, being suspended by cords from above, so as 
 to prevent his falling, but allow his whole weight to bear 
 on the points. 
 
 The railway passes along the valley of the Rhone from 
 this, and here one begins to take leave of the transparent 
 clearness of a southern atmosphere, and lose the views of 
 azure-tinted landscapes. The vales are fertile, the villages 
 are old-looking and are situated on rocky, limestone emi- 
 nences projections from the French Alps and have 
 Roman ruins in most of them, and crumbling towers of the 
 middle ages. The vales have long rows of poplars and 
 pines through the green fields. The trees are advantageous 
 in shading the wheat from the otherwise too intense heat of 
 the sun. The villages are generally built of stone, and are 
 old and very poor-looking, and their grandeur seems to be 
 in their tottering ruins. There are many bare and bleak 
 hills, but on their slopes, wherever practicable, the olive, 
 and especially the vine and mulberry are cultivated the 
 olive and vine not requiring a rich soil. The olive, however, 
 gradually disappears, as the course of the railway is almost 
 directly north. Some assert that the scenery on the Rhone 
 is equal to the Rhine. Much of it that I have seen in pass- 
 ing to-day is very beautiful ; some of the valleys are very 
 fertile, well cultivated, and some of the houses look com- 
 fortable, and are adorned with taste and elegance. But it 
 could not sustain a moment's comparison with the great and
 
 632 LYONS. 
 
 noble Rhine in sublime scenery. The railway passes 
 through many tunnels, some of them long ones. Many of 
 the towns look as if the railway were the only fact that had 
 transpired in them for five hundred years. Humanity 
 would seem to be superannuated, and the ordinary processes 
 of living, being born, etc., to be utterly stale. Orange and 
 Vienne are very interesting and old-looking towns. At one 
 place there is a stone bridge, the longest in the world, over 
 the Rhone. It is twenty-seven hundred feet long. It was 
 built by a brotherhood of monks. Some of the towns are 
 built picturesquely against a pile of rocks. There are coal 
 and iron mines in some places, and a vast abundance of 
 limestone. Excellent wines are made in this region. The 
 vine seems to grow finely on the decomposed gravel. 
 
 Approaching Lyons a very fertile valley appears, and at 
 length, crossing an immense bridge, we arrived at the mag- 
 nificent Crystal-Palace-like depot of this great city. The 
 Rhone and Saone rivers unite below the town, which lies in 
 a narrow space between, and on both sides of the rivers. It 
 is large, having over two hundred thousand inhabitants, is 
 well built, has numerous large squares one of them 
 embraces fifteen acres ; there are also very many large and 
 fine bridges over each river. The air is, however, some- 
 what impregnated with coal dust, in consequence of the 
 numerous manufactories. It is the greatest place for silk 
 manufacturing in Europe. It was first established here in 
 1456, by Italian refugees. The large proprietor, or capi- 
 talist, instead of having a number of workmen employed 
 on his own premises, buys the raw material, and gives it out 
 to be manufactured by the weavers, dyers, etc., on their own 
 premises. There are more than thirty-one thousand silk 
 looms. 
 
 The morning after arriving being pleasant, I ascended the 
 Heights of Fourvieres, a vast hill across the Rhone, and visi- 
 ble from my hotel. I expected to have a view of Mount
 
 LYONS. 688 
 
 Blanc, distant one hundred miles, up in whose cold heart, 
 as far as "Le Jardin," nine thousand feet high, I was last 
 August. I was disappointed, however, in seeing the monster 
 of mountains, as a slight haze hung over the Rhone. Nev- 
 ertheless, I had a view of remarkable beauty of the city 
 below me, with its four fronts, on two large and fine rivers, 
 the scores of bridges, great squares, and populous streets. 
 The route up to this point is interesting, as well as the view. 
 Near the base of the hill one passes Roman ruins of a 
 palace in which Caligula and Claudius both were born. On 
 the place is now a hospital for the insane. Then one 
 ascends by extremely zigzag streets, lined, as you approach 
 the top, with numerous shops, in which are sold all kinds 
 of adornments and devices for cemeteries, votive offerings, 
 rosaries, medals, pictures in wax, mementoes of the dead, 
 mottoes and affectionate expressions on them a sort of 
 street leading to the tomb. On the top is a church to the 
 Virgin, the respect for whom seems almost as great as at 
 Naples. The sides of the church, and every available 
 space, are lined with pictures, shrines, and votive presenta- 
 tions to the Virgin; the number exceeds four thousand. 
 Some of the inscriptions record her miraculous inter- 
 cession in behalf of the devotees. Part of the hill is 
 terraced, and laid out in walks and gardens. Below it is 
 the Cathedral church. It is interesting to enter the French 
 churches after having seen those of Italy. The Italo-Greek 
 architecture is no more, and there is now in its place the 
 gloomy, religious Gothic. The paintings are not so fine 
 here, and one sees many poor copies of the older and better 
 ones of Italy. The grand, stately Gothic does not admit of 
 so much ornament But one sees again what is rare in 
 Italy, the dim, holy-looking, painted windows, which, in 
 this church, are fine. There is a rare window, which is 
 peculiarly beautiful. There is, in general, a better-looking 
 class of worshipers in attendance here than in Italy, where
 
 634 LYONS. 
 
 religion is principally in the hands of the lower classes the 
 highest class using it as an instrument, and the medium 
 class cultivating a deference for it rather than any real 
 reverence. The Catholic religion is more respectable in 
 France than in any other nation. Christianity was intro- 
 duced into Lyons at a very early period. Polycarp, a dis- 
 ciple of John the Apostle, preached, it is said, in a subter- 
 ranean vault, which is shown here ; and a sort of crypt or 
 well is shown, down which were thrown the bodies of nine 
 thousand Christians, till it overflowed with their blood. 
 The dungeons in which Pothinus, Bishop of Lyons, and 
 Blondina, were confined and tortured in iron chairs, are 
 shown. These events took place toward the close of the 
 second century. 
 
 I rambled through Lyons leisurely and desultorily to- 
 day. In scarcely any city in Europe have I seen more 
 female beauty than here. In Prague, perhaps, there was 
 more, for there even the withered old hags looked like 
 fallen angels. I walked along the principal streets, many 
 of which are splendid, and lined with very high houses. 
 Some of the jewelers' shops are scarcely inferior in splendor 
 to those of Paris. One's proximity to Paris begins to be 
 indicated by having Galignani's paper of the same day on, 
 which it is issued. This is the greatest of all European 
 luxuries to the English or American traveler. It is, I 
 believe, the only paper in English published on the Conti- 
 nent. One sees here, as in all French towns, a great display 
 of the military. That absurd and awkward-looking phe- 
 nomenon in America, a " muster," seems to be going on 
 here at all times. There are few of those singular, religious 
 processions one meets with in Italy: those funereal, masked, 
 torch-lit, chanting, sandal-shod, hooded rows of probable 
 human beings one sees in Kome. You see here, instead, 
 processions of charity-school children, returning from con- 
 vents, clapping with their wooden shoes on the pavements
 
 PABIS. 635 
 
 as they pass along. On one of the large squares in Lyons 
 is an equestrian statue, in bronze, of King Louis XV., and 
 on another is a bronze statue of Napoleon, to whom the 
 people were much attached. It represents him in his usual 
 thoughtful appearance, and around it are the names of his 
 victories and the words, " People of Lyons, I love you !" 
 one of his remarks to them, which went directly to the 
 heart. 
 
 I left Lyons at nine o'clock at night for a moonlight ride 
 to Paris by railway. The moon was shining brilliantly, 
 and many stars were out in the blue air. We passed 
 through a very long tunnel, immediately after leaving 
 Lyons; then through a succession of little old French towns, 
 sleeping in the moonlight, with their tiled roofs, narrow 
 streets, and star-pointing churches; then over large vine- 
 plantations, wheat fields, etc. At Macon, about forty miles 
 from Lyons, is the point where I diverged last year from 
 this route, going by railway to Seyssel; thence by Diligence 
 to Geneva. The railway has recently been opened the 
 whole way from Paris to Geneva. The appearance of an 
 ancient country like France when riding rapidly through it 
 on a clear moonlit night is enchanting. The distance from 
 Lyons to Paris is three hundred and twenty-six miles; 
 from Marseilles to Lyons the distance is about two hundred 
 and seventy-five miles. The sun arose the next morning 
 from out the sea of Alpine mountains on our right; the 
 Jura chain being near, we soon got into the Valley of the 
 Seine passed the noble and majestic forests of Fontaine- 
 bleau, with its Imperial Palace; and about eleven o'clock the 
 familiar scenes of Paris, the towers of Notre Dame and the 
 heights around the city began to appear in view. The city 
 smiles a welcome on all who come into it. The Embarcation 
 of the railway in the city is a splendid construction. Your 
 baggage is politely examined, and there is no detention. 
 The trunks and all kinds of baggage are laid on large
 
 636 PARIS. 
 
 tables ; you open them in presence of the police-officers ; 
 they examine them, and return all to you. Notwithstanding 
 all that has been said with regard to the severity of the 
 French passport system, it is a positive relief to the traveler 
 to come into France from Italy. It is your duty to have a 
 passport and have the visa of the French consul ; that 
 suffices, and you have no further annoyance. A drive 
 through some of the streets soon brought me to my old 
 quarters (Hotel Mew-ice) in the Eue de Rivoli, fronting on 
 the Tuilleries Gardens. No scene, perhaps, could be more 
 suggestive of gayety and pleasure than entering Paris on a 
 brilliant day, after months spent in the ancient and world- 
 past towns of Italy the tombs, catacombs, ghostly churches, 
 and buried cities. There all the interest is in the past: in 
 Paris it is in the present: and life, health, beauty, fashion, 
 splendor all move along rejoicing up and down the Rue 
 de Rivoli, Boulevards, and Champs Elysdes, and hold per- 
 petual carnival. 
 
 I have been in Paris several days, and expect to remain 
 here some weeks. The city is fast filling up with travelers. 
 It is delightful to meet old fellow travelers, from whose 
 routes our own has diverged, compare notes since parting, 
 and revive the recollections of old scenes and scenery. 
 I have met with several such, and one soon begins to feel 
 at home in Paris. You can find the Paris of the middle 
 ages if you search for it, in the old, crooked, narrow streets ; 
 or you can find Roman ruins here too ; but Paris is princi- 
 pally the present the light, the superficial, unthinking 
 present ! Nothing that I have seen in Europe among the 
 unhappy ruins of Italy, the stately cities of Germany, or 
 the self-satisfied dullness of England, can compare in splen- 
 dor, beauty, and attractiveness to Paris. The world pre- 
 sents nothing exactly like the Rue de Rivoli. the Boulevard 
 Madeleine, the Boulevard des Italiens, the Boulevard des 
 Capuchins, the Champs Elysees, or the Promenades of the
 
 PARIS. 637 
 
 Bois du Bologne, to say nothing of the " Jardin Mabille,'' 
 and many other places like the latter kind. I have revisited 
 the Louvre. After having seen the great galleries of Italy, 
 one is better prepared to explore it, though in several 
 things as ancient sculpture it is very far behind both 
 the Vatican and Capitol Galleries of Rome and the Sculp- 
 ture Gallery of the Museo Borbonico of Naples. In paint- 
 ing it is also behind many galleries in Home, to say nothing 
 of the Vatican and several in Germany. Yet it is a glad- 
 Bees to see those miles of stately buildings inclosing great 
 court-yards, and ascend those grand staircases to the various 
 museums. Then it is a relief to have no petty fee's de- 
 manded, and not to be enveloped in beggars. I have seen 
 but few beggars on returning to France: it is not allowed 
 by law at all. A few, however, will beg, as a kind of pre- 
 scriptive right ; and the police do not interfere with a few 
 favorite, ancient, and venerable beggars, who, if they were 
 not allowed to beg, would perhaps not condescend to live. 
 Nor are you here annoyed by petty Guide-Book vendors. 
 If your air and appearance indicate that you do not know 
 " what is what," on a sudden sundry annoyances, in both 
 these latter-mentioned forms, may assault you. France is 
 probably at the present time the best governed country in 
 the world. Those disagreeable people called the English, 
 with their coarse, new, badly-fitting clothes, do not need 
 half the government the light and volatile French do. 
 Enlist their pride in any thing, let them get a little accus- 
 tomed to it, and no further government is needed. The 
 despotism you hear of in France you do not see when you 
 are there. It is true you see a vast number of soldiers at 
 all times; but what could they make a living at if they 
 were not soldiers ? Every art, trade, profession and busi- 
 ness is already overcrowded. It is their livelihood; they 
 are consumers, and create a market for the industry of 
 others. When our country is as populous as France, and 
 
 3D
 
 638 PARIS. 
 
 the aboriginal forests of the West and South cease to afford 
 scope and space for redundant and restless people, we may 
 find the creation of a standing army no bad substitute. 
 People should not argue from our present to our future. 
 They should argue from the youth of former nations to our 
 youth, and from their old age to our old age from what 
 has been to what shall be, since nations pass through the 
 same historic process. There was a time when Greece and 
 Rome were as free as we are, or ever were. A good govern- 
 ment, both in theory and practice, as ours is, is as bad, 
 in the hands of corrupt, contemptible, dishonest, mean men, 
 as a tyrannical government in theory when administered 
 by wise, judicious and honest rulers. The mean, ignorant 
 and vicious office-holders, the corrupt, pandering, sap- 
 headed simpletons who go to Congress and the State Legis- 
 latures, would drag down any Government on earth ; and 
 ours is only kept up because supported and freighted by an 
 Almighty destiny. It has also the inherent vitality of youth 
 and the attachments to the better age and better people of 
 the Revolution. We did not rush unadvisedly into exist- 
 ence on the Fourth of July, 1776, announcing as our first 
 utterance, that "All men were born free and equal." 
 Other people also knew a few things before that ; and it 
 was no news to the world to hear it. It is not an unwise 
 thing to catch a feW beams from the lighthouses that glim- 
 mer over the ocean of the past, both to render us a little 
 more modest about our present and a little more careful 
 about our future. Our real greatness is in our Protestant 
 diffusion of the Bible, in our giving homes to all nations, 
 in our civilizing and improving the African race, in driving 
 off and exterminating the unimprovable Indian races, and 
 reclaiming lands useless for ages, and in giving to the 
 world an experiment of a government deriving its right 
 from the consent of the governed ; and our dangers will 
 result from Protestant priestcraft, and corruption in office,
 
 PARIS. 639 
 
 getting the people disgusted with the government. As long 
 as this is enshrined in the hearts of the people, it may defy 
 faction within and war without, though aided and abetted 
 by all the devils in hell. 
 
 One sees in Paris a rather singular kind of democracy. 
 The present emperor is trying to humble the old noblesse. 
 Therefore they are reduced in style, not much connected 
 with the state, and many of them become poor. The no- 
 bility of the empire have neither blood nor antecedents be- 
 yond the last few years, arising, like the first Napoleon, 
 and light itself, from the majesty of chaotic nothing. As 
 the former are made democratic in reality by poverty and 
 neglect, aud the latter by truth and memory, a rather equiv- 
 ocal state of society arises, and the worn-out, and super- 
 annuated blood, and weak elegance of manners, is sup- 
 planted by a fresh infusion of families, and a rough strength, 
 the legacy and result of the Revolution. Yesterday I saw 
 a white and pretty lady, arm in arm, walking with a black 
 woman. I saw a negro boy in one of the great galleries 
 here, taking copies of the old masters not exactly of " ole 
 massa," however. Like the Catholic religion, the French 
 know no distinction of color. 
 
 To-day, March 23d, I walked through the Louvre Mu- 
 seum, going first into part of the Gallery of Paintings, 
 where I saw many interesting and fine paintings of the 
 French school, which is more florid and factitious, and not 
 so intense and elegant in its scope, nor so profound and 
 original in delineation as the Italian. The French are a 
 greater people, but the Italians have produced greater men, 
 including Napoleon Bonaparte, who was descended from an 
 old Italian family, descendants of whom live now in Flor- 
 ence. In the portraiture of feelings Italians are of course 
 utterly unrivalled. For us, Americans, we are a nation of 
 poets, painters, sculptors and artists; but have never yet 
 produced a poet, painter, sculptor, or artist. I saw several
 
 640 PARIS. 
 
 paintings suggestive of actual landscape scenes in Italy, 
 which I have beheld. I walked also into the Egyptian 
 Gallery. This is really quite extensive, and perhaps more 
 interesting than any other in Europe of this kind. How 
 remarkable the coloring on those stone or wooden sarco- 
 phagi after four thousand years have passed, having existed 
 two-thirds of the entire lapse of time ! The hieroglyphics 
 on the stone coffins, and the mummies in them, are curious 
 and hideous. It is old, dead, passed away Egypt, with 
 gods, idols and worshipers come out upon the present. In 
 the Louvre there is an old hall, with oak carvings on the 
 panels ancient armor of many French kings all old, 
 kingly and dead. There is here a fine portrait of Louis XIV., 
 with a kind of wearisome satiety on the countenance as if 
 to say royalty was not enough. There are presents here 
 from many Popes to the kings. Next to this is the Hall of 
 the old Napoleon, where are many mementoes of him the 
 old military hat he wore at St. Helena, which is indeed a 
 "shocking bad hat;" there is his small camp-bed, on which 
 he lay after many a battle; there is also a gray coat, per- 
 forated with bullets in some places ; there is his large gold 
 watch ; and there are many other mementoes of the man 
 that made the empire : saddles from Turkish kings; mathe- 
 matical instruments used by him ; state robes, etc., used by 
 the Man of Destiny in his grandeur. Then I entered halls 
 with a collection of paintings of the very life-like Dutch 
 school. I saw what I consider an inferior copy of Leonardo 
 da Vinci's " Last Supper," the original of which I savr at 
 Milan. It is not near so good as the half-defaced original. 
 The. face of the Saviour lacks the majestic dignity of the 
 never-equalled original, and some of the Apostles do not 
 seem to have the same attitudes. Perhaps the copyist ex- 
 pected to improve on the original! Then into many apart- 
 ments, containing a collection of the finest lithographs in 
 the world, with models in plaster of ancient Greek and
 
 PARIS. 
 
 Roman statuary, the originals in Italy. The Louvre must 
 have been a wonderful collection of art* when it contained 
 the great originals, both of painting and sculpture, stolen 
 by the Emperor from conquered Italy and Germany. These 
 were all restored on his downfall in 1815. Then I went 
 into many halls, containing many sketches, drawings and 
 cartoons, by celebrated masters. These halls are well warmed 
 with fires, very different from the cold galleries of Rome, 
 with only an iron brazier filled with ignited charcoal sitting 
 ioHhe centre of the marble floor. Then I went into another 
 part of the Picture Gallery, where the best pictures are 
 especially the real gem of the Louvre, Murillo's celebrated 
 painting of the " Immaculate Conception" a work before 
 which to pause. There is an innocence, a lofty serenity, a 
 holiness, in that almost girlish face, with an expression of a 
 deep destiny, that one does not see even in the Madonnas 
 of Raphael. It is probably the finest painting in the Louvre, 
 which is saying a great deal, for there are many by Raphael 
 and Leonardo da Vinci. Many of the faces of the latter 
 seem to me borrowed from the same original. There are 
 also many by Domenichino, Titian, Rubens, Guido Reni, 
 Poussin. The number of paintings in the Louvre is nearly 
 two thousand, consisting of the Italian, Spanish, German, 
 Holland and French schools. Not a single English paint- 
 ing (if there is such a thing) is in it. There are numbers 
 of ladies and gentlemen, tourists, in those splendid galleries 
 and rooms at all times, (or from 10 A.M. to 6 P.M., every 
 day except Monday,) as in last summer, for the course of the 
 world is ever onward, and in the same beaten directions. 
 At twelve o'clock there is a grand parade in the court-yard 
 of the Tuileries Palace, which is separated by a high rail- 
 ing from the great square or place inclosed by the Louvre, 
 and the lateral buildings connecting it with the Tuileries. 
 The Imperial Guard is then changed, and one can see the 
 splendid and imposing appearance of the French empire's 
 41 3 D2
 
 642 PARIS. 
 
 sustainers. The special guard of the Palace consists of 
 about five hundred men, in splendid uniforms; the music 
 is very fine and the scene is imposing. This side in front 
 of the Tuileries is the finest. You see here one of Napo- 
 leon's Triumphal Arches, rather interesting in itself, but 
 not much after one has seen the decayed marble ones of 
 Rome in their venerable age and historic grandeur. Passing 
 along the Rue de Rivoli to-day, about twelve o'clock, I saw 
 an advance guard of perhaps thirty mounted lancers ; then 
 came a plain, black, close carriage, with outriders. Thro%h 
 the window, however, could be seen the Prince Imperial, 
 a rather pale, noticing, handsome boy of about two years old, 
 sitting on his nurse's knees ; then came the rear guard of 
 thirty or forty men, galloping, and the brilliant cortege 
 passed down the Rue de Rivoli toward the Bois du Bou- 
 logne, where the Prince is sent every day to take the air. 
 Royalty is a splendid thing; and the present grand Impe- 
 rial Government, with the strong will of Louis Bonaparte 
 behind it, backed with five hundred thousand bayonets, and 
 the glory of the old, dead Napoleon, is a better thing than 
 that antiquated, dull, Bourbon, or Orleans dynasty. 
 
 To-day I have been leisurely strolling through Paris. 
 The day is soft and pleasant, though not so warm as in 
 Naples this being considerably further north. Here is the 
 gay Boulevert des Italians, with its very wide and crowded 
 banquettes, with rows of trees between them and the streets, 
 which are crowded with carriages. It is interesting to see 
 the elegantly dressed human life rolling along these streets, 
 and promenading the banquettes, the gay shops blazing with 
 jewels, or articles of interest and taste, pictures, etc., with 
 pretty women as the clerks. Paris is well called the para- 
 dise of women and the hell of men. Then near this is the 
 beautiful and stately church, the Madeleine, looking like an 
 ancient Greek Temple, with its peristyle of Corinthian 
 columns around it. Then I cross one of the bridges over
 
 PARIS. 643 
 
 the Seine, and walk through old Paris the Paris of the 
 Louises and next I came to the gardens of the Luxem- 
 bourg Palace. The grounds are very extensive, though in 
 the heart of the ancient city ; there are stately trees waiting 
 to bloom; there are long walks and drives, bordered with 
 fine statues; there are play-grounds for the children and 
 the schools of this quarter of the city ; there are fountains, 
 old convent walls, and in front rises the multiform building 
 with its yellowish cut-stone compartments, its courts and 
 corridors, before each of which stands a guard. You enter ; 
 it has a fine collection of modern French paintings that only 
 want several centuries of age to be considered very fine. I 
 strolled through the rooms, till I grew weary. I saw them 
 all last year, and though these lack the profundity of the 
 old masters, they are well worthy of careful study. Near 
 these grounds is the spot on which Marshal Ney was shot, 
 as a traitor. lie told the platoon of soldiers to fire at his 
 heart, and stood without moving a feature. There is rather 
 a florid monument over the place, erected since the Napo- 
 leons came back into power, that describes his titles and 
 virtues. The Marshal, as well as many others, was irre- 
 sistibly impelled by his feelings to join the Emperor on 
 his return from Elba, in 1815, and to his old feelings of 
 attachment sacrificed the oath he had taken to the Bourbon 
 dynasty. It is to him is due the credit of any members of 
 the Grand Army that invaded Russia in 1812, getting back 
 to France. 
 
 The square enclosed by the wings of the " Palais Royal," 
 is one of the pleasantest places in Paris. The palace itself 
 is inhabited, at present, by Jerome Bonaparte, the uncle of 
 the present Emperor, and the survivor alone of the brothers 
 of Napoleon, and whose posterity will be next in succession 
 to the French throne, if no descendants should survive 
 Louis Napoleon. It is part of the property of the Orleans 
 family, which was confiscated by the present emperor. The
 
 644 PARIS. 
 
 wings of the palace were let out as shops during the reign 
 of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity," in the French 
 Revolution, which they continue to be at present, consist- 
 ing of splendid jewelers' shops, restaurants, cafe's, etc. etc. ; 
 and any one can dine in a royal palace here, as I have often 
 done, for four or five francs. In the open space are .prom- 
 enades, fountains, trees, music ; and the scene is interesting 
 here on pleasant afternoons. The Place de la Concorde, 
 however, which intervenes between the Tuileries Gardens 
 and the Champs Elyse*es, is regarded by some as the most 
 beautiful square in the world. It has two grand fountains, 
 which send vast quantities of water through and among 
 fine statues; there is an Egyptian obelisk, brought from 
 Luxor, in Egypt, and there are allegoric statues of French 
 cities around. On the place where the Obelisk now stands, 
 stood the dreadful Guillotine of the "Reign of Terror," 
 where the king and two thousand eight hundred of the vic- 
 tims of the Revolution were beheaded. All around here 
 now, however, is splendid as a bright dream of beauty. 
 Above are the Tuileries Gardens, the trees of which, prin- 
 cipally elm, are not yet in leaf. It is a vast space, inclosed 
 by high and tasteful iron railings, with gates at various 
 places, where are stationed guards, who admit every one 
 from eight in the morning till nine at night. They notice 
 all who come in, as you can approach the entrance to the 
 Palace, where the imperial family at present reside the 
 private or reserved garden of which is separated from the 
 public gardens by only a low railing; and within this re- 
 served space the Prince Imperial often exercises with his 
 nurses, and the Emperor and Empress walk. There are 
 statues, and fountains, and elegantly kept flower-gardens 
 within the inclosure, and lofty elms, which afford a secluded 
 promenade. There are some seats on which to sit, and 
 very many chairs, which are kept by old women, and let
 
 ST. DENIS. 645 
 
 out at one sou each.' It is a grand resort in the pleasant, 
 tfunnv afternoons, for promenaders, children, nurses. 
 
 To day, Thursday, March 25th, with a friend, I leave 
 Paris by the Northern Railway, which brings us in a few 
 minutes after into a well -cultivated and garden-like country 
 iu the environs of tho city, to St. Denis, a village within a 
 few miles of Paris, which looks as if thoroughly finished 
 ages ago royal, dull, and drowsy. Yet here is the great 
 Abbey of St. Denis, in the crypts of which the kings of 
 France were buried for twelve hundred years, or up to the 
 time of the French Revolution, when the long range of 
 Royal Tombs was rifled the French Republican Conven- 
 tion having decreed their destruction. Fifty-one tombs 
 were opened and demolished in three days, and the bones 
 of kings, queens and princes, in every stage of decay, were 
 thrown in a heap into two trenches dug outside the church. 
 The royal corpses were subjected to every species of malig- 
 nant insult this, after lying in sullen, and grim, and 
 royal repose, as they were deposited, in succession, since the 
 year A. D. 580. After this dosecration, Napoleon intended 
 fitting it up as a place of interment for the princes of his 
 family; and it is said the present Emperor intends carrying 
 out his design ; and thus is not hasty in ordering the com- 
 pletion of the Tomb of Napoleon, now in the Church of the 
 Invalides. When the Bourbons were restored in 1815, the 
 confused remains of Royal bones were indiscriminately col- 
 lected and buried under the High Altar of the church. It 
 i$ a Gothic building, in the pointed style, and has two beau- 
 tiful towers. You enter and see the rows of Gothic columns, 
 each column composed of many others. The stained glass 
 windows, which surround the church, look like sections of 
 the "Holy City." All is church -like, solemn, serious, 
 stately, kingly. Each window is a holy legend, told in 
 light, which reduplicates itself on the stone floor. Its 
 appearance reminds one of Westminster Abbey. There
 
 646 ST. DENIS. 
 
 are many cenotaphs here, or empty tombs, being mere 
 monuments, the dead being buried elsewhere or lost. Those 
 of Louis XII. and Francis I. are fine, each monarch lying 
 in sculptured marble, like a corpse, on the bier ghostly, 
 ghastly. The arches are all Gothic, like two clasped hands 
 raised in prayer. The Church is in the usual European 
 style of a Latin cross, with two side aisles, separated from 
 the nave by rows of columns. The Swiss sacristan, who 
 struts about in uniform, comes in and shows us the curiosi- 
 ties. This small altar, or painting, he will tell you is of the 
 eighth century ; that carving of the ninth, tenth, or eleventh ; 
 that rose on this or that window is of such an age. 
 Napoleon caused such and such a restoration to be made, 
 and so on. All the good that can possibly be attributed to 
 the first Napoleon, he is sure to get the credit of in the 
 reign of his nephew. If the Bourbons were on the throne, 
 how different would be the statement! There is a great 
 deal of human nature in man, as sagely remarks some wise- 
 acre. Then he unlocks the iron doors, and leads us down 
 (by this time we are a large party, and there are several 
 very pretty French girls, the beautiful living among the 
 ghastly dead) into the dark, cold crypt, and see the tombs 
 of French kings for more than a thousand years. Each 
 lies, like a corpse, in marble, on his own tomb. The monu- 
 ments being fine works of art, were preserved by the fierce, 
 atheistic republicans who rifled the tombs. There are 
 here the tombs -of St Louis, Dagobert, Clovis, Childebert. 
 We walked all around the crypt a party of the living 
 among the dead. In one part of the crypt is a dark, narrow, 
 iron-railed apartment, never opened or showed. This is 
 the sad receptacle of the dishonored kingly remnants. In 
 lieu of the sacrilege committed on them, they have now the 
 most sacred place directly under the high altar. The dis- 
 asters that have befallen the Capet line of monarchs, who 
 ruled France for nearly one thousand years, have been tre-
 
 PARIS. 647 
 
 mendous, as their past glory was splendid. The proud, 
 poor things, that once reigned, enjoyed life, and passed 
 away into dust and death, appear here sad enough. This, 
 as well as many of the other fine churches of France, was 
 greatly injured by the insane atheists of the French .Revo- 
 lution in their crusade against God. 
 
 We returned to Paris by rail in the evening. Paris is a 
 picture. Every thing in it is addressed to the eye. The 
 shops are in the windows and the people in the streets, and 
 their homes are the cafes and restaurants; and life is all 
 public. How lovely is all this scene of city, or this scenic 
 city in these moonlights I The carriages are always mov- 
 ing up and down the arcaded Rue de Rivoli as if it were a 
 perpetual carnival in Paris ; the turreted Tuileries is seen 
 over the great elm trees ; and the long lines of gas-lights 
 mingle their brighter light with the moon's softer radiance. 
 Such a scene would do to look on in memory even from 
 another world. To-day I visited the Imperial Library, in 
 the Rue (or street) Richelieu. It is a vast building, to which 
 some modern additions, in an excellent style of architecture, 
 are now making by the present Emperor. It is high time 
 there were modern men, like him, on all the crumbling, 
 superannuated thrones in Europe to energize those supine 
 governments, and convince them the present can be as good 
 as any past. The number of books here is very great. 
 They are arranged on shelves, in many large apartments, 
 and consist of works of all ages. Bibles there are numer- 
 ous, and of very rare editions some of the first editions 
 printed. There are specimens of the first printed works, in 
 various kinds of type, in different cities, showing the im- 
 provements in the art of printing up to the present day. 
 There is here also .the great Zodiac of stone representing 
 the constellations as they are represented in modern days. 
 It came from Egypt, and is four thousand years old. It 
 shows the astronomical knowledge of the ancients. There
 
 648 PARIS. 
 
 are many other Egyptian curiosities here. The Louvre 
 being a collection of many museums, one can always revisit 
 it with pleasure. There is a Marine Museum here, in which 
 are very many models of French ships of war; also, models 
 of the principal French ports, and interesting national naval 
 relics. In the Louvre there is also a Gallery of Sculpture 
 the works of the middle ages, and many models in plaster 
 of celebrated tombs in various churches, some unfinished 
 statues by Michael Angelo, and some great works by French 
 sculptors. There is also a Gallery of Ancient Sculpture 
 here, though it is inferior to several in Rome. Some of 
 these were found among the Roman ruins of Aries, Nismes, 
 and other places. The Gallery of Egyptian Sculpture is a 
 wonderful place: the great granite idols, cat-headed men 
 and man-headed lions, and curious chimeras, the hiero- 
 glyphical sarcophagi, and the peculiar-looking idols of 
 those singular people. The Assyrian and Nineveh col- 
 lection is also extraordinary, and shows the breadth of mind, 
 the manners and purposes of the ancients in these sculptured 
 granite works. There is also a curious collection of Ameri- 
 can Antiquities, found in South America. In short, it is 
 very evident that people lived before we did, that great 
 works were done, great people passed away, and that there 
 is nothing new under the sun. The fine weather still con- 
 tinues, and the full tide of pleasure rolls up and down the 
 Rue de Rivoli, the most splendidly gay street in the world; 
 then along the Champs Elysdes, and out by the Triumphal 
 Arch to the Bois de Boulogne all appears as a surfeit of 
 splendor. The Arch of Triumph, begun by Napoleon after 
 the battle of Austerlitz, but not finished till 1836, is a grand 
 structure. It is probably larger than any of the old marble 
 ones I saw in Rome. It has a great deal. of statuary about it, 
 the names of ninety -six of the victories of the "Grand Army," 
 and the names of three hundred and eighty-four generals. 
 On one side of the Champs Elysees is the Palace of Industry.
 
 PARIS. 649 
 
 It is at present shut. It is an immense quadrangle building 
 of stone, covered with a net- work of iron frames, in which 
 are inserted glass plates, by means of which the interior 
 is admirably lighted. Around the frieze on the outside are 
 the names of men eminent in the industrial arts, among 
 which I noticed the names of Franklin and Fulton. 
 
 To-day, I visited the church of St. Eustatia, one of the 
 finest in Paris. It is an immense structure with two side- 
 aisles of lofty columns; it has high windows with fine 
 painted glass ; it is in the style of the Greek cross, like St. 
 Mark's at Venice, and looks very imposing outside and in. 
 To-day I saw the Emperor and Empress, and the Prince 
 Imperial. They, with some ladies, were out in the reserved 
 garden of the Tuileries, separated from the public gardens 
 by a low iron railing. The Emperor was plainly dressed, 
 and without any decoration, in an ordinary gentleman's 
 suit, over which was a black overcoat. He smoked a cigar 
 and played with the little Prince, who had a little wagon, 
 shovel, and wooden horse. It presented the appearance of 
 a pleasant, happy domestic scene. The Emperor amused 
 the child by putting gravel into a basket, which the child 
 poured out as fast as he put it in. Then he showed him 
 how to shovel the gravel into his wagon. Then he and the 
 Empress, who was looking on and enjoying the scene, walked 
 up and down the garden-path in front of the palace several 
 times, the Emperor taking off his hat to the sentinels on 
 guard stationed at various distances along the palace, who 
 presented arms as he passed. The Empress is a very grace- 
 ful and pretty woman, rather tall. She wears a vast crino- 
 line. The Emperor is not tall nor very graceful in appear- 
 ance, but rather stout and broad-shouldered, fierce and 
 reticent in appearance. To-day, I also visited Notre Dame, 
 the most interesting church in the city, with its two great 
 towers, and its numerous statues and pictures in stone all 
 around its principal entrance, all Gothic, Catholic and 
 
 8l
 
 650 PARIS. 
 
 middle aged. It is on the island in the Seine, the nucleus 
 of the old city. St. Chappelle is not far from this, a most 
 beautiful double little church, one church over the other, 
 the upper having most beautiful windows of stained glass. 
 The church is in the pointed Gothic style, and looks like a 
 gem (it is principally modern) among the ancient houses 
 around. Its spire ascends to a great height. I saw, also, 
 the Palace of Justice and the works of the new Boulevert, 
 that of Sebastopol, one of the works with which the present 
 Emperor is piercing old Paris in all directions, whereby, in 
 case of insurrection, he can bring his artillery and armies to 
 operate, and thus destroy the old narrow streets, the secret 
 haunts of rebellion, and in which, being very crooked, no 
 troops or cannon could deploy. By means of these new 
 and broad avenues, he can bring all parts of the city in 
 connection with the forts around the city, and thus repress 
 insurrection in a moment, he being well aware that if he 
 can rule Paris he can rule France. Some of the bridges 
 over the Seine in this part of Paris, near the Tower of 
 St. Jaques and the Hotel de Ville, present views of extreme 
 variety and interest, the city here wearing an appearance 
 of solid and compact grandeur, and something of the old 
 and almost Oriental is visible in the bizarre architecture. 
 I have also visited the Garden of Plants. The Museums 
 here are unsurpassed in the world. It is an immense en- 
 closure, surrounded by iron railings with various entrances. 
 Some of the gates are overgrown with ivy, presenting a 
 pleasant appearance. There are very many evergreens in 
 it, and beautiful walks around the cages of the animals, 
 and conservatories of the flowers and plants. Birds also sing 
 among the branches, and it is a delightful resort. I saw an 
 oak two hundred and forty-nine years old, and a cedar, 
 four hundred and fifty-nine years old. The Geological and 
 Mineralogical collections are in a large building here, and 
 are regarded as the finest in the world. There are speci-
 
 PARIS. 651 
 
 mens of all minerals, aerolites, earths. The preserved 
 botanical specimens are of all climates, African and Pacific. 
 Another very large building here is the Museum of Natural 
 History, a collection of animals, skins of all Orders and 
 Varieties of animated nature, stuffed so as to counterfeit 
 life. Then into another Museum, containing skeletons of 
 all animals, sea and land, mummies, Egyptian and Peru- 
 vian monsters, preserved in spirits, some of these utterly 
 horrible: also skeletons and skulls of the various races of 
 men ; anthropological preparations in wax of all the various 
 viscera. Man is a hideous animal when dead or malformed. 
 To-day, we visited (travelers Americans especially 
 soon make up traveling parties) the Bois du Boulogne or 
 Woods of Boulogne which consist of extensive grounds 
 just outside the Barriere de 1'Etoile a gate near the 
 Triumphal Arch laid out in avenues, walks, flower- 
 gardens, groves, etc., in the most admirable manner. There 
 are several hundreds of acres of these ornamental pleasure- 
 grounds, and it is the great resort in fine weather for driv- 
 ing, riding, or walking. All Paris comes out here to take 
 the air. There are several small lakes with pleasure-boats, 
 walks, borders adorned with flowers, white and graceful 
 swans float on the calm waters ; there are artificial cataracts 
 which you can go under, and artificial ruins which you 
 cannot explore. A part of the grounds is enclosed, and 
 within it you find reservoirs of water, in which are beauti- 
 ftil gold fish ; also theatres, restaurants, and splendid bands 
 of music. This being the commencement of the Feast of 
 Pr6 Catelan, there were great crowds, and I heard some fine 
 music sweeping by like a chorus of lost angels. The route 
 by the railway is very pleasant, the roadside being bordered 
 with flowers in bloom, and ornamented with ivy. But 
 again to the Hotel des Invalides and the Tomb of Napoleon. 
 You go under the grand dome of the church, walking on 
 its marble floor, and ascending a few steps to the left, in a
 
 652 ' PARIS. 
 
 recess of the church, you gaze on the black coffin contain- 
 ing the ashes of him who commanded in fifty pitched 
 battles. II is hat and sword are under a glass case near, 
 and around stand numerous flags gained in his battles, the 
 names of his great victories, Austerlitz, Wagram, etc., and 
 the letter " N." for Napoleon, are also engraved in various 
 places around. Immediately under the dome is the great 
 circular crypt, with the red Finland granite sarcophagus, in 
 which the body is to be placed. The High Altar back of 
 the crypt is a splendid piece of workmanship, not unlike 
 in style that of St. Peter's in Rome. Through the painted 
 windows and the thin plates of alabaster, falls the yellow 
 light, like an incessant shower of strange daylight. In 
 the rear, are the tombs of Bertrand and Duroc, reposing 
 near their master. Their tombs are in a chaste style, with 
 no inscription but " Bertrand" on the one, and " Duroc" on 
 the other. These were majestic men. Then at the extreme 
 of the crypt, under the altar, are the simple and touching 
 words from Napoleon's will : " I desire that my ashes may 
 repose on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the French 
 people, whom I have loved so well." In the chapel adjoin- 
 ing* y u see a vast number of flags riddled and torn with 
 bullets, taken in the battles of Napoleon from many nations; 
 and here are interred the hearts of many generals and 
 counts of the first empire, with inscriptions respecting the 
 battles they were in. One of them I noticed was in nearly 
 all the battles of Napoleon, and the pompous enumeration 
 closed with " Glory to God." The hotel is the hospital for 
 superannuated soldiers, who, fat and lame, go about, act as 
 guides, sell you pamphlets, mount guard about the Empe- 
 ror's tomb, and relieve their post. One of them, Santini, a 
 Corsican, has a little room near the tomb: he is its guardian, 
 lie looks exactly like a dog in his kennel ; and no wonder, 
 for with that noble animal's attachment did he serve Na- 
 poleon, being with him both at Elba and St. Helena. It is
 
 PARIS. 653 
 
 a proud thing for these old soldiers that there is a Napoleon 
 III. 
 
 Yesterday, April 2d, being Good Friday, the Catholic 
 churches are all occupied with dramatic representations of 
 the mystic scenes of Redemption. In St. Roch, a fine 
 church which I entered, there was, behind the altar, a scenic 
 representation of Calvary, a rocky, blasted-looking hill, sur- 
 mounted with a cross, above which were dark clouds, and 
 around the base of which were beautiful Howers. This, as 
 well as some other curious recesses, into which one could 
 see, had ghostly representations of a dead Christ in marble 
 or wax, and was bloody and awful-looking ; and seen by the 
 light of innumerable small tapers, produce an imposing 
 eftect, and are gazed at by the Catholics with great devo- 
 tional unction. 
 
 We revisit Prd Catelan these days, in the Bois Bou- 
 logne all the world goes there it is the great resort of 
 the Parisians and foreigners. Foreign noblemen, with 
 splendid coaches and six horses, and several out-riders in 
 livery ; curious vehicles, costumes ; all the means that 
 ingenuity can invent to exhaust wealth are there. The 
 English nobility are here in great numbers at present 
 with brilliant coats of arms on the panels of their car- 
 riages, indicating their rank. Many of them are also on 
 horseback, riding the most splendid, well-trained, and 
 elegant horses to be seen anywhere in the world. The 
 broad avenue of the Champs Elysees is crowded with car- 
 riages a stream of them on one side passing up, on the 
 other down. They collect from all parts of the city to 
 the Place de la Concorde, concentrate into the avenue, 
 pass down it, about a mile long, then disembogue at the 
 triumphal arch, or Barriere de 1'Etoile, or the ''Star Bar- 
 rier/' called thus because from it roads branch off in > all 
 directions like star rays. After irradiating the beautiful 
 grounds of Bois Boulogne, they return to the city. All 
 
 3E2
 
 654 PARIS. 
 
 come out to see and to be seen which two chapters absorb 
 Parisian life. It is a promiscuous throng certainly, for 
 amidst such imperial and titled magnificence are doubtless 
 as many gamblers, swindlers, thieves, prostitutes as in any 
 other large crowd. But nothing of that appears on the 
 surface. All are equal that can ride in a splendid carriage. 
 
 The Champs Elysees, or Elysian Fields, are on each side 
 of the avenue, consisting of extensive grounds planted with 
 fine trees, having several out-door theatres, with an en- 
 closure in front, furnished with seats and small tables 
 before them. In the evening these are splendidly illumi- 
 nated with fantastic gas-lights, and on a platform are seated 
 elegantly-dressed dancing-girls, who sing, and represent va- 
 rious caricatures, while you sit and sip your wine or ice- 
 cream, or indulge in that most universal of all luxuries, a 
 cup of French coftee. Those not within the railing can 
 enjoy the music and the scene gratis, and you only pay for 
 your refreshments, of which you are always expected to 
 partake. There are several of these places, besides any 
 number of retail or traveling amusements moving about. 
 All tastes can be gratified here, and the whole art of amuse- 
 ment is exhausted. 
 
 The crowd promenade about, or sit on the iron chairs 
 alongside of the avenue. You pay a sou for a seat. 
 About three in the afternoon, the cortege of the Prince Im- 
 perial sweeps by, when the crowd tend toward the avenue 
 to see him. He has some fifty or more lancers on horseback 
 as his guard. They go out to the Bois Boulogne, and he 
 amuses himself in a small, rural chateau, like any other 
 child. Later in the evening the Empress comes along, 
 leaving the Palace of the Tuileries. As she passes she 
 bows to all who take off their hats to her, and she ap- 
 pears to be regarded with great affection and is per- 
 sonally popular, which the Emperor is not. She is a very 
 pretty woman ; but looks unhappy. Later in the evening
 
 PARIS. 656 
 
 the Emperor rides out, with only two horses to his carriage, 
 which he drives himself, and without any escort. He has 
 generally one or two servants behind him in the carriage, 
 and some friend sitting by his side. All take off their hats 
 to him, and he bows, but with rather a reserve. He appears 
 to see every thing and every person. As he approaches, 
 the police, who are everywhere, draw near the corners of 
 the avenue where he is to pass, and salute him. He does 
 not drive furiously, but calmly, and sometimes, if there is 
 a crowd of carriages, waits a little for them to clear away. 
 He is evidently not afraid of any thing, and thinks his des- 
 tiny encompasses him as a shield. 
 
 On Easter Sunday, there is of course a great crowd in 
 all the Catholic churches. This is the time to be in Rome, 
 for on a given signal, St. Peter's is illuminated in about four 
 seconds from top to bottom that is on the night preceding 
 Bister said to be one of the grandest sights in the world. 
 I was at Notre Dame, where High Mass was celebrated, 
 which began by chanting, then the two grand organs took 
 up some of the parts at various distances, which had a grand 
 effect. There were many persons there, and the church is 
 very grand and Gothic ; but the effect is diminished by the 
 painting of the interior of the church, which is yellow, 
 and unsuited in its general gaudy appearance to such a 
 scene. At the Church of the Madeleine (originally designed 
 by Napoleon, it 'is said, to be a temple to Fame,) which is 
 remarkable among all the modern buildings of the world 
 for its splendid Greek architecture there was a splendid 
 display of music at Vespers. Paris is, in general, not 
 really so well built as London, taking both cities in general ; 
 but London has no streets as fine as the Rue de Rivoli or 
 the Boulevards, nor any chateaux like Tuileries, nor any 
 parks like Champs Elys^es, nor has it the middle-age gran- 
 deur of some parts of Paris. The horse-chestnuts in the 
 Tuileries gardens are being clad in the fresh, young, deli-
 
 656 PARIS. 
 
 cious verdure of spring, and over their summits rise the 
 graceful-pointed spires of various churches. 
 
 To-day, Monday, April 5th, was the ceremony of the in- 
 auguration of the new Boulevard de Sebastopol, which is 
 one of the works of the present Emperor. Large military 
 detachments, guards of the city of Paris, and regiments, 
 paraded up and down the streets, taking stations at different 
 points. The crowd was tremendous there seemed to be 
 men by the million. The Emperor, with a brilliant cortege 
 of Marshals of France, all on horseback, and attended by 
 an escort, went through the whole length of the new, 
 broad, straight street which penetrates the heart of old 
 Paris, inflicting dreadful devastation on those narrow, 
 crooked streets, which Eugene Sue delighted to describe in 
 his "Mysteries of Paris." The Empress, in her carriage, 
 bowed courteously to all the Emperor seemed rather de- 
 mure and imperious. The Emperor has not enough cordi- 
 ality and heart in his composition to be popular. He is 
 able, but he lacks the bonliominie of Napoleon I. The one 
 was adapted to found a throne, the other to conserve it. 
 There were numerous flag-staffs at various distances along 
 the streets, from which waved many flags, making a 
 grand display. To-day I have visited several churches, 
 one St. Eustatia, a fine church, where I heard part of a 
 "Stabat Mater," one of Rossini's sublime compositions. 
 The old composer, the greatest now living*, resides in Paris, 
 in a house near one of the Boulevards. It sounded as if 
 the strains came from heaven. I also visited San Germain 
 des Pro's, with its columns, corridors, choirs, tombs, painted 
 windows, carved pulpits. It is the oldest church perhaps 
 in the city, being founded by Childebert, son and successor 
 of Clovis, the first Christian King of France, A. D. 542. 
 Such a date however or such an age does not astonish one 
 who has gazed at Etruscan cities in Italy three thousand 
 years old, and on the Phoenician ruins of Cumae.
 
 NAPOLEON m. 57 
 
 A most grave question, doubtless, frequently obtrudes 
 itself on the mind of the Emperor Napoleon. Europe is 
 the world America may be, but is not now-^Asia and 
 Africa have been, but are not now and in this world of 
 Europe are but two parties : the party of the past and the 
 party of progress the party of the people and the party 
 of the potentates. The question ia, "Which shall rule?" 
 The Dynasties at present rule, and are in favor of the past, 
 and satisfied with the present, and desire no change. The 
 great people are, however, moving like a volcanic power 
 from beneath. The spirit of Liberty is brooding over the 
 ocean of humanity. All people are getting ready to be 
 free and govern themselves. Some must ascend to it 
 through convulsions ; but there is no step backward. The 
 battle of the world will be fought in Italy. There are 
 people in Europe who are slaves without knowing it the 
 Italians know it, and its iron is in their hearts; but they 
 want a man. The French Revolution was no failure. The 
 French governing power has been elective ever since, ex- 
 cepting during the Restoration of the Bourbons. No 
 matter whether despotic or not, if people elect a despot, 
 they have the right to do so. The single feature that 
 Europe seeks, is not to have a good government, but to 
 have a government, no matter of what kind, which they 
 make for themselves. People will smile under a ton of 
 despotism, if they make it themselves, when they would 
 groan under an ounce of despotism imposed on. them con- 
 trary to their consent. 
 
 This is the great work of the world. The American Re- 
 volution inaugurated it the old Napoleon arose and 
 reigned in consequence of it, and fell the moment he com- 
 mitted the tremendous faux pas of forsaking the people, 
 and allying himself with dynastied despotism. The present 
 man takes up the long prostrate mission of the Napoleonic 
 family. Should he espouse the popular cause should he 
 
 42
 
 668 PABIS. 
 
 co-operate with reformable dynasties, as that of England 
 and Russia should he assist in the destruction of those who 
 reign by blood only, and not by consent, he will be the 
 exponent of the age he will live and prosper. Should he 
 not, he will simply achieve an unparalleled historic damna- 
 tion. But will he? He will. His " thirty years of misery," 
 to which he alludes in some of his former writings, were no 
 useless apprenticeship to a throne. The temptations around 
 him are tremendous, and seduced the genius of his uncle, 
 but they will not overcome the cool and passionless sense 
 of the nephew, who has learned a lesson most astonishing 
 to European kings, that the good of their people is also 
 the greatest good of the ruling powers. 
 
 I have procured the requisite visas to my passport pre- 
 paratory to leaving Europe the police visa of Paris, which 
 cost nothing, and the visa of the American Consul at Paris, 
 which cost one dollar. To most Americans it appears some- 
 what strange that our Consuls, who receive a salary from 
 our own government, should be permitted to annoy travel- 
 ers by charging for their signature to a passport this 
 amount, which, though small in itself, amounts to a con- 
 siderable sum in the aggregate of a long travel. Mr. Mason, 
 our minister here, to whom I was introduced, is a corpulent, 
 comfortable, well-to-do looking old gentleman, with a com- 
 plaisant opinion about himself and of matters and things in 
 general. 
 
 To-day we visited Versailles, the residence of the old 
 French kings anterior to the Revolution, a most splen- 
 didly useless investment of, it is said, two hundred millions 
 of dollars. It is about sixteen miles from Paris, and is 
 reckoned the most imposing and splendid royal residence 
 in Europe, with its stately grounds and unequaled jets of 
 water, fountains, lakes, gardens, parks. It is not used as 
 a royal residence now, being converted into a museum for 
 all the glories of France. It was begun by Louis XIV., in
 
 PARIS. 669 
 
 1661. It is said he did not like San Germain, another royal 
 residence, because from it could be seen the spires of St. 
 Denis, the royal burying-grounds. Approaching the palace, 
 which is on & gentle eminence near the city of Versailles, 
 now much reduced, containing however forty thousand 
 inhabitants, though in the kingly times it had one hundred 
 thousand, one enters a great stone-paved court-yard, sur- 
 rounded by statues ; in the centre a splendid equestrian one 
 of Louis XIV., in bronze ; we then enter grand old rooms, 
 full of great pictures of battles, wars, sieges ; then into cor- 
 ridors and halls of statues, in plaster, of tombs, kings, 
 saints, cardinals; again into halls of paintings of old 
 French battles, the rooms all most splendid, pavements of 
 cement or marble. You see effigies of kings lying dead in 
 plaster vain mortals trying to perpetuate features and 
 form after death. These were the men of the middle ages 
 and of the Crusades, of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 
 and this is the place amidst these stony representations of 
 their forms, tombs, architecture, etc., to study the history 
 of earth's bloody past. Then into many grand rooms, full 
 of interesting paintings. Liveried domestics or guards are 
 in each room. After this into other rooms having statues 
 of French kings, kneeling some some standing some in 
 action as once but all dead and famous now poor human 
 things that wanted to be immortal in marble. Then into 
 other marble halls on the second floor, great statues of 
 Charles Martel, Charlemagne, and many queens, lovely- 
 looking things. After this again into other halls of paintings, 
 tapestry, the latter fading nothing but mosaic is imperish- 
 able; then into rooms of more modern paintings, one of 
 the siege of Rome in 1849, which is remarkable the blue- 
 gunpowder kind of light about it is finely executed. The 
 unfortunate old city ought to be left to moulder in her 
 grand desolation, and not have so modern a thing as gun- 
 powder about it. Some of these paintings are very large.
 
 6t)0 VERSAILLES. 
 
 One representing the retreat from Moscow is very fine- 
 Marshal Ney among the snows, and surrounded by frozen 
 and perishing dead, is sublime. Then I saw many paint- 
 ings of French revolutionary scenes. Napoleon in many 
 battles as general, and finally as Emperor in his corona- 
 tion robes; Josephine, and also Maria Louisia as Empress. 
 
 I ascended another flight of stairs, where I entered rooms 
 of portraits, of very many historic characters, that of 
 Franklin, where are also statues in wood, English, French, 
 and Etruscan views. From the windows here, are splen- 
 did views over the parks around the palace ; the ele- 
 gantly arranged and aged trees, the avenues, lakes, walks, 
 gardens ; all a vastness and kingly loveliness, a profusion 
 of the beautiful ; but all apparently going to neglect, for 
 even the exchequer of Louis Napoleon is scarcely sufficient 
 to keep up, and in order, this monstrous extravagance of 
 the Bourbon family. There are a great many rooms here 
 of portraits. I heard the lonesome old clock strike the 
 hour of twelve a sort of wonder for it is a very fussy, 
 ingenious clock. It was made by King Louis XVI., who 
 would have made, had he not been born a king, one of the 
 first blacksmiths of the age. He was the king who assisted 
 us in the Revolution, and who perished so miserably on the 
 guillotine on the Place de la Concorde. Many of the por- 
 traits represent very formal personages; others, ladies, 
 perfectly beautiful woman, that " lovely, harmless thing," 
 being well represented. After this, into many other halls 
 with fine historical paintings, many of them Napoleonic 
 scenes ; then I saw the beautiful chapel in the palace, in 
 which the old kings of France heard service. I saw their 
 seats, the beautiful paintings on the ceilings, and the grand 
 altar ; then into the room where King Louis XIV. died. I 
 saw the bed remaining now as then ; then into many and 
 most grand halls of vast size : splendor, gold, gilding, ele- 
 gance, mirrors, paintings, statues, etc., ball-rooms, dining
 
 PARIS. 661 
 
 rooms, every thing that art, taste, and wealth could do, was 
 here. Where are Louis XIII., XIV., XV., and XVI. now ? 
 After this, into halls of all the French kings, from Phara- 
 inond down to the present Emperor, extending over a space 
 of 1300 years ; pictures, or assumed pictures of them, some 
 of them of course deduced from coins or the likeness imagi- 
 nary ; then into many halls of all the Marshals of France 
 these are grand halls of grim warriors, looking mighty 
 from the canvas. Then into many halls of kings, queens, 
 and members of various royal families in Europe, and 
 several of our Presidents; and there are two of George 
 Washington, who was a Marshal of France, created one 
 that the Count de Rochambeau might serve under him. 
 Windsor Palace is a small hunting-lodge compared with 
 Versailles. These paintings are all of first-rate excellence 
 by the best French masters ; though all are, of course, in- 
 ferior to those of the Italian masters of the middle ages, 
 lacking the something under the canvas the grand old 
 masters could give. The palace consists of several wings 
 and facades. Up to the period of the Revolution, it was the 
 constant residence of the French kings. During the Revo- 
 lution, part of it as also the Tuileries more recently was 
 converted into a hospital. Each day augments the riches 
 of this splendid Museum. I then walked through the 
 grounds around the palace, consisting of many acres, and 
 containing two other splendid palaces, built for the mis- 
 tresses of Louis XIV. The Orangery of the garden here 
 is considered the finest in Europe; the air in the evening is 
 filled with the delicious odor of four thousand orange, 
 and lemon, and citron trees. The great and small water- 
 works or fountains in the park, are the most remarkable of 
 the kind in the world. The river Eu, which ran some 
 distance from Versailles, was turned so as to come here. 
 It cost the lives of thousands, however, to do it, as the 
 exhalations generated a malaria which destroyed thirty- 
 
 3r
 
 662 PARIS. 
 
 six thousand soldiers engaged in digging. I returned in 
 the evening to the city by the railway on the right bank of 
 the Seine. 
 
 Yesterday, I visited several places; one, the beautiful new 
 church San Clotilde, with its pointed spires, and its grand 
 and tasteful Gothic interior. Also the Jews' Synagogue, 
 which is a building utterly unlike a Christian church. 
 There is a kind of chanting service here every Friday 
 evening at sunset; but no crosses, no Christ, no Virgin 
 Mary about it. It has some very rich candlesticks, similar 
 in appearance to the recorded form of the great one of 
 Solomon's temple, the form of which is sculptured on the 
 Arch of Titus at Rome. Achille Fould, the Emperor's 
 Secretary of State, is a Jew. The men sit below, the 
 women in the first gallery above ; the scholars and young 
 persons in the second gallery. I saw the seats of the Roths- 
 childs. There is a French Protestant church in the city 
 called "The Oratoire." I heard a discourse here apparently 
 quite as abusive of the Pope as one would wish to hear 
 anywhere, and utterly defiant and contemptuous toward 
 the Catholic religion. They appear to be Lutherans, and 
 talk as boldly as the Huguenots. The attention given was 
 very good ; there was also a Sunday-school, where the chil- 
 dren appeared to be very intelligent. There are said to be 
 sixty thousand Protestants residing in Paris. There is an 
 excellent bookstore of Protestant works in the Rue de 
 Rivoli, where the Bible and many Protestant works are 
 sold as, under the government of the Emperor, all religions 
 are tolerated. The service in The Oratoire is in French. 
 There is also an American chapel, and then there is a Wes- 
 leyan chapel. In these, there is Protestant service, some- 
 times in English and sometimes in French, and they are 
 very well attended. Besides, there is the regular English 
 or Episcopal service in the Rue Marbeuf, frequented by 
 English and travelers, and which is crowded every Sunday.
 
 PARIS. 668 
 
 The Catholic religion will undoubtedly sink under these 
 influences in its midst, or be retained as an elegant or 
 ancient kind of worship by those whose early feelings are 
 enlisted in it, and do not examine into its assumed divine 
 original. But the French people appear to begin to think 
 there is perhaps something real in religion, and to want 
 something more than the Catholic devotion without know- 
 ledge. Many, if not all, cannot discriminate that it is pos- 
 sible that there may be a Christianity that is not Catholi- 
 cism, and rejecting the latter as absurd and too legendary, 
 confound it with Christianity, and rejecting both, become 
 infidels. But the feeling of the mind for something reli- 
 gious, will eventually result in an embrace of the truth. 
 The Chappelle Expiatoire, near the Madeleine church, is a 
 solemn place. It is a little church or chapel, built in a 
 garden, where were buried privately the remains of Louis 
 XVI. and his unfortunate and lovely queen Marie Antoi- 
 nette, after their inhuman butchery by the demoniac actors 
 of the Revolution. They were religiously watched here for 
 many years by a zealous adherent of the Bourbons; and 
 on the restoration of that family, this chapel was built over 
 the place, and the remains removed, for kingly interment, 
 to St. Denis. The Swiss Guard that died defending them, 
 are buried around, and there is service here every day in 
 memory of the unfortunate monarch, who fell upon evil 
 times, and was too weak to reign and rule, and had to atone 
 for the faults and extravagance of his ancestors. The pine 
 and cedar trees planted around this place, give it a mourn- 
 ful religious air. 
 
 The pleasant and best-looking part of Paris is near the 
 Madeleine church. The most aristocratic quarter is that 
 part called San Germain. It is here the old nobility live 
 in stately palaces, built all in nearly the same style, around 
 an inner courtyard, into .which one enters by an iron gate. 
 I saw the Prince Imperial to-day ; he appears to be a plea-
 
 664 PARIS. 
 
 sant, lively boy. With his nurses and two footmen in 
 attendance, he played for some time in the gardens of the 
 Tuileries, a large crowd collecting at the railing. He has 
 two nurses, one of whom speaks English, and the other 
 French, thus he will speak both languages, while his mother 
 being Spanish, will enable him to have three vernaculars. 
 He certainly occupies an interesting position ; the hopes of 
 the Napoleonic dynasty centre on him. The scenes, these 
 lovely days in Paris, are of the most animating description; 
 the thousands of children in the gardens of the Tuileries 
 about two o'clock, engaged in all sorts of amusements, play- 
 ing, dancing under the trees, the sweet scents of the flowers, 
 older persons reading, talking, or promenading, the beauti- 
 ful French girls who, after all that has been said in regard 
 to them, are just as good and moral, perhaps, as any others, 
 neither virtue nor vice being exclusively the property of any 
 one clime ; then |,he Imperial cortege, sweeping by, all make 
 Paris the most merely agreeable place in the world. The 
 Emperor looks very much like the ordinary portraits of him. 
 The expression on his face at times seems to bo as if he thought 
 himself ill-treated in not being an emperor for so long. 
 
 We visited, to-day, the Legislative halls. On the piazza 
 is written, " Corps Legislatif, " it might as well be "corpse," 
 as the will of the Emperor, of course, prevails wherever 
 and whenever he wishes it to do so, and only through 
 policy allows the other branches occasionally to have their 
 own way. 
 
 Yesterday, I visited the Pantheon, one of the finest 
 churches in the city, in the style of the Greek cross, with 
 four rows uniting in a common centre, over which is an 
 enormous dome, composed of three cupolas. The Republic 
 decreed it should no longer be a church for during that 
 Reign of Terror there were no churches, but be called the 
 French Pantheon, and that the remains of their great men 
 should be interred here. It is now restored to the Catholic
 
 PARIS. 666 
 
 worship. Within its dark crypt, into which we descended 
 with guides and lanterns, are many tombs, and saw those of 
 Rousseau and Voltaire. The latter has an inscription on 
 it, " To the Manes of Voltaire," as though they could not 
 believe in his having a soul, they were satisfied to consider 
 he had " manes." The echoes in this dark crypt are won- 
 derful. The paintings in the Pantheon (they are frescoes,) 
 are fine : one represents Glory embracing Napoleon. Near 
 the Pantheon, is the very ancient church of San Genevieve, 
 and there is in it a very ancient tomb, surrounded with 
 small lights, and almost covered with votive offerings by 
 those who were cured by a pilgrimage to this, her shrine. 
 Her remains, of which many long stories are told, lay here 
 for nearly one thousand years ; they are now in the Pan- 
 theon, and occasionally perform miracles yet. Devotees 
 kneel before the tomb, and a fat old priest sits by and sells 
 holy candles, which they light and place around the tomb, 
 and hang thereon pictures and charms, and imagine them- 
 selves greatly benefited by the operation. Around, you see 
 many inscriptions such as, " I prayed to St. Genevieve and 
 I was restored." The church has one side aisle, separated 
 from the nave by columns; the stone carvings, tracery, 
 pulpits, gallery, are all very old and middle-age looking. 
 There are painted windows, with the glass which was 
 broken in the revolutionary times restored in a modern 
 manner. The churches in Paris all suffered from revolu- 
 tionary violence; and the half-effaced words, "Libert^, 
 Egalite', FraterniteY' the watch-words of the Reign of Terror, 
 may yet be seen on them. The " Street of Hell," leading to 
 the Catacombs, is not far from here, Paris delighting in a 
 street of that name as well as Borne. 
 
 To-day we have visited Fontainebleau, distant from Paris 
 thirty-eight miles, by railway. It is one of the royal 
 palaces; and here dwelt Napoleon and Josephine. The 
 country is very beautiful in the soft light of spring its 
 
 3F2
 
 666 PARIS. 
 
 verdure and blossoms. The Seine wanders through it; and 
 there are many old villages on its banks, among the green 
 fields, with their churches and palaces, avenues of planted 
 trees, through the wheat and vine fields, where, on the hills 
 and plains, seemed to be a happy population. . The primi- 
 tive forests one sees in America of course are not here; and 
 it is said the shade afforded in some places by the trees 
 is no disadvantage to the grain, which is thus made to grow 
 more slowly and of better quality, though smaller in size. 
 The Palace covers a large space of ground, but is rather 
 low, according to modern Parisian style, which is to build 
 houses of great height and with numerous stories, and 
 smaller stories, called entresols, intervening. The Palace is 
 partly of brick and partly of stone, with extensive grounds 
 around, lovely shades, groves, promenades, and fine lakes, 
 with fish in them. At the foot of the grand stone staircase 
 leading to the principal vestibule, I stood on the spot where 
 Napoleon took his final and most affecting adieu of the 
 shattered but devoted remnant of the Old Guard after the 
 battle of Waterloo, while the old, hardy soldiers stood 
 around weeping. All are gone now, however soldiers 
 and emperor are alike in dust. The Palace consists of low 
 ranges of buildings, two or three stories high. It was prin- 
 cipally built by Francis I. My two friends and myself em- 
 ployed a guide, as we spent much of the day in this Palace. 
 There was an appearance of comfort and a feeling of enjoy- 
 ment pervading this place superior to that of any palace I 
 have seen. We went through the comfortable and pleasant 
 suite of rooms looking out on the lake, in which Napoleon 
 confined the Pope, Pius VII. The Pope was prisoner here 
 about three years, and Napoleon attempted to wring from 
 him in vain a cession of his temporal authority; then into 
 other rooms, in which he and Josephine lived ; and after- 
 ward he and Maria Louisa resided, and where the present 
 Emperor and Empress reside a part of the summer. The
 
 PARIS. 
 
 bed-rooms and beds are most splendid, with silk hangings; 
 oaken floors, carved mantles of marbles of various kinds, 
 paintings, and tapestry. We were in throne-rooms with 
 gilded chairs, reception-rooms, chapels, old and modern 
 halls of paintings, the room in which Louis XIII. was born, 
 and another small room, in which was the table on which 
 Napoleon signed his abdication. The Emperor's bed-room 
 remains as he left it ; his bath-room also. Some of these 
 rooms have roofs or ceilings of walnut wood, the walls 
 richly panneled, carvings, trophies, devices. In one of the 
 rooms is a most splendid, full-length painting of Napoleon 
 in his robes of satin. It is- probably the best representation 
 of the Emperor that now exists. It is certainly the most 
 characteristic one I have seen. It is by David, one of the 
 most eminent of French painters. It has the emperor's 
 bright, bluish-gray eyes, his large head, splendid forehead 
 and empresscment. He looks like a self-composed, self-reliant, 
 lonely and able power, with whom to will and to accomplish 
 were as nothing. There are several busts of him in marble 
 around. We then entered rooms of Francis I., Henry IV., 
 and other places. The present Emperor the Napoleon of 
 Peace is restoring this Palace, and improving it. The 
 Gallery of Diana is a most splendid corridor, decorated 
 with paintings. Just below it, now shut up, is where an 
 Italian marquis was murdered by three assassins, hired by 
 the Queen of Sweden, the latter being at that time the guest 
 of Louis XIII. The wings of the Palace inclose six courts. 
 The grounds around the Palace embrace about thirty thou- 
 sand acres, and are intersected with roads in all directions, 
 and it abounds in legends. At one place the spectre of a 
 black huntsman appears ; under various trees here, sat and 
 played various French monarchs when children. Here, as 
 at Versailles, are numerous soldiers. 
 
 To-day I visited General Lafayette's tomb, Rue Picpus, 
 No. 35, in the garden of a convent, among the old French
 
 PARIS. 
 
 nobility the Montmorencies, De Rohans, etc. His grave, 
 with those of his wife, and daughter, and son, are next to 
 the ivy and yew-grown high wall which separates the 
 remains of those who were promiscuously and darkly hud- 
 dled together, the victims of the Reign of Terror about 
 two thousand eight hundred of whom, among them a son 
 of General Lafayette, were thrown here altogether; and 
 Mass is said for them in the adjoining church once a 
 year, when only the drear door, leading to the otherwise 
 unseen cemetery, is opened. Lafayette wished to be buried 
 as near to this wall as possible, in memory of his son, who, 
 with the others there, rest without tombs. The tombs are 
 plain, consisting of simple marble slabs on low brick walls. 
 The Marquis has all his titles on his tomb, as is usual, but 
 otherwise the inscription is very plain and modest. Few 
 men on the page of history have left really a better and more 
 virtuous page in the history of the past than the Marquis 
 de la Fayette. None were purer in intention than he; 
 none better patriots, or less selfish. With the history of 
 our own institutions his memory is indissolubly entwined. 
 The advantage he was to our cause can never be repaid or 
 estimated. It was an act of the heart, that wrought like an 
 army in our favor in Europe. His whole conduct toward 
 us was utterly unsullied. His military services in New 
 York and Virginia were of no mean order, and attracted 
 the applause of all military men. If afterward the measures 
 he proposed in France were unsuccessful, it was because 
 France was not good enough for the man and the measures; 
 and he had learned in America too fast and too much for 
 France. He was utterly incorruptible, and Napoleon was 
 nonplussed by the phenomenon, in France, of a strictly 
 honest man, who was to be seduced by neither power nor 
 money. Accursed be the American who shall ever cease 
 to reverence this "friend to America," at a time when she 
 most needed friendship ! The tombs are at the extremity
 
 PARIS. 669 
 
 of a large garden orchard ; and few places have seemed to 
 me so tranquilly sad and so out of the world as this quiet 
 convent churchyard, though in the heart of Paris. It is sur- 
 rounded by high walls, and the appearance of every thing 
 is calm and heart- like. The custode of the gate sells you 
 pictures of the tomb, "dedicated," as the inscription states, 
 " to Americans." No people have such an interest in this 
 man as they. His past belongs to us, and the claim is 
 thus acknowledged even by the French. In the garden, 
 near the street, is the clean and pretty church of the con- 
 vent, where I saw the young vailed and hooded nuns kneel- 
 ing in devotion. Some of them were very pretty, and stole 
 glances at us from under their vails. Theirs is a calm, de- 
 votional, useless, negative kind of life; but it is passable, 
 they are not more unhappy than many who are in the 
 world. The convent becomes a home, a refuge to them ; 
 and if some of the higher and more lovely feelings of woman 
 are crushed out and have no scope, the absorbing supersti- 
 tion of the Catholic religion enters into their souls and be- 
 comes all they have lost, and the dreadful world without 
 passes on unheeded and unheeding. The pictures in this 
 church are good. The shrines around the garden to the 
 Virgin are very numerous ; and our old priest, who acted 
 as guide, bowed most lowly to each one as he passed by. 
 Genuflexion is a great part of Catholicism. Near here is 
 the Barriere du Trone, with a large open space next to the 
 city, where were all kinds of miscellaneous amusements of 
 this volatile, amusement-loving people puppet shows, danc- 
 ing, music, the most motley collection of strolling players, 
 gipsies, Brazilians, etc., ever seen. Each department was 
 in a little temporary tent, with platforms in front, where 
 stood the musicians to draw the crowd, who stood around 
 to enter within the curtains. Every thing that could be 
 imagined, sacred or profane, was enacted within. The 
 Crucifixion itself was dramatized and performed, or repre-
 
 670 PABIS. 
 
 sented, in one of them. This would have rather surprised 
 us in a Catholic country, if we could be surprised by any 
 of the modifications of mankind, and had not long ago 
 ascertained that the Catholic religion, in practice, is chiefly 
 a grand system, or establishment, whereby many people 
 make a living. Some get into power and authority, and live 
 in idleness, and that the rest cling to it because they know 
 no better, and man must worship something in some way. 
 Notwithstanding what has been said by some, I doubt ex- 
 tremely whether Catholics, in that respect, where they claim 
 pre-eminence, devotion and reverence, have as much of them 
 as Protestants. In many of the fine paintings I saw at 
 Home, even in the Pope's palace, God himself is frequently 
 introduced in the form of an old, bearded man ; and a dry- 
 looking scene called Heaven, in which he and the Son are 
 seated, is represented as being enlivened by the approach 
 of a lovely, fresh-looking female the Virgin coming to 
 be crowned: this, too, by no less than such Catholic paint- 
 ers as Michael Angelo and Guido. The truth is, that 
 religion and true intellectual enlightenment go hand-in- 
 hand ; and after all the allowances made for differences of 
 climate and customs, Protestantism, notwithstanding the 
 external, sensuous elevation of the Catholics, must be re- 
 garded as impregnated with more of the real feeling of 
 adoration and worship than its ancient rival. The whole 
 world of showdom seemed to have run wild at this place 
 all sorts of little and low specialties of fun in vast activity 
 and energy there were premature women, mixed races, 
 dwarfs ; the whole science of fun parcelled out amongst an 
 infinity of retailers. The crowd moved from one stall to 
 another, according as the excitement promised. Never 
 have I seen people work so hard to be amusing as these 
 mountebanks, and prematurely aged children, who danced 
 and "did fun." It looked as if some infant school of devils 
 in hell had come up to have a holiday in Paris. Returning
 
 PARIS. 671 
 
 toward our hotel, we passed the now open space where once 
 stood the dread Bastile of France, the old State Prison. It has 
 long been utterly destroyed, being attacked by a mob about 
 the commencement of the French Revolution, who levelled 
 it to the ground, and gave the key to General Lafayette, 
 who gave it to General Washington, and it yet hangs in 
 one of the rooms at Mount Vernon. The place on which it 
 stood is now a large, open space, generally greatly crowded, 
 and in the centre rises the Column of July. This com- 
 memorates the taking of the Bastile, and the deaths of those 
 who fell in July, 1830, during the three days, when 
 Charles X., the last of the Bourbons, was expelled, and 
 Louis Phillipe, his cousin of the Orleans family, called to 
 the throne. It is of bronze, has an interior staircase of two 
 hundred and five steps to ascend to the top, whence is a 
 great view, more than one hundred and fifty feet high. It 
 is surmounted on top by a statue of brass, a winged Mer- 
 cury, standing on one foot, intended to represent the Genius 
 of Liberty. The French are a great people! Some of them 
 want liberty, a few of them deserve it. And what people 
 have done more for it than they ! What people have torn 
 down so strongly -guarded a state prison ; guillotined the 
 last of the longest dynasty in Europe; proclaimed them- 
 selves free from God a hereafter 1 then threw themselves 
 into the arms of a military upstart, who led them as con- 
 querors into all the capitals of Europe! Expelled the Bour- 
 bons thrice, only to forge for themselves stronger fetters ! 
 But tyranny is sweet when it is of our own making. The 
 way to tyrannize over people is to get their own consent 
 first. Then you can do any thing with them. The blind, 
 chained monster, has to be amused by having an apple 
 occasionally thrown to it. 
 
 To-day, I visited the grave of Josephine at Beuel, about 
 ten miles from Paris by railway. The weather is of late 
 most delightful, the warm sun is bringing on the vegetation
 
 672 PARIS. 
 
 with great rapidity. The trees in the gardens of the Tuil- 
 eries are assuming their summer garniture of green. In 
 Reuel, a small village, old, dirty, drowsy, and dull, is a 
 church about two hundred years old, large and recently re- 
 stored, in which is a tomb, the most conspicuous object in 
 the church, to this most amiable, unfortunate woman, and 
 yet most highly fortunate in being the ancestress of a throne 
 (Louis Napoleon is her grandson), and the wife of an ern- 
 peror, though not the mother of a prince. Compensation 
 comes around at last, though one must wait for it long and 
 sometimes die. The race of Josephine has the throne and 
 not that of Napoleon. The divorced wife surpasses in 
 glory the proud Archduchess of Austria. The tomb is 
 large and of beautiful white marble. There is a statue of 
 Josephine in a kneeling posture, very expressive, and pro- 
 bably very much like her. It is on the tomb, which is a 
 simple monument. On the side of it, are the words "To 
 Josephine, from Eugene and Ilortense." Hortense, the 
 mother of the present Emperor, is also buried here. Mal- 
 maison, the place where Josephine lived after the divorce, 
 is a country seat near this village. Here, then, rest the 
 remains of her on whose birth the star of empire and 
 destiny shone. She died in May, 1814, when Napoleon 
 was at Elba. Her countenance, according to the statue, 
 indicates a true and earnest woman, a deep sorrow and 
 regret, and yet graciousness, dignity, and resignation. 
 There is a whole history in the face of the statue, and this 
 American lady (she was born in the island of Martinico, in 
 the West Indies) was doubtless a gentle, amiable, and good 
 woman. 
 
 This evening, I visited the Italian Theatre. The piece 
 performed was Macbeth (in Italian). Madame Ristori per- 
 formed to vast admiration the part of Lady Macbeth. One 
 scene, that in which Macbeth as king, and Lady Macbeth 
 as queen, retire from the banqueting hall after the feast,
 
 PARIS. 
 
 during which the ghost of Banquo rose at Macbeth's idle 
 
 vaunt, was most pitiable. It was perfection: nothing could 
 
 more astonishingly display the remorse and misery of 
 
 crime-gotten power. Nothing could exceed it. Also Lady 
 
 Macbeth's appearance as a somnambulist, was most awful 
 
 and fearful. Out, damned spot !" as she dreamed she was 
 
 washing her hands, and " Yet here is a spot," and other parts, 
 
 almost affected the audience as realities. She was called 
 
 back three times after some of these scenes. She was well 
 
 sustained by other good performers, all beyond the reach 
 
 of criticism. But Madame Ristori surpassed all. She is a 
 
 large woman, and rather imposing and fine-looking than 
 
 handsome, with much of the woman about her. Nothing 
 
 could show more awfully the consequences of crime than 
 
 the last scene in which she appeared. 
 
 To-day, Saturday, April 17th, I have been strolling along 
 the river walls. These, in many places, are covered with 
 books, the cheap literature of France and other countries. 
 It is not uncommon to recognize an English or American 
 work here. One of these I have seen translated into 
 French and sold here. Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, 
 one of these works which, ministering to a depraved aud 
 excited feeling, ride upon it like a hobby-horse, attain an 
 ephemeral popularity, and then sink into merited oblivion 
 the work and author equally execrable. Then visited 
 the construction of the new Boulevards, where almost 
 whole old streets of cities are thrown down to build new 
 ones, and interior walls that had seen no light for centuries 
 suddenly find themselves on the side of a splendid and new 
 street It was the object of the fi rst Napoleon to make Paris the 
 most splendid city in the world, and he began many plans 
 which his wars and his downfall prevented him from com- 
 pleting. Napoleon III. is in possession of his plans ; and if 
 he do not bankrupt France by the expense, will achieve 
 wondrous results. It looks as if a baffled storm had tried 
 43 So
 
 674 PARIS. 
 
 to get through the city the old chimneys broken down 
 the walls, fragments of houses and ruins generally, out of 
 which is to spring the " Boulevard de Sebastopol." I saw 
 and entered the antique looking " Hotel de Cluny," full of 
 things of the middle ages cabinets and drawers of carved 
 oak and ebony paintings on wood of old church scenes,, 
 fading tapestry, beds of long ago, antique fire-places, armor 
 of old heroes, family relics, Venitian mirrors, etc., all in 
 this place. Then into some Roman ruins near it, carefully 
 preserved from age to age, called Baths of Constantino, or 
 those of Julian the Apostate, both of whom resided here, 
 when France was a Roman province under the name of 
 Gaul; these remind one of Rornc the same blind arches 
 and massive strength of Roman ruins the vaulted rooms, 
 underground prison-like apartments, in which excavations 
 are now going on, and where are found broken marble statues. 
 The ivy clings around the massive masonry, and some of the 
 walls enclose a little green garden in the middle of those 
 ruins, where are trees and birds gray -headed, hoary an- 
 tiquity the world past and the world present. I saw also 
 the "Latin quarter" of the city, where the principal schools 
 and colleges are; the medical colleges, that of St. Louis, 
 the Sorbonne, with the great, old, enclosed and paved quad- 
 rangles, the extensive library of St. Genevieve. I also 
 entered the very old church of St. Gervais, saw its paint- 
 ings, its priests in white robes chanting the old masses, and 
 occasionally their deep Amens, and their kneelings. Then 
 I visited Notre Dame, and ascended one of its towers 
 by the interior stone staircase. This, the Metropolitan 
 Church, being in the centre of the island of Notre Dame 
 and in the heart of the ancient city, a most rare view is 
 afforded all over Paris, the two islands in the river, the 
 windings, scenes and bridges on the latter, far below one 
 the triumphal arches and the columns to Napoleon the 
 hills and forts around Paris : the human, hurrying life be-
 
 PARIS. 675 
 
 low, seen from this great elevation, looks more objectless 
 than the scenes about an ant hill. The roof of the church 
 is of plates of lead, as is the case with most of the churches 
 in Paris. The great and well-known bell, which has often 
 sounded as a tocsin in Paris, is in the southern tower of the 
 church, and is said to weigh thirty-three thousand pounds; 
 the clapper weighs twenty-three hundred. The sound of 
 this bell is one of the things to be remembered. It is sub- 
 lime. 
 
 How delightful the Champs Elyse'es these pleasant after- 
 noons the stream of promenaders, ladies and gentlemen 
 of all nations, under the fresh, young, leafy trees. 'Tis the 
 centre of the world for fashion and display. The square 
 or gardens of the Palais Royal seem to be somewhat fre- 
 quented by rather an inferior grade, (except the Passage 
 d'Orleans); the Gardens of the Tuileries are the resort of 
 nurses and children ; those of the Luxembourg are rather 
 too much in the ancient part of the city, and resorted to 
 by students and scholars. But the Champs Elyse'es and 
 the Bois de Boulogne seem the haunts of the elegant and 
 pretentious, though of course there are some of all classes 
 in each place. The roads, streets, avenues and walks here 
 are swept and watered every hour or two, so that the air is 
 always cool and pleasant. And in the evening come 
 by, through it, the splendor and pageant of an empire, the 
 Prince Imperial, with thirty horsemen before and thirty 
 behind, each with lances on which are waving little red 
 flags. He is with his nurse in a carriage and four fine 
 horses. He has been taught to bow gracefully and wave 
 his hand to the multitudes who crowd around the sides of 
 the streets to see him and see the hope of Napoleon's Em- 
 pire. He is a pleasant, dignified-looking child. He goes 
 out every afternoon, about three o'clock, to take the air in 
 Bois Boulogne. His mother, the very pretty, somewhat 
 pale, and rather sad-looking, but gentle Eugenie, nodding
 
 676 PARIS 
 
 to all on the side of the street, comes by later, in a splendid 
 coach-and-four, with another escort. She is probably not 
 a very intellectual woman the cares of empire may be too 
 heavy for her. She looks more like one who would delight 
 in a pretty little cottage by the sea-side, and take strolls 
 along the hills with an admirer, than an Empress. To be a 
 monarch is without doubt a bore and an unnatural condi- 
 tion ; and it is astonishing any one could be found who 
 would submit to be so imposed on as to be obliged to gov- 
 ern thirty-six millions of people, as the French Emperor 
 does, who could get rid of such trouble. Later, the Emperor 
 comes along, with two horses, driving himself, and without 
 an escort, be-whiskered, fierce and destiny-looking, and 
 very much be-moustachied. He looks as if he would rather 
 be Emperor of France than any thing else, like Sancho 
 Panza, Don Quixotte's squire, who being advised to be a 
 duke, rejected it and would not be any thing else than an em- 
 peror. The Emperor is an able and vigorous ruler, has 
 a subtle intellect, is unscrupulous and competent will 
 never be popular, but is the best ruler ever France had is 
 profound enough to see that the good of his people and the 
 usefulness and advantage to them of his government, are 
 the best securities of his own power. He will selfishly 
 pursue good. He is introducing a new era among mon- 
 archs in Europe, and is setting them the example of doing 
 something more than merely drowsily and formally reign- 
 ing by ''divine right." He is rejuvenating the old world 
 and popularizing monarchy. Sooner or later there will 
 come a terrible contest between the, monarchy of the old 
 world and the democracy of the new, for which we are fear- 
 fully unprepared. All Europe is fortified and full of sol- 
 diers. We have no soldiers, but we have the best material 
 in the world for making soldiers. Monarchy will go down 
 in that war ; but it will die hard. We have citizens and 
 they have soldiers ; we have people and they have princes.
 
 PARIS 677 
 
 In the hands of one who understands how to govern us, we 
 are the best military material in the world. The French 
 Bmperor does, in many respects, interfere with the freedom 
 of the press. Perhaps he thinks people have no more 
 right to say or write whatever their passions or prejudices 
 may prompt than to do, whatever their feelings may indi- 
 cate. With us, the licentiousness of the press is an evil 
 which is allowed to correct itself the freedom of the press 
 having reduced the press to contempt. In Europe an irrit- 
 able and ignorant populace might be excited to revolution 
 and violence by inflammatory articles. In America, except 
 among a few, people are too intelligent to receive passively 
 their opinions from transitory ephemeral newspapers and 
 magazines conducted by weaklings and witlings. These 
 rave, stamp and censure each other, and we look coolly and 
 contemptuously on. Blood-and- thunder articles are written 
 at which no one pales but the puerile puppy that produces 
 it. When they attempt to be wise, we grow concerned 
 about their health ; when they would be witty, we sympa- 
 thize with them ; when they would be critical, we feel dis- 
 posed to inquire into their sanity, though their self-satisfied 
 complacency and audacious assumptions almost lead us to 
 doubt, whether, if they be human, we are sane, or would 
 wish to be so. In other countries, the very fact of the 
 press having a censorship is a testimony of, and a tribute 
 to, its power. It may be considered, and the exceptions are 
 few, that the press is generally venal, time-serving, a mere 
 caterer to individual profit, and a follower of public preju- 
 dice rather than a leader of popular virtue. In a majority 
 of cases, the government may be supposed to be in the right 
 rather than an individual press, having greater facilities for 
 knowing the right, greater interests in doing right, and 
 being above all, will be less accessible to prejudice against 
 a part. It may admit of a doubt whether inundating the 
 whole country with such a litter of literature, wherein the 
 
 3G2
 
 678 PARIS. 
 
 horrible is exhaused and no analytical or critical discrimi- 
 nation is perceptible, written by persons whose good or bad 
 opinion of a book may be gained or lost for one dollar and a 
 quarter, whose highest attempts only reach a stilted and af- 
 fected imitation of Sir Walter Scott's lords and ladies, yes, 
 it may well be doubted whether such literature is a public 
 blessing, and whether the time spent in reading such bal- 
 derdash and bagatelles, might not be better employed with 
 older and abler works. Authors in America are becoming 
 booksellers, and are writing books that will sell, and 
 meanly pandering to sectional excitements or lustful lazi- 
 ness, making money out of the worst feelings of human 
 nature. The great, old, heroic time of authorship, when 
 men thought and wrote, has passed, and it has become a 
 trade, when the question is not " Is it honest, true, or 
 right?" but " Will it pay?" " Will it ride on the wave of 
 some popular excitement long enough to sell ?" But our 
 way is probably the best. By giving these pen-people rope 
 enough, they will hang themselves. 
 
 To-day I saw the Emperor and Empress riding out together 
 in a carriage, passing along the Rue de Rivoli in front of 
 the Hotel Meurice. She appears to great advantage beside 
 him he is ugly and coarse and firm-looking, with great, 
 smooth, black moustaches extending like thorns from each 
 side of his mouth. His countenance is somewhat pale and 
 thought-furrowed, with a somewhat sly and furtive notice 
 of every thing about, which he seems to see without look- 
 ing at it, and to notice without any act of his eye. He cour- 
 teously raises his hat whenever passing the crowd, which 
 always collects at each end of the two passages lead 
 ing from the Tuileries to the streets. Sometimes he comes 
 out on the side next to the Seine, sometimes on the Rue de 
 Rivoli. lie always raises his hat to the soldiers on guard 
 at the various entrances to public places, who of course 
 present arms as he passes. To-day I met with some friends
 
 PABIS. 679 
 
 with whom we traveled in Italy and climbed Vesuvius, 
 little Flora among them, just returning from Germany. It 
 ia pleasant to renew acquaintances in traveling with whom 
 one has spent pleasant hours and who are connected in me- 
 mory with scenes of classic and historic interest. We 
 visited the Louvre, and gazed long on its gem. Murillo's 
 painting of the "Immaculate Conception." Murillo was 
 born at Seville in Spain, in 1618, died 1682 this is said 
 to be his best work. At the sale of Marshal* Soult's effects 
 this painting was purchased for one hundred and twenty- 
 five thousand dollars. Some persons, however, do not like 
 it even painters of acknowledged excellence differ about 
 its merits, as they always do. She has around her, as it 
 were, a cataract of angels ; but her face is that of a gentle 
 spirit, not a strong one, wearied and broken with earth, 
 and turning to heaven with an earnest confidingness. No 
 painting here, even among so many fine ones, seems to me 
 to have so much expressiveness. From this splendid hall, in 
 which are the chief works of the Louvre, opens a gallery 
 called the Long Gallery, which must be nearly one thou- 
 sand feet long, or nearly as long as the great gallery of the 
 Vatican. It is lined on each side with many most interest- 
 ing paintings of all schools and ages, and they are admir- 
 ably illuminated by light from above. The French assert 
 this to be the finest collection of paintings in any single gal- 
 lery in the world. The chef d'oeuvres of the world are not 
 in, however they are where they rightly belong in Italy. 
 We went into several other museums in the Louvre saw 
 the great winged monsters in stone, from Assyria and Nine- 
 veh then through the very singular collection of Chinese 
 curiosities, those also from central Africa, both looking 
 like the debris of a lost civilization, and consisting of very 
 numerous articles of ingenious handicraft and manufactures 
 implements of war, arrows, vessels, vases, porcelain, things 
 that convince us, especially with regard to the Chinese, that
 
 680 PARIS. 
 
 the world does not get any older or wiser, but that indivi- 
 dual nations do, or rather all ages are, at all times, in the 
 world. How lovely are the scenes in Paris this fine 
 weather. The grove in the Tuileries Gardens has be- 
 come a deep shade, through which, during the day, rove 
 the multitude, or sit under the trees at work, women 
 knitting or sewing, or men reading, children at play 
 around. European nations spend more of their time in the 
 open air than we do. The Rue de Ilivoli, with its thou- 
 sands of arcades, in which the houses are built; and on 
 the other side the gilt-tipped iron railing of the Tuileries 
 Gardens, in which at night stroll the silent sentinels to 
 guard that approach to the palace the moonlight on the 
 tall trees, over which are seen stately spires of churches 
 piercing the skies, the strollers, carriages, etc., all render 
 Paris a panorama of ardent, joyful, human life. 
 
 To-day, I have been in the " Jardin des Plantes." It con- 
 tains nearly a hundred acres. It has large level plats of 
 flowers and plants which are most beautifully arranged, 
 and in regular scientific detail. It has artificial hillocks, 
 whence are most beautiful views avenues of horse chestnuts 
 and pines a vast spreading cedar of Lebanon. Through 
 it are constantly promenading, children, students, strangers. 
 In the Museum of Minerals, specimens of all the wonders, 
 beauties, and curiosities of earth's interior have been de- 
 posited. The attention wearies with admiration at the 
 variety. The Botanical specimens here are very numerous; 
 there are various kinds of wood from all parts of the world. 
 No place could be so admirable for study as this. There 
 are remains of all periods of earth's merely geological 
 history here; leaves from the library of all her strata. 
 The earth has written her history in herself from the first 
 commencement of animal life, and long before, up to the 
 present moment. The art of type-setting is not the only 
 printing. Every change, every action, prints itself, and
 
 PARIS. 881 
 
 leaves impressions; the learning is there, could we but read 
 it. Earth had big-animal periods shell-life periods; and 
 we live on the debris of external creations, this being the 
 man -period, for there is no time in eternity there is nothing 
 but the me and the not me. There are the remains of 
 animals found in rocks here, and many things showing that 
 the earth was built up gradually. These treasures of Geol- 
 ogy, Botany, and animated nature, are admirably arranged 
 in different stages, ages, or stories in progression, from the 
 rude gneiss or rough granite rocks of the primitive or very 
 first hardening of chaos, up through all intervening rocks 
 to the animal life, then through all stages of animals having 
 that motive organization called life, beginning with some 
 headless rude monsters, or having a stomach only, and 
 whose remains are found only in rocks. Then there are 
 collections of all rocks composing the crust of the globe, 
 following the order of their position, commencing with the 
 lowest, then to the alluvial periods, and then to the modern 
 age, human remains being found only in the very last age 
 or stage, indicating mankind are young but the earth is 
 old. Some think the Bible is opposed to these views. 
 These forget that the Bible has to do with mankind, and 
 not with any thing before man was made; and that it plainly 
 teaches this present creation is to be destroyed and a newer 
 and greater one formed ; therefore, what shall be may have 
 been. There may have been several antecedent creations 
 to that of man since the earth was an uncondensed, irregu- 
 larly-shaped comet or " without form and void." Forms 
 of life created anterior to human life, for it is stated, accord- 
 ing to the correct rendering, that the Spirit of God "brooded 
 on tho waters." To brood is to breed or produce life by a 
 spiritual incarnation. The arrangement of these classes 
 was by Cuvier, whose idea it was that the existence of man 
 ou the globe is a comparatively recent event. It is interest- 
 ing to walk along these extended glass-cases, containing
 
 682 
 
 PARTS. 
 
 specimens out of earth'.s geological ages, and continue, as 
 you observe the gradual introduction of organized life, till 
 finally you reach strata in which human remains are found 
 and see those remains as found. You seem to be carrying 
 the ages of earth with you as you stand face to face with 
 products of lost thousands of years, or rather anterior 
 to all years, and antecedent to time ; when earth's mighty 
 chemistry was laboring to bring forth, working in darkness 
 with her cold, and as yet scarcely active material laws, into 
 that adornment of beauty and order and life which now 
 cover her, And man himself, the microcosm of earth and 
 heaven, came as the emanation, the perfection, the result of 
 all the past, to operate through his creation and time till all 
 the ideas of humanity are exhausted, when he will give 
 way to, and perhaps become an inhabitant of new heavens 
 and new earth. 
 
 Near this Museum is that of Natural History. This 
 contains preserved and stuffed specimens of all known 
 kinds and classes of animals on earth, from the lowest 
 orders of animals in the sponge tribes or polyps scarcely 
 distinguishable from vegetables or where vegetable life 
 becomes animal life, yielding up the organization to a higher 
 degree, up through all superior classes, reptiles, fishes, 
 shell-animals, birds, quadrupeds, to the elephant, which 
 stands highest of all animals in intellect. The collection 
 here is extraordinary and wonderful. The animals are in 
 many rooms: there arc hippopotami from the Nile, strange 
 birds from the South Temperate Zone, singular animals 
 from the interior of Africa, and the original and first known 
 carneleopard, captured by Le Valliant in Africa. You read 
 here the modifications which that original idea LIFE is 
 susceptible of. They are all most artistically and scientifi- 
 cally arranged, and the workmanship in preparing and 
 stuffing them, se as to preserve precisely their form and 
 perfect state, is admirable. The lizard and snake and
 
 PABIS. 683 
 
 monkey tribes, all varieties of dogs, cats, and all animals, 
 are here exactly as they are in nature. All animality is 
 here, gazing at you from their glassy eyes. There are eggs 
 of unknown animals, probably of vast birds in some habit- 
 less isle in the South Pacific Ocean, as large as the head of 
 a horse. The sea has also given up its secrets to furnish 
 this Museum, and strange finny monsters, with unearthly 
 aspect, are now silent and staid enough. The Museum of 
 Anatomy is also adjoining this building. This collection 
 is far superior to all others of the kind in the world, being 
 formed under the superintendence of the illustrious Cuvier 
 and Buffon. Here are skeletons of all animals, of entire 
 whales, and skulls of all races of men. The celebrated Dr. 
 Gall, the founder of Phrenology, left his great collection of 
 skulls to this Museum. The skulls are arranged in regular 
 sequence, from the idiotic skull of the Caffre or Hottentot 
 and scarcely human creature of African islands up to the 
 great and noble type of the Anglo-Saxon. There are also 
 skeletons of all nations, showing how "Circumstance, that 
 unspiritual god," has wrought on that thing a man to 
 torture and degrade the vivific spark of an immortal soul. 
 There is the skeleton of the celebrated dwarf, " Bebe," of 
 whom there is an interesting account in Goldsmith's great 
 history ; there are many skeletons of Negroes, Chinese, 
 Cahnucks, Cossacks, that of the assassin t of Gen. Kleber, 
 and there are Egyptian mummies; in short, the whole tre- 
 mendous premises of Comparative Anatomy are here ex- 
 posed. There are also many preserved specimens of foetal 
 monsters, curious preparations in wax of all the muscular 
 and nervous tissues, and in one place is a preparation in 
 form like a pyramid, showing in regular gradation the skulls 
 and skeletons of all animals, from the lowest to the highest, 
 in one view. This is a Golgotha, sure enough, but after all 
 it does not equal in horror the fearful scene I saw under 
 the Church of the Cappuccini, at Rome, which persons of
 
 684 PARIS. 
 
 weak nerves and " blood- boltered" imaginations had better 
 keep out of. Many of the preparations here, in wax, are 
 perfectly horrid and revolting, and one would almost abne- 
 gate life if it be such. Some of these double monsters, 
 unformed and half-formed, are the perfection of the fearful. 
 There is a Peruvian mummy in a sitting posture, amongst 
 the Egyptian mummies; some were found in Abyssinia, 
 others in the Catacombs of Thebes. But having " supped 
 full of horrors," I returned to the other parts of the garden. 
 In these rooms there are numerous guards, who give you 
 directions (in French), preserve order, and direct you 
 through the intricacies of the apartments. The menagerie, 
 in other parts of the gardens, of living animals, is extensive 
 and curious; the monkeys are, as usual, merry enough; 
 but there is a white bear from Siberia in utter agony, the 
 day being warm. He has a kind of ice-cove in which to 
 live in summer. 
 
 This evening I saw the Empress riding out in her car- 
 riage without any escort. She bows to all first, it being 
 the etiquette, as no one could possibly refuse to bow to a 
 lady in return. The Emperor soon after went out, driving 
 his own carriage and without an escort. The London 
 papers, which we receive the next morning in Paris after 
 their publication, state he never rides out without squadrons 
 to attend him, since the fanatical attempt of Orsini. The 
 Emperor does not generally bow or remove his hat, unless 
 he is bowed to this being the etiquette as it is quite pos- 
 sible on the street to give even the Emperor the cut direct. 
 The correspondents of newspapers are often remarkable 
 for their powers of lying. 
 
 Yesterday I saw the Emperor, and had a close view of 
 him. He and two gentlemen, one on each side of him, 
 were walking in the garden in front of the Tuileries. He 
 walks somewhat stiffly and awkwardly, as if he had chain 
 armor underneath his clothing. He is said to wear it.
 
 PARIS. 685 
 
 The expression on his face is at once mean, pitiable and 
 powerful, and sad ; but over all is a cloud of mystery, as 
 if he dwelt sadly, yet fearlessly, alone, and were determined 
 to have his destiny sure, and work it to the utmost, but 
 not for his own enjoyment or happiness. There was quite 
 a crowd at each end of the railing and in front, as usual, 
 for a strange interest associates with this man, who, if he 
 cannot succeed in beiug popular, succeeds in being surpris- 
 ing. There was quite a rain at the time, which the Em- 
 peror did not mind, but went on talking and walking, as 
 if it did not become him who commands a half a. million 
 of soldiers to care for an April shower. 
 
 The " Jardin des Plantes," which I have visited several 
 times, was founded by Louis XIV. in 1635. It remained 
 under the administration of Buffon, the prince of Natu- 
 ralists, for forty years. Cuvier, the prince of Geologists, 
 followed the same course that Buffon did. It is said there 
 are in it fifteen thousand species of plants in vegetation, 
 and fruit and forest trees of all sorts. The collection of 
 living animals is the most complete that exists. The 
 number of herbs and botanical specimens is fifty thousand. 
 The palaces for serpents, venomous and not venomous, 
 many of which came from South America, for birds, 
 monkeys, etc., are superb in all the arrangements conducive 
 to equality of temperature, cleanliness, and accessibility to 
 sight. There are one hundred thousand persons in Paris 
 without fire, without home, without air, who would be 
 happy to be entertained and lodged with half the solicitude 
 given to fossils, stones, giraffes, and monkeys. But mere 
 man is no curiosity. These Museums are open to the 
 public two or three times a week. On other days, strangers 
 can get in by production of their passports and a small fee 
 to each custode. 
 
 One of the interesting things in Paris w the "Grand 
 Hotel de Louvre." It is the largest hotel in the world. It 
 
 3 H
 
 686 PARIS. 
 
 is on the Rue de Rivoli, vis-d-vis to one side of the Tuileries 
 Palace, or the. pavilions of that palace. It rests on arcades 
 on that side, and its lower story blazes with splendid shops 
 of jewelers, pictured-windows all that can delight the eye. 
 There are eight hundred rooms in the hotel. It is built 
 around a splendid quadrangle, or inner court, covered with 
 glass. This court is adorned with rich and splendid flower- 
 ing trees. The dining-rooms, great halls, reading-rooms, 
 etc., are almost as splendid as those of a palace. The usual 
 charges at this and other first-class hotels in Paris for a sin- 
 gle person are four to six francs (a franc is eighteen cents 
 and three-quarters) for a room ; two francs for breakfast, 
 consisting of coffee and milk, bread, butter, eggs; seven 
 francs for dinner; service, one franc and a half per day. The 
 arrangements here are all in the ne plus ultra style of hotel- 
 keeping. How delicious and exciting is this Place de la 
 Concorde these afternoons and evenings! Nothing can equal 
 it in the world in respect to being merely pleasant. London 
 is dull and heavy; Vienna is grand and stupid; Rome is 
 ruinous, and venerable, and majestic; Naples is a succession 
 of superficial nothings fleeting, and fairy, and flashy. At 
 London you will drink ale or conspire, but at Paris you will 
 simply enjoy the pleasant air and sunshine. On the Place de 
 la Concorde you have a fine view of the Tuileries Gardens; 
 and the old chateau is seen through the arched avenue of 
 lofty trees, the fountains and lakes also in the gardens; 
 then you have the various statues and monuments of differ- 
 ent French cities around the square; the splendid Egyptian 
 Obelisk, aged and mute; the two congeries of fountains, rain- 
 ing upward from clusters of statues. Further down are the 
 Champs Elyse'es, with their out-door theatres and concerts, 
 now open for the summer ; the Palace of Industry, or the 
 French Crystal Palace ; and a mile off is seen through 
 fountains the Triumphal Arch of Napoleon, large as the 
 facade of a church ; the stately buildings of the Rue de
 
 DEPARTURE PBOM PARIS. 687 
 
 Rivoli are seen extending for a mile on a thousand arcades, 
 and on the other side the gilt-tipped railings of the gardens; 
 then the Seine, with its bridges all this scene, with thou- 
 sands of elegantly-dressed promenaders, splendid vehicles, 
 fine horses, and a general disposition to appear to one's best 
 advantage, and to enjoy one's self, and the brilliant sun of 
 France over all, makes these scenes for several hours in the 
 evening the most fashionable and attractive in the world. 
 This is the place to study man for all classes are repre- 
 sented here: the lordly beauty of England; the softer and 
 more worldly beauty of France : the more pensive, flashing 
 and original beauty of Italy or Spain are all here; and 
 you meet historical countenances or faces, the indexes to 
 demon, fearful hearts. This world has many different 
 phases of man in it ; and one who merely saw this scene 
 would scarcely dream the same world held the miserable 
 tenantry of Ireland in it also, or the street-walkers of 
 London. 
 
 But adieu to Paris, fair and dear Paris! I have revisited 
 all rny old haunts here places, or pictures, or persons with 
 whom leaves of life were had and given them a last look 
 to be forever the last! Murillo's painting of the " Virgin" 
 that exhaustless emanation of loveliness was one of the 
 dearest and last. My last meal in France was had of the 
 unequalled-any-where-else French bread, butter, cafe-au-lait 
 et des osufs (the reader must be eternally obliged to me for 
 the small quantity of French, Dutch and Italian I have 
 given him, contrary to the practice of most tourists); bills 
 were paid, and the unfortunate pourboire (which some 
 Americans persist in pronouncing "poor boy,") was duly 
 adjusted with the waiters. There were a few more last 
 looks and more last words: the sun was shining on the fresh 
 young leaves of the Tuileries Gardens opposite the hotel, 
 and on the usual strollers along the streets. I then drove to 
 the station of " Du Chemin cfe Fer" a railway station, Rue
 
 688 ACROSS. 
 
 St. Lazare, and at twenty-five minutes past eight, A. M., 
 I was on the route to Havre, which I reached at one o'clock, 
 passing over a country now most green and lovely, with its 
 poplar avenues, its gentle slopes of cultivated grounds, old 
 villages, each with a lofty church-spire, in the Valley of the 
 Seine passed Rouen, with its grand and stately old Gothic 
 churches, their spires rising in sublime confusion above the 
 surrounding houses, and at seven o'clock in the evening, 
 April 27th, stepped oft' Europe on the Vanderbilt steamer 
 for America. 
 
 Next morning early we arrived at Southampton and the 
 Isle of Wight, on the southwest coast of England, where 
 we remained till one o'clock, and then began the great trip 
 across the Atlantic. The coast of England was seen, as 
 usual, under her favorite fogs ; but as we departed, the fog 
 arose, and we saw green and merry England once more 
 our last view of the Eastern World, the historic land. For 
 one or two days we had fine weather, the powerful steamer 
 rode over the sea as over a conquered thing, the Old World 
 went down, and we seemed rapidly tending toward the far- 
 off land that lay on earth's sunset side. One day we made 
 three hundred and forty miles. On Friday night, how- 
 ever, April 30th, old Ocean began to arouse himself, and 
 shake the waters and weeds from his hoary mane. The 
 storm lasted five or six days ; the wind was directly ahead 
 of us, and our speed was consequently reduced to some 
 eight or ten miles an hour. The sea rocked our vessel like 
 a feather. She reeled like a drunken man, dipped into the 
 waves on one side, then turned almost over and tried the 
 same process on the other side, the water running entirely 
 over the 'deck, when a tremendous wave would assault her 
 in front and dash entirely over her. There were about two 
 hundred passengers on board in all. The Vanderbilt is a 
 fine and strong vessel, and rode out the storm bravely. 
 The attendance during the voyage was generally very good,
 
 ACROSS. 689 
 
 and the table excellent. Sea-sickness was most copiously 
 indulged in on the part of almost all the passengers, and the 
 luxuries of the table rather sparingly discussed. Old Ocean, 
 even after the storm subsided, was quite sullen for some 
 days, and hooded himself over with a white, wooly cowl 
 of fog, in which we steamed, however, while the waves still 
 rose around us, showing their yawning graves, iuto which 
 we might have been precipitated during the storm had only 
 slight derangements of the machinery occurred. The com- 
 pany on board was rather pleasant. Among the number 
 was a gentleman who had been fourteen years in India as a 
 missionary. He was returning to America with his family 
 in consequence of ill health. On each of the two Sundays 
 we were at sea he delivered us a discourse. He is quite 
 well acquainted with the Hindoo tongue, which he and his 
 family speak with the ease of their vernacular. He was 
 also well acquainted with the Sanscrit, the sacred language 
 of the Brahmins, whom he describes as acute reasoners, and 
 having a vague and uncertain acquaintance with most of 
 the commonly received and remoter objects of faith such 
 as the Trinity and the Incarnation. On Sunday evening, 
 May 9th, the low coast of Fire Island came in sight, the 
 first land seen in approaching America. We had passed 
 through many climates while crossing; sometimes the sud- 
 den and extreme cold seemed to indicate our proximity 
 to an iceberg. None, however, were seen. The sea seems 
 to have its rivers and currents as the land has; and 
 we sometimes crossed some of these, by which the tem- 
 perature of the air was affected. We saw some sails occa- 
 sionally; but in general the passage was almost as un- 
 pleasant aa a regular winter passage. How barren the 
 sea is compared to the land, especially those scenes with 
 which my eyes were lately so familiar in dear and old 
 Italy, and* sunny, bright France the verdured hills, rivers, 
 vales and green fields, with peaceful, old villages and 
 44 3 H 2
 
 690 NEW YORK. 
 
 ancient church-spires; the ruins of the past, and the grand 
 palaces of the present ; the purple mountains, with their 
 vesture of pines; the romantic, wondrous Rhine; the mys- 
 terious, sentimental sadness of Venice; the mouldering 
 majesty of Home all these dear and painful scenes rise to 
 memory like the vividness of a last parting of love while I 
 gaze on the savage sea ! And then my Journal will soon 
 be over, and thy occupation gone, like Othello's. "With 
 pen or pencil during day, when amidst scenes of interest, or 
 at night, when memory lit all up again, I have essayed, 
 during a period of eleven months, to note carelessly the 
 impressions flitting over mind and heart, and thus give to 
 them more continuity than mere shadows on water. It is 
 done now. In ancient cities, among works of old art, on 
 seas of ice, and on Alpine glaciercd and cascaded heights, 
 this pencil has obeyed the behests of will : but its labor is 
 over now. 
 
 On Sunday evening, at eight o'clock, we discerned the 
 lights off Sandy Hook at the entrance to New York Harbor. 
 We soon took a pilot on board, and got to New York at 
 eleven o'clock at night, but could not land till next day. 
 We certainly felt a vast sensation of relief when we found 
 we had indeed gotten safely across the "Big Briny," and 
 saw the well-known scenes of New York, Long Island and 
 Staten Island, and the Jersey shore around us. 
 
 All true Americans, of course, love their own country 
 best, no matter what they may see in other lands. We will 
 fight for it, and die for it though we will not always live 
 exactly under its laws. We claim a right to abuse it now 
 and then but woe betide any other people that do so. 
 
 Next morning we were all full of the felicities of lauding. 
 We expected "lots of good things" immediately to be rid 
 pf the nasty bilge-water air of the vessel, the confinement 
 and other desagremens. 'We had, indeed, heard there were 
 custom-house laws in New York : but to us, who had been
 
 AMERICA. (J91 
 
 visaed all over Europe, examined, and permitted, and got 
 cartes of sojourn everywhere, this seemed to be nothing. 
 We had felicitated ourselves often in Europe, when 
 obliged to attend to visas, and see that our passports were 
 all m regie, that we had nothing of that kind in "our coun- 
 So, being unsophisticated and innocent, we were 
 thinking of disembarking immediately, going dignifiedly 
 up Broadway to some hotel, and first "refresh our inner 
 man" with some of the (to us novel) American cooking, 
 and then ensconce ourselves between the sheets, and feel 
 amazingly comfortable, that we had "done Europe" and 
 " done got back again." But short-sighted people that we 
 were. Two custom-house officers came on board one a 
 gray, smiling, officious, plausible, sleek old man the other, 
 silent, prying, uncivil. These began to examine our bag- 
 gage. One of them tried to be gracious, but succeeded 
 only in being contemptible the other to be dignified, but 
 was only rude. In no part of Europe, in despotic Austria, 
 Naples, nor France, did we have by any means so much 
 trouble, detention and vexation, or did there appear to be 
 worse management. We were detained on the vessel five 
 hours, hungry, sea-sick, and impatient to land. It is prob- 
 able that all the detention for the whole eleven months in 
 Europe, caused in the examination of baggage, did not 
 amount to as much as in this one instance. In Europe they 
 always have a sufficient number of officers to complete the 
 examination of the whole baggage in a few minutes; and 
 when one has had his baggage examined, he can depart 
 without waiting for the others. But here we were not per- 
 mitted to land till every one, even the deck passengers and 
 emigrants, had their boxes peered into by these two per- 
 sons. Having been a foreigner in other countries, and 
 been treated with civility by their officers, I took occasion 
 to notice how foreigners, who come to our country to settle 
 on our broad lands, and eventually become good citizens,
 
 692 AMERICA. 
 
 who will defend it as valiantly as any of us, are treated on 
 their arrival in New York ; and I must say it is not calcu- 
 lated to impress the lonely, perhaps desolate emigrant, with 
 a very favorable opinion of our il free institutions." Cour- 
 tesy is never misplaced anywhere, and a little of it on the 
 part of those custom-house officers would not be amiss. 
 One Italian lady, being suspected to have concealed some 
 silk goods about her person, was taken below by one of 
 these persons and searched. Her insulted and wounded 
 expression she was unable to speak a word of English, 
 was almost painful. The European pourboire, as it is called 
 in France Trink geldes, it is called in Germany, drink - 
 money, as it is called in England, buono mano as it is called 
 in Italy institution of giving a small fee, one or two francs, 
 or two or three pauls each for services rendered, is a 
 gentlemanly arrangement compared to that by which we 
 were now annoyed on the Vanderbilt. It is the custom to 
 give the steward, by whom you are specially waited on, a 
 fee of some three or four dollars for his services. With 
 this, however, they are not satisfied the head-steward ex- 
 pected a fee also from each passenger, in addition to what 
 the passenger gave the one who specially waited on him. 
 So between hunger, sea-sickness, complaints at the deten- 
 tion, rudeness of the officers and stewards, no very amiable 
 state of feeling prevailed on board the Vanderbilt. But at 
 length we landed. I observed that each emigrant had to 
 walk through a certain place in Castle Garden, give his 
 name, and then wait his turn to get his baggage, which 
 would occupy five hours more. They were obliged to 
 assemble in a long row while one rowdy -looking officer or 
 fellow, in a caricature of a uniform, with a stumpy gun, 
 which he carried awkwardly, pretended to keep guard; 
 but in reality swore, and got angry, and quarreled with the 
 emigrants, they cursing him and he cursing them. The 
 railway stations in the French and English provincial
 
 NEW YORK 693 
 
 towns are more commodious than the whole erection of 
 Castle Garden; and with a little expenditure, and a few 
 more persons to hand out and receive the checks, the whole 
 baggage could have been distributed in a few minutes, 
 instead of keeping emigrants in the city on expenses which 
 they were but little able to meet. The crowd of carriage- 
 drivers that now assailed the travelers like a cloud of cor- 
 morants would beggar all description, and their insulting 
 remarks would almost make deafness a blessing. Being 
 unaccustomed to hear English spoken, their oaths and 
 remarks were no welcome reminding of one's vernacular. 
 Procuring one, however, who distinctly engaged to drive 
 me to my hotel in the Park for a certain sum, on my ar- 
 rival he demanded just double and on my refusing, cursed 
 and swore in such a manner as would have insured his ap- 
 prehension by the hotel-police of any town in Europe. So 
 that the delights of returning to America, "Swate Ameri- 
 ca," are oftentimes more poetic than practical. But at last 
 one is fairly in New York, and the scene is familiar and 
 yet strange. It is strange to hear the English language 
 spoken everywhere. It is strange and welcome, too, to see 
 American newspapers; but the overstrained, overwrought, 
 and fictitious tales in them, the intense excitement of busi- 
 ness, the hurry everywhere, the little repose in action or 
 manner, the loud and rough speaking, do not seem quite so 
 agreeable. We are a great people we have long since 
 agreed about that one man accomplishes as much as two 
 or three in Europe ; but we do not take time to do any 
 thing either with ease to ourselves or pleasure to others. 
 We are the most effective nation in the world; but the 
 most restless and unhappy. We accomplish more and en- 
 joy less than other people. Our life is not wine, but brandy. 
 We do not exist we live. Other nations have their im- 
 moralities or faults of the heart or affections ours are 
 faults of intellectual wickedness. We are not sensual, but
 
 694 NEW YORK. 
 
 selfish not proud, but vain have intellect, but not genius. 
 But we are now in the period of our youth and action. 
 That of repose and genius will come on in due time, when 
 the mind, now absorbed in money-making, leveling forests, 
 and political squabbling, will roll back on itself, and achieve 
 results that will amaze history. Being a mixture of all 
 peoples, our actions will be various and extensive, but not 
 profound or great in any one department, till ages shall 
 have condensed and cemented us all into an individuality 
 of national Americans. Though Broadway is a very splen- 
 did street, and there are constant crowds passing along it, 
 yet the aspect of New York is in general far less splendid 
 and imposing than that of many European towns, ex- 
 cept in the number of marble-faced stores, and the vast 
 size of some of the hotels. American taste is showy and 
 gaudy, but has not the solid-throughout-magnificence of 
 the European standard. The Unter-den-Linden, in Berlin, 
 is a finer street than any in New York. Vienna has no one 
 finer street than Broadway, but is a more compactly splen- 
 did city than New York. The parts of New York, about 
 the Fifth Avenue, are certainly very fine, and the houses 
 splendid and in good taste ; but certainly not equal to many 
 parts of Paris, London, or Dublin, or Brussels and there 
 is a kind of a pretentiousness, a sort of recentness and 
 vanity that are not very far from vulgarity. None of the 
 churches, not Trinity, or those in the upper part of the city, 
 with their maimed Gothic attempts, could of course compare 
 with almost any of the more noted ones of Europe*. There 
 are more hurry and confusion here, and a far better middle 
 and lower class than in Europe more rough vulgarity, but 
 more freedom of speech, and a loftier air in the common 
 people. No parks in New York deserve mention at the 
 same time with those of Versailles, Fontainebleau, nor any 
 gardens can be compared with those of the Tuileries or 
 Luxembourg. These will come in time, however. In na
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 turnl position and advantages for commerce, New York is 
 unsurpassed in the world, though in beauty of situation far 
 inferior to Naples. On the whole, there is more rugged 
 utility in America less taste, beauty of style, elegance and 
 correctness in architecture than in Europe, but more pre- 
 tention : there are action and energy in America thought 
 And enjoyment in Europe. Europe is governed too much 
 America is not governed at all : but there is less need of 
 government here. The aggregate of all individual self- 
 interest, if rightly attained, is better than any government; 
 and this is pursued in America with an energy unknown 
 elsewhere, and is better in its operation and eftects than a 
 compulsory, external government. For if every individual 
 were to pursue his own self-interest merely, all the ends of 
 government would be subserved. The true object of gov- 
 ernment should be, to compel each man to his own good. 
 
 There were several anniversaries of certain societies in 
 New York while I was there the speaking at which 
 seemed to indicate extreme unhappiness on the part of some 
 individuals on the subject of what they call "a sin," in ope- 
 ration a thousand or more miles from them, neglecting the 
 more loudly demanded objects of benevolence in their 
 midst. Most of the speaking, however, seemed too con- 
 temptible even to be despised. I left New York at six 
 o'clock in the evening, Wednesday, May 12th, for Phila- 
 delphia passing over, at first, a flat, infertile, and uninter- 
 esting country. The cars are not nearly so good as the 
 second-class cars in Europe, nor the railways in general so 
 substantially built, though the speed is greater. As to the 
 depots or station-houses, most of them are dark and inele- 
 gant edifices, very different from, and far inferior to, the 
 palatial, convenient, and elegant constructions in Europe. 
 I arrived at Philadelphia at ten o'clock, from which start- 
 ing at eleven, I passed along the Central Pennsylvania 
 Railway a splendid road ascending the mountains by
 
 696 NOTE. 
 
 curves and inclined planes, indicating much skillful engi- 
 neering ; but in the bridges, viaducts, and tunnels, not so 
 great a work by any means as the Austrian railway from 
 Vienna to Trieste. Ascending the valley of one of the 
 rivers, the extremely green and fertile appearance of the 
 lields, the romantic bluffs, bends of the rivers, all impressed 
 the mind with emotions of calmness, and gratitude also 
 to that Being who had, during the course of a long travel in 
 other lands and scenes, providentially guided and brought 
 us back to the place of starting in safety. Since the bright 
 June morning of last year when we started, what a wealth 
 of scenes we had been in ! IIow freighted is memory with 
 the tilings of the old world, and must be. while memory 
 shall hold her sanity. But farewell ! 
 
 " A word that must be and hath been 
 
 A sound that make? us linger yet farewell." 
 
 NOTK. The necessary expenses of a trip to Europe will generally 
 average about five dollars per day, for every day one i? absent. This 
 will include locomotion, boarding, fees to guides, fees to guards, visas 
 for passports and in general one's is necessary and decent expenses 
 admit of stopping at the best hotels. Should one travel fast, how- 
 ever, and not remain long in each city, his expenses will exceed this 
 amount. In the British Empire, also, one's expenses will reach, on 
 an average, eight or nine dollars a day. The cheapest places are 
 Southern Germany, France, Switzerland, and Italy. The above esti- 
 mate of five dollars per day is about the average of one's necessary 
 expenses. In Rome or Naples, one's merely hotel expenses need not 
 exceed two-and-a-half dollars per day this includes ordinary wines. 
 
 The French language is altogether necessary. For though many of 
 the first-class hotels keep one servant who can speak English, the 
 traveler in always presumed to know French and addressed in it, and 
 will frequently be exposed to inconvenience and annoyance for want 
 of this desideratum. Some procure a courier or interpreter this is a 
 great convenience where there is a family traveling. The salary of a 
 'ourier, who is reliable in his habits, morals, and knowledge of routes 
 and places, and such only should be taken, will average fifty or sixty 
 dollars per month. Sometimes one can get a courier for less when
 
 NOTE. 697 
 
 or with rather little prospect of being employed. Murray'? 
 Guide Books, distinguished by their red color, are of course in the 
 hands of every traveler, and deservedly so ; though they are chiefly 
 a compilation. They embrace almost all the traveled portions of 
 Kuropo except Sicily, and one will soon be published relative to that 
 island. They contain all necessary information to the traveler, with 
 pUnn of the cities, maps, and regular detals of the various routos 
 traveled, names and standing of hotels, etc. Bradshaw's Railway 
 Guide is also important, and also the "Almanac de Gotha," last edi- 
 tion. Clothing can generally be purchased at every place in Europe, 
 a cheap and of as good quality as in America. The cheapest places 
 for purchasing clothing, mosaic work, coral work, etc., are Florence, 
 Naples, and Venice. April and May are the best months for Paris and 
 northern Italy. Rome should be avoided in the malaria season, from 
 Jane to October this, however, is the best time for Switzerland, Scot- 
 land, England, and Ireland. London is best seen in June. As place? 
 for prolonged residence, Dresden, Brussels, and Florence, are perhaps 
 preferable, in regard to cheapness, society, and interesting objects. 
 Many English, who constitute the great majority of the traveling 
 community, spend the winter in Rome. The traveler should free his 
 mind from as much prejudice as possible, and cultivate a bland, un- 
 criticising, but at the same time, discriminating spirit. Persons dif- 
 fer extremely in regard to their enjoyment of traveling. It is ne- 
 cessary to have a considerable portion of enthusiasm in one's compo- 
 sition in order to enjoy it much. On the whole, it may be said that 
 traveling is a good thing, and that staying at home is not such a very 
 bad thing either. Other lands may be more aged may have greater 
 historical monuments, or grander works of genius or Nature herself 
 may appear more attractive but " there's no place like home I" 
 
 3i 
 
 THE END.
 
 ECHOES OF EUROPE; 
 
 o*. 
 
 WORD PICTURES OF TRAVEL. 
 
 BY K. K. WASHINGTON. 
 
 This i an intensely interesting and fascinating work, containing 
 graphic descriptions of all the prominent objects and scenes of present 
 and past interest in the Historical portion of Europe. These notable 
 places are described with a master hand, interspersed with piquant ob- 
 servations, philosophical and moral reflections, and animated descrip- 
 tion ; the whole painting to the reader a grand panorama of the most 
 interesting objects seen in the old world. 
 
 It is eminently an honest work, free from indiscriminate laudation or 
 censure, in which politics, religion, and the condition of European na 
 tion.s, are discussed without fear or favor. 
 
 The plan of the work is materially different from any that has as yet 
 appeared. The reader unconsciously accompanies the author, and 
 with him, lands at Havre, visits Rouen, Paris, Versailles, Geneva, 
 Chamouni, crosses the Sea of Ice, ascends Mount Blanc nine thousand 
 feet, visits the Castle of Chillon, Berne, Freiberg, Wengern Alps, the 
 Qreat Scheideck, Lake Lucerne, ascends Mount Righi, explores the 
 Castle of Unoth, Strasbourg, Baden-Baden, Heidelburg, Frankfort-on- 
 the-Mnino, Wiesbaden, Mayence, the Rhine, Cologne, Brussels, the 
 Battle Ground of Waterloo, Antwerp, and thence to London, Edinburg, 
 Stirling, Aberdeen, Inverness, Culloden Moor, Glasgow, Belfast, Giant's 
 Causeway, Enniskillen, Limerick, Killarney, Cork, Dublin; Wales, Liv- 
 erpool, Chester, Stratford-on-Avon, Kenilworth, Oxford; then again to 
 the Continent, Amsterdam, Berlin, Dresden, the Green Vaults, Prague, 
 Vienna, Trieste, Adelsberg, Venice, its Ducal Palace, Dungeons, 
 Churches; Verona, Lombardy, Milan, Geneva, Tuscany, Pisa, Florence, 
 Central Italy, the Apennines; Rome, with brilliant descriptions of the 
 Forum, the Coliseum, Palatine Hill, Palaces, Churches, Ruins of Tem- 
 ples, Catacombs, Vatican Palace, Paintings, Library, Ancient Ceme- 
 teries, the Pope, High Mass at St. Peter's, the Carnival, &c., &c. ; 
 thence to Naples; Herculaneum, into the Subterranean City of which 
 it enters; Pompeii; ascends Mount Vesuvius, describes the Ruins of 
 Pestum, Tomb of Virgil, thence to Lyons, Marseilles, Nismes, &c., &c. 
 
 A marked peculiarity of the work, apart from the scenes and objects 
 over which the hues of ideality are thrown by the author, consists in 
 the tubjectivt elucidation of the most important works of art in the 
 world the Paintings and Statues of the great Galleries and Museums 
 of Paris, Dresden, Florence, Rome, and Naples. 
 
 To those who have not the means, or the time at command, to make 
 the Tour of Europe, this work will be invaluable, as it furnishes them 
 with a mo?t truthful description of all places of interest found therein, 
 and as a hand-book to visitors of incalculable benefit. To the general 
 reader it possesses all the fascination of romance, with the sober 
 hues of truth resting over it. 
 
 Printed on fine calendered paper from new type, and 
 elegantly bound in cloth, $1.50; cloth gilt, $2.50; Turkey 
 gilt, $5.00. 
 
 JAMES CHALLEN & SON, Publishers, 
 
 No. 25 South Sixth St., Philadelphia.
 
 CHALLEISJ & SON, 
 
 No. 25 South Sixth St., above Chestnut, Philad'a. 
 
 
 
 Messrs. James Challen fr Son invite special attention to the following 
 ^tandard ivorks, all of which are issued in the most elegant style, and 
 are indispensable books for reference and for the library. Every 
 person who makes any pretensions to literature every well selected 
 public or private, library every Preacher. Latrycr, and Teacher, 
 should possess copies of these works. 
 
 By mail, post-paid, on receipt of the retail price. 
 Historical Works. 
 
 OSBORN-PALESTINE PAST AND PRESENT. Illustrated by 
 Stei'l Engravings, Chromographs, and the most exquisite Wood En- 
 gravings, all from original designs. Royal 8vo., f>00 pp.. on super 
 calendered paper. This work presents an epitome of the HISTORY 
 OK PAI.KSTINK to the present day, together with literary, biblical, 
 and scientific notices. It is the most important, instructive, and 
 .superbly illustrated work ever issued from the American press. 
 Cloth, SS.50; Cloth, full gilt. $4.00; Philadelphia Library, $4.00 ; 
 Half-calf, Antique, $4.50; Turkey, full gilt. $5.00: Super Turkey, 
 full gilt, or Antique. $5.50. 
 
 BARCLAY-THE CITY OF THE GREAT KING. 627 Royal 
 8vo. pages, and 70 splendid Engravings. Cloth. $3.50 ; Cloth, full 
 gilt, 4.00; Philadelphia Library, 4.00 ; Half-call, Antique, $4.50 ; 
 Turkey, full gilt, $5.00; Super Turkey, full gilt, or Antique, 5.50. 
 
 WILSON-THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO. This is a reliable His- 
 tory of the most remarkable event in the history of this Continent, 
 far surpassing in interest the fables which heretofore have been 
 palmed off as the history of that war. Royal 8vo.. with maps, dia- 
 grams, and fine wood engravings, to illustrate the text. Cloth, $2.50 ; 
 Philadelphia Library, $3.00; Half-calf, $3.50. 
 
 BELISLE-HISTORY OF INDEPENDENCE HALL. With Bio- 
 graphical Sketches of the Signers. Illustrations on tinted paper, 
 $1.00; Flexible covers, 75 cents. 
 
 OSBORN-FRUITS AND FLOWERS OF PALESTINE. Superbly 
 illustrated by Engravings printed in colors. The finest book ever 
 published in this country, ('loth, full gilt. $2:50 ; Beveled Board?, 
 $3.50; Super Turkey, Antique, $6.00. 
 
 WASHINGTON-ECHOES OF EUROPE. Cloth, $1.50; Cloth, 
 gilt, $2.50 ; Turkey, gilt, $5.00.
 
 JAMES CHALLEN & SONS' PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 STRICKLAND OLD MACKINAW; or, The Fortress of the 
 Lakes and ill Surroundings. Cloth, $1.00; Flexible covers, 75 
 cents. 
 
 Hooks for Carpenters and Farmers. 
 
 BELL CARPENTRY MADE EASY; or, Every Man his own Car- 
 penter. :W Plates, 200 Figures. Every farmer should possess this 
 work. Price $3.00. 
 
 RIDDELL-ELEMENTS OF HAND RAILING AND STAIR 
 BUILDING. '22 Plates, with full explanations. Price 2.50. 
 
 LARSEN MANUAL FOR THE PRUNING AND CULTURE 
 OF FRUIT TREES. Farmers can save many times the price of 
 this work every year by following its instructions. Cloth, 30 cents. 
 
 Religious Works. 
 
 TYLER-THE BIBLE AND SOCIAL REFORM ; or. The Scrip- 
 tores as a Means of Civilization. Price $1.00. 
 
 CHALLEN-FRANK ELLIOT ; or, Wells in the Desert. Cloth, 
 $1.00 ; Paper, 50 cents. 
 
 CHALLEN- CHRISTIAN MORALS. Cloth, 50 cents. 
 CHALLEN-THE GOSPEL AND ITS ELEMENTS. Cloth, 30 cts. 
 CHALLEN BAPTISM IN SPIRIT & IN FIRE. Cloth, 30 cents. 
 CHALLEN CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. Cloth, 30 cent*. 
 
 8COTT-"THE UNION OF CHRISTIANS," and "THE DEATH 
 OF CHRIST." Two volumes in one. A book of 260 pages. Paper, 
 30 cents ; Cloth, 40 cents. 
 
 QUESTION BOOKS ON THE NEW TESTAMENT. I. MATTHKW. 
 II. ACTS OK THE AHOSTI.KS. 15 cents per copy ; 1.50 per dozen ; 
 or S10.00 per hundred. 
 
 Poetical Works. 
 
 CHALLEN THE CAVE OF MACHPELAH, and other Poems. 
 Cloth, 75 cent? ; <3ilt. $1-00 ; Turkey, full gilt, $2.00. 
 
 CHALLEN-IGDRASIL ; or, The Tree of Existence. Printed 
 on creum tinted paper, 1.00. This is an original Poem, embracing 
 themes of surpassing interest and of singular beauty and sublimity. 
 
 Miscellaneous Books. 
 
 CORNELL-HOW TO ENJOY LIFE; or, Physical and Mental 
 Hveiene Every person who reads this work, will live healthier, and 
 happier, and rn/ov life. The author is well known as a lecturer on 
 Plivsiolotry and itygiene, and having devoted years of study to this 
 department, is enabled to present a treatise of great value. ( ith, 7oc. 
 
 BELL-A MAN; or, The Higher Pleasure of the Intellect. 
 Cloth, 81.25.
 
 JAMES CH ALLEN A SONS 5 PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Juvenile Books. 
 
 CHALLEN'S NEW JUVENILE LIBRARY, adapted to the Sun- 
 day-school and Family. NOT SECTARIAN. Splendidly illustrated by 
 fine Engravings on tinted paper. Volumes sold separately, at 25 
 cents each Price per Set of 42 Vols. in boxes, by Express, $8.40; 
 or by Mail, post-paid, $10.50. 
 
 DEVELLING-GATHERED BUDS AND BLOSSOMS. Cloth, 
 75 cents ; (Jilt, $1.00. 
 
 LILIAS AND HER COTJSINS. A Tale of Planters' Life iu the Old 
 Dominion. 18mo. edition, 50 cents ; 16mo. edition, 75 cents. 
 
 CHALLEN'S DIME JUVENILE BOOKS, in Illuminated Covers. 
 10 cents each ; or 10 copies, assorted, $1.00. 
 
 HYDE BIBLE STORIES IN VERSE, for the Little Ones at Home. 
 
 Illustrated by new and original engravings. Cloth, 50cts. ; Gilt, $1. 
 
 HOWITT-PICTURE BOOK FOR THE YOUNG. 20 illustra- 
 tions. 50 cents. 
 
 OSBORN LITTLE PILGRIMS IN THE HOLY LAND. A 
 
 charming Juvenile, superbly illustrated. Cloth, 75 cts. ; Gilt, $1.00. 
 
 THE GEM, an Illustrated .Juvenile Paper, 30 cents per annum. 100 
 Subscribers, $12. 
 
 Sc/ioo/ Books. 
 
 LEATHERMAN-ELEMENTS OF MORAL SCIENCE. This 
 work is independent in tone, calm in the discussion of questions that 
 are fiercely explosive, and pervaded by a manly reverence for God'a 
 truth. Ho makes the Bible hi.s standard of morals, and tests all his 
 positions by its divine teachings. Price, $1.00. Sample copies for 
 teachers, 60 cents, by mail, post-paid. 
 
 HILLSIDE-FAMILIAR COMPEND OF GEOLOGY. Illustrated 
 with sixty new and elegant Engravings. This valuable Text Book 
 will fill a space hitherto unoccupied, as the works now in use are too 
 complex and voluminous, and are rather Treatises than Text Books. 
 It has been highly commended by Prof. Hitchcock, of Amherst Col- 
 lege ; Pres't Allen, of Girard College; C. Collins, of Dickinson; 
 Prof. Guyot, of Princeton; Prof. Trego, of University of Penn'a; 
 Dr. W. S. W. Ruschenbcrger, and many others. Price, Half Roan, 
 75 cents ; Sample copy for Teachers. 40 cents, by mail, post-paid. 
 Favorable terms for introduction. 
 
 Books of Travel. 
 
 BARCLAY- HADJI IN SYRIA; or, Three Years in Jerusalem. 
 
 Illuminated covers, GO cents ; Cloth, 75 cents; Gilt, $1.00 ; Turkey, 
 full gilt, $2.00. 
 
 HORNBYCONSTANTINOPLE. The most interesting and fasci- 
 nating work on Oriental life ever issued. 500 large 12mo. pp. $1.25. 
 
 TAIT -EUROPEAN LIFE, LEGEND. AND LANDSCAPE. 
 
 Cloth, 75 cents; Gilt. $1.00.
 
 Of
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 Form L9 15m-10,'48(Bl039)444
 
 ....Q 
 
 Wo Vi T r>c"f-nr< 
 
 2choes of 2ur- 
 
 iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinii 
 AA 000675885 8 
 
 D919 
 
 "