At last Rome disappeared from sight in the dusk of evening, and the discomforts of the journey began to make themselves obtrusive. The night air in Italy is not considered healthy, and we therefore had the windows of the diligence closed. Like Charles Lamb after the oyster pie, we were "all full inside," and a pretty time we had of it. As to respiration, you might as well have expected the performance of that function from a mackerel occupying the centre of a well-packed barrel of his finny comrades, as of any person inside that diligence. Of course there was a baby in the company, and of course the baby cried. I could not blame it, for even a fat old gentleman who sat opposite to me would have cried if he had not known how to swear. But it is useless to recall the anguish of that night: suffice it to say that for several hours the only air we got was an occasional vocal performance from the above-mentioned infant. At midnight we reached Palo, on the sea coast, where I heard "the wild water lapping on the crag," and felt more keenly than before that I had indeed left Rome behind me. The remainder of the journey being along the coast, we had the window open, though it was not much better on that account, as we were choking with dust. It was small comfort to see the cuttings and fillings-in for the railway which is destined soon to destroy those beastly diligences, and place Rome within two or three hours of its seaport.
At five o'clock in the morning, after ten toilsome hours, I found myself, tired, dusty, and hungry, in Civita Vecchia, a city which has probably been the cause of more profanity than any other part of the world, including Flanders. I was determined not to be fleeced by any of the hotel keepers; so I staggered about the streets until I found a barber's shop open. Having repaired the damage of the preceding night, I hove to in a neighbouring café long enough to take in a little ballast in the way of breakfast. Afterwards I fell in with an Englishman, of considerable literary reputation, whom I had several times met in Rome. He was one of those men who seem to possess all sorts of sense except common sense. He was full of details, and could tell exactly the height of the dome of St. Peter's, or of the great pyramid, – could explain the process of the manufacture of the Minié rifle or the boring of an artesian well, and could calculate an eclipse with Bond or Secchi, – but he could not pack a carpet-bag to save his life. That he should have been able to travel so far from home alone is a fine commentary on the honesty and good nature of the people of the continent. I could not help thinking what a time he would have were he to attempt to travel in America. He would think he had discovered a new nomadic tribe in the cabmen of New York. He had come down to Civita Vecchia in a most promiscuous style, and when I discovered him he was trying to bring about a union between some six or eight irreconcilable pieces of luggage. I aided him successfully in the work, and his look of perplexity and despair gave way to one of gratitude and admiration for his deliverer. Delighted at this escape from the realities of his situation, he launched out into a profound dissertation on the philosophy of language and the formation of provincial dialects, and it was some time before I could bring him down to the common and practical business of securing his passage in the steamer for Marseilles. Ten o'clock, however, found us on board one of the steamers of the Messageries Imperiales, and we were very shortly after under way. We were so unfortunate as to run aground on a little spit of land in getting out of port, as we ran a little too near an English steamer that was lying there. But a Russian frigate sent off a cable to us, and thus established an alliance between their flag and the French, which drew the latter out of the difficulty in which it had got by too close a proximity to its English neighbour.
It was a beautiful, cloudless day, and reminded me of many halcyon days I had spent on that blue Mediterranean in other times. It reminded me of some of my childhood's days in the country in New England, – days described by Emerson where he says that we "bask in the shining hours of Florida and Cuba," – when "the day, immeasurably long, sleeps over the broad hills and warm, wide fields," – when "the cattle, as they lie on the ground, seem to have great and tranquil thoughts." It was on such a day that I used to delight to pore over my Shakspeare, undisturbed by any sound save the hum of the insect world, or the impatient switch of the tail, or movement of the feet, of a horse who had sought the same shade I was enjoying. To a man who has been rudely used by fortune, or who has drunk deep of sorrow or disappointment, I can conceive of nothing more grateful or consoling than a summer cruise in the Mediterranean. "The sick heart often needs a warm climate as much as the sick body."
My English friend, immediately on leaving port, took some five or six prescriptions for the prevention of seasickness, and then went to bed, so that I had some opportunity to look about among our ship's company. There were two men, apparently companions, though they hardly spoke to each other, who amused me very much One was a person of about four feet and a half in height, who walked about on deck with that manner which so many diminutive persons have, of wishing to be thought as tall as Mr. George Barrett. He boasted a deportment that would have made the elder Turveydrop envious, while it was evident that under that serene and dignified exterior lay hidden all the warm-heartedness and geniality of that eminent philanthropist who was obliged to play a concerto on the violin to calm his grief at seeing the conflagration of his native city. The other looked as if "he had not loved the world, nor the world him"; he was a thin, bilious-looking person, and seemed like a whole serious family rolled into one individuality. I felt a great deal of curiosity to know whether he was reduced to that pitiable condition by piety or indigestion. I felt sure that he was meditating suicide as he gazed upon the sea, and I stood by him for some time to prevent his accomplishing any such purpose, until I became convinced that to let him take the jump, if he pleased, would be far the more philanthropic course of action. There was a French bishop, and a colonel of the French staff at Rome, among the passengers, and by their genial urbanity they fairly divided between them the affections of the whole company. Either of them would have made a fog in the English Channel seem like the sunshine of the Gulf of Egina. I picked up a pleasant companion in an Englishman who had travelled much and read more, and spent the greater part of the day with him. When he found that I was an American, he at once asked me if I had ever been to Niagara, and had ever seen Longfellow and Emerson. I am astonished to find so many cultivated English people who know little or nothing about Tennyson; I am inclined to think he has ten readers in America to one in England, while the English can repeat Longfellow by pages.
After thirty hours of pleasant sailing along by Corsica and Elba, and along the coast of France, until it seemed as if our cruise (like that of the widow of whom we have all read) would never have an end, we came to anchor in the midst of a vast fleet of steamers in the new port of Marseilles. The bustle of commercial activity seemed any thing but pleasant after the classical repose of Rome; but the landlady of the hotel was most gracious, and when I opened the window of my room looking out on the Place Royale, one of those peripatetic dispensers of melody, whose life (like the late M. Mantalini's after he was reduced in circumstances) must be "one demnition horrid grind," executed "Sweet Home" in a manner that went entirely home to the heart of at least one of his accidental audience.
MARSEILLES, LYONS, AND AIX IN SAVOY
If the people of Marseilles do not love the Emperor of the French, they ought to be ashamed of themselves. He has so completely changed the aspect of that city by his improvements, that the man who knows it as it existed in the reign of Louis Philippe, would be lost if he were to revisit it now. The completion of the railway from Paris to Marseilles is an inestimable advantage to the latter city, while the new port, in magnitude and style of execution, is worthy of comparison with the splendid docks of London and Liverpool. The flags of every civilized nation may be seen there; and the variety of costumes and languages, which bewilder one's eyes and ears, assure him that he is in the commercial metropolis of the Mediterranean. The frequency of steam communication between Marseilles and the various ports of Spain, Italy, Africa, and the Levant, draws to it a large proportion of the travellers in those directions. I believe that Marseilles is only celebrated for having been colonized by the Phocæans, or some such people, for having several times been devastated by the plague, and for having been very perfectly described by Dickens in his Little Dorrit. The day on which I arrived there was very like the one described by Dickens; so if any one would like further particulars, he had better overhaul his Little Dorrit, and, "when found, make note of it."
The day after my arrival I saw a grand religious procession in the streets of the city. The landlady of my hotel had told me of it, but my expectations were not raised very high, for I thought that after the grandeur of Rome, all other things in that way would be comparatively tame. But I was mistaken; the procession fairly rivalled those of Rome. There were the same gorgeous vestments, the same picturesque groupings of black robes and snowy surplices, of mitres and crosiers and shaven crowns, of scarlet and purple and cloth of gold, the same swinging censers and clouds of fragrant incense, the same swelling flood of almost supernatural music. The municipal authorities of the city, with the staff of the garrison, joined in the procession, and the military display was such as can hardly be seen out of France. I have often been struck with the facility with which the Catholic religion adapts itself to the character of every nation. I have had some opportunity of observation; I have seen the Catholic Church on three out of the four continents, and have every where noticed the same phenomenon. Mahometanism could never be transplanted to the snowy regions of Russia or Norway; it needs the soft, enervating atmosphere of Asia to keep it alive; the veranda, the bubbling fountain, the noontide repose, are all parts of it. Puritanism is the natural growth of a country where the sun seldom shines, and which is shut out by a barrier of water and fog from kindly intercourse with its neighbours. It could never thrive in the bright south. The merry vine-dressers of Italy could never draw down their faces to the proper length, and would be very unwilling to exchange their blithesome canzonetti for Sternhold and Hopkins's version. But the Catholic Church, while it unites its professors in the belief of the same inflexible creed, leaves them entirely free in all mere externals and national peculiarities. When I see the light-hearted Frenchman, the fiery Italian, the serious Spaniard, the cunning Greek, the dignified Armenian, the energetic Russian, the hard-headed Dutchman, the philosophical German, the formal and "respectable" Englishman, the thrifty Scotchman, the careless and warm-hearted Irishman, and the calculating, go-ahead American, all bound together by the profession of the same faith, and yet retaining their national characteristics, – I can compare it to nothing but to a similar phenomenon that we may notice in the prism, which, while it is a pure and perfect crystal, is found on examination to contain, in their perfection, all the various colours of the rainbow.
The terminus of the Lyons and Mediterranean Railway is one of the best things of its kind in the world. I wish that some of our American railway directors could take a few lessons from the French. The attention paid to securing the comfort and safety of the passengers and the regularity of the trains would quite bewilder him. Instead of finding the station a long, unfinished kind of shed, with two small, beastly waiting rooms at one side, and a stand for a vender of apples, root beer, and newspapers, he would see a fine stone structure, several hundred feet in length, with a roof of iron and glass. He would enter a hall which would remind him of the Doric hall of the State House in Boston, only that it is several times larger, and is paved with marble. He would choose out of the three ticket offices of the three classes, where he would ride, and he would be served with a promptness and politeness that would remind him of Mr. Child in the palmy days of the old Tremont Theatre, while he would notice that an officer stood by each ticket office to see that every purchaser got his ticket and the proper change, and to give all necessary information. Having booked his luggage, he would be ushered into one of the three waiting rooms, all of them furnished in a style of neatness and elegance that would greatly astonish him. He might employ the interval in the study of geography, assisted by a map painted on one side of the room, giving the entire south of France and Piedmont, with the railways, &c., and executed in such a style that the names of the towns are legible at a distance of fifteen or twenty feet. Two or three minutes before the hour fixed for the starting of the train, the door would be opened, and he would take his seat in the train with the other passengers. The whole affair would go on so systematically, with such an absence of noise and excitement, that he would doubt whether he had been in a railway station at all, until he found himself spinning along at a rapid rate, through long tunnels, and past the beautiful panorama of Provençal landscape.
The sun was as bright as it always is in fair Provence, the sky as blue. The white dusty roads wound around over the green landscape, like great serpents seeking to hide their folds amid those hills. The almond, the lemon, and the fig attracted the attention of the traveller from the north, before all other trees, – not to forget however, the pale foliage of that tree which used to furnish wreaths for Minerva's brow, but now supplies us with oil for our salads. Arles, with its old amphitheatre (a broken shadow of the Coliseum) looming up above it, lay stifled with dust and broiling in the sun, as we hurried on towards Avignon. It does not take much time to see that old city, which, from being so long the abode of the exiled popes, seems to have caught and retained something of the quiet dignity and repose of Rome itself. That gloomy old palace of the popes, with its lofty turrets, seems to brood over the town, and weigh it down as with sorrow for its departed greatness. Centuries have passed, America has been discovered, the whole face of Europe has changed, since a pontiff occupied those halls; and yet there it stands, a monument commemorating a mere episode in the history of the see of St. Peter.
Arriving at Lyons, I found another palatial station, on even a grander scale than that of Marseilles. The architect has worked the coats of arms of the different cities of France into the stone work of the exterior in a very effective manner. Lyons bears witness, no less than Marseilles, to the genius of the wonderful man who now governs France. It is a popular notion in England and America, that the enterprise of Napoleon III. has been confined to the improvement of Paris. If persons who labour under this error would extend their journeyings a little beyond the ordinary track of a summer excursion, they would find that there is scarcely a town in the empire that has not felt the influence of his skill as a statesman and political economist. The Rue Imperiale of Lyons is a monument of which any sovereign might be justly proud. The activity of Lyons, the new buildings rising on every side, and its look of prosperity, would lead one to suppose that it was some place that had just been settled, instead of a city with twenty centuries of history. The Sunday, I was glad to see, was well observed; perhaps not exactly in the style which Aminadab Sleek would commend, but in a very rational, Christian, un-Jewish manner. The shops were, for the most part, closed, the churches were crowded with people, and in the afternoon and evening the entire population was abroad enjoying itself – and a cleaner, better-behaved, happier-looking set of people I never saw. The excessive heat still continues. It is now more than two months since I opened my umbrella; the prospects of the harvest are good, but they are praying hard in the churches for a little rain. During my stay at Lyons, I lived almost entirely on fresh figs, and plums and ices. How full the cafés were those sultry evenings! How busy must the freezers have been in the cellars below! I read through all the newspapers I could lay my hands on, and then amused myself with watching the gay, chattering throng around me. How my mind flew across the ocean that evening to a quiet back parlour at the South End! I could see the venerable Baron receiving a guest on such a night as that, and making the weather seem cool by contrast with the warmth of his hospitality. I could see him offering to his perspiring visitor a release from the slavery of broadcloth, in the loan of a nankeen jacket, and then busying himself in the preparation of a compound of old Cochituate, (I had almost said old Jamaica,) of ice, of sugar, yea, of lemons, and commending the grateful chalice to the parched lips of his guest. Such an evening in the Baron's back parlour is the very ecstasy of hospitality. It is many months since that old nankeen jacket folded me in its all-embracing arms, but the very thought of it awakes a thrill of pleasure in my heart. When I last saw it, "decay's effacing fingers" had meddled with the buttons thereof, and it was growing a trifle consumptive in the vicinity of the elbows; but I hope that it is good for many a year of usefulness yet, before the epitaph writer shall commence the recital of its merits with those melancholy words, Hic jacet! Pardon me, dear reader, for this digression from the recital of my wanderings; but this jacket, the remembrance of which is so dear to me, is not the trifle it may seem to you. It is, I believe, the only institution in the world of the same age and importance, which has not been apostrophized in verse by that gifted bard, Mr. Martin Farquhar Tupper. If this be not celebrity, what is it?
In one of the narrow streets of Lyons I found a barber named Melnotte. He was a man somewhat advanced in life, and I feel sure that he addressed a good-looking woman in a snowy white cap, who looked in from a back room while I was having my hair cut, as Pauline. Be that as it may, when he had finished his work, and I walked up to the mirror to inspect it, he addressed to me the language of Bulwer's hero, "Do you like the picture?" or words to that effect. I cannot help mistrusting that Sir Edward may have misled us concerning the ultimate history of the Lady of Lyons and her husband. But the heat was too intolerable for human endurance; so I packed up, and leaving that fair city, with its numerous graceful bridges, and busy looms whose fabrics brighten the eyes of the beauties of Europe and America, and lighten the purses of their chivalry, – leaving Our Lady of Fourvières looking down with outstretched hands from the dome of her lofty shrine, and watching over her faithful Lyonnese, – I turned my face towards the Alpine regions.
The Alps have always been to me what Australia was to the late Mr. Micawber – "the bright dream of my youth, and the fallacious aspiration of my riper years." I remember when I was young, long before the days of railways and steamers, in the times when a man who had travelled in Europe was invested with a sort of awful dignity – I remember hearing a travelled uncle of mine tell about the Alps, and I resolved, with all the enthusiasm of boyhood, thenceforward to "save up" all my Fourth of July and Artillery Election money, until I should be able to go and see one. When the Rev. James Sheridan Knowles (he was a wicked playactor in those days) produced his drama of William Tell, how it fed the flame of my ambition! How I longed to stand with the hero once again among his native hills! How I loved the glaciers! How I doted on the avalanches! But age has cooled the longings of my heart for mountain excursions, and robbed my legs of all their climbing powers, so that if it depends upon my own bodily exertions, the Vale of Chamouni will be entirely unavailable for me, and every mount will be to me a blank. The scenery along the line of railway from Ambérieu to Culoz on the Rhone is very grand. The ride reminded me of the ride over the Atlantic and St. Lawrence road through the White Mountains, only it is finer. The boldness of the cliffs and precipices was something to make one's heart beat quick, and cause him to wonder how the peasants could work so industriously, and the cattle feed so constantly, without stopping to look up at the magnificence that hemmed them in.
At Culoz I went on board one of those peculiar steamers of the Rhone – about one hundred and fifty feet in length by ten or twelve in width. Our way lay through a narrow and circuitous branch of the river for several miles. The windings of the river were such that men were obliged to turn the boat about by means of cables, which they made fast to posts fixed in the banks on either side for that purpose. The scenery along the banks was like a dream of Paradise. To say that the country was smiling with flowers and verdure does not express it – it was bursting into a broad grin of fertility. Such vineyards! Not like the grape vine in your back yard, dear reader, nailed up against a brick wall, but large, luxuriant vines, seeming at a loss what to do with themselves, and festooned from tree to tree, just as you see them in the scenery of Fra Diavolo. And then there were groups of people in costumes of picturesque negligence, and women in large straw hats, and dresses of brilliant colours, just like the chorus of an opera. The deep, rich hue of the foliage particularly attracted my notice. It was as different from the foliage of New England as Winship's Gardens are from an invoice of palm-leaf hats. Beyond the immediate vicinity of the river rose up beautiful hills and cliffs like the Palisades of the Hudson. Let those who will, prefer the wild grandeur of our American mountain scenery; there is a great charm for me in the union of nature and art. The careful cultivation of the fields seems to set off and render more grand and austere the gray, jagged cliffs that overlook them. As the elder Pliny most justly remarks, (lib. iv. cap. xi. 24,) "It requires the lemon as well as the sugar to make the punch."
After about an hour's sail upon the river, we came out upon the beautiful Lake of Bourget. It was stirred by a gentle breeze, but it seemed as if its bright blue surface had never reflected a cloud. All around its borders the trees and vines seemed bending down to drink of its pure waters. Far off in the distance rose up the mighty peaks of the Alps – their snow-white tops contrasting with the verdure of their sides. They seemed to be watching with pleasure over the glad scenes beneath them, like old men whose gray hairs have been powerless to disturb the youthful freshness and geniality of their hearts.
At St. Innocent I landed, and underwent the custom house formalities attendant upon entrance into a new territory. The officials were very expeditious, and equally polite. I at first supposed that the letters V. E., which each of them bore conspicuously on his cap, meant "very empty," – but it afterwards occurred to me that they were the initials of his majesty, the King of Sardinia. A few minutes' ride over the "Victor Emmanuel Railway" brought me to the beautiful village of Aix. It is situated, as my friend the Lyonnese barber would say, in "a deep vale shut out by Alpine hills from the rude world." It possesses about 2500 inhabitants; but that number is considerably augmented at present, for the mineral springs of Aix are very celebrated, and this is the height of "the season." There is a great deal of what is called "society" here, and during the morning the baths are crowded. It is as dull as all watering places necessarily are, and twice as hot. I think that the French manage these things better than we do in America. There is less humbug, less display of jewelry and dress, and a vast deal more of common sense and solid comfort than with us. The cafés are like similar establishments in all such places – an abundance of ices and ordinary coffee, and a plentiful lack of newspapers. I have found a companion, however, who more than makes good the latter deficiency. He is an Englishman of some seventy years, who is here bathing for his gout. His light hair and fresh complexion disguise his age so completely that most people, when they see us together, judge me, from my gray locks, to be the elder. He is one of the most entertaining persons I have ever met – he knows the classics by heart, – is familiar with English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish literature, – speaks nine languages, – and has travelled all over the world. He is as familiar with the Steppes of Tartary as with Wapping Old Stairs, – has imbibed sherbet in Damascus and sherry cobblers in New York, and seen a lion hunt in South Africa. But his heart is the heart of a boy – "age cannot wither nor custom stale" its infinite geniality. He cannot pass by a beggar without making an investment for eternity, and all the babies look over the shoulders of their nurses to smile at him as he walks the streets. I mention him here for the sake of recording one of his opinions, which struck me by its truth and originality. We were sitting in a café last evening, and, after a long conversation, I asked him what he should give as the result of all his reading and observation of men and things, and all his experience, if he were to sum it up in one sentence. "Sir," said he, removing his meerschaum from his mouth, and turning towards me as if to give additional force to his reply, "it may all be comprised in this: the world is composed of two classes of men – natural fools and d – d fools; the first class are those who have never made any pretensions, or have reached a just appreciation of the nothingness of all human acquirements and hopes; the second are those whose belief in their own infallibility has never been disturbed; and this class includes a vast number of every rank, from the profound German philosopher, who thinks that he has fathomed infinity, down to that young fop twirling his moustache at the opposite table, and flattering himself that he is making a great impression."
Savoy, as every body knows, was once a part of France, and it still retains all of its original characteristics. I have not heard ten words of Italian since I arrived here, and, judging from what I do hear and from the tone of the newspapers, it would like to become a part of France again. The Savoyards are a religious, steady-going people, and they have little love either for the weak and dissolute monarch who governs them, or for the powerful, infidel prime minister who governs their monarch. The high-pitched roofs of the houses here are suggestive of the snows of winter; but the heat reminds me of the coast of Africa during a sirocco. How true is Sydney Smith's remark, "Man only lives to shiver or perspire"! The thermometer ranges any where from 80° to 90°. Can this be the legitimate temperature of these mountainous regions? I am "ill at these numbers," and nothing would be so invigorating to my infirm and shaky frame as a sniff of the salt breezes of Long Branch or Nantasket.