A /
to o i
Y U S E F;
OE
THE JOURNEY OF* THE FRANUI.
CRUSADE IN THE EAST.
BY
J. ROSS BROWNE,
AUTHOR OF “ETCHINGS OF A WHALING-CRUISE,” “REPORT OF THE DEBATES IN THE CONVENTION OF CALIFORNIA,” AND “ CRUSOE LIFE : A NARRA¬ TIVE OF ADVENTURES IN JUAN FERNANDEZ.”
NEW YORK:
IIARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
3 29 & 33 1 PEARL STREET,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1853.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-three, by
Harper & Brothers,
in the Clerk’s
of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.
Sb £ »iT&
£>S
m
l?53
TO THE
HON. ROBERT J. WALKER,
AS A TOKEN OF ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENIUS AS A STATESMAN, ESTEEM FOR HIS VIRTUES IN PRIVATE LIFE, AND GRAT¬ ITUDE FOR HIS MANY ACTS OF KINDNESS TO THE AUTHOR,
THIS VOLUME
M iFspertfulitj SitsrrM.
PREFACE.
An essayist in the Reflector tells us that “ Colum¬ bus can not he more famous than a man who describes the Temple of Jerusalem.” Now, although I have a great desire to be as famous as Columbus, it is due to the reader to state at the outset that he will find very little about temples in this volume. The only ground upon which I can aspire to such a distinction is, in having avoided, as far as practicable, every thing that has given fame to those who have preceded me. If there be any important fact, therefore, in scriptural or classical history, that the reader is disappointed in not finding in these pages, I beg that he will adopt the suggestion of my friend and fellow-traveler, Dr. Men¬ doza, and “ remain tranquil for the present.” There is no telling what the future may bring forth, or to what extremes of research a man may be driven by the force of circumstances.
Part of this narrative was originally written in the form of letters to the u National Intelligencer,” chiefly for the amusement of my friends in Washington. The style was rather more familiar than the usual contri¬ butions to that journal, and certainly more so than I would have chosen to adopt, had I thought seriouslv at
PREFACE.
iv
the time of publishing the letters in book form. That I considered it probable I might make use of the ma¬ terial at some future period, I frankly admit ; but in looking over my notes and the mass of sketches thus brought together, the task of re-writing, and making any thing of them in the way of a serious work on Palestine, seemed too formidable to be undertaken by one who has scarcely yet commenced his travels.
Such as the sketches are, I have chosen to put them together in the form of a connected narrative ; and they are now presented to the public, with such illus¬ trations from my own portfolio, drawn on wood by competent artists, as I thought would give them any additional value.
It will be seen that I have not felt it to be my duty to make a desponding pilgrimage through the Holy Land ; for upon a careful perusal of the Scriptures, I can find nothing said against a cheerful frame of mind. If there be any person, however, who may think that a traveler has no right to be lively in that part of the world, I beg that he will suspend his judgment till I visit Jerusalem again ; in which event he may depend upon it I shall use every exertion to be depressed in spirits, and produce something uncommonly heavy and substantial.
In regard to the apparent egotism of writing so much about one’s self, I can not do better than quote the words of Thomas de Quincey : “ It is not offered as deriving any part of what interest it may have from myself as the person concerned in it. If the partic¬ ular experience selected is really interesting, in virtue }f its own circumstances, then it matters not to whom, it happened. Let him [the reader] read the sketch as
PBEFACE.
belonging to one who wishes to be profoundly anony¬ mous.” In this view, should there be any thing that strikes the reader as very good in the volume, he can not do better than to look at the title-page, and give credit accordingly ; but where it appears to him that there is any thing very bad in it, he will greatly oblige me by regarding it as the production of the gentleman who figures in the conversations with Yusef.
Written without any other purpose than that of de¬ scribing faithfully what fell under my own observation, it may be that the design is not sufficiently apparent ; yet if, on the whole, from the general tenor, a more liberal feeling should be encouraged respecting the customs and prejudices of the uncivilized world, and a clearer sense of our own weaknesses, the book will not have been written in vain. There may be a moral also in the circumstances under which the journey was performed.
Ten years ago, after having rambled all over the United States — six hundred miles of the distance on foot, and sixteen hundred in a flat-boat — I set out from Washington with fifteen dollars, to make a tour of the East. I got as far east as New York, where the last dollar and the prospect of reaching Jerusalem came to a conclusion at the same time. Sooner than return home, after having made so good a beginning, I shipped before the mast in a whaler, and did some service, during a voyage to the Indian Ocean, in the way of scrubbing decks and catching whales. A mutiny occurred at the island of Zanzibar, where I sold myself out of the vessel for thirty dollars and a chest of old clothes ; and spent three months very pleasantly at the consular residence, in the vicinity of
vi
PREFACE.
his Highness the Imanm of Muscat. On my return to Washington, I labored hard for four years on Bank statistics and Treasury reports, by which time, in order to take the new administration by the fore-lock, I de¬ termined to start for the East again. The only chance I had of getting there was, to accept of an appointment as third lieutenant in the Revenue service, and go to California, and thence to Oregon, where I was to re¬ port for duty. On the voyage to Rio, a difficulty occurred between the captain and the passengers of the vessel, and we were detained there nearly a month. I took part with the rebels, because I believed them to be right. The captain was deposed by the American consul, and the command of the vessel was offered to me ; but having taken an active part against the late captain, I could not with propriety accept the offer. A whaling captain, who had lost his vessel near Buenos Ayres, was placed in the command, and we proceeded on our voyage round Cape Horn. After a long and dreary passage we made the island of Juan Fernandez. In company with ten of the passengers, I left the ship seventy miles out at sea, and went ashore in a small boat, for the purpose of gathering up some tidings in regard to my old friend Robinson Crusoe. What befell us on that memorable expedition is fully set forth in a narrative recently published in “ Harper’s Magazine.” Subsequently we spent some time in Lima, u the City of the Kings.” It was my fortune to arrive penniless in California, and to find, by way of consola¬ tion, that a reduction had been made by Congress in the number of revenue vessels, and that my services in that branch of public business were no longer re¬ quired. While thinking seriously of taking in washing
PREFACE .
vii
at six dollars a dozen, or devoting the remainder of my days to mule-driving as a profession, I was unexpect¬ edly elevated to the position of post-office agent ; and went about the country for the purpose of making post¬ masters. I only made one- — the post-master of San Jose. After that, the Convention called by General Riley met at Monterey, and I was appointed to report the debates on the formation of the State Constitution. For this I received a sum that enabled me to return to Washington, and start for the East again. There was luck in the third attempt, for, as may be seen, I got there at last, having thus visited the four continents, and traveled by sea and land asdistance of a hundred thousand miles, or more than four times round the world, on the scanty earnings of my own head and hands.
If there be any moral in the book, therefore, it is this : that there is no great difficulty in traveling all over the world, when one sets about it with a deter¬ mination to do it, and keeps trying till he succeeds ; that there is no position in life disreputable or degrad¬ ing while self-respect remains ; and nothing impossible that has ever been done by man. Let him who thirsts for knowledge go out upon the broad face of the earth, and he will find that it is not out of books alone that he can get it ; let him make use of the eyes that God has given him, and he will see more in the world’s unwritten revelations than the mind of man hath con¬ ceived.
“ Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win By fearing to attempt.”
J. R. B.
Washington, D. C,, February , 1853.
EASTERN RUINS.
CONTENTS,
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
PAGE
CHAPTER L— Palermo . 13
CHAPTER II.-— Catacombs of Palermo . 20
CHAPTER III. — Journey to Catania . 28
CHAPTER IV.-— Ascent of Mount Etna . 35
CHAPTER V.— The Crater . 41
CHAPTER VI.-— A Quarrel with the Ancients . 53
CHAPTER VII. — On the Road to Syracuse . . 58
CHAPTER VIII.— Syracuse . . 66
CHAPTER IX.— Taormina V. . 73
A CRTJSADE IN THE EAST.
CHAPTER X — The Breach . . . 80
CHAPTER XI. — Athens . 85
CHAPTER XII.— Syra . 101
CHAPTER XIII.— Smyrna . 107
CHAPTER XIV. — Constantinople . 114
CHAPTER XV. — A Visit to the Bazaars . . . 129
CHAPTER XVI. — Turkish Beauties . . . 141
CHAPTER XVII. — Manners and Customs . 149
CHAPTER XVIII. — Babel Revived . 164
CHAPTER XIX. — The English Tourist . 167
CHAPTER XX. — The Syrian Dragoman . . . 174
CHAPTER XXI. — My Horse Saladin . . .... . . 182
CHAPTER XXII.— The Arab Story Teller . 192
CHAPTER XXIII. — The Cedars of Lebanon . 197
A*
X
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER XXIV. — Baalbek . . . . 206
CHAPTER XXV. — Yusef Dances the Raas . . . 218
CHAPTER XXVI.— A Social Chat with Yusef . 227
CHAPTER XXVII.— ' The Greek Bishop . . . 232
CHAPTER XXVIII.— The Arab Muleteer . 240
CHAPTER XXIX. — From Baalbek to Damascus . 244
CHAPTER XXX.— Damascus. . . . . . * . 254
CHAPTER XXXI.— Baths of Damascus . . . 263
CHAPTER XXXII. — The American .Missionaries . 272
CHAPTER XXXIII. — The Battle of the Muleteers . 276
CHAPTER XXXIV. — Grand Secret of Human Happiness.. 285
CHAPTER XXXV.— The Mill of Malaha . 296
CHAPTER XXXVI.— The Rebel Sheik . . 306
CHAPTER XXXVII.— The Syrian Horses . . 310
CHAPTER XXXVIII.— The Sea of Galilee. . 319
CHAPTER XXXIX. — Journey to Nazareth . 326
CHAPTER XL.— Nazareth . 330
CHAPTER XL I. — A Gazelle Hunt . 335
CHAPTER XLII.— Djenin . 343
CHAPTER XLIII. — Adventure with the Samaritans . 348
CHAPTER XLIV.— Nablous . 352
CHAPTER XLV.— A Striking Scene . 354
CHAPTER XL VI. — Jerusalem . 359
CHAPTER XL VII. —Arab Guard to the Dead Sea . 366
CHAPTER XLVIIL— The Dead Sea and the Jordan . 371
CHAPTER XLIX. — Thrilling Alarm in Jericho . 378
CHAPTER L. — Christmas Night in Bethlehem . 387
CHAPTER LI. — Crossing the Rivers . 391
CHAPTER LII. — The Desolate City . . ... 394
CHAPTER LIII. — A Serious Charge . 398
CHAPTER LIV.- — An Extraordinary Affair . 404
CHAPTER LV. — Rise, Decline, and Fall of Yusef Badra 410
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
[FROM SKETCHRS BY THE AUTHOR.]
Eastern Ruins. Frontispiece. page
The Mummies . . . 21
Catacombs of Palermo . 24
Sicilian Monk . 33
Casa degl’ Inglesa . 44
Descent of Mount Etna . 51
Sicilian Postillion . 62
Sicilian Gendarmes . 64
Sicilian Beggars . 68
Counsel for the Accused . 75
Amphitheatre of Taormina . 78
Convent near Athens . 97
Smyrna from the Anchorage . 107
Pilgrims on Shipboard . 116
A Business Transaction . 127
The Hamil . 131
Shopkeepers . . . . . . . 138
Turkish Beauty . . . 143
General View of Constantinople . 152
The Dancing Dervishes . 155
The Howling Dervishes . 158
English Traveler recognizing a Venus and Hercules . 168
Town of Rhodes . 171
View in Larnica . 172
Yusef . 178
Saladin . 185
Saladin in Action. . . 188
Ben-Hozain . , . 192
Castle of Djbel . 201
Column in the Desert . 210
Yusef dancing the Raas . 223
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
xii
PAGE
The Arab Muleteer . 240
A Gentleman of elegant Leisure . 243
Ancient Arch in Damascus . . 260
Ibrahim . . . . ......... , . . . 261
Baths of Damascus . 268
Taking it Easy . . . *v. . . .. 285
The Mill of Malaha . 303
Tokina . 318
Baths of Tiberias . 325
Jerusalem . 359
Mohammedan Sepulchre . 363
Pilgrims to Jerusalem . 367
The Arab Guard . 370
Crossing a River . 391
Greek Bishop . 39
Village of El Mukhalid . 394
Kaisariyeh . 397
Ruins near Tantura . 403
The End of Yusef . 421
Y U S E P.
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
CHAPTER I.
PALERMO.
It was rather early in the season to start for the East. September was not yet over. I had thoroughly explored Naples and the neighborhood ; and the only question was, how to dispose of the fine weather. Lounging about the quay one afternoon it occurred to me that a trip to Palermo would he just the thing. There were signs pasted up every where of an immense steamer, of wonderful horse-power, bound for that very port. I walked into the first Bureau (in Naples, every office is a Bureau) : the same large steamer was over the door under full way, with a heavy head of steam, for Palermo. TJhe name of the steamer was printed on the paddle-box in big golden letters ; it was the Ercolano. When I told the gentleman, who was waxing the points of his mustache behind the counter, that I wanted a passage in the Ercolano, he shook his head despondingly, and applied some more wax to one of the points. This induced me to go out again and look at the sign. There certainly was no mis¬ take about the name, and I endeavored to make him under¬ stand that it was a ticket I wanted for a passage in the steamer represented upon that sign. He applied some addi¬ tional wax to the other point of his mustache, shook his head despondingly again, and, as well as I could understand him, said he was very sorry ; that he didn’t know any thing about
14
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
such a steamer ; perhaps it was at number seventy-one, two doors above. I went into number seventy-one, two doors above, and was told by a small but very imposing gentleman, with a brass band on his cap, that seventy-one was the bu¬ reau of the French steamer; if didn’t go to Palermo ; it went to Marseilles, and he would be very happy to have me land¬ ed there ; perhaps the Bureau of the Neapolitan steamer was number seventy-six, which I would find somewhere on the same street, about eight or ten doors jibove — or below. I walked up and down a long time, till I was fortunate enough to find number seventy-six. The gentleman in that Bureau was smoking a cigar, which he continued to smoke in silence for two minutes ; at the expiration of which time he calmly removed it, and said in reply to my question concerning the Ercolano, that there was such a steamer ; it was called the Ercolano ; it was a Neapolitan steamer ; it was bound for Palermo ; the proper place to apply for passage was at the Neapolitan Bureau. He was not exactly certain where the Neapolitan Bureau was, but thought it was number sixty- nine ; that was his impression — sixty-nine. I told him that I had already applied at sixty-nine ; to which he responded by a shrug of the shoulders, a pinch of snuff, and some strange contortions of the face, as if he had accidentally swallowed the snuff-box. It may have been that my manner of speak¬ ing the Italian was not clear, or that my understanding of the Neapolitan was less so ; at all#events I could make no¬ thing of these signs, so I returned to Bureau sixty-nine. There were some other officers in sixty-nine this time ; and, after some consultation, they arrived at the conclusion that it was the Bureau of the Neapolitan steamer for Palermo. I offered money for my passage ; but they refused to take it, or to give me a ticket without it ; they said something else was neces¬ sary, my passport and certain vises and cartes. Next morn¬ ing I got my passport and the vises and cartes , and they still refused to give me a ticket. Certain other vises and cartes from the Polizia were necessary. I went to the Polizia and got certain other vises and cartes , and they still refused to let me have a ticket ; a certain word was omitted in one of the
PALERMO.
15
vises. I went all over the city of Naples in search of all the authorities that were concerned in the insertion of that word, and eventually got it written down in black and white, with all the additional stamps that were necessary to give it val¬ idity. This time they reluctantly conceded that the passport was vised in due form ; that all the documents were correct ; that I could get a ticket by waiting a while until the officers were served. The Bureau was quite filled with Neapolitan officers, who were all very much covered up with red cloth epaulets, tin buttons, brass sword-cases, and general em¬ broidery. I waited at least an hour, and then, by the sheer force of perseverance, prevailed upon the gentleman who was engaged in making porcupine quills of his mustache, to cease his labors one moment, and give me a ticket. All the harm I wish that man is, that these quills may be broken off before his personal beauty produces such an effect as to cause any un¬ fortunate lady to marry him ; for I am certain if ever he gets a wife, they will run her through the eyes in less than a week.
On the 30th day of September, 1851, in virtue of all these proceedings, I left Naples, in the Neapolitan steamer, for Palermo. The Ercolano was a good specimen of the Italian steam service. It had nothing like the amount of horse¬ power that I expected from the bills ; nor was it in any re¬ spect a good steamer ; but it afforded an excellent example of what a nation already distinguished in ancient art, may attain in the way of modern art by intercourse with less classical countries. Without any exception it was the small¬ est, and dirtiest, and worst-contrived craft, to be moved by steam and paddles, that it was ever my fortune to behold. There were on board two hundred and fifty Neapolitan sol¬ diers and officers, on their way to Sicily, for the better pro¬ tection of that remote portion of the Neapolitan kingdom. After we got well out to sea, there came on a gale, and every one of these soldiers, and every officer who commanded them, fell dreadfully sea-sick ; and thus two hundred and fifty fight¬ ing characters, armed to the teeth, were in the brief space of a few hours cast down and mixed together upon the decks, at the mercy of any body who chose to attack them. I
16
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
verily believe that had I been a person of blood-thirsty dis¬ position I could have slain them all with a bodkin. Such, however, was not my nature. The poor little fellows looked so forlorn, so small and dirty, so sorry they were going to an unknown country, twenty hours distant from their native land ; so unlike men who would ever kill any body, that 1 was exceedingly moved, and took occasion, when the cap¬ tain of the boat was not looking, to give one of them a pinch of snuff. My natural impulse was to give them snuff all round, but they were so piled up over the decks, the heads, and heels, and mustaches, and arms, and legs in such a state of confusion that it was utterly impossible to move without stumbling over a misplaced limb, and falling upon a sick man.
Thank heaven, the hills of Bagheria at last hove in sight. I was glad enough to see land, as well on my own account as that of the soldiers, who certainly could not have survived the horrors of the sea another night. The voyage from Na¬ ples to Palermo is usually performed in twenty hours. Owing to the rough weather, and the want of additional horse-power, it took us twenty-four. We were six hours more getting ashore, which made it thirty. The reason of this delay was, that the soldiers had to be landed first. Then the captain had to go ashore and have a talk with the officers of the port ; then he had to come on board again and walk up and down the deck and smoke his cigar ; then the passengers had to get certain cartes , and some of them, who were going beyond Palermo, their passports under certain restrictions ; then the officer of the customs had to come on board and have a talk with the captain ; then he had to go on shore again, and the health officer had to come on board ; then, after all the officers were done going on shore and coming on board, the baggage had to be properly distributed ; and, after the baggage was distributed, and every thing appar¬ ently all. right, there was an additional delay of two hours for the purpose of showing the passengers that they were in the hands of persons high in authority, who would permit them to land, as a matter of favor, whenever it became ap-
PALERMO.
17
parent that the public interests would allow such a course to be pursued.
Next to Naples, the harbor of Palermo is perhaps the most beautiful in the Mediterranean. Indeed, many con¬ sider it quite equal in picturesque effect to Naples ; for, although it has not Mount Vesuvius, or the breadth and ex¬ tent of shore line, yet the eye comprehends more at a glance, and a nearer approach is permitted without destroying the scenic beauty of the mountains and villas. At a sufficient distance to embrace a complete view of Naples and its en¬ virons, the city is almost lost ; but the finest view of Paler¬ mo is just opposite the town, within a mile or two. The harbor forms a beautiful crescent, surrounded by hills covered with verdure throughout the greater part of the year ; villas and orange groves adorn every prominent point; rich gar¬ dens lie along the shores ; vessels of many nations float sleep¬ ily on the smooth waters of the bay ; fishing-boats, crowded with sunburnt crews, ply merrily through the flashing brine ; and along the wharves groups of swarthy sailors, quite like the piratical-looking fellows you see in the French prints, are constantly lounging, smoking, chatting in strange tongues, and casting sly glances at the Sicilian belles, who look like operatic chorus-singers ; and then there are pale Italians without number, and occasional Greeks ; with a sprinkling of American and fresh-looking English captains, to give va¬ riety and animation to the scene. There is an aspect of business activity about the streets and shops of Palermo, not a little cheering after one has been mouldering for some time among old ruins and cities of by-gone prosperity. Yet Paler¬ mo is not what it might be under a judicious system of gov¬ ernment. I hold myself in readiness to apologize for the re¬ mark, when called upon, to his Majesty the King of the two Sicilies, and to declare, if required, that the Neapolitan States are well governed ; that the people are well governed ; that I never saw so many soldiers and so much governing in all my life. Every man seems to be individually governed, and so careful is his Majesty of the faithful administration of the laws and the personal security of his subjects, that the
18
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
ramifications of government extend into every family circle, and wind every body up as in a cobweb. The stranger who lands at Palermo, and succeeds in getting through the Polizia, will respect good government all the rest of his life. I have a very pleasing impression of the officer in attendance there. He opened my knapsack when he heard me speak English, because he knew I must be an Englishman to address him in that language ; he opened my letters one by one and care¬ fully read them, commencing at the signatures and ending at the dates; and when he saw that I was not Mr. Glad¬ stone, and had no printed documents for private circulation among the people of Sicily, he gave me a kindly nod and let me pass. Now, I depend upon that officer, as a man of honor, never to divulge the contents of my letters — especially one that was written in German and some private memoranda in shorthand.
The streets of Palermo are wider than those of the princi¬ pal cities in Italy, and at night the shops present a very cheerful appearance. Cafes abound in all the public places, but there are none equal to the cafes in Florence. I visited during my stay the magnificent villa of the Marquis Fourche, which is embellished in the style of a Pompeiian palace, with fountains and interior decorations designed strictly according to the antique models found in the ruins of Pompeii. The mosaic marble saloons, frescoes, and general arrangement of the chambers, as also the style of the furniture, afford a very good idea of Pompeii in its days of splendor. It was a festa day in Palermo, so I went to all the churches worth seeing, and heard some good music at the Santa Catherina. Coming from Italy, I was surfeited with sight-seeing of this kind, but I still found much to interest me in Palermo, where something of a different architectural order may be seen.
With respect to the fine arts in Palermo, of which the Marquis of Artala, in his Guide to Sicily, speaks in enthusi¬ astic terms, I must confess I saw nothing of a high order of excellence. He dwells with particular admiration on the magnificent statuary which he says adorns the public prom¬ enades. I believe I thoroughly explored Palermo and its
PALERMO.
19
environs, but I saw no magnificent statuary ; and was at length obliged to come to the conclusion that great allowance must be made for the florid imagination of gentlemen who write guide-books. Often have I walked for miles through the dusty streets of an Italian city, baking myself into an Egyptian mummy under a burning sun, to see some exquisite gem of art, and when I reached the place found a stick or a stone, or an old daub of a painting, that I am free to confess I would never have recognized as the work of a master-hand had I not been told so. The statuary in the churches of Palermo is generally exceedingly bad ; the paintings are of very little merit, most of them being disgusting illustrations of scenes that never existed in the Scriptures or any where else, badly drawn, badly painted, and in the worst possible taste. In one of the churches I was introduced with great solemnity to a picture of the Madonna, which was carefully covered to preserve it from the vulgar gaze. I paid two carlini for the privilege of seeing it. Judge of my astonish¬ ment when the grave old sexton drew back the curtain and revealed to my wondering eyes the dingy features of an old black woman, with a silver crown on her forehead, that made her skin look a good deal like darkness visible. The pupils of her eyes were gilt with gold, and her eyebrows were radiant with precious stones. Her dress was of tawdry lace, glowing with little patchwork of silver paper ; and altogether she was the most extraordinary object I ever saw ; yet the old sexton bowed to her reverentially and said she was a great work of art.
CHAPTER II.
CATACOMBS OF PALERMO.
Chief among the wonders of Palermo are the Catacombs of the Capuchin Convent, near the Porta d’Ossuna. It is said to he a place of great antiquity ; many of the bodies have been preserved in it for centuries, and still retain much of their original freshness. Entering the ancient and ruinous court of the convent, distant about a mile from the city, I was conducted by a ghostly-looking monk through some dark pas¬ sages to the subterranean apartments of the dead. It was not my first visit to a place of this kind, but I must confess the sight was rather startling. It was like a revel of the lead — a horrible, grinning, ghastly exhibition of skeleton forms, sightless eyes, and shining teeth, jaws distended, and bony hands outstretched ; heads without bodies, and bodies without heads — the young, the old, the brave, the once beau¬ tiful and gay, all mingled in the ghastly throng. I walked through long subterranean passages, lined with the dead on both sides ; with a stealthy and measured tread I stepped, for they seemed to stare at the intrusion, and their skeleton fingers vibrated as if yearning to grasp the living in their em¬ brace. Long rows of upright niches are cut into the walls on each, side ; in every niche a skeleton form stands erect as in life, habited in a robe of black ; the face, hands, and feet naked, withered, and of an ashy hue ; the grizzled beards still hanging in tufts from the jaws, and in the recent cases the hair still clinging to the skull, but matted and dry. To each corpse is attached a label upon which is written the name and the date of decease, and a cross or the image of the Saviour.
Soon recovering from the shock of the first impression, I
CATACOMBS OF PALERMO. 21
was struck with the wonderful variety and marked expression of character in the faces and forms around me. There were progressive dates of death, extending from remote centuries up to the present period, the niches being so arranged as to admit of a regular order of deposit. Many of the bodies stood erect, as if just lifted from the death-bed ; the faces colorless, and the horrible agonies of dissolution stamped upon the features ; the lower jaws hanging upon the breast ; the teeth grinning and glistening between the parched lips, and the black hue of sickness about the mouth and around the sunken sockets of the eyes ; and in some the sightless orbs were open and staring with a wild glare of affright, asfif peering into the awful mysteries of the future ; while others wore a grotesque laugh of derision still more appalling, with the muscles of the mouth drawn up, the eyebrows lifted, the head tilted knowingly on one side, the hair matted in horny tufts, the bare spots on the skulls, like the piebald wig of a harlequin ; the skeleton arms outstretched, and the bony fin¬ gers spread as if to clutch the relentless destroyer, and wrestle
22
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
with him to the last. These I fancied were lively fellows, who were carried off suddenly after a midnight carouse. I sat down on a box containing a dead child, and looked up at a row of bodies opposite that attracted my notice in a par¬ ticular degree. In the middle stood a rolicking fellow, about two years dead, whose sunken eyes appeared still to burn with the fire of life and humor. His hands were lifted in a deprecating manner over a congregation of corpses sitting on a shelf below. Some appeared to be listening; some grinning at his humorous harangue ; others, with their heads together, seemed to question the propriety of his anecdotes ; old gentle¬ men, with knitted brows and lantern jaws ; ranges of bodies stood on each side of him as if laughing, talking, praying, dying, suffering, listening, rejoicing, and feasting at the ban¬ quet of death. One little man, in a dingy suit of black, sat in a corner ; the end of his nose was eaten off by the worms ; his mouth was compressed, and had a pinched expression ; his hands grasped eagerly at something. I thought that little man was a miser, whose death was caused by starvation. Another figure, a large portly body, stood in a conspicuous part of the vault ; it was the corpse of a fat old bishop, whose jaws were still rotund and smooth with good living, and his sleek hair was patted down to his head as with the oil of bygone roast beefs and macaroni soups, and his jolly cast of countenance betokened a system liberally supplied with the juices of life, and a conscience rendered easy by attention to the creature comforts. That man lived an easy life, and died of good feeding. He was carefully labeled, and carried on his wrists a jeweled cross. There stood in another part of the vault a fiery orator, with open mouth and distended arms. The head was thrown back, the breast partially bare, a few tufts of black hair fell from his piebald skull ; his round star¬ ing eyes were stretched wide open, and his brows arched high on his wrinkled forehead ; he looked toward heaven for inspiration. I fancied I could hear the flaming torrent, as it blazed and crackled and scintillated from his thin ashy lips. It was the glowing eloquence of an ardent soul that left its parting impress upon the clay ; the form yet spoke, but the
CATACOMBS OF PALERMO.
23
sound was not there. Passing on from vault to vault, I saw here and there a dead baby thrown upon a shelf — its inno¬ cent little face sleeping calmly among the mouldering skulls ; a leg, or an arm, or an old skull, from which the lower jaw had fallen ; now a lively corpse, jumping with a startling throe from its niche, or a grim skeleton in its dark corner chuckling at the ravages of the destroyer. Who was the prince here ? Who was the great man, or the proud man, or the rich man ? The musty, grinning, ghastly skeleton in the corner seemed to chuckle at the thought, and say to himself, “ Was it you, there on the right, you ugly, noseless, sightless, disgusting thing ? Was it you that rode in your fine carriage, about a year ago, and thought yourself so great when you ordered your coachman to drive over the beggar ? Don’t you see he is as handsome as you are now, and as great a man ; you can’t cut him down now, my fine fellow I And you, there on the left. What a nice figure you are, with your fleshless shanks and your worm-eaten lips ! It was you that betrayed youth and beauty and innocence, and brought yourself here at last to keep company with such wretches as I am. Why. there is not a living thing now, save the maggots, that wouldn’t turn away in disgust from you. And you, sir, on the opposite side, how proud you were when I last saw you ; an officer of state, a great man in power, who could crush all below you, and make the happy wife a widowed mourner, and bring her little babes to starvation ; it was you that had innocent men seized and cast into prison. What can you do now ? The meanest wretch that mocks you in this vault of death is as good as you, as strong, as great, as tall, as broad, as pretty a piece of mortality, and a great deal nearer to heaven. Oh, you are a nice set of fellows, all mixing to¬ gether without ceremony ! Where are your rules of etiquette now ; your fashionable ranks, and your plebeian ranks ; your thousands of admiring friends, your throngs of jeweled visit¬ ors? Why, the lowliest of us has as many visitors here, and as many honest tears shed as you. Ha ! ha ! This is a jolly place, after all ; we are all a jolly set of republicans, and old Death is our President !”
24 A GIRA THROUGH SICILY,
Turning away from this strange exhibition of death’s doings, I followed the old monk into the vaults allotted to the women. Here the spectacle was still more shocking and im¬ pressive The bodies were not placed in an upright position like those of the men, but were laid out at full length in glass cases ; the walls on both sides were covered.
The young, the gay, the beautiful, were all here, laid lowly in the relentless embrace of death; decked out in silken dresses, laces, and jewelry, as in mockery of the past. Each corpse had its sad history. I saw a young bride who was stricken down in a few brief months after her marriage. She was dressed in her bridal costume ; the bonnet and vail still on, the white gloves drawn over her skeleton fingers ; a few withered flowers laid upon her breast by the mourning one she#had left behind. Through the thin vail could be seen a blanched, grinning, bony face ; the sunken sockets of the eyes marked around with the dark lines of decay ; the long hair drawn in luxuriant masses over her withered bosom. Another
THE CATACOMBS OF PALERMO.
25
held in her arms a skeleton hahe. Some were habited in walking dresses ; others in all the finery of ball-room costume, with gay silks, slippers, silk stockings, and tawdry lace. It was a ghastly sight to look under the bonnets, and^, gaze upon the sunken ashy features, decked around with artificial flowers ; to trace in those withered lineaments no lingering line of beauty, no flickering ray of the immortal spirit, but a dreary history of mortal agony, decay, and corruption. Yet here the husband comes to hold communion with the beloved soul that once dwelt in that mouldering corpse ; to look upon those blanched features, that were once animate with life and affec¬ tion ; to kiss the cold lips, and feel no returning warmth. And here, too, the father, brother, sister, and wife come to gaze upon the dead ; and here the mother comes to weep over the withered corpse of her babe. Once a year, as I learnt from the old monk, the relatives of the deceased come to pray for the salvation of their souls, and deck the bodies with flowers.
Many a night had that old monk spent down in these dark vaults, among the dead ; not as a penance for evil-doing, though he confessed that he was weak and sinful, but to pray for the soul of some brother, who had been his companion in years past. It was not gloomy to him, he said; it made him hopeful if not happy ; for he felt, when surrounded by these mortal remains, that he was nearer to God. There were friends here, whom he had loved in youth and manhood ; whose hands he had grasped in fellowship, whose eyes had beamed kindly upon him when his heart was sad : now grim and motionless in the dark recesses around him. He liked to gaze upon them, and think of a re-union with the immortal spirits that had left them tenantless.
Surely that old man was sincere. "What more was the world to him than to the dead with whom he mingled ? What pleasures could life have to one whose capacity for earthly happiness had long since been destroyed by continued self-denial, by the tearing out from his heart of every unhid- den hope, by fasting and penance, and by all the sacrifices of light and sunshine that could turn inward the tide of thought ? B
26
A GIU A THROUGH SICILY.
What save the contemplation of the future ? Yet it seemed as if in his midnight watches he must sometimes feel unde¬ fined terrors check the flo w of his blood ; that the rustling of the night air among the folds of the shrouds, and the drop¬ ping asunder of skeleton forms ; the sudden grating of the doors, when moaning gusts of wind swung them open upon their hinges ; the dry rattling of fleshless jaws, the gnawing of bones by the vermin, the sepulchral gloom, must some¬ times startle him from his reveries like a coming solution of the dread mystery. Who can tell — not even himself — of all the strange thoughts that flit through his brain in the dreary watches of the night ; — what weird visions he sees of life brought back again into those ghastly corpses *5 what faint moans rise from out the darkness — moans for lives misspent, and never more to return upon earth ; wild bursts of anguish for errors that can never be retrieved, prayers for one drop of mercy before the day of eternal doom ! In these dread, dark hours, I thought how the cold sweat must gather upon his brow, and the strength forsake him, and the clammy grasp of the unseen hand— the skeleton hand that never relents for youth or beauty, for fame or virtue — draw tight around his throat, and make his breath come thick and short, and his eyes stare affrighted, like the sightless orbs of the dead along the walls.
From the conversation of the monk, I learnt that these catacombs are supported by contributions from the relatives of the deceased, who pay annually a certain sum for the pre¬ servation of the bodies. Each new-comer is placed in a tem¬ porary niche, and afterward removed to a permanent place, where he is permitted to remain as long as the contributions continue ; but when the customary fees are not forthcoming the corpses are thrown aside on a shelf, where they lie till the relatives think proper to have them set up again. Whole shelves are filled with skulls and bodies of the dead, put out of the way to make room for others of a more profitable character.
It might be supposed that the air of the catacombs is in some degree affected by the fresh bodies ; but this is not the
THE CATACOMBS OF PALEEMO.
27
case. There is no offensive odor, and the visitor would scarcely know, if he did not see them, that he was surrounded by the dead. I could perceive no difference in the atmosphere of these vaults from that of any other subterranean places, except a slight smell of mould, not altogether disagreeable. The fresh air is admitted from the top, and it is to its ex¬ treme dryness that the preservation of the bodies may be attributed.
CHAPTER, III
JOURNEY TO CATANIA.
Among the many curiosities of the city is an establishment for foundlings. The institution is designed to prevent infanti¬ cide. It is a large gloomy old building, in an obscure part of the town, and must be approached with circumspection lest the inhabitants of the neighborhood should indulge in erro¬ neous suspicions. I threw all the responsibility on my guide, however, and went to see it in open daylight. There is a hole in the wall large enough to admit a good-sized bundle, inside of which is a revolving machine, such as they use in post-offices for the delivery of letters, with four compartments, each large enough to hold a bambino. The unfortunate mother, who is either unable or unwilling to support her offspring, rolls it up in a small package, which she carries to the pigeon-hole at night, thrusts it in, gives the revolving baby-holder a turn, and departs with all possible speed. A bell is so connected with the machine as to arouse the nurses on the floor above. By pulling a string the whole establish¬ ment is whirled up aloft, and the jpiccola bambina tumbled out of the package into the arms of the matron, who duly in¬ spects it, labels it Angelo, or Francisco, or Antonio, as her taste may dictate, records the date of its admission in a register, its sex, &c. ; and so commences the foundling life ol the debutante. The mother is permitted to take it away whenever she chooses, hut it is seldom the little unfortunate is called for. What the moral effect of this institution is, it is not for an inexperienced person like myself to determine.
During my sojourn in Palermo I visited Morreale, a village situated on a hill, about three miles distant The chief object
JOUENEY TO CATANIA.
29
of attraction here is a very ancient church, in which may he seen some of the finest mosaic in Sicily, and a court contain¬ ing two hundred double columns, each different from the other. Among the pictures in mosaic is a representation of St. Paul in the act of pulling the devil out of somebody’s mouth ; to which one of the reverend padres pointed with a grim smile of triumph. I believe he suspected that I had something of the kind in me that could he extracted by hard pulling ; but I gave him a couple of carl ini, which seemed to afford him as much satisfaction as if he had extracted an en¬ tire nest of devils.
After a stay of four days, I took my post in a rumbling old diligence for Catania, on the southeastern side of the island. The distance is a hundred and seventy Sicilian miles from Palermo. It was late at night when we started ; for you must know that diligences in Sicily always make it a point to start at the most unseasonable hours. The pleasure of the trip was in no degree enhanced by the information, confidentially con¬ veyed to us by the conductor, when we asked him why we had a guard, that on the trip from Catania, just three days before, the diligence had been robbed ; that the mountains were infested with banditti, and we might consider ourselves fortunate if we reached Catania without broken heads. 1 had heard so much of the robbers in Italy, who were always somewhere else, that I had no great faith in those of Sicily ; but, inasmuch as all parties united in terrible stories of the bad character of the Sicilians, I thought there might be suffi¬ cient truth in it to be a little cautious ; so, having a very slim purse, I put it in my boots, and slept comfortably for the night — us much so at least as a person can when he has to hang on outside on the driver’s seat, for want of one in the interior. It was a bright moonlight night, and we jogged on pleasantly enough, up hill and down hill, and over rugged roads, and through dark, low, dirty-looking villages, till day¬ light broke, and the sun rose over the barren mountains with a refreshing warmth. That sun was welcomed most heartily by the whole company, for the mountain air had chilled us throughout ; and I am not sure but it would have found us
30
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
frozen stiff, had it not been that at each post we were roused into a fit of honest indignation at the inordinate demands of the postillions, hostlers, and guards. The postillions charged us half a cariin for driving us ; the hostlers charged half a carlin for putting the horses in ; the guards robbed us of half a carlin for preventing us from being robbed ; and the beggars begged the loose change from us, because they were in want of money, and thought they had a legitimate right to be paid for wanting it. Little boys begged as a matter of amuse¬ ment and education ; old women and old men begged, whether they were in need of funds or not, as a matter of example to the rising generation ; and after one party of beggars had chased us from the bottom of a hill up to the top, and done their very best in the way of hopping on crutches (which they only made use of for the occasion), there was another party ready to begin the moment we stopped, without the slightest reference to the labors of the first party, and when they were done wre were chased to the bottom of the hill by a third party, and so on to the end of our journey.
But the real beggars are tame and reasonable in their de¬ mands compared with the soldiers, postillions, and conductors who have charge of the diligence. With them it is a matter of right to fleece every unfortunate gentleman who places himself in their power. They live on him. He is meat and drink to them. His pockets are their pockets. He is a sort of gold mine into which they are continually digging. They explore him ; they find out how many precious veins he has ; and they insert their picks and shovels wherever the dust glimmers, and root it out with surprising perseverance. By the time he reaches the end of his journey he is dug clean out, and they turn their attention to other mines.
Let me warn the traveler who thinks of making the tour of Sicily, not to delude himself with the idea that when he pays for a seat in the diligence, or a seat outside of it, that he is done paying — that the owners thereof consider themselves under the slightest obligation to take him to his place of des¬ tination. You simply pay for the use of a foot or a foot and a half of cushion (according to your breadth of beam), and the
JOURNEY TO CATANIA.
31
contract is concluded. You may be left, as I was on the road to Syracuse, in the middle of the public highway, without horses or driver, an object of mingled wonder and derision to the inhabitants of a populous village — stared at as the man who wouldn’t pay ; ridiculed as the man who couldn’t go without horses ; abused in an unknown and abominable tongue, for refusing to be legitimately swindled ; and com¬ pelled, in the end, to give an additional huono mano for cre¬ ating the difficulty and losing temper. Good humor and small change are the only locomotive powers by which you can get on in Sicily. The one keeps you in a state of self- satisfaction ; the other greases the wheels, makes the whip crack, and the horses go. Depend upon it, you will never gain an inch by a rebellious spirit against customs which you can not change.
Of the character of the country in the interior of Sicily, I can only speak as it appeared to me in the month of October, after the parching heats of summer. The brilliancy of the skies and the salubrity of the climate at this season of the year can not be surpassed in any part of the world ; but I am not sure that it is the best season to enjoy the scenery. Cer¬ tainly the parched and barren aspect of the whole country gave me a very unfavorable opinion of the fertility of the soil, or the beauties of Sicilian scenery. Nearly the entire tract of a hundred and fifty miles lying between Palermo and Cata¬ nia is a perfect desert of rocky mountains and barren valleys, without water or trees, and nothing to indicate any means by which the inhabitants subsist, save here and there a miser¬ able-looking spot of terraced ground, scratched over, and dotted with the stumps of grape-vines. Yet they do live, and apparently without labor ; for, during my whole journey to Catania, I do not think I saw a dozen men at work. An in¬ telligent Italian, however, informed me that the land, though apparently so sterile, yields abundant crops when cultivated, and requires very little plowing. The villages throughout the interior are the dirtiest and most wretched-looking places imaginable ; filled with beggars and ragged idlers, and dilap¬ idated to the last habitable degree. Syria, or the Holy Land,
32
A GLRA THROUGH SICILY.
can scarcely furnish a more deplorable example of the decay of civilization in the old world than one meets with at every turn of the road throughout the interior of Sicily. It is almost impossible for the American traveler, accustomed as he is to progress and enterprise, and all their concomitant results, to comprehend the barbarous condition in which these poor people live. Passing through the villages at night, I saw many of them asleep on the road-side, without covering or shelter ; and the squalor and destitution of those who lived in houses surpass belief. Whole families are huddled to¬ gether in one wretched apartment, without beds or furniture, living in common with mules, goats, and swine, and about as cultivated as the brutes around them. Few that I con¬ versed with had ever heard of America, and even those who knew there was such a country, had no idea whether it was in China or in England. That such a state of things should exist in the nineteenth century, in a country once so highly civilized, and still boasting antiquities that excite the admira¬ tion of the world, is almost incredible.
The implements of agriculture, the rude and half-savage appearance of the people, the entire absence of the comforts of civilization, all bore evidence of the depressing effects of military rule. “ What object is there in these poor wretches endeavoring to benefit their condition ?” said my friend, the Italian, to me. “ What good will it do them to increase their crops, or build better houses, or educate their children ? The more they have, the heavier they are taxed ; they naturally think they might as well remain idle as labor for the support of a horde of brutal soldiers to keep them in a state of slavery ; and there is no incitement to education, for it only makes them the more sensible of their degraded condition. Yet it is not to be contended that they are fit for self-government ; all they need is a judicious and humane system of laws, which will afford them adequate protection against the errors and follies of despotic rulers. They are not deficient in capacity or industry, where they have any object in making use of their natural gifts. You see them now in a state of hopeless degradation and bondage.”
JOUUNEY TO CATANIA.
33*
While the Italian was talking, a Capuchin friar came to the door of the diligence to beg for the church. I thought my friend might have added some reflections on this branch of the subject, that would have shown more clearly the root of the evils under which the Sicilians labor ; but being a good Catholic he was silent I contented myself by giving the poor friar a baiocco, and making a sketch of his face as he stood waiting for the Italian to give him another. There was plenty of time to get a good likeness.
I said we started from Palermo at night. It is a journey of thirty-six hours to Catania, making just two nights and one day on the road. One would naturally suppose it would be quite as well to set out in the morning, and make two days and one night of it ; but these are among the unaccountable peculiarities of Sicilian travel.
Catania is a large town, containing a population of fifty thousand, many fine buildings, many soldiers, many churches and some of the finest convents in Sicily. The monastery of San Benedetto is the most extensive establishment of the kind I have yet seen. Here the monks, who are chiefly of noble families, live in royal style. If I had money enough, nothing would please me better than to adopt the cowl and sack, and become a brother in the monastery of San Benedetto. The building is a magnificent palace, ornamented with courts and fountains, gardens, pleasure-grounds, bowers for devotional exercises, splendid marble halls in the interior, suites of ele¬ gant apartments, pictures of all the saints, organs that fill the spacious chapels with a flood of solemn music ; statuary, mosaic, and voluptuous frescoes — all that can charm the senses and make glad the heart of monks. The wines are the choicest selections of the Marsala and. San NTicoloso brands ; the macaroni is the purest and richest ; the fish are the best
34
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
that can be fished out of the bay of Catania ; the chickens and capons, the salmis, the salads, the roast-beef and mutton are unexceptionable. They have their separate apartments; their servants, their private wines, their — hut it won’t do to be too particular. You know the brotherhood do not use these things — they are for the use of visitors. Perhaps with all their failings they are as good as most men ; and it must he admitted that no traveler can visit the convent of Monte Sanario or Yal Ombrosa, in Tuscany, or indeed any of the convents throughout Italy or Sicily, without a grateful sense of their genuine good-nature and hospitality. They are not soured by an ascetic mode of life, or misanthropic from their seclusion ; the world is open to them, and they enjoy it in a quiet way.
Close by the convent of San Benedetto is a female convent. I was not permitted to enter, having no friends there.
Six miles from Catania, on the road along the coast to Messina, is the group of rocks where it is said the Cyclopes were horn. They are called the Cyciopean Isles. I went up one forenoon to make a sketch of them. The weather was unpropitious ; and, after a glance at the rocks and a thorough drenching, I was compelled to return without the usual boat excursion to the grotto.
CHAPTER IV.
ASCENT OF MOUNT ETNA.
It is a good forenoon’s work to prepare for the ascent of Mount Etna. There are horses to he hired, bargains to be made, warm clothing to he put in readiness, provisions to he laid in, hrandy and cigars to he stowed away for the night ; and sundry other little matters to he attended to, if the ad¬ venturer designs spending the night on the mountain. My companion on the occasion was a young Englishman attached to the army at Malta, a very pleasant and gentlemanly traveling acquaintance ; he was anxious to see the sun rise from the summit of the mountain. To this arrangement I was opposed for several reasons : first, I had often seen the sun rise from the top of a mountain ; secondly, the season was late, and it is no pleasant journey over the beds of lava to the crater of Mount Etna in the middle of the night. But, inas¬ much as my friend had no recollection of ever having seen the sun rise from a mountain, I gave up, and agreed to be victimized.
The distance from Catania to the crater of Mount Etna is twenty-three miles ; the area of the base covers an extent of more than a hundred miles ; and the height, according to the most authentic French measurement, is eleven thousand four hundred feet above the level of the sea. It is generally covered with snow from October to June ; but, owing to an unusually fine autumn, we were fortunate in finding it entirely free from snow on the 10 th of October, and we after¬ ward learned that it remained so until the beginning of November. On the road from Palermo we made repeated inquiries as to the practicability of the ascent at this season ;
36
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
but it was not till we came in sight of it at a distance of forty miles that we could ascertain any thing satisfactory. In fact, nobody that we asked knew any thing about Mount Etna, or had ever heard of such a mountain — at least under that name. Some thought it must be in Italy, and others declared there was no such mountain. Our conductor knew it when he saw it, but he could not tell us two hours before when we would see it.
At two o’clock we sallied forth, duly mounted and capar¬ isoned. The animal upon which I rode was intended for a horse, I believe, but it bore very little resemblance to that noble animal. Had any body offered to bet me ten dollars that it wouldn’t drop before I got half way to San Nicolosi, I would have taken him up. Hosinante was nothing to com¬ pare with the bony, shaggy, sway-backed old charger that bore me out of the gates of Catania.
Immediately after leaving the suburbs of the town, the ascent commences, and it continues, more or less, the entire distance of twenty-three miles to the summit of the mountain. The road as far as San Nicolosi is tolerably good — the first part of it, to the fountain, being a public highway to the principal villages back of Catania. The devastating effects of the volcanic eruptions are visible every where on the road¬ side, and even below Catania the face of the country is black¬ ened with masses of the lava. The foundations of the villages along the sea shore for miles, the walls around the fields, the lanes and terraced grounds, are all formed of volcanic depos¬ its, and give a dreary aspect to the whole country ; hundreds of villages lie buried beneath the desolating streams that have poured from the crater in times past ; vineyards and olive groves, castles, villas, works of art, thousands of men, women, and children, lie mouldering under those fierce floods of ashes and lava. Other towns and villages have sprung up on the ruins ; thousands of living beings dwell in the same places, and look up every day with careless indifference at the smoking crater ; vineyards and olive groves are nour¬ ished from the bones of the dead. What matters it ? No¬ body believes there will be another eruption in his lifetime ;
ASCENT OE MOUNT ETNA.
37
and, if it comes, then it will be time enough to think of escape. So they live on in a happy sense of security ; and, if the climate permitted, no doubt the crater itself would be inhabited. Does any body refrain from traveling by railway because cars have run off the track ? Do the people of the West go in keel-boats because steamboats blow up ? Does a man abstain from going to the mines of California because his brother or friend has “ shuffled off the mortal coil” in a gold pit ?
Vineyards thrive in the lava of Mount Etna. The whole district of San Nicolosi, which has been covered a dozen times, and which will most likely be covered again the very first time old Etna rouses from his long siesta , and belches forth his fiery floods, is thickly inhabited , and doubtless would, if practicable, go on increasing and extending up toward the summit till it got into the regions of fire and brimstone.
The village of San Nicolosi is about two hours from Ca¬ tania. We reached the locanda , or inn, an hour or so before sunset ; and having nothing there to interest us, we cast about us for some means of passing the rest of the afternoon. The padrona, a good-natured, talkative fellow, informed us that there lived not far off one Senor Gemmellaro, who was a sort of conspicuous character in the neighborhood, and who spoke good English, and was always glad to see Englishmen and Americans — in short, that he could tell us a good deal about Mount Etna that would be of use to us. Encouraged by this piece of information, we set out, under the padrona’s guidance, to pay a visit to Senor Gemmellaro, who was at his villa outside the village.
A pleasant walk of half a mile through the narrow lanes that separate the vineyards of Nicolosi brought us to the gate of Senor Gemmellaro’s villa. Here we found collected forty or fifty merry damsels, with baskets on their heads filled with the grapes of the vineyard. It did our hearts good to see the merry sunburnt faces of these damsels, and hear their jovial voices as they sang their songs of gleesome labor. A happier looking set of beings I never saw, in their ragged dresses and brd ad-brimmed hats ; and I venture to say they were as
38
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
happy as they looked. These were the peasant girls of the country.
Senor Gemmellaro met us at the gate in the true spirit of a fine old country gentleman. “ I am very glad to see you,” said he, “ though I have hut little to offer you here. You see my country house there — a mere straw cabin, hut good enough for an old bachelor.” The cottage was indeed a cu¬ riosity. Robinson Crusoe never designed or inhabited any thing more picturesque. Pleasantly shaded by trees stood this rustic little wigwam, with its peaked straw roof and single door, and the inviting aroma of grape vines and flowers around it, and in front a laughing, dancing, buxom gang of country girls, full of life and fun, and apparently not at all disposed to work. “They are a very troublesome set,” said Senor Gemmellaro ; “ I can’t do any thing with them.” Then the old gentleman would laugh and shake his head at the girls : “ Ah, you young imps ; you think because I am a bachelor you can do as you please with me. Never mind, I’ll pay you up ; I’ll get a wife to keep you all in order.” Here the old gentleman would laugh again, until his eyes seemed ready to pop out of his head ; and the girls would laugh, and we laughed as a matter of politeness.
We went into the cottage, where we found the roof orna¬ mented with choice selections of grapes and various produc¬ tions of the villa. The old gentleman prides himself on a particular wine, which he makes with his own hands, to which he gallantly gives the name of “ Vino del Donna.” It is a wine peculiarly for the ladies ; and I must say it is the very best that could be devised for the delicate palate of the fair sex. Any lady who could drink two glasses of the Vino del Donna without experiencing an immediate inclination to accept of the first offer, must be possessed of an adamantine heart. The grapes are perfectly delicious — far superior to any we had tasted down in the lower country.
We learned from Senor Gemmellaro that the climate and soil of San Nicolosi are peculiarly adapted to the cultivation of the grape. Black and parched as the whole face of the country appears, it produces most abundant crops, and the
ASCENT OF MOUNT ETNA.
39
quality of the wine very far surpasses that of the Marsala region in richness and delicacy. Wealthy families often come up to spend the summer here, in order to enjoy the pure air and the delicious grapes and wines of the neighborhood.
The view from San Nicolosi over the valley of Catania is one of the finest in Sicily. Yineyards, white shining villas, groves of olive and almond trees, meadows, and ruins of half buried villages are spread out below in all the variegated hues of a living panorama, bounded by the glistening sea and the far-off hills of Syracuse. From the rustic observatory of our host we had a sunset view of this magnificent region that made an impression never to be effaced. Senor Gem- mellaro was delighted at the effect of his skill in rustic archi¬ tecture, and 1 have no doubt attributed the admirable man¬ ner in which the sun went down to the remarkable construc¬ tion of his observatory.
We walked back with him, after feasting ourselves on figs, grapes, wine, and scenery, to the village, where he took us into his old palazzo and showed us all the curiosities of the establishment. There wTere dogs innumerable in the yard, white rabbits and gray rabbits, squirrels, and cats, and rats, pea-fowl, and guinea-fowl, and all manner of fowl ; strange- looking things creeping on the ground and up the grape-vines ; old guns, and horns, and shot-pouches hanging under the piazza ; old vases to catch the rain, and antique columns starting up out of the ground in all directions. It was a strange, bachelor-like old place, with no sign of life about it save that of the strange animals that kept company with their old master. Yet he seemed to be happy, and to take a quiet pleasure in feeding his pets ; perhaps as much as most people do in feeding their wives.
The cabinet of Senor Gemmellaro contains a rich and won¬ derful collection of volcanic specimens ; lava in all possible forms ; some in the shape of snakes, lizards, and pigs ; others not unlike old castles, statuary, columns, and antique vases ; also coins of rare value, relics of Sicilian history, old papers and oid books, and a thousand curious things impossible to describe.
40
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
In his register of visitors were the names of some distin¬ guished travelers. I saw some few names of Americans of a recent date. Chief among those were Mr. E. Joy Morris and family, and Mr. Alexander Clements, of Washington, who made the ascent in company last spring a year ago ; and of a later date, I believe in May last, those of Professor Silliman and a party of friends, who had spent several days in a scien¬ tific tour in the neighborhood of San Nicolosi. The ascent of Mount Etna has been rendered much less difficult of late years than it formerly was, by the laudable exertions of Senor Gemmellaro in opening better mule paths, and removing many obstacles that formerly existed. All travelers unite in speaking highly of his hospitality and intelligence, and none will be disappointed in visiting his cabinet of volcanic curi¬ osities.
Naturalists make four divisions of soil and production be¬ tween the base of the mountain, commencing at Catania, and the summit ; the piedmonte , covering an extent of about eight miles, embracing villages, country residences or villas, vineyards and meadows ; the sebrosa, or nemorosa , five miles, producing pine trees and ilex, oaks, coarse grass, and wild flowers, but destitute of springs ; the scoperta, three miles in extent, mostly of sand and patches of wild plants ; and the deserta , three miles farther, extending to the summit, con¬ sisting almost entirely of lava, scoria, and ashes.
Down to the present period there have been seventy-five eruptions, twelve of which were prior to the Christian era. That of 1669 destroyed a great number of villages, and did great damage to Catania; but in 1693 occurred the great eruption, accompanied by earthquakes, which destroyed sixty towns, including Catania. The latest eruptions were those of 1831, ’32, ’38, and ’42. It is not my province, however, to go into a history of these convulsions of nature, and their causes and effects. They have been described at great length in the works of many learned travelers who have visited this region, though much yet remains to he written,
CHAPTER V.
THE CRATER.
At eight o’clock, after a good supper at the locanda , we set out lor the crater of Mount Etna. It was a mild, clear night ; the moon was in her prime, and the stars shone out like gems of crystallized light, without a single cloud to ob¬ scure their glorious radiance. Our horses being no longer available, I was reluctantly compelled to leave my favorite old charger and take a mule.
Oh, ye stars, which are the poetry of heaven, what omni¬ potent works ye revealed to us that night ! What still, shad¬ owy forests of gnarled old oaks, and yawning precipices of darkness unfathomable, opened to us as we toiled upward ; what ghostly mountains, and cities, and temples of blackened lava loomed through the shadowy distance ; what boundless valleys of mystic light lay outspread beneath us ; what a solemn stillness reigned over the slumbering earth ! Up, high over all, with its bare and grizzled cone, towered the smouldering crater, lonely and desolate, but mighty in its desolation. Where are the castles and palaces that once decorated the dim valleys in the depths below ? where are the boasted deeds of Roman and Saracen heroes ? where are the victors and the vanquished now ? where is all that the vaunted ambition of man has accomplished ? Not for human ken is it to penetrate the dim vista of centuries, and tell of all that lies buried beneath those dark floods ; not for all the records of the past to reveal the millionth part of their sad mysteries.
But I think I hear my friend, the Englishman, say, “ Sad nonsense all this ; Etna is a stunning place, to be sure ; dev¬ ilish high, devilish cold, and all that ; throws out an amazing
42
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
quantity of smoke now and then— didn’t do a bad job when it buried all those beggars of Romans and Saracens, to say nothing of the number of rascally Sicilians it has since cover¬ ed up. Nonsense — all fudge !”
In about three hours and a half from San Nicolosi we reached an old tree lying in a sheltered ravine, where the guides lit a fire and fed the mules. A very marked differ¬ ence was perceptible in the atmosphere at this elevation ; the cold was penetrating, though not apparently of great intensity. It was with difficulty we could keep our feet and hands warm, and maintain a healthy circulation of the blood ; but, after resting an hour or two, we pushed on.
From the oak forest we emerged into a region of scoria and lava, abounding in narrow and difficult passes, and of the wildest and most desolate aspect. The moon, which had thus far befriended us, now disappeared, and left us in almost utter darkness. It was surprising how the guides adhered to the path over the rough beds of lava ; often, as we thought, depending altogether upon instinct ; in many places there ap¬ peared to be not the slightest trace of a path. Huge masses of lava, over which we stumbled, deep gulches, and yawning precipices, all enveloped in gloom, threatened each moment to bring us up with a sudden check ; but we always contrived to keep on, winding round them, and into them, and through them, after the stalwart figure of old Pedro, who took the lead and never for an instant slackened his pace. How that man kept breath enough in his body to sustain life during so many years of hard climbing, I could never divine ; for, ac¬ customed as I was to exercise, I must say it made me puff not a little to keep pace with him for one night. The high¬ est bluffs, the roughest passes, the deepest chasms were all the same to old Pedro ; up he rose and down he went, some¬ times looming against the sky like a gigantic wizard of the mountain in his shaggy capote, sometimes sinking with rapid and steady strides into unfathomable depths ; now grasping the scraggy points of lava and lifting himself out of myster¬ ious pits ; now scrambling over precipices of scoria like a monstrous bear ; a moment after, astride of his mule, on some
THE CRATER.
43
lonely ledge of rock, ever toiling onward with the same noise¬ less, steady, unwearying tread. A weather-beaten, grizzled, manly fellow was Pedro, the guide ; rough as the winds, and rains, and smoke of old Etna could make him ; dirty and shaggy like his tattered capote ; but, with a strong pair of legs and an unflinching will (in the way of climbing), he had a childlike nature and a heart that filled well his capacious breast. As we neared the summit of the mountain the air became so rarefied and the cold so piercing that I felt as if there was not an ounce of blood in me, and it was only by hard walking I could keep up any thing like a circulation. “Pedro,” said I, “it’s getting mighty cold; don’t you think so ?” “ Si, signore, un jpoco—ma pilliare quest a” pulling off his capote. “ No, no, thank you, keep it on.” Pedro said nothing, but casting his capote around me, fastened it on in such wise that it was no use to struggle against his kindness : a moment after he was striding up on a ridge of lava, far above, looking like a great black giant that had come sud¬ denly out of the earth.
We reached the last station, or Casa degV Inglesa , about three o’clock in the morning. The cold was not so intense as I had often experienced before, but much more penetrating from the decreased power of resistance in the blood. My friend, the Englishman, who had ridden nearly all the way, was as stiff as a piece of buckram when he dismounted, though not disposed to admit that he felt at all “ uncomfortable.” There was not much in the Casa Inglesa to cheer us, save the shelter afforded by its dilapidated walls. Originally the house consisted of three rooms, a kitchen, and stable, but now the stable is in ruins, and we found but one of the rooms at all habitable. Into this we betook ourselves, with a couple of the mules that were half famished by cold and hunger ; and, thus quartered, awaited the proper time to commence our ascent to the crater. Pedro, taking pity upon us, broke off a piece of the door, which, together with a small contri¬ bution from the window-frame, and the remains of an old bench, made a very tolerable fire ; and if there had been a chimney we might have been rather comfortable. Wrapped
44
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
in the shaggy capote, I stretched myself on a piece of plank, and looking into the crackling pile, around which sat the guides and muleteers, moralized on the vaulting ambition of man which induces him to cross stormy seas and climb vol¬ canic mountains. Said I to myself (for the Englishman was lost in a cloud of smoke on the other side), Here you are, at three o’clock in the morning, ten thousand feet above the level of the sea, cold as a lump of ice, choking with smoke, with scarce a shoe on your feet or a coat on your back ; tossed and tumbled about till you hardly know what language you talk or where you belong ; now up on the top of Mount Etna to see the sun rise, and next to take a peep into the valley of Jehosaphat. And all for what ? Quein sabe , as the Span¬ iards say.
The Casa degV Inglesa is a small stone building, con¬ structed in the rudest manner, for the temporary accommoda¬ tion of travelers on the way to the crater. It is ten thousand feet above the level of the sea, and is of course uninhabited, being merely a place of shelter, without water or other ac¬ commodations by which life could be sustained m that remote
CASA DEGL’ INGLESA.
THE CRATER.
45
region. According to Senor Gemmellaro, it was built by bis father, the distinguished naturalist, in 1810, when the En¬ glish army occupied Sicily. It was originally intended that it should have attached to it an observatory, with all the in¬ struments necessary for determining the temperature and ob¬ serving the volcanic phenomena of Mount Etna ; but, owing to the want of suitable encouragement, this design was aban¬ doned. For many years past it has been repaired from time to time by Senor Gemmellaro entirely at his own expense.
The dawn of day began to lighten up the eastern horizon as we sallied forth, with our staffs and guide, from the solitary walls of the old Casa. All was black and craggy under foot, and the sharp gusts of wind moaned gloomily against the rugged masses of lava as we wound our way among them. Neither path nor trace was perceptible to us now, for the earth was covered with beds of dark lava ; yet onward strode Pedro, with the same sure and steady tread, looking neither to the right nor the left, and never for a moment stopping to search for the path. How many times he had gone up that mountain, by day and by night, when it was covered with snow and when it was wrapt in darkness, in sunshine and storm, from youth to the sere of manhood, not even himself could tell. A hard life it was at best ; up and down those dreary heights for more than twenty years ; a crust of bread or a bone now and then from some tender-hearted tourist to keep his spirits up, and a good many sunrises and sunsets to feed his imagination. That Pedro was a man of imagination was attested by the number of charms he wore to keep away the evil spirits that infest these lonely mountains, and if he had thoughts at all, what strange thoughts they must have been ! His whole world lay between San Nicolosi and the crater— -a very strange world in itself ; a world of burnt earth, of ashes, and lava, and sulphur, and smoke, of wondrous fires and earthquakes past, and eternal ruin and desolation in the future. What to others was the great event of a life was an every-day affair to Pedro ; in his heels he carried more practical knowledge of Etna than all the learned men of Europe carried in their heads. God speed that grim and
46
A G1RA THROUGH SICILY.
stalwart mountaineer ; may his last smell of brimstone be in this world, and bis last ascension be into that better one where there is everlasting rest for the weary !
From the Casa Inglesa to the highest crater occupies about an hour. The direct elevation is about fourteen hun¬ dred feet, but the winding of the path more than doubles the distance.
As daylight broke clear and broad over the still earth, and the eastern sky gleamed with the first rays of the rising sun, we reached the highest peak, and turned to look down into the vast depths below. The whole island was wrapt in an impenetrable mass of sleeping clouds ; covering mountain, and valley, and ocean as a mantle of mist, while not a shadow dimmed the bright sky above. It was thus upon the solitary cone of Etna, with the broad lucid firmament arched over us, and the vast sea of floating clouds outspread below, that there uprose before us a sublime picture of the shattered ark, as it rested of old amid the subsiding floods on the heights of Ararat, when the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped and the rain from heaven was restrained.
On the right and on the left yawned a vast crater, lined with banks of sulphur and ashes ; and from out the bowels of the earth came clouds of hot smoke, rolling upward till they vanished in the thin air ; and a thousand fissures around sent out jets of scalding steam, and smouldering fires seemed ready to burst forth and spread ruin and death under their seething floods of lava. And now, from the bed of clouds that rested on the deep, up rose the sun, scattering away the thin vapors that hung around his couch, and filling the air with his glorious radiance ; and the slumbering ocean of mist that lay upon the valleys upheaved under his piercing rays of heat and light, and gathered in around the mountain tops; and green valleys, and villages, and vineyards, and gleams of bright waters lay outspread in the calm of the morning, as it opened upon the shores and vales of Sicily. One gigantic shadow, the shadow of the mighty Etna, stretched across the lesser mountains below as far as the eye could reach ; and the valleys beneath it were still covered with clouds and the
THE CRATER*.
47
darkness within the shadow. Up rose the sun higher and still higher ; and now the floating vapors that rested upon the earth disappeared, and there was nothing left hut the bright glowing abyss of mountain and valley, bathed in his effulgent rays; for “ his going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it : and there is no¬ thing hid from the heat thereof.” There was not a breath of air to disturb the glittering sea ; ships lay motionless on its unruffled surface ; and on the shores glistened, like flakes of snow, the villages that were washed by its waters. Far in the distance the towering mountains of Calabria reared their rugged peaks, bounding the view toward the east ; to the north lay Messina and the rocks of Soy 11 a and Charybdis ; and stretching southward the coast swept under the base of the mountain ; its shores lined with villas and towns, and indented by the bays of Catania, Agosta, and Syracuse. Back toward the west lay the interior of Sicily, a desert of parched and barren hills, with scarce a tree or spot of verdure to re¬ lieve the sterility of the vast wilderness. And now, as we gazed entranced upon this scene of awful sublimity, the smoke rose up in heavy masses from the crater, and whirling around us with a sudden gust, shut out sea and earth, and filled the air with noxious gases ; and the sun had a lurid and ghastly glare through the gloom, and we thought the earth trembled. But soon the gust passed away, and left us unharmed amid the smouldering masses of ashes and sulphur.
My friend, the Englishman, considered the whole thing “ excessively fine ;” in which sentiment I heartily agreed with him, with the understanding, however, that it would require the simultaneous rising of the sun, and moon, and all the stars to get me up there again in the middle of the night ; a sentiment in which we both agreed, and thus compromising all previous diversity of tastes, we sat down in a comfortable bed of sulphur, and, warming our hands in a jet of steam, lit a couple of cigars, and smoked cosily with old Etna.
It is difficult, without any means of measurement, to give a correct idea of the extent and depth of the craters ; and, unfortunately, I have no books at hand from which to derive
48
A GIU A THROUGH SICILY.
the required data. The extent of the rim of the upper crater must be about three miles and a half ; the depth, as far down as the neck or narrowest part, perhaps three or four hundred yards. The nearest estimate we could make of the depth was by rolling down large pieces of lava, and listening to the reverberation made as they struck for the last time. We went down a short distance within the rim of the great crater to collect some volcanic specimens, but were soon driven back by the smoke. The sides are so precipitous that, to make any extended descent with safety, it would be necessary to be provided with ropes ; and then it could only be don& in very calm weather, when there is but little smoke. I am not sure whether this feat has ever been accomplished ; but, so far as I could judge, there is no reason why it should not. The crater of Mount Vesuvius has been explored by several daring adventurers, and there does not seem to be any greater difficulty in effecting the descent into that of Mount Etna. For that matter, indeed, it requires neither ropes nor ladders to get down ; start at the top and you are sure to get to the bottom ; but it might be found agreeable, after reaching the bottom, to have some means of getting up again.
Standing on the ridge between the two craters, where there is barely a foothold, I could not help thinking how short a time it would take to reach an entirely new and unexplored region. A little step, just a foot, would give a sufficient start ; and then what a sliding, and rolling, and skipping there would be ! what a whizzing through smoke and brimstone ! what visions of devils and fiery furnaces within the bowels of the earth ! The whole scene was worthy of Dante. It was ter¬ ribly infernal ; indeed I may say it was infernally so. Even old Pedro, as he stood wrapt in his shaggy capote, looming through the smoke, and peering over into the seething abyss, looked diabolical ; black and grim of visage he stood, as good a looking devil as ever walked upon brimstone. Now, I do not mean to speak lightly of a serious subject ; but I do think no person can visit the crater of Mount Etna without enter¬ taining a much more vivid idea of the lower regions than he ever had before. For my own part, I dreamt of nothing but
THE CRATER.
49
flames of sulphur, huge figures with cloven feet, and little dancing blue fellows with pitchforks all the next night, which I assure you, on my honor, was not the effect of a had con¬ science, hut altogether the result of the vivid impression cre¬ ated in viewing the crater.
We remained on the summit about two hours, enjoying all the changes of light and shade produced by the rising of the sun and the dispersing of the light clouds that rested in the lower strata of air. An entirely clear sunrise might have af¬ forded us a more extended prospect, hut we were satisfied it could not have presented such a magnificent combination of atmospheric phenomena. Some traveler speaks of having seen the Island of Malta with the naked eye from this point ; hut, although the weather was tolerably clear before we com¬ menced our descent, we saw nothing of it. It is quite pos¬ sible, however, and not at all improbable. The distance can not he more than a hundred and twenty miles — the nearest point of Sicily from Malta being about eighty miles ; and it is a common thing in Malta on any clear day to have a distinct view of Mount Etna. I have myself seen the Andes, in ap¬ proaching Callao, at the distance of a hundred and twenty miles. It is perhaps easier to see a great distance, looking upward through an atmosphere decreasing in density, wdiere there is a distinct outline, than downward through a less transparent medium, where there may he no outline. I have often seen land from the deck of a vessel when it could not be seen from the masthead. The Peak of Pico has been seen at the distance of a hundred and twenty miles, and the Peak of Teneriffe at a still greater distance.
Our descent to San Nicolosi was of course a good deal easier and rather more pleasant than the night’s journey up. With the mules it occupied very nearly the same time ; but I had become quite convinced that there wras a prejudice against me on the part of the whole mule species ; I had turn¬ ed involuntary somersets from divers mules ; I had been bit¬ ten at and kicked at by mules ; I had endeavored to befriend mules by leading them up steep hills instead of riding them, and they were always sure to pull hack and try to go down ;
0
50
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
I had attempted to lead them down hill, and they invariably insisted upon going up ; I had bought mules at three hundred dollars, that looked well on the morning of the purchase, but found they could not go by night, in consequence of be¬ ing foundered ; in sober truth, my talent did not lie in the navigation or management of mules ; so I walked. A walk down Mount Etna includes a slide of about a mile from the edge of the crater, which I must tell you about.
Commencing near the crater is a steep bank of ashes and cinders, extending nearly to the Casa Inglesa, by which the trip is made with a locomotive speed quite delightful. Peep¬ ing over the brink of the precipice, you enter into a calcula¬ tion as to the probability of having your limbs dislocated, in case you should strike some unseen rock ; and about the time you become satisfied that a leg or an arm must be sacrificed, there rises a dust some hundred yards below, and you see a large dark body bouncing down like a man of India rubber, scattering cinders and ashes before it, and yelling like a demon. Away it goes, rising and jumping and tossing, till it looks like a great black bird hopping down into the gulf of lava below, dwindling as it goes, till you see nothing but a dark speck. Then down dashes another and another, and you see that it must be old Pedro leading the way, and the stragglers fol¬ lowing. Committing yourself to Providence, you draw a long breath and jump over too ; and then, Per Baccho , how you go ; up to your ankles in cinders, ten feet every jump ! The wind whistles through your hair ; you half shut your eyes to keep out the dust that has been raised by the guides ; you shout like a drunken man, without knowing why, Hurra ! glorious ! splendid traveling this ! hold me somebody ! stop me, Pedro ! by Jupiter there goes my hat ! I knew it couldn’t stay on ! for heaven’s sake belay me ! It is no use, nobody will belay you ! There you go, faster and faster at every jump, till you don’t know which end will come out first. Now you bet ten to one that your feet will win the race ; now a hidden mass of lava brings them up with a sudden jerk, and you’d lay heavy odds on the end of your nose — yes, the nose must win ; you feel the premonitory jar as it nears
THE CRATER.
51
the end of the track ; terror seizes your soul ; you jump des¬ perately ten, twenty, thirty feet at every bound, twisting yourself back in the air like a cat ; you vow in your agony of mind that you will never drop poor puss over the bannisters again in order to see her land on her feet : another leap, an¬ other twist does it ; your feet are in the air, and you go sail¬ ing down gallantly on the seat of your breeches. Hurra ! clear the track, there ! don’t stop me ! glorious ! splendid ! Here we are, Pedro, all right ; keep a look out for my hat, it’ll be down here presently ! Bless my soul, what a slide that was !
Emerging from the oak forest, three hours below, the view in the noon-day sun is beautiful beyond description. The whole semi-circle of valleys and mountains, villages and vineyards, as seen through the vistas of dark foliage, seems hung in the golden atmosphere like some magnificent scenic illusion ; bright and glowing, and full of rich coloring. The tinkling of the goat-bells from the rocks below, the songs of the shepherds, and the mellowed sounds of life from the dis¬ tant valleys, rise upon the still air like the murmuring of dreamy music ; and around about us the earth was fragrant with wild flowers ; and the gnarled old oaks made a pleasant shade.
52
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
In due time we reached the locanda , at San Nicolosi, where we enjoyed a good wash and a dinner that did great honor to the padrone. We called again upon Senor Gem- mellero, to give in our experience ; and, having satisfactorily acquitted ourselves in the way of buono manos to the guides and domestics, we set out toward evening for Catania. This time my old charger acquitted himself to the admiration of the entire community, local and migratory, between San Ni- colosi and Catania. Falling asleep at the very first step, he dropped his head between his fore legs and his tail between his hind legs, and, thus comfortably indifferent to public opinion, jogged on at so sleepy a pace that it was a miracle how we ever reached Catania. Such indeed was the force of example, and the striking pictorial effect of both horse and rider, that the venerable muleteer — a fat old gentleman of fifty, who rode behind — fell into a fit of musing, from which he gradually fell into a pleasant doze, and from the doze he fell into a profound sleep ; then he swayed from one side to the other, and bobbed down in front and bobbed back again, and then started out of horrible dreams ; and nodded again, and fell asleep again as hard as ever ; and at last, as I had prophe¬ sied from the beginning, fell off* his mule. Down in the dust he lay for as much as two minutes in a state of mute aston¬ ishment. “ Sacramento /” said he, getting up and shaking the dust off, as soon as he found that no bones were broken ; “ Accidenta , Donna Maria , Santa Sophia And, climbing up again on the mule, he belabored the unfortunate animal with such vigor and good will that it danced Sicilian waltzes all the rest of the way into Catania.
CHAPTER VI.
A QUARREL WITH THE ANCIENTS.
There is not much to be said of Catania in addition to what is said in the guide-books. It is a dirty, shambling old place, a good deal like all other towns in Sicily, and owes any interest that it may now possess to its history. Here it was that Polyphemus and his Cyclopes had their local habita¬ tion ; here was the port of Ulysses ; and Thalia and her sons, the Palici, were of Catanian memory ; and here dwelt suc¬ cessively the Egyptian shepherds, the Sicanians, and the Romans, and the Saracens, and the Normans, and heaven knows how many other useless and quarrelsome people, who did nothing but build temples and churches and kill each other. Mount Etna was not half so cruel as these cut-throat races, whose deeds are blazoned forth in history for the ad¬ miration of mankind. Not all the burning lava that ever desolated the plains of Sicily has done a hundredth part of the killing so gloriously done by the blood-thirsty hordes that slew their fellow-creatures on these very plains. Every ruin, every column, every moss-covered stone is a history of ferocious wars. The cathedrals and crucifixes are baptized in blood, and the tombs of the slayers of men are worshiped.
The flames of Etna were not enough ; famine and pesti¬ lence were too slow ; so the great warriors of old swept whole tribes from the face of the earth, and built grand cathedrals, and temples, and amphitheatres, and aqueducts, and public baths, and reigned in triumph till greater warriors slew them, and razed their churches, and temples, and fine edifices ; and history glorified them in turn, and they did great deeds in turn, and were slain.
54
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
It was civilization, all this. "We know it, because we see the broken statuary and the ruins of palaces and war-battered castles that tell us of their deeds ; and we are told that such things could not be done in the present benighted state of art and architectural knowledge. There was Homer, and Yirgil, too, to sing the glories of war ; and there was Thucydides and a thousand others to make killing mighty in the world’s history ; and even the mist of centuries has not obscured the deeds therein described. And those heroes are still worshiped. The precious years of youth are spent in the study of these dark histories ; thousands who scarce can write their mother tongue are taught to chant the glories of war in the dead languages, that they may be versed in the bloody lore of classic times. Oh, wondrous people ! Oh, mighty kings and chieftains ! Listen to a few plain facts. I am going to ad¬ dress you solemnly in your tombs, and post you up concerning the nineteenth century. Tourists have so long sung your praises that I mean to make a martyr of myself by telling you the truth.
It is quite true, as enthusiastic travelers say, that your temples, and castles, and palaces are splendid specimens of architecture ; that your baths are on the grandest scale ; that your statuary is wonderfully beautiful ; that you lived in a style of magnificence unknown to the people of the present day, except through your poets and historians ; that all the relics of antiquity you have left us bear evidence of great power and extraordinary skill. But you were a barbarous peo¬ ple at best. The very splendor of your works is an evidence of your barbarism. "What oceans of money you spent on palaces, and tombs, and mausoleums ! What an amount of human labor you lavished in doing nothing ! If the Pyramids of Egypt were ten miles high instead of a few hundred feet, would the world be any the better for it — would the mass of man¬ kind be more enlightened, or more virtuous, or more happy ? If the Coliseum at Home had accommodated fifty millions of people instead of fifty thousand, would it have taught them the blessings of peace and good government, or disseminated useful knowledge among them? If all your palaces were
A QUARREL WITH THE ANCIENTS.
55
built of pure gold instead of marble, would it have caused the thousands of human beings that you were continually embroiling in war to entertain a more fraternal spirit toward each other ? True, we go to war now and then ourselves in this the nineteenth century ; but it is not the chief business of our lives ; we do something else that is better. "We don’t build pyramids and coliseums, but we build railroads. The smallest steamboat that paddles its way up the Hudson is greater than the greatest monument of antiquity, and does more to promote the civilization and happiness of mankind ; the wires of our electric telegraphs carry more power in them than all the armies you ever brought into battle. And, for the matter of magnificent temples, if we had the time and money to waste, we could erect, for the amusement of kings, and women, and children, toys a great deal bigger and quite as useless. Your literature, your poetry and arts, only show how much the gifts of God may be perverted to bad purposes. War, and murder, and rapine, lust and bestiality, are the chief subjects of inspiration in what has been handed down to us ; yet we are asked to bow down to you with a blind adoration ! You had your merits and your weaknesses, just as we have ; the greatest of you had as much littleness as the greatest of us now ; you were just as weak, just as mor¬ tal, and a great deal more ignorant. Feasting, and fighting, and toy-making made you distinguished. We will profit by your follies, and endeavor to earn a name in ages to come by encompassing the earth with the blessings of freedom and civilization.
It is very unkind, I admit, to talk to dead people in this way ; but the fact is, one must let off a little indignation now and then. Of late I have been traveling with a friend so overcharged with admiration for the antique, and so deeply imbued with classical literature, that it is quite a relief to be revenged by an explosion. I have patiently endured broiling in the burning sun that he might enjoy an old stone with an illegible inscription on it, and walked for miles in search of tombs under which were buried men whose names I had never heard before ; I have listened for hours to learned dis-
56
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
courses on the wars of the Greeks and Romans, in which, to be candid, I felt no interest whatever ; for what consequence was it to a peaceful wayfarer like myself — simply an honorary General in the Bobtail Militia — how many were killed on certain occasions, or who were the best cut-throats of ancient times ? All this I have done from the purest good-nature. But now the remembrance of roasting suns, and long walks for nothing, and longer discourses, and lost dinners, comes upon me with such force that I must have some satisfaction. Yea, have I not seen men prate learnedly about Titian, and Rubens, and Guercino, who scarce knew red from blue ; and young ladies go into ecstasies over a splendid Corinthian col¬ umn, which was Doric, or an antique fresco which was painted about a dozen years ago ?
We were overtaken at Catania by a Portuguese gentleman and his wife, fellow-passengers in the Neapolitan steamer from Naples to Palermo. Doctor Mendoza was a man of the world and a philosopher, and we were very glad to join him in an extra diligence to Syracuse. He was rich in worldly possessions, and, like a good many tourists whom we had met, traveled chiefly to kill time and hunt up the best hotels. There was no good hotel on the top of Mount Etna, so he staid at the “ Corunna,” in Catania ; “because,” said he, “I can see Mount Etna from my window.” Having ascertained that there was a good hotel at Syracuse, he concluded to go ; and he kindly entertained us on the road with a detailed ac¬ count of the hotels through Germany, Switzerland, Poland, and Russia, dwelling with particular enthusiasm upon the style in which they get up hotels in St. Petersburg. He had been traveling constantly for three years in search of good hotels ; if he had any guarantee that there were hotels in Athens and Jerusalem he would go there, but had not yet made up his mind to run so great a risk. The interest of a country depended altogether upon the excellence of its hotels. It was a matter of surprise to me how a man should go to so much expense to find comfortable accommodations in uncom¬ fortable countries, when he could have found them so much better and so much cheaper at home or in Paris. Nor was
A QUARREL WITH THE ANCIENTS. 57
my Portuguese friend alone in this mania for good hotels. I have seen English tourists, and I am sorry to say some Amer icans, made perfectly miserable by being compelled to pass the night in a respectable country inn, where the accommo¬ dations were not so good as those of the Parisian hotels.
c*
CHAPTER VII.
ADVENTURES ON THE ROAD TO SYRACUSE.
The morning was bright and bracing as our diligence rat¬ tled out of the streets of Catania, our little postillion as sparky as a red-bird in his jacket and feathers ; our conductor as sleepy as conductors usually are, and our horses as long and lean and full of latent fire as the diligence horses of Sicily are in general. The road for seven or eight miles was along the shores of the bay over a low plain, passing a few scatter¬ ing farm-houses and some of the battle-fields famous in the history of the early Sicilian wars. About seven miles from Catania we crossed the river Simeto, the largest, I believe, in Sicily. The plain through which the Simeto runs is of great extent, and abounds in fine meadow lands. Numbers of thatched cottages, of conical shape like hay-stacks, are scat¬ tered along the banks of the river, having a very peculiar and picturesque effect. We all dismounted at the ferry, and were ferried across in a dilapidated boat, which miraculously reached the opposite bank without sinking. The road now turned slightly inland, over rough barren hills, passing near Lake Beviero, or the Lake of Lentino, a pretty little fish-pond, till we reached the town of Lentini, where the horses are changed. Lentini is the modem name of Leontinum, once ranked among the most powerful cities of Sicily. It possessed in olden times handsome temples, rich public edifices, a pal¬ estra, and various works of art, but was laid waste during the wars ; and now scarcely a trace remains of its ancient grandeur. It is a wretched collection of dirty dilapidated houses, with a population of filthy and half-barbarous peas¬ antry.
ADVENTURES ON THE ROAD TO SYRACUSE.
59
Here commenced that series of calamities to which I have already incidentally referred. Eighteen miles in the bracing morning air had given ns a ravenous appetite. The Hotel de Parigi was recommended by our driver as the best in the place, and although it bore very little resemblance to any thing we had ever seen in Paris, being about as black and dirty a looking locanda as could well be found in Sicily, we ascended through the hostlery to a large bare room, with a table in the middle, and half a dozen wooden chairs ranged round the walls, and called for qualche com mangera — in plain English, something to eat. The padrona, a sour-looking woman, eyed us with a speculative glance, having reference to the size of our purses, and said : “ We have nothing but eggs and bread, signores ; the meat has been devoured by a party that have just gone ahead.” “ Very well, then,” said we, “ let us have the eggs and bread as soon as possible.” In about half an hour we had a scanty collazione of fried eggs, to which we did as much justice as the subject permitted. “ Now, pa¬ drona, what is to pay ?” “ What you wish, signores.” “ No,
no ; you must fix your own price.” “ Then, as you have had nothing but eggs and bread, we will only charge you two dollars.” “ Two dollars ! why that is impossible. We have only had a dozen eggs and a little bread !” “ Well then, say
a dollar and a half ; that is very little for four persons, sig¬ nores.” We paid the dollar and a half, and considered our¬ selves very cleverly done. As we were about to leave, our hostess reminded us of another small charge— three carlins for the room. “What !” said we, in an honest fit of indig¬ nation, “ do you mean to say we are to pay for the privilege of eating your miserable collazione in this barn of a place ?” “ Of course, signores, you have had the use of the room.” “ Very true, but did you think we were going to eat out of doors ?” “By no means, and that is the reason why I charge you for the accommodation of the room.” It was no use to argue against a system of reasoning so cogent .as this ; the postillion was calling to us to come on ; so we paid the three carlins for the use of the room. Passing out, we were at¬ tacked by a dirty cuisine, who demanded a trifling remuner-
60
A G1RA THROUGH SICILY.
ation for her services. “Please your excellencies, I cooked breakfast for you !” “ The deuce you did ! how do you sup¬
pose we could eat it unless it was cooked ? Are people in the habit of eating breakfast raw at the Hotel de Parigi ?” “ No, signores, I cook it for them, and they always give me something for my trouble.” It was no use to rebel ; the cook hung to us like a leech, and it was only by paying her three carlin s that we could extricate ourselves from her clutches. “ Thank Heaven, we are done now !” was our involuntary exclamation, as we made our exit. “ Aspetto , signores,” said a voice behind, “you have forgotten th e facchino.” “The what ?” “ The porter, gentlemen.” “And pray what have
you done for us ?” “I attend to the baggage, signores.” “ But we have no baggage here ; it is all in the diligence.” “ Ah, that makes no difference ; I could have carried it for you : I must live, you know, and this is all the pay I get to support a large family.” The claim was irresistible ; we re¬ belled at first, but it was no use, the facchino followed us till we had to give him a few baiocci to get rid of him. “Well, this beats Italy all hollow,” was our unanimous conclusion, as we took our respective seats in the diligence, and began to enjoy the luxuries of sunshine and cigars, after the storm through which we had passed. “ Buono mano ,” said our small postillion. “For what, you rascal?” “For driving you.” “But you did not drive us ; you were asleep all the time ; we won’t pay you !” However, we did pay him, after a great deal of talking. “ Drive on now,” shouted the Englishman. “ Andate!” roared the Portuguese. “Go ahead,” said I. “ Aspetta , senores,” cried the hostler ; “ buono mano for the hostler.” We threw the hostler a few carlins, and shouted, “Drive on, andate! go ahead again!” “Aspetta 7” cried the hostler, “ this is an extra diligence ; extra diligences are always double price. Besides, it is two posts from Catania, and you have only paid for one change of horses.” “ Diabo- lo ,” roared the Portuguese, “ we have only had one change, and that has just been put in now.” “ Stunning business this,” said the Englishman. “ Done brown !” said I. “ True, senores, but you must pay for the half-way post.” “ There
ADVENTURES ON THE ROAD TO SYRACUSE.
61
is no post there, you scoundrel — no horses— nothing at all !” “ Da verro , signores, but these horses have done double duty; so they must be paid for, or they can’t go on !” This was too bad. “ Cospetto /” shrieked the Portuguese. “Exces¬ sively annoying !” said the Englishman. “ Great country !” said I — “ great country, gentlemen !” We unanimously de¬ termined that we would not pay for changing horses, when no such change was made. “ Go to the devil with your horses, then ; we won’t pay a cent more.” “ Va bene , se- nores !” replied the hostler, very coolly unhitching the horses, and leading them off to the stable. “ I’ll go to the devil to oblige you, signores ; but I can’t go to Syracuse till the half¬ way post is paid for. You will have to go on without horses, that’s all.”
Here was a predicament ! The inhabitants of the classi¬ cal city of Lentini were pouring down from all the neighbor¬ ing streets to see the diligence that was bound to Syracuse without horses. Matrons with children in their arms held up their precious babes to see the sight ; piratical-looking fellows gathered around and examined us with a deliberate and spec¬ ulative stare ; the little boys shouted merrily, and called the attention of all straggling acquaintances to the pole of the diligence that pointed toward Syracuse, but wouldn’t pull for want of horses ! What was to be done ? Go to the Mayor ? Perhaps there was none, and if there was, who knew the way ? “ Senores,” said the hostler, in a soothing tone, per¬
ceiving our distress of mind, “ you had better pay me, and allow me the pleasure of putting the horses in.” We con¬ sidered the advice, and took it. It was rather humiliating to our feelings; but we were hemmed in with difficulties on all sides ; in vain we looked round upon the crowd ; not a sympathizing face was there ; not a soul to pity us in our misfortunes. The pervading sentiment seemed to be — “ Hit ’em again ! they’ve got no friends !” There was one universal shout of laughter as the postillion cracked his whip, and drove us rattling out of Lentini. I turned to look back as we as¬ cended the hill, and caught a glimpse of the hostler, who was still bowing to us with the utmost gravity and politeness. If
62
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
ever I meet that man on Pennsylvania avenue, it is my set tied intention to do him personal violence.
As to the sparky little postillion who drove us so furiously out of Catania, and who afterwards fell asleep when there was nobody on the roadside to admire his driving, I have him safe enough. Here he is. Public indignation is respectfully solicited :
The individual mounted upon that horse, swindled us out of two carlins. What he did with so much money it would be impossible to say ; he may have put it in his boots for safe keeping; but he certainly could not have deposited his ill- gotten gains in his coat-pockets. I only know that we paid him the sum above specified for doing certain duties that he never performed ; and that implicit confidence is not to be placed in a man simply because he wears a feather in his hat,
ADVENTURES ON THE ROAD TO SYRACUSE. 63
a jacket with red cloth embroidery and small tails, and a pair of top-boots, big enough to bury him in when he dies.
From Lentini to Syracuse the distance by the public road is twenty-four miles, making the entire distance from Catania forty-four miles. After leaving the valley of the Simeto, the country becomes barren and rugged, and there is very little to attract the attention of the traveler. What the appear¬ ance of the country may be in spring I had no means of as¬ certaining ; but certainly a more desolate picture of poverty and barrenness I never saw than it presents in the month of October. Naked hills of parched earth and bleak rocks ; a few miserable vineyards, either entirely without fencing, or surrounded by ragged hedges of prickly pear ; villages rudely built of stone, without shade or comfort, and in a wretched state of ruin ; an occasional mule with a load, driven by a man of beard and rags ; a gang of beggars, as voracious as a pack of wild beasts ; here and there a half-naked and with¬ ered woman, with the rough features of a man, scratching the ground with a hoe, or tottering under a heavy burden, while her husband lies basking in the sun ; litters of dirty chil¬ dren rooting in the mud, without covering of any kind— these are the sights that one sees on the road to the ancient City of the Sun, the abode of gods whose shrines no longer burn.
In a few hours from Lentini we had a good view of the Cape St. Croce and the town of Agosta. Giovanni Power, whose “ Guida di Sicilia” I have now before me, says of Agosta that it is supposed to have risen out of the ruins of Megara, and Megara from those of the little Keybla. It was there, according to Herodotus, that the people were sold at auction, in the time of Gelon.
From an eminence, as we approached Syracuse, we had a very pretty view of Ortigia, the only inhabited part of the ancient city. It is built on an island connected to the main land by a long pier and a bridge, and strongly fortified by high walls, forts, and castles.
The number of gates, bridges, fortified arches, and vaulted passages through which one is driven before he can fairly consider himself within the walls of Ortigia quite surpasses
64
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
all powers of computation. "When the diligence stopped at one of the outer gates, we were carefully inspected by a couple of officers, in flashy uniforms and feathers, who politely request¬ ed us to allow them the pleasure of looking at our passports. One stood a little in the background, with pens, ink, and paper in his hand : he was evidently a subordinate character, notwithstanding the brilliancy of his plumage, which, from a hasty estimate, I calculated to consist of the tails of three game-cocks ; the other was a portly man, of grave and dig¬ nified demeanor, rich in tin buttons and red cloth epaulets, and with a mustache that would have done credit to the Governor himself ; in fact, I thought at first that he was the Governor, so imposing was his personal appearance. The
passports he opened slowly and cautiously, either from habit¬ ual contempt of the value of time, or a latent suspicion that they contained squibs of gunpowder ; and at last, when he had fairly spread them out, with the signatures inverted, he carefully scanned the contents for five minutes, and then calmly addressed us, in bad Italian ; “Your names, Signores, if you please.” Our friend the Portuguese, being the oldest, was accorded the privilege of speaking first. “ My name,
ADVENTURES ON THE ROAD TO SYRACUSE.
65
Signor, is Mendoza, and this lady is my wife.5’ “ G-razia, Signor.” Then, turning to the subordinate. “Put that down- — Men-z-z-a. Va bene .” After some other questions as to profession, place of nativity, &c., he turned to the En¬ glishman, “Your name, Signor?” “Mine? My name is Norval : on the Grampian hills my father feeds his flocks, a frugal swain” — — “Excuse, Signor, what did you say? “ Smith, John Smith, if you like it better !” “ Va bene , Sig¬
nor; put that down : Giovanni Smiz; no, Semmit — Giovanni Semmit.” The man with the tails of the game-cocks in his hat put it down. “And your name, Signor?” turning to your humble servant. “ Sir,” said I, with a dash of honest pride in the thought that I was giving a name known in the remotest corners of the globe, “ My name is Brown-— John Brown, Americano, General in the Bobtail Militia.” “ Gra- zia ! Signor,” sffid the officer, bowing, as I flattered myself, even more profoundly than he had bowed to my friend John Smith. “ Put that down — Giovanni Brovvenni.” “ Brown !” said I; for I had no idea of having an honest name so barbarously Italianized, “ Si, Signor, Bruvven ,” “ No !” said I, sternly, “ not Bruvven- — Brown, Sir.” “ Si, Signor— Bruin.” “ No, Sir !” said I, indignantly, “ do you take me for a bear, Sir ? My name’s Brown, Sir.” “ Oerto, Signore, Bruin !” And Bruin was written down by the fea¬ thered man ; and so stands my name to this day in the offi¬ cial archives of Syracuse— Giovanni Bruin, or John Bear.
After this pleasant little passage of official dignity and governmental wisdom, we rattled on over a drawbridge ■, and under an arch, and through half a dozen gates, and up a long pier, and through some more gates, and finally into Or- tigia, or modern Syracuse, where we rattled through an in¬ terminable labyrinth of narrow and dirty streets, our postillion alternately cracking polkas with his whip, and blowing his brains through his horn, scattering the astonished inhabit¬ ants in all directions, and running over lazy dogs in his mad career. At last we brought up near the Hotel del Sole , where we were dragged out of the diligence by a whole regi¬ ment of ragged facchini , and piloted into the dark recesses of the Sole by the bald-headed Padrone.
t
CHAPTER VIII.
SYRACUSE.
At this hotel (the Sole) we were so fortunate as to secure the services of a guide, who was not only an accomplished cicerone, but an artist of considerable merit, and the author of a work on the antiquities of Syracuse. I have forgotten his name, hut any body who visits Ortigia can not fail to recognize him in the elegant person of a young man, a little blase in his manners, who lounges gracefully about the Sole, and does things up as valet de yplace with the resigned air of a gentleman of broken fortune, who has been reduced to the necessity of bartering his classical knowledge and personal services for the contemptible sum of one dollar per diem. He will converse with you on art and history, point out to you all the antiquities of Syracuse, sell you his pictures, attend to your passport, carry your umbrella, see that your hoots are blacked, and go of messages — all for the miserable pittance of a dollar a day ; and if you like he will go with you to the opera, and tell you the history of the prima donna and of each of the chorus-singers individually. For my part, I took it as rather a compliment that so fashionable a looking man should be seen in my company, and, notwithstanding the horror and disgust of my young English friend, always invited him to join us in a cigar or a glass of wine, and felt quite happy when he sate with us in a public cafe, sipping the nero with a languid air, or dallying elegantly over a glass of ice-cream at my expense.
In America one would be ashamed to exact menial services of so accomplished a gentleman ; but in the old world it is so common as not to attract attention, except from strangers. Indeed, we republicans are much more stiff and haughty to-
SYRACUSE.
67
ward our subordinates than the Germans or French, and quite as much so as the English. Sometimes it is such a relief to be natural and kind that I try it for variety. The other day, up in Austria, I was caught by a party of friends in the act of drinking beer with our hack-driver, a very jolly, respectable old Dutchman ; but, from the disdainful manner in which they refused to join us, I felt exceedingly mortified about it, and resolved never to be good-natured again. The very same evening, walking in one of the public gardens, I met a former guide, with whom I thoughtlessly sat down to have a cup of coffee, and was in the act of being perfectly happy when my friends discovered me again, and this time they showed such decided symptoms of disapprobation that I vowed never to be sociable any more. Shortness of funds compelled me soon after to take passage in the third-class cars, where I was ter¬ ribly afraid some one would see me — some American or En¬ glishman, I mean, because I knew nobody else would be distressed about it. There was a respectable-looking man on the next seat who spoke English. He was very chatty and agreeable, and it was quite a consolation to find so intel¬ ligent a man in the same reduced circumstances. We talked very pleasantly for some time, when he informed me that his master was in the first-class ; that the said master was a countryman of mine. I was terribly mortified, of course ; there was that lonely and high-minded man in the first-class, and I, with the most ambitious aspirations, in the third-class with his courier. However, it was some comfort to think that I had passed my time pleasantly so far, and had received all the information for which the lonely man in the first-class was paying a dollar a day, besides the courier’s expenses.
But this is a sad habit I have fallen into of rambling off from the main subject. I believe I was in Syracuse.
Now, if ever a man tried hard to get up some enthusiasm about a place that he had read of with wonder and admira¬ tion in early youth, I tried it in Syracuse. I went down into the ancient baths, and suffered damp and chilling airs with¬ out seeing any thing but subterranean passages and uncom¬ fortable holes ; through miles of ancient catacombs I roamed without one sentiment of admiration for the mighty dead who
68
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
were no longer there ; hones I picked up, but they looked so like common bones that I threw them down again : it was no use ; the enthusiasm wouldn’t come. As for the amphi¬ theatre at Neapolis, it is just like any other amphitheatre, only less perfect than those of Italy. The ancient aqueduct is in so dilapidated a state that scarcely a vestige remains. The Ear of Dionysius is one of the few things worth seeing. It is a large excavation in solid rock, where it is said Diony¬ sius the Second imprisoned his victims, and amused himself listening to their groans. The reverberation in this cavern is so great, owing to some peculiarity in the construction, that the tearing of a piece of paper produces a loud report. There are other excavations in the vicinity, of great size and extent, formerly used as prisons, but now occupied by rope-makers, which is much better. If Dionysius himself had turned his attention to the manufacture of ropes, he might have deserved hanging less, and have enjoyed a better reputation in history. The museum in Ortigia contains a very scanty collection of antiquities, dug out of the ruins of Syracuse. The chief at¬ traction is the broken statue of Venus, which is a very beau¬ tiful work of art, and justly admired. Very little remains of ancient Syracuse except the excavations from which the stone was taken to build the city. Some of, these are occupied by a miserable population of outcasts, who seem to have no
SYRACUSE.
69
houses or means of living, and prey upon travelers for the wretched pittance by which they support life.
The whole region around Syracuse is rocky and desolate, and so little remains of its ancient grandeur that it requires a warm imagination to invest it with sufficient interest to re¬ pay a visit. It is difficult to conceive how a city that once contained a population of two millions should be reduced to such utter ruin : now a mere hill-side of quarries and a dirty little town with a population of seventeen or eighteen thou¬ sand. Where the land was to support such a population, or the port for such a commerce as they would have required, is a mystery that can not be solved by any evidences now exist¬ ing ; and the probability is that history in this instance, as in many others, has greatly exaggerated the facts.
Some distance from the gates of Ortigia, on an eminence, is an old convent, and near it the cemetery in which lie buried the remains of two Americans — one a young midship¬ man, killed in a duel, and the other a gunner. We visited their graves, and took copies of the inscriptions placed upon their tombs by some kind shipmates. It was sad, in a for¬ eign land, amid the vestiges of ruin and decay, to stand by these lonely graves and think how died these two of kindred blood and language, so far away from home. The young midshipman was cut short in his bright career, not by wasting disease, but by the hand of a brother officer. A brief notice in the guide-book was all that told the story. He fell in a duel, near the place of his burial ; and he sleeps his last sleep in a far-off land, with none to mourn over his lonely grave, none to feel a pang of pity, save the passing stranger. This was honor ! Does the slayer of that youth, if he still lives, feel that he has done an honorable deed when he thinks of the lonely grave of his victim ? Is there a charm in the thought to wash out the stain of blood ? Has the admiration of the world made him feel in his secret heart that he is the braver for having risked his life and slain his fellow-man ? Was forgiveness of an injury so base an act that it would have embittered his whole future ? Oh, honor, honor ! for what dark and bloody crimes hast thou to answer !
70
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
We paid a visit to the modem catacombs in the convent, but found them much inferior to those in Palermo, of which I have given some account. While strolling through among the bodies, accompanied by an old monk, one of the heads rolled off and fell on the ground. The monk quietly picked it up, thanked God for the accident, and placed it on the neck again, but in such an extraordinary position as to pro¬ duce a most ludicrous effect. “Non fa niente /” said he, “ it makes no difference now,” and we walked on.
In the evening we went to an opera in Ortigia ; rather an odd thing, you will admit, among the ruins of Syracuse. The piece was quite new to me, and abounded in terrible love scenes, murders, and thunderings of brass instruments. The prima donna created a great furore by her violent man¬ ner of dying ; she died three times in succession by special request of the audience, and so great was the enthusiasm on the subject that I could not help joining in an attempt to get up a fourth death, in the faint hope that she might re¬ main dead till the conclusion of the opera.
Now this, to be sure, is rather a scanty description of Syracuse — a mere budget of anecdotes, you will say. But what can I tell you without copying from the guide-book, which you will find in any public library. To be candid, I think there is more in the name of Syracuse than any £hing else. The ruins are in such a state of dilapidation that one can scarcely recognize any thing, even with the assistance of a guide. Those of Agrigentum are considered much finer. After Borne, and the ruins of Pestum, near Naples, there is little worth seeing in Sicily in the way of ruins, except Sicily and its government, which may be considered a ruin on a large scale ; one of the grandest ruins, if we are to believe its early history, in Southern Europe. War and rapine, and all the evils of military despotism ; pestilence and famine, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, have scourged that ill- fated island till its mountains are bare and its valleys are waste ; and the spirit of desolation broods over its ruins even as the scourge of the Divine hand yet rests upon Jerusalem and the hills of Judea.
SYRACUSE.
71
We spent a day and a half in Syracuse, and would have continued on to Noto and Girgenti but for the want of time. It was getting late in the season, and each of us had plans of Oriental travel for the coming month of November. It must be said in favor of Sicily, at this season of the year, that the climate is perfectly delicious ; and the skies unsur¬ passed in any part of the world. The sunset scenes every evening were beautiful beyond description ; and the soft tints of the distant mountains of Calabria, and the interior of Sicily, were such as Claude Lorraine delighted to paint, and which no other artist has ever given in such perfection. It is pleas¬ ant, after all the annoyances of passports and beggars, in a country like this, to get up in the morning at day-light, drink your coffee, pay all your bills, thank Heaven when you are through ; jump into the open diligence ; listen to the lively crack of the postillion’s whip and the rattling of the wheels as you are whirled off out of the narrow streets ; and then, when fairly beyond the gates, to snuff the fresh air as you fly along the smooth roads by the sea-shore, and watch the first glimmer of the sun as it lightens up the Eastern horizon, and trace out cities of gold among the light clouds that float over the mountains of Calabria ; to draw in the fresh morning air again until you feel as if it would lift you up into the realms of pure spirits. A wild joy thrills through your blood at such a time — a gladness that you are bom, and in the world, and capable of feeling its beauties ; and you inwardly thank God for all the blessings that life still contains, even amid the ruin and desolation Wrought by man’s evil deeds. What if that sun has risen for centuries over battle-fields, and scorched with thirst the wounded and the dying; mingled its rays with the flames of Etna, and shed its softest evening glo¬ ries over scenes of terror and death : through the unfathom¬ able past, in the alternate phases of good and evil throughout all the wicked deeds that man has wrought against man, and all the fierce convulsions of nature, it has shed its heal¬ ing glow upon the human heart ; it has cheered the house¬ less and the homeless with its warmth ; it has nourished and ripened the fruits of the earth for countless generations ;
72
A GIUA THROUGH SICILY.
it has filled millions of souls with adoration of the Divine Creator ; and in its light, and warmth, and sublime beauties, in all the joy and gladness that it sheds upon earth, there is still enough of heaven to make us feel that we are mortal here to be immortal hereafter.
Pardon these little bursts of enthusiasm, I pray you ; the fact is, being unable to get up any inspiration on the subject of antiquities, I have to let out now and then on the sun, and moon, and stars by way of experiment ; for when I see my fellow-travelers go into raptures over an old stone wall, or a musty picture, or broken column, which fails to produce the slightest effect upon me, I begin to imagine that there must be something lacking in head or heart, and it is only by soaring among the mountains and clouds that I can con¬ jure up a particle of enthusiasm.
CHAPTER IX.
TAORMINA.
On our arrival in Catania, we proceeded at once to de¬ mand satisfaction of the proprietor of the diligence for the misconduct of the conductor in suffering us to he stopped at Lentini and other postes on the road to Syracuse. We had drawn up a hill against him for all the extra charges for horses, postillions and hostlers, over and above what were spe¬ cified in the article of agreement. That article of agreement contained every item that we felt legally bound to pay ; and we had carefully preserved it as a warning to the proprietor that we were not the kind of people to be imposed upon.
Our first measure, therefore, upon arriving at the door of the Corunna, was to send for the proprietor of the diligence. We had taken the names of all the conspirators who had fleeced us on the road— such names, at least, as they gave us ; and thus prepared, we formed ourselves into a sort of tribunal on the pavement, for the vindication of our rights and the in¬ fliction of a severe reprimand upon all who dared to outrage the majesty of the law. Doctor Mendoza was appointed prose¬ cuting attorney, as he was much the largest man in the party, and rather the most fluent in Italian. The proprietor, or pa¬ drone, as he was called, when he approached and saw us formed into a high Court of Inquiry, turned very pale, and bowed a great many times before our honors. All the idlers about the Corunna began to gather round, and every body being an idler, the audience was soon of very imposing dimensions. Doctor Mendoza opened the case— rather violently as I thought — by thrusting the contract in the face of the trembling pa¬ drone, and calling him a sporka, a robber, a miserable pol¬ troon ! and a great many other names of the kind ; which
D
74
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
the padrone received with the most unbounded resignation. Indeed, had he been used to such charges all his life he could not have manifested a more forgiving spirit. His only an¬ swer was to demand meekly the cause of all this violence. Had he pulled Doctor Mendoza by the nose, die could not have offered him a greater insult than this question. For two minutes that gentleman was perfectly breathless with rage ; he stormed, he stamped upon the pavement ; he tore his hair ; he spluttered and spat all about ; and then, after this explo¬ sion, he shrieked in English, in Portuguese, in French, and in Italian ; during which time the padrone took several pinches of snuff, and awaited the conclusion. At the conclusion he demanded again the cause of this extreme violence.
“ Sact-r-r-r ! Diablo /” screamed the Portuguese, rushing at him, with his fingers bent as if to claw the eyes out of him— ‘ ‘ Calaboca ! Per-r-r Baccho ! By dam ! you rob ! you dam rascal ! Perclie questa ? (shaking the paper in his face) Due baiocco ! — due , tre, quatro , cinqua carlin ! Sem¬ pra ! Sempra ! Per-r-r Deo ! baiocci , car Uni, scudi ! Sacr-r-r /”
The counsel for the accused, which consisted of the con¬ ductor, the driver, the postillion, and several of the ragged facchini , belonging to the hotel, broke in and protested that it was the custom of the country, that any other padrone would have charged double the price ; they all talked at once, and their appeals in behalf of the padrone were so eloquent and moving that he evidently began to consider himself a much injured man, and this sense of outraged honesty so inspired him with courage, that he began to protest that he would have justice for such unmerited accusations; he couldn’t stand it ; he’d go to the police office.
The upshot of the whole business was, that we had to pay the full amount on the agreement, and suffer an additional loss of several carlins in fees to the counsel of the accused, who never ceased to persecute us till we showed symptoms of a disposition to pay the required amount. The ground upon which they based their claim was that they had helped us out of the difficulty ! Such a course of conduct might
TAORMINA.
75
well be considered as adding- insult to inj ury ; but having no alternative we paid the fees in order to get rid of the coun¬ sel, who were getting stronger every moment ; and who had already enlisted the sympathies of every straggler in the street.
COUNSEL FOR THE ACCUSED.
Leaving Catania as soon as we could get a change of horses, we passed in sight of the Cyclopean isles, and about dark reached a town distant ten miles. Here we stopped for the night, much to the disgust of our Portuguese friend, who was rather sore in mind after the affair at Catania, and con¬ sequently could not tolerate an indifferent hotel. He was al¬ ways particular about hotels ; but this time he was uncom¬ monly fastidious. The Posta, where we stopped, had rooms good enough if they were only clean. Doctor Mendoza was incensed at the filth of this establishment. He excited him¬ self to such a degree on the subject of the bed-linen, that he ended by tearing his hair and rushing out in search of another hotel, and I was so fearful of some tragical act on his part, that I ran after him, imploring him to return. There were only two other hotels in the place, which he explored in the most violent manner ; darting furiously into the bedrooms, lifting up the bed-linen, making horrible faces of contempt
76
A GIEA THROUGH SICILY.
and disgust, calling every body in the town, sporka, and then darting out again. In the end he was forced to return to the Posta, where we contrived to survive the tortures of the ver¬ min, and get something to eat.
The next day’s travel along the sea-shore was the most pleasant we had enjoyed in Sicily. Good-humor was restor¬ ed after all these trials of temper, and we laughed heartily at the incidents of our journey to Syracuse.
We now entered a fertile region along the base of Mount Etna, abounding in green valleys and luxuriant vineyards, and dotted over with pretty little towns and farms. The road on either side was lined with pleasant-] ooking and pic¬ turesque villas, and the population had a much more thrifty appearance than that of the southern portion of the island. At Aci Reale , a handsomely situated town about half-way be¬ tween Catania and Messina, our party took mules to go up to the ruins of Taormina, about an hour distant up the mountain. My experience in mules was not such as to encourage another trial ; so I walked. The town of Taormina is one of the most picturesque old places in Sicily. For variety of outline and wild scenic effect, I have seen nothing in Italy or any part of Europe to surpass the ruins of the Teatro di Taormina and surrounding mountains. On three sides are towering peaks of rock ; Mount Etna is clear and blue in the distance ; and the Straits of Messina and the mountains of Calabria lie outspread in front with all the rich coloring given by an autumnal sun. I stopped long enough to explore the ruins and make some sketches, rather to the annoyance of my travel¬ ing friends, who generally did their admiration up in broken exclamations, and left me to do the artistical part, while they pushed on in search of further antiquities.
Touching the history of Taormina, it belongs chiefly to classical times. Now, to tell the honest truth, I have no pre¬ dilection for the classics. In my younger days that sort of reading was forced upon me as physic for the mind ; and having no taste for extravagant scenes of bloodshed and disgusting exhibitions of sensuality and folly, the result was that I took to Don Guixote, Gil Bias, Robinson Crusoe, and
TAOEMINA.
17
other authentic histories in which I could believe, without doing violence to common sense. Fortunately, however, I have friends who are of a different way of thinking, and who consider that the best and most reliable sources of knowl¬ edge are to be found in classical history. I am indebted to Mr. Alexander Clements, United States Consul at Messina, who is a most esteemed fellow-townsman, for a sketch of Taormina, translated from the Italian, which I have taken the liberty to condense. I have since had the pleasure of seeing a fine view of the ruins, painted by Mr. Clements ; and I am glad to learn that he contemplates a work illustrat¬ ing the beauties of Sicilian scenery, with historical sketches from sources not usually accessible to persons unacquainted with the language.
Taormina was once a very rich and notable city ; and was called Taurominum , because it was built upon the summit of Mount Taurus. It was founded by Andromaches, father of the historian Timeos, in concert with the inhabitants of Naxos, after the tyrant Dionysius had destroyed the latter city. Taormina has been so often exposed to the vicissi¬ tudes of war, and especially in the times of the Saracens, who in the year 893 razed it to the ground, that its pop¬ ulation, once most numerous, is now reduced to about 3000 souls. Earthquakes, especially that of 1693, have likewise contributed to the fall of the city ; and it is probable that this state of ruin and depopulation will continue in conse¬ quence of the town of Giardini being since founded in a much more advantageous position for all the relations of commerce. It is easy to comprehend why fugitives from slavery or death should found a city upon a rock, almost inaccessible ; but it seems a marvel that in times of peace the inhabitants have not abandoned their aerial retreat, and descended to a more convenient place. The suburbs of Taormina contain many interesting antiquities, and the ruins of its theatre are in a position so picturesque that they are incomparably more strik¬ ing than any in Sicily. Of less importance among the anti¬ quities are the ruins of a cistern, of a gymnasium, a little temple and some tombs. The most notable of all the ruins,
78 A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
however, is that of the theatre. It is regarded by the best j udges as one of the finest specimens of architecture for scenic effect in existence. From the position of the seats the specta¬ tors enjoyed a most imposing scene ; such in fact that no description or painting can give a just idea of it.
It is a remarkable peculiarity in all the ancient theatres of Sicily that they conform entirely in their construction to the local circumstances by which they are surrounded, as at Segesta, Syracuse, Taormina and other places. This was done with a view to the sound of the voice, as well as to the scenic effect. The theatre of Taormina it is said was capa¬ ble of accommodating twenty-five thousand persons. It was subjected to some changes after its primitive construction, under the Greeks whose work it was, as also under the Ho¬ mans who repaired and embellished it. The entire edifice was surrounded by galleries of brick, and niches are still seeu
TAORMINA.
79
in which statues were placed. Many columns of granite and marble, still remain upon the walls, but not in their original places. Some of the finest of the architectural ornaments, have been carried away in times of ignorance by the inhab¬ itants, who used them as material for building.
The sketch on the preceding page hastily taken on the spot, represents the amphitheatre and a portion of the main edifice.
CHAPTER X.
THE BREACH.
On our arrival in Messina we lost no time in securing the best rooms at the Vittoria for Doctor Mendoza and lady ; and it was a source of great pleasure to behold him when he came down to the dinner-table, with the Madam on his arm. He was shaved and oiled to the extremest point of nicety ; his brows were unclouded for the first time within a week ; he smiled pleasantly over his soup, and discoursed eloquently of the hotels at St. Petersburg over his salad and salmis. The Madam was charmed ; she was radiant with smiles ; she never stopped looking with admiration at her husband, and evidently thought he was rather the handsomest man in the world, when the dust of travel was rubbed off his face.
Next morning we set out, all bright and smiling, accompa¬ nied by Mr. Clements, to explore the city of Messina. There is not much in it to attract attention, but what there is we ferreted out with uncommon ingenuity.
The foundation of Messina (according to a translation from the Italian) extends to times so remote that the precise epoch is not known. It once boasted many precious monuments, among which mention is made of a splendid temple of Nep¬ tune, and another of Hercules. There was also the Palace of Cajo Ejo, from which was taken the celebrated statue of Cupid made by Praxiteles; but the many sieges sustained by this city and the frequent earthquakes by which it has been desolated, have not left any vestiges of its ancient edifices. The population of Messina was once very numerous ; in 1575 the plague destroyed 65,000 persons, and civil wars and other calamities have since reduced it to a mere remnant.
THE BREACH.
Si
At present the entire population, including the suburbs, amounts to about 90,000 souls. The greater part of the town is new, having been entirely rebuilt since the famous earthquake of 1783.
There is so little to be seen in Messina that we got through on the day after our arrival. A few churches, convents, and old walls are about the only sights in the way of antiquities that the traveler is called upon to endure ; and, after seeing these, he may pass the time pleasantly enough rambling about the neighborhood, wdiich is full of fine scenery, or lounging about the wharves, where he will enjoy something in the way of maritime life on shore. The position of the town is scarcely less picturesque than that of Palermo, and for all the evidences of progress and civilization I greatly preferred this neighbor¬ hood to any part of Sicily.
On the occasion of a second visit to Messina I was accom¬ panied by an Irish major from India and an old English gentleman returning from the East, both fellow-passengers on the steamer from Malta, and very jovial and agreeable trav¬ eling acquaintances. We had but three hours on shore, the steamer having merely touched for passengers. It was, there¬ fore, on landing, a matter of consideration in what way we could spend our time most profitably. The Englishman was in favor of seeing the breach at the risk of every thing else ; the major of that happy and accommodating tempera¬ ment which renders a man capable of enjoying all things equally ; and I, having on a former occasion seen every thing in Messina except the breach, yielded, against an internal conviction that a hole in a wall is not an object of peculiar interest. But habitual martyrdom makes a man magnani¬ mous, and the old gentleman was bent upon seeing the breach ; he had set his heart upon it ; he had enlightened us upon the historical points, and the breach we must see. Nor would he have a guide, for he spoke French, and could ask the way. The major, too, spoke a foreign language ; it was Guzerat or Hindoo, and not likely to be very useful in the streets of Messina, but it might come in play ; and I prided myself on speaking Italian ; that is to say (between you and
t>*
82
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY,
myself), a species of Italian formed chiefly of Arabic, French, Tuscan, Neapolitan, and English, hut chiefly of English Italianized by copious additions of vowels at the end of every word. Yielding, however, to the superior zeal of our English friend, Mr. Pipkins, we kept modestly in the rear, while he took the middle of the main street, and kept a sharp lookout for any intelligent-looking man that had the appearance of understanding French. “ Parlez vous Frangais, monsieur said Pipkins to the very first man he met. “ Nein /” replied the man, “ sprechen Sie Deutsch ?” “ Talk to him in Hindoo,” said Mr. Pipkins. The major addressed him accordingly in Hindoo. “ Nicht ,” said the man. “ Mayhe he understands Italian,5’ suggested the major. “Parle Italiana ?” said I, “ Si, signor, un poco” “ Dove il breecha in the Muro ,” said I, going to the full extent of my Italian. The man looked puzzled, but, not wishing to appeal ignorant, addressed me in such a complicated mixture of German and Sicilian that I had to stop him at length. “ Si, si, grazia .” “ What does he
say?” inquired Mr. Pipkins. “I think he says the wall is somewhere outside the city ; but he speaks abominable Italian.” “ Humph ! never mind ; here’s a gentleman that speaks French, I’m certain. Monsieur ! I say, monsieur !” (calling to a stiff-looking man just passing), “ Parlez vous Francais , monsieur ? ” “ No , signor ; Italiana . ” Upon thi s hint I spake Italian, as before. The stiff man unbent him¬ self, and politely conducted us round the corner, where he showed us the ancient church ; and bidding us adieu, went his way with the same grave and studied aspect. I shall never forget the look of mingled doubt and disappointment with which my venerable English friend surveyed me. “ Did you ask him for a church ?” “ No, I asked him for the wall
with the breach in it.” From that moment, I believe Mr. Pipkins suspected me of bad Italian. Disappointment, how¬ ever, only added to his zeal. Pushing on with a determined step, he led the way through innumerable streets, till at length we reached an open piazza, where we halted close by a hack-stand to gain breath and take an observation Here we were soon surrounded by such an eager gang of vetturini,
THE BREACH.
83
in consequence of an indiscreet question in Hindoo by the major, that we had to work ourselves out of the crowd by main force. “Leave it all to me,” said our English friend, “ I’ll find somebody presently wTho speaks French. Ha ! that man has a French look. I say, monsieur, monsieur !” The man stopped. “ Parlez vous Franpais, monsieur ?” “ Oui,
monsieur .” “ I told you so,” said our friend, turning to us
triumphantly ; u see what perseverance will do ;” and then he propounded a series of questions to the strange gentleman concerning the location of the wall, interrupted at every pause by “ Oui, monsieur , oui , oui” “ Now, sir, can you tell us where it is? (still in French). "What language the indi¬ vidual addressed spoke in reply it would be impossible to say ; but it was brief and to the point, for he immediately con¬ ducted us round another corner and showed us the diligence office, after which he touched his hat politely, and walked on. Mr. Pipkins regarded the sign upon the diligence office with ineffable disgust, and then casting a ferocious look after the stranger, struck his stick heavily upon the pavement, and said : “ Damme, if that’s French ! He doesn’t understand the lan¬ guage !” For some time previously I had observed a sus¬ picious-looking fellow dodging from corner to corner in our rear, who now came up touching his hat respectfully. “ Gem- men,” said he, “me speakee Inglees. What you want?” Our friend explained in full, evidently much relieved at this sudden accession to his cause. “ Yes, yes, me know,” replied the man. “ Come on.” We followed with a good will, cer¬ tain that our troubles were at last at an end ; and really I began to feel quite interested in the wall from the sheer force of disappointment. We had proceeded some distance through a labyrinth of streets, when Mr. Pipkins, who was engaged in a hopeless attempt to extract additional information out of the guide concerning the wall, stopped short, and indignantly uttered these words : “ You infernal rascal, that’s not what
we want !” Now, the full force of this violent language was of course lost upon the major and myself. The only words we overheard were — “just seventeen” — “ arrived from Paris yesterday,” which of course left us in a most painful state of
84
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY.
mystery ; nor could we prevail upon Mr. Pipkins to give us tlie least satisfaction on the subject. He merely turned back, muttering something about a deplorable state of morals ; and upon consulting his watch found that it was about time to go on board the steamer.
A CRUSADE IN THE EAST
CHAPTER XI.
ATHENS.
We left Messina on the afternoon of the 15th of October, and on the following morning were in sight of the Island of Malta. By noon we were at anchor in the harbor of Yaletta. It was really refreshing to see something like cleanliness and civilization once more. The houses of Yaletta, with their light cheerful coloring, their varieties of elevation, their pleas¬ ant verandas and balconies, are the neatest specimens imag¬ inable of toy-work on a large scale ; and the streets are the very queerest streets conceivable, with their uprisings and downfallings, their steps of stairs, their crowds of darkly hood¬ ed women and noisy men, and the strange mixture of races and languages, Europeanism, Orientalism, and Barbarism, scents and sounds, and all the varieties of life that abound in them. But British ascendency is apparent at the first glance. All one need do, after casting an eye upon the endless rows of cannon peeping from the fortifications, is to look at the banded and gilded officers strutting about every where, the red-coated guards armed to the teeth, and stationed at every gateway and public building, the never-ending drill of com¬ panies in the public squares, the bristling armories, the thea¬ tres, porter-houses, billiard saloons, club-houses, and army- tailor shops ; and above all, at the places of worship, where the teachings of the Grospel are expounded, and peace and good will enjoined toward all mankind— to he convinced that he is once more among a progressive and enlightened people.
Doctor Mendoza and the Madam, who were on the same steamer from Messina, were charmed with the hotels of
86
A CUUSADE IN THE EAST.
Valetta. I saw nothing of this party in my rambles about the streets ; but afterward was informed by the Doctor that they were fatigued by the voyage, and had spent the time in their hotel, which was very comfortable ; the wines were excellent; the Madam was “ indispose the mutton uncom¬ monly fat and tender ; and altogether they were tres contents to repose awhile after the perils and hardships of the voyage.
I took passage in the French steamer for the Pirseus The sea was rough and the weather very unpleasant. Compelled as I was, in all my traveling, to take the cheapest places, ranging from deck-passages up to the second cabin, I did not discover until we were in sight of Greece that my friends Dr. Mendoza and the Madam were on board the steamer with me again. They had eventually, upon consultation with the Portuguese Consul, as to the hotels, concluded to pursue their travels to the East. The purse of the Doctor was well lined, and of course he spared no pains in making himself and the Madam comfortable. Unlike most people with full purses, they were generous to a fault ; indeed, I was often forced to interfere between the Doctor and his guides in order to pre¬ vent him from being cheated. If there was any one thing that troubled this amiable couple, it was the dreadful and unheard-of hardships which they supposed I must encounter in my second and third-class passages. Repeatedly melted by the pictures of starvation and desolation which they con¬ jured up in my behalf (partly because I carried no baggage, and partly no doubt on account of my being naturally of a meagre habit) the Doctor offered me the use of a hundred pounds, payable at any convenient point in the world, or at any date however remote ; and I never could make him un¬ derstand the philosophy of traveling on the principle of Rough and Tumble ; studying bodily deprivations, like Socrates and other renowned characters, as a practical science ; enjoying the luxuries of hardship in European travel by comparison with past experience in flat-boats on the Mississippi, whalers off Madagascar, and bushing it in California; nor could he see how any reasonable man could take pride in such a way of traveling, even when that pride was based upon necessity.
ATHENS.
87
After a dreary passage of two days and a half from Malta we reached the Pirseus, or sea-port town of Athens. The first thing that struck me upon landing was the absolute absurdity of being surrounded by a whole legion of boatmen, porters, and hack-drivers in petticoats. Their very earnest¬ ness in gesticulating for fees and baggage and a thousand other things, partly in Greek and partly broken English, while they sauntered about in all the pomp of mustaches, whips, and petticoats, was the most irresistibly ludicrous sight I had seen for many a day.
We took a large hack-man, with a splendid mustache, and an uncommonly fine pair of legs, petticoated in the most im¬ posing style, who drove us through seas of dust, till we reach¬ ed the half-way house. There we had to stop for sweetmeats, because it was the custom for all people of quality upon their first visit to Athens to stop at that place for that purpose. Why, I don’t know ; unless that a trifle of change might be divided between the hack-driver and his friend who keeps the establishment.
The distance from the Piraeus is about seven miles ; but the road being covered with a thick bed of dust which cov¬ ered up the hack, we saw nothing of the Acropolis or other ruins till we were within a mile or two of the place.
On our arrival in Athens, my Portuguese friends went to the “ Orient.” It was a new hotel, and was recommended in the guide book as the best in the city. The “ Angleterre” was very good ; perhaps a little larger than the Orient, but it was not mentioned so favorably in Doctor Mendoza’s book. Prob¬ ably the author had fallen out with the proprietor on account of an indifferent beef-steak ; for I rather incline to the opinion that the Angleterre is a better hotel than the Orient. How¬ ever, neither of them suited my limited means ; and I was reluctantly forced to leave my friends at the Orient, and go in search of the worst hotel in the place. Having no baggage except what I carried on my back in the shape of a knap¬ sack principally filled with leaves and small pieces of various ruins for my friends at home, I was not troubled about por¬ ters. I soon found a very indifferent-looking hotel. It was
88
A CRUSADE IN THE EAST.
the Hotel de Vienne. If there he any worse in Athens, it must be very bad indeed. The price for a small room was three francs a day, and no reduction made for vermin. I had limited myself to four, all expenses of living included ; and the consequence was that while I remained in Athens, being obliged to pay five cents out of the franc for domestic service, my means of support were reduced to fifteen cents a day. I breakfasted generally on bread and grapes, dined on grapes and bread, and supped on bread and grapes again. It agreed with me wonderfully. Never in my life did I feel stronger, or more capable of enduring fatigue. I had some letters of introduction to present on the day\ after our arrival; and it was not until the following morning that I had the pleasure of meeting my friend Doctor Mendoza. He shook hands with me very cordially, and said he liked Athens ; he thought he would stay some time ; the Orient was a very good hotel ; he was very comfortable at the Orient ; he had seen the Acropolis, the temple of Theseus, and some few other ruins, but the Orient was the best thing he had found in Athens ; the din¬ ners were excellent ; he liked the way the dinners were cook¬ ed and served up; the Madam was “indispose;” and alto¬ gether he thought he would repose for a week or two at the Orient, as it was “ imposs” to find such comfortable quarters on board a steamer.
Having studiously avoided, up to the present writing, all flights of fancy on the subject of the classics, I shall endeavor to suppress the inspiration derived from a ramble on the Acropolis. It is not for an unpretending General in the Bob- tail Militia to attempt a description of the glorious old Par¬ thenon, the ruined temples, the columns and cornices that lie broken and scattered upon that classic spot, the view of naked and desolate hills, with all their glowing associations, wherever the eye is cast ; or to indulge in poetic reflections upon the fall of Greece from its Attic eminence to its present state of barbarism. A few practical facts, however, from recollection, may be of interest to the reader. The Acropolis is a rock or pile of rocks, some three or four hundred feet in height, crowned with the ruins of the principal temples of
ATHENS.
89
ancient Athens, which are encircled by a wall. It is situated at the edge of the modern town, toward the interior ; is as¬ cended by a good pathway to the principal entrance, where a guard receives tickets of admission, or pay, or something, and takes down the name of the visitor, in order that he (the visitor) may be found out in case he pockets a temple or a piece of one. On the whole, the Acropolis is a very respect¬ able mass of ruins, besides being conveniently situated for a general view of the country. There are shops in Athens where French lithographs of the principal ruins throughout Greece may be had in every variety of size, so that the tour¬ ist, who has but little time to spare in Athens, may carry them all home secretly, and describe the details in full to his friends, as if he had carefully studied the original ruins. By a little tact and a glance now and then at the guide-book, aided by a good memory, the most ignorant person is enabled in that way to puzzle, confound, and completely triumph over the most learned professor in the universities — provided the professor has not acquired his fame in the same manner. I should be sorry to have it supposed that this is intended as irreverence toward the ancients, or contempt for the learning of the moderns ; but if it be taken in that light, I can only say that one who attempts to think with his own brains and see with his own eyes (both of which may be defective) is apt, unintentionally, to run against the prejudices of his fel¬ low-creatures, and should rather be pitied for his folly than censured for his presumption. Besides, the classical tourist and learned professor, who have striven so hard to enlighten the world in regard to ancient times, should console them¬ selves with the reflection that —
11 When with much pains their boasted learning’s got,
’Tis an affront to those who have it not.”
Modern Athens is a small town, composed chiefly of frame houses. The population is about seventeen thousand, prin¬ cipally degenerate Greeks. A considerable number of Ital¬ ians, French, Germans, Hussians, and some few English families, are included in this estimate. The streets are ram¬ bling and irregular, narrow and wide by turns, dusty or
90
A CRUSADE IN THE EAST.
muddy according to the season, abounding in streams of filth from the house-doors, and over-run with miserable dogs, as in most of the cities of the East. In the poorer parts of the town, the houses are mere hovels of mud ; the filth is such as to render it difficult even to pass through ; and the in¬ habitants are in the most wretched condition. The bazaar or market-place is perhaps the most pleasant place of resort for the stranger who wishes to study the manners and cos¬ tumes. Here all the country people come with their mules and packs of produce, and here are gayly-dressed idlers loung¬ ing about, in all the glory of silks, and sashes, and swinging petticoats. The “ shaggy capote,” referred to by Byron, is seen on all sides, and shaggy enough it is, being made of sheep-skins, and dirty enough too, in all conscience ; for the country Greeks (town Greeks are above shaggy capotes) live in their sheep-skins as they do in their own skins, neither of which they are in the habit of washing more than once or twice in a life-time. In all their rags, however, and in all their filthiness, these degenerate sons of glory are fine-looking fellows, with bold, prominent features, eagle eyes, and com¬ manding forms. Some of the handsomest men I ever saw were Greeks, dressed in the Albanian costume. The free, graceful bearing, the manly stride, the undaunted air of self- reliance, the expression of energy and intelligence in every feature, struck me as something admirable. It is a little re¬ markable that even the lowest classes of the men are hand¬ some, yet not one in a thousand of the women even comely in form or feature— at least of such as are seen in ordinary places of publiq resort.
On a Sunday afternoon, during my stay in Athens, I went to see the king and queen — not to call upon them personally at their palace, because I had heard of a difficulty that had originated in a matter of etiquette between a party of Ameri¬ cans and the royal party, not long before, and I was resolved to keep clear of trouble by seeing them in public. There was an exhibition of rope-dancers in the open space near the Hotel d’Angleterre. At an early hour the place was crowded with spectators — Greeks, Italians, French, Germans, English,
ATHENS.
91
and Americans. The Greek women did not seem to me at all remarkable for beauty. In the whole crowd of several hundreds, I saw but three or four passably pretty faces : and they owed more, perhaps, to fine suits of hair, dark eyes, and rich head-dresses, than to any thing really striking in their features. The ordinary classes of Greek women to be seen about the streets are about the most uncouth and miserable- looking beings one meets any where in this part of the world. I looked in vain for the Maid of Athens. She lives at the Piraeus, and I thought it likely she might be in the crowd. Perhaps I saw her ; if so, however, I did not recognize her from Byron’s description. There was no Greek maiden pres¬ ent on that occasion, from whom any man of ordinary taste might not part without an application for the return of his heart. The young German girl who walked on the rope from the ground up to the fourth-story window of a house, took a much stronger hold upon my affections than any of the Maids of Athens. She was a beautiful little blonde, radiant with cheap jewelry and gauze : she waved her wand majest¬ ically ; smiled triumphantly ; twirled her pretty legs provok- ingly ; and bowed to the unanimous applause of the specta¬ tors bewitchingly. Then there were splendid-looking fellows in flesh-colored hose, who came out and rode in a most ex¬ travagant manner upon the tight-rope ; turning heels over head, and head over heels again ; and shaking their locks when they bowed, in a way that must have won a great many hearts from the Greek maidens before they parted.
But my business is not with rope-dancers. Hang the rope- dancers ! What did I care about such buffoonery ! I could see rope-dancers enough at home ; but it was not every day I could see a live king and queen.
There was a buzz in the crowd ; a suppressed hum of voices ; a rattling of swords and guns ; a clattering of horses’ hoofs ; I knew by instinct that the king and queen were coming. By Jove ! there they came sure enough, prancing along gallantly on a pair of spirited steeds, side-ways, and front- ways, and every possible way, right up between the two files of soldiers, opposite to where I stood, and there they
92
A CEUSADE IN THE EAST.
halted, as if to enjoy the general sensation. I was perhaps the most enthusiastic person in the .whole crowd. The prob¬ ability is that I would have shouted, God save the King ! — - God save the Quieen ! had I not been apprehensive that the soldiers might mistake my meaning, and run me through the body for an attempt to create a revolution. As it was, I pressed my way through the crowd to the very first rank, and, in my zeal for royalty, displaced two officers who were standing before me, and who, upon seeing that I was a for¬ eigner, looked daggers at me, in Greek.
King Otho was dressed in the Greek costume. The cos¬ tume looked well enough, but the king looked rather insig¬ nificant for a king. I expected to see a man seven feet high at least, with a head as big as a five- gallon keg, crowned with diamonds, and the nose and eyes like those of an eagle ; but King Otho is rather a small man, with a small head and face, and rather a small show of character in the expression of his countenance. He is a pale, ugly little man, with dark eyes, dark hair, a dark mustache, and a very meagre face. To me he looked uncommonly unwholesome in mind and body. His dress was rich, but not more striking than many of the Greek costumes in the crowd. I thought he wore it to show his subjects that he was Greek to the back-bone — at least to the outside of the back-bone. There is not much Greek inside of him, according to all I could glean from the people of Athens, or much love for the Greek people ; and for this reason, perhaps, he puts on as much Greek outside as he conveniently can.
The queen was dressed in a plain riding-habit, with a plain black riding-cap, instead of a golden crown, as I expected to see. She is a buxom young woman, of about thirty, of light complexion, blue eyes, full face, rather plain in features, but lively and good-humored looking. In Washington City, which I have the honor to represent, she might pass for the daugh¬ ter of a neighboring farmer, more accustomed to jumping fences and hunting up the cows than to the atmosphere of royalty. However, I like Gueen Otho, and for this reason I feel disposed to compliment her by the comparison. God
ATHENS.
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bless Q,ueen Otho ! She was born for better things ; she might have been the life and soul of some happy family cir¬ cle ; she looks ready for a laugh or a romp even now, with all the cares of royalty upon her mind. Besides, how could I help liking her when she smiled at me ? she, Q,ueen Otho, of Greece, smiled at me, reader ; not that I hold myself at all cheap, but it is no every-day matter to be smiled at by a queen. I saw her do it ; I smiled back again ; she saw me smile ; then she stopped smiling, and I stopped smiling. When 1 stopped smiling, Q,ueen Otho smiled. I liked that in her ; it showed delicacy of feeling ; it showed that she ap¬ preciated delicacy of feeling on my part ; it was intended as a reward for my forbearance in not continuing to smile when she stopped smiling. Consequently, when she smiled again, I smiled likewise, to show her that I understood it ; upon which she quickly stopped smiling again, and turned away her face ; and I also stopped at the same time, and turned away my face ; I turned it toward the king. The king frowned at me. Otho, King of Greece, had the audacity to frown at me, a General in the Bobtail Militia ! My repub¬ lican blood was up in a moment. I frowned at Otho, King of Greece. He saw me frown ; he saw the danger that might result from it ; he stopped frowning ; and when I perceived that I had frowned him down, I also stopped frowning. King Otho was so little pleased at being frowned down in this way that as soon as I had stopped frowning, he frowned again. Of course I returned the frown in the most emphatic manner. The queen, perceiving that King Otho and myself were frown¬ ing at each other, began to smile ; in fact she fully smiled. I understood her ; I returned her smile. We both smiled to¬ gether. King Otho . saw that we understood one another ; that we did our smiling together ; that consequences unpleas¬ ant to himself might ensue. Therefore he frowned more darkly than ever ; and I, knowing that jealousy was the cause, was determined to show him that I was not the sort of person to be intimidated by a frown. Hence I frowned back again. King Otho quickly stopped frowning, the queen at the same time stopped smiling ; and I, having no further
94
A CRUSADE IN THE EAST.
cause either to smile or frown, turned away and looked at the rope-dancers.
Up to this date, I had always supposed that there was not in my nature the slightest leaning toward royalty ; that I was republican to the heart’s core. But I now began to doubt it. I felt a most unmistakable leaning toward royalty. To be noticed in this manner by a real king and queen, was flatter¬ ing to my feelings. Had any President of the United States frowned at me, I should have simply asked him what he meant ; had the lady of any President of the United States smiled at me, I should have thought nothing more of it than that she had mistaken me for some acquaint ance ; but to be smiled and frowned at by royal blood, was something calcu¬ lated to produce novel and agreeable sensations. There were thoughts within, which I hardly dared to own even to my¬ self — thoughts of high offices which might be had by proper influence, if we had a king and queen in America. It was natural to suppose that it must be gratifying to the ambition of any man to be made Prime Comptroller of the Kitchen ; Chief Examiner of the Bed-chambers, Lord High Admiral of the Duck-ponds ; Commander-in-chief of the Royal Nurses, or General Superintendent of the Cake Department, and Feeder- in-chief of Sugar-candy to the Royal Babies ; with a salary of forty or fifty thousand dollars a year, and the privilege of occa¬ sionally beholding in private life the Toyal couple. In this train of thought I called to mind a great many of my lady- friends (some traveling on the Continent, and some at home), whosfe chief ambition I strongly suspect is, to be associated in some way with royalty. There might be some little difficulty at first in regard to providing titles sufficiently long and high- sounding, but I am certain there would be no difficulty in pick¬ ing out of the first ranks in Boston, New York, and elsewhere, Ladies of the Royal Bed-chamber, Train-bearers to her Ma¬ jesty, Holders of her Majesty’s Combs and Brushes ; High Powderers-in-chief of her Majesty’s Face and Elbows ; and Lady High-washers of her Majesty’s Babies— especially when there would be brilliant prospects of matrimonial alliances with the Grand Comptroller of the Kitchen, Lord High Ad-
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mirals of the Duck ponds, Knights of the Bed-chamber, and other distinguished men of rank.
Men did I say ? Men ? Pardon the slander ! It was un¬ intentional. I mean no disrespect to my fellow-creatures of the male sex ; the word is used in a conventional sense. There is, however, in certain countries where royalty exists, a class of creatures who consider it no degradation to occupy positions of this kind ; and there is in our own country a class so slavish in their devotion to rank and station, that they are ever ready to worship such creatures — to bend the knee before the titled minions of royalty. It may be said that these titles are nominal. Does that make them the less degrading ? He who would suffer himself to be called the Prince of Flunkeys, or the High-chief of Sneaks, and deliberately accept the title as merely nominal, is a flunkey or a sneak at heart, whether he be paid in money for the indignity, or rewarded with im¬ aginary honors ; and he who would accept the title of a base- born menial, not from necessity but from choice, is more de¬ spicable than the basest of menials ; he is one, who, in the language of Junius, could never aspire to hatred, never rise above contempt : to claim for such a creature any attribute of manliness, is to desecrate God’s own image in which man is made.
But really, I had almost forgotten in the struggle between my growing passion for royalty and the prejudices of educa¬ tion in favor of democracy, the high hopes of preferment sug¬ gested by the attentions of King Oth o and his amiable spouse. The fact is, my zeal on both sides has been productive of some slight discrepancy. I can only account for it in this way : that we tourists who visit the old world, have our share of that natural weakness which causes the mass of mankind to sacrifice principle where vanity and self-importance are con¬ cerned. We like to astonish our untraveled brethren at home by boasting of our intimacy with people of rank in Europe ; we scorn titles as a matter of principle, and worship them as a matter of personal ambition. We fashionable people who travel, as well as some of us who don’t travel, are just as prone to aspire to what we condemn in others, as the
96
A CRUSADE IN THE EAST.
weakest ; just as rabid in the improper use of power when we obtain it, as the most despotic. The frailties of human nature abound under every form of government ; the princi¬ ples of right exist every where, and are every where sustained or abused, according to the interests which they involve ; hence we should be careful that the mote be not in our own eye, before we point to it in the eyes of others. There are principles of liberty and of right implanted in us by the Deity ; the most enlightened of mankind have ever recognized them as the only true basis of government, the only enduring found¬ ation of human happiness ; let us, therefore, while we con¬ demn the errors and follies of others, profit by the condition to which we see them reduced, and aspire to be the most consistent as well as the freest and most liberal of nations.
Doctor Mendoza and the Madam having seen all that was to be seen in Athens, invited me to join them in an excursion down to Eleusis, which I very gladly did, inasmuch as it en¬ abled me to enjoy their society, and at the same time see some¬ thing of country life in Greece. We hired the only guide that happened to be unemployed at the time — a lean ill-looking fellow, whose expression of countenance gave us but little promise of being enlightened by his intellectual researches. There was no help for it, however ; and having employed the best carriage the place afforded, and moreover provided ourselves with some cold chicken and bread from the Orient, we set out at an early hour, and were soon rolling along over the dusty road toward Eleusis. A short distance from Athens we came to the Academical Groves, where we de¬ scended to see the sights. The only sights we saw were an old villa, in a very dilapidated state ; a few dust-covered trees and grape-vines of modern growth, some fine bunches of grapes ; a ditch of water that one could jump over with ease, called the river Ilissus, and some ragged and dirty Greeks lying on their backs in the shade— descendants probably of the ancient philosophers.
Some miles farther on, we came to a sort of way-side inn, near the Convent of Daphne, where the Doctor thought it expedient to stop for refreshments ; “ because,” said he,
ATHENS.
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“ de Madam is indispose : ’tis imposs to proceed without some wine.”
While my friends were sipping their wine and “ reposing” after the fatigues of the “voyage,” I stepped into the adjoin¬ ing yard and made a sketch of the old Convent, which may
CONVENT NEAR ATHENS
he seen here on a small scale, just as it appeared to me on a large scale, except that it looks rather better in print, and leaves more room for exercise of the imagination. It is built upon the ruins of the temple of Apollo, which may account for the fact that it is really a very beautiful piece of Byzan¬ tine architecture. The priests were all asleep or dead. I neither saw nor heard any thing of them.
Not far beyond the old Convent we came to a pass with a rugged bluff on the right, upon which were some ancient in¬ scriptions. Our dragoman stopped the carriage, and in a very imposing maimer called our attention to the fact that we were now at a most interesting point in our journey. Doctor Mendoza never suffered any thing mentioned in the guide¬ book to escape his attention ; but unfortunately he had for¬ gotten his book in Athens, and was reduced to the necessity, of depending solely upon the classical attainments of our dragoman.
“ Wat you call dis place ?” said he ; for the dragoman spoke
E
98
A CRUSADE IN THE EAST.
nothing but English, in addition to his native language, and Doctor Mendoza was not very proficient in either tongue ; “ Wat hiss de name of dis place?”
“ Um call um-er-r-a — e-r-r-a ; wat you say, sare?”
“Wat hiss de name?”
“ Oh, de name ; me know de name ; me tell you by’m by. Dis great place, shentlemans ; much great ting happen here in ancient time ; grand ting happen here. Dey stop here ; much grand feast ; plenty people ; Oh, great ting happen here.”
“But wat hiss it? Wat gran ting — wat gran feast you call her?”
“ She call !um feast, wat de plenty people have wen dey come dis way ; Oh, much fine time ! Dere’s de mark, shen- tlemans ; on de rock dere you see de mark.”
Doctor Mendoza looked at the rock, but could make no¬ thing of the mark. Evidently it was all Greek to him, for it perplexed and irritated him exceedingly.
“ By dam ! you no conosce nienta ! Mal-a-detta ! wat you call herself? heh ? you call herself dragoman? One multo buono dragoman she be! Sacr-r-r-r diabolo!”
“ Yes, shentlemans; me dragoman; me plenty recommend¬ ation; me know more all dragomans in Atens! All Amer¬ ican shentlemans say me good dragoman ; all English shen¬ tlemans say me good dragoman ; every body say me good dragoman.”
“ Den wat for you no conosce de name of dis place ?”
“ De name? Oh de name sare? yes sare: me know de name well as any body. De name’s er-r-ra — er-r-ra ; you know dis de place, shentlemans, were de plenty peoples come for de gran ting; much grand feast. Dat’s de name; same name wot you find in de book, yes sare. Me best dragoman in Atens ; all de shentlemans say me de best. Me know de name all de place.”
“ Andate !” roared the Portuguese, turning furiously to the driver; “ Tis imposs to understan dat, she no speak Inglees!” and away we rolled over the road, as fast as two skeletons of horses could drag us. Presently the carriage stopped again,
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and the dragoman informed us that we had arrived at another important point.
“Dere, shentlemans, you see de water; much sheep come dere in old time ; two tousan sheep ?”
“Wat?” cried the Portuguese, “ dat de bay of Salamis ? Dat de place were Xerxes come wid two million sheep.”
“ Yes sare ; dat de same place, sare ; de sheep all fight de Greek mans dere ; de Greek mans kill all the sheep and sink ’em in de water. Greek very brave mans ; kill two hundred sheep dere. Yes sare.”
“ Wat dey do wid all de dead mans?”
“ Oh, dey bury all the dead mans down dere were you see de tombs. Yes sare. De Greek mans dere, and de oder mans wot come in the sheep be dere in that oder place wot you see. Yes sare. Oh, me know all de ting — me no tell lie ; me good dragoman.”
“Poh! ’Tis imposs to eomprehen. ’Twill be necess to to have de book,” said the Doctor in great disgust ; “de sheep be buried in de tombs, and de Greek mans be buried in de sheep — imposs ! imposs ! Andate, diabolo !”
So the carriage rolled on again, not exactly in the direction indicated by the Doctor, but certainly to a place that appeared to have no great local advantages over the residence of the dark gentleman referred to. It was the far-famed city of Eleusis — a most abominable collection of pigsties, inhabited by filthy Greeks. From the time of our departure from Athens, I had seen no inhabitants on the roadside at all superior in point of civilization, either in their way of living or general appearance, to the Indians of California — certainly none that were not in an absolute state of barbarism.
We ascended the hill of Eleusis, and stood upon the Acropolis. The utter desolation of the scene all around presented a striking and melancholy picture of the fall of Greece. No¬ thing could exceed the weird and impressive grandeur of the scenery. All was ruin, barrenness and decay, wherever we looked ; not a spot of verdure within the vast amphitheatre of mountains ; the whole face of the country arid and blasted ; all still, dreary, and deathlike— all wrapt in hopeless desolation.
100
A CRUSADE IN THE EAST.
Our return to Athens was devoid of incident. Doctor Mendoza and the Madam were delighted to get hack to the Orient. The Madam was “indispose;” and the doctor de¬ clared that without dinner it was “ imposs to exiss.”
I spent the evening at the residence of Mr. Hill the Ameri¬ can Missionary. N o American who has visited Athens and enjoyed the acquaintance of this gentleman, can feel other than the highest sentiments of esteem and admiration for his character and talents, and a national pride in his successful dissemination of knowledge and of the true principles of Chris¬ tianity among the rising generation of Greeks. His school is well attended by the most intelligent classes of Greek chil¬ dren ; who by the admirable manner in which it is conducted soon become capable of teaching what they have learned themselves ; and in this way the cause of education and Christianity is making rapid progress. Some of my most agreeable recollections of Athens are associated with the few brief hours spent in the society of Mr. Hill and his accom¬ plished family.
Bidding good-by to my Portuguese friends, who had made up their minds to “ repose” a while at the Orient after the fatigues of the “ voyage” to Eleusis, I looked for the last time at the glorious Acropolis, shook from my feet the dust of Greece, which is living Greece no more, and departed on my journey eastward.
CHAPTER XII.
SYRA.
I took passage in the Austrian steamer from the Pirseus to Syra. The decks were crowded with Greek, Italian, and French merchants, and a fair show of English tourists, on their way to the various ports of the Levant. I was a good deal surprised upon getting into conversation with a Greek to hear him quote the “ Isles of Greece” from beginning to end ; and still more surprised to find that he was the redoubtable Pro¬ fessor Castanis of rhetorical memory, whom I had heard lec¬ ture fifteen years before in Louisville, Kentucky. He carried a hook in his hand, written by himself, containing his portrait in full Greek costume ; so being both in the scribbling line, and somewhat known to each other, and moreover in the same reduced circumstances, we were very good friends and went to a very had hotel in Syra, kept by a Greek, where we got exceedingly small and rather cheap accommodations. I did not remain long there, however ; for having a letter of intro¬ duction from Mr. Hill to Evangelides, the American Vice Consul, he provided me with much better quarters in his own house, contrary to every assurance on my part that I was very comfortable at the Greek hotel. Evangelides is not only the most hospitable, enthusiastic, and obliging consul imagin¬ able, but the very perfection of a Greek gentleman ; dashing, off-hand, and intelligent, with a touch of wild romance in his character that renders it a real pleasure to become acquainted with him. He speaks English uncommonly well, and is thor¬ oughly versed in all the Oriental languages. The history of Evangelides is a romance. His father was a Klepht , or mount¬