[B]Boulevardmeans, I presume, rampart or fortified works (hence our Englishbulwark). The rampart was long ago removed, as the city outgrew it, but the name is retained by the ample street which took its place. OurBatteryat New-York illustrates this origin of a name.
[B]Boulevardmeans, I presume, rampart or fortified works (hence our Englishbulwark). The rampart was long ago removed, as the city outgrew it, but the name is retained by the ample street which took its place. OurBatteryat New-York illustrates this origin of a name.
Turin(Italy), June 20, 1851.
Lyons, though a French city, and the second in the Republic, wears a sad, disheartened aspect. In '91 a stronghold of decaying Loyalty, it is to-day the very focus of Democratic Socialism, being decidedly more "Red" than Paris.—Here is concentrated the Sixth Military Division of the French Army, under chiefs not chary of using the sabre and bayonet, and with instructions to apply efficient poultices of grape and canister on the first palpable appearance of local inflammation. Should Louis Napoleon be enabled to override the Constitution and prolong his sway, it is possible that, by the aid of the act of May 31st, 1850, whereby more than half the Artisans of France are disfranchised, the spirit of Lyons may in time be subdued, and partisans of "Order" substituted for her present Socialist Representatives in the Assembly; but, should the popular cause triumph in the ensuing Elections, I shall be agreeably disappointed if that triumph is as temperately and forbearingly enjoyed here as was that of February, 1848.
Lyons is now undergoing one of those periodical revulsions or depressions which are the necessary incidents of the false system of Industry and Trade which the leaders of Commercial opinion are bent on fortifying and extending.—Here, at the confluence of the Rhone and the Saone, is concentrated a population of nearly 200,000 souls, half of whom attempt to live by spinning, weaving and dyeingSilks, while the residue in good part busy themselves in collecting and buying the raw material or in exporting and selling the product. But it is not best for themselves nor for mankind that 100,000 Silk-workers should be clustered on any square mile or two of earth; if they were distributed over the world's surface, in communities of five to fifty thousand souls—if the raw Silk were grown in the various countries wherein the fabrics are required, where the climate and soil do not forbid, and taken there to be manufactured where they do—the workers would have space, air, activity, liberty, development, which are unattainable while they are cooped within the walls of a single city. If those Silk-weavers, for instance, whose fabrics are consumed in the United States, were now located in Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, &c. instead of being mainly crowded into Lyons, they would there obtain many of the necessaries of life at half the prices they now give for them, while the consumers of their fabrics would pay for them in good part with Fruits, Vegetables, Fuel, &c. which, because of their bulk or their perishable nature, they cannot now sell at all, or can only sell at prices below the cost of production. No matter if the Silks were held in money a fifth, a fourth, or even a third higher than now, the great body of our consumers would obtain them much cheaper, estimating the cost not in dollars but in days' labor. The workers on both sides would be benefited, because they would share between them at least three-fourths of the enormous tax which Commerce now levies upon their Industry through the sale and resale of its products, to distribute among its importers, shippers, jobbers, retailers and lackeys of infinite variety. The bringing together of Producer and Consumer, where Nature has interposed no barrier, so that their diverse needs may be supplied by direct interchange, or with the fewest possible intermediates, is the simple and only remedy for one of the chief scourges under which Industry now suffers throughout the world.
"Very true," says Vapid, "but this will regulate itself."—Will it, indeed? Be good enough to tell me how! All the potent individual agencies now affecting it are attached by self-interest to the wrong side. The Capitalists, the Employers, the Exporters, engaged in the Silk trade, all own property in Lyons, and are naturally anxious that the manufacture shall be more and more concentrated there. The Shipper, the Importer, the Jobber of our own country, has a like interest in keeping the point of production as distant from their customers as possible. Very often have I been told by wholesale merchants, "We prefer to sell Foreign rather than Home-made fabrics, because the profit on the former is usually much greater." This consideration is active and omnipresent in Trade generally. The sole interest subserved by Direct and Simple Exchanges is that of Labor; and this, though greatest of all, is unorganized, inert, and individually impotent. These Silk-Weavers of Lyons are no more capable of removing to Virginia or Missouri and establishing their business there than the Alps are of making an American tour. Our consumers of Silks, acting as individuals, cannot bring them over and establish them among us. But the great body of consumers, animated by Philanthropy and an enlightened Self-Interest, acting through their single efficient organism, the State, can make it the interest of Capital and Capacity to bring them over and plant them in the most eligible localities among us, and ought immediately and persistently to do so. The inconveniences of such a policy are partial and transitory, while its blessings are permanent and universal.
Railroads are excellent contrivances for dispatch and economy; Steamboats ditto, and better still for ease and observation or reading; Steamships are to be endured when Necessity compels; but an old-fashionedCoach-and-Four is by no means to be despised, even in this age of Progress and Enlightenment. While I stay in Europe, I wish to see as much land and to waste as little time on blue water as possible. So I turned aside at Lyons from the general stream of Italy-bound travellers—which flows down the Rhone to Avignon and Marseilles, thence embarking for Genoa and Leghorn,—and booked myself for a ride across the Lower Alps by diligence to Turin. And glad am I that my early resolve to do so was not shaken.
The European, but more especially French, diligence has often been described. Ours consisted of a long carriage divided into thecoupéor foremost apartment, directly under the driver, and with an outlook on each side and in front over the backs of the horses; the middle apartment, which is much like the interior of our ordinary stage-coach; and the rumble or rear apartment, calculated for servants or other cheap travelers. Two-thirds of the roof was covered with a tun or two of baggage and merchandise; and in front of this, behind and above the driver's seat, is thebanquette, a single seat across the top, calculated to hold four persons, with a chaise top to be thrown back in fine weather and a glass front to be let down by night or in case of rain. I chose my seat here, as affording the best possible view of the country. At 8 P. M. precisely, the driver cracked his whip, and four good horses started our lumbering vehicle at a lively pace on the road to Turin, some two hundred miles away in the south-east.
The road from Lyons to the frontier is one of the best in the world, and traverses a level, fertile, productive country. I should say that Grass, Wheat and the Vine are the chief staples. A row of trees adorns either side of the road most of the way, not the trim, gaunt, limbless skeletons which are preferred throughout Central France, but wide-spreading, thrifty shade-trees, which I judged in thedarkness to be mainly Black Walnut, with perhaps a sprinkling of Chestnut, &c. Through this noble avenue, we rattled on at a glorious pace, a row of small bells jingling from each horse, and no change of teams consuming more than two minutes, until we reached the little village on the French side of the boundary between France and Savoy, some fifty miles from Lyons. Here our Passports were taken away for scrutiny andvisé, and we were compelled to wait from 2½ till 5 o'clock, as the Sardinian officers of customs would not begin to examine our baggage till the latter hour. At 5 we crossed the little, rapid river (a tributary of the Rhone) which here divides the two countries, a French and a Sardinian sentinel standing at either end of the bridge. We drove into the court of the custom-house, dismounted, had our baggage taken off and into the rude building, where half a dozen officers and attendants soon appeared and went at it. They searched rigidly, but promptly, carefully and like gentlemen. In half an hour we were pronounced all right; our diligence was reloaded, and, our passports having been returned, we rattled out of the village and on our way, in the sunshine of as bright a June morning as I ever hope to enjoy.
France is a land of plains, and glades, and gentle acclivities; Savoy is a country of mountains. They rose before and around us from the moment of our crossing the boundary—grim, rugged and precipitous, they formed a striking contrast to all of Europe I had hitherto seen. Throughout the day and night following, we were rarely or never out of sight of snow-covered peaks; nay, I have not yet lost sight of them, since they are distinctly visible in the clear Italian atmosphere from the streets of this sunny metropolis, at a distance of some thirty miles north. Our route lay through Savoy for about a hundred miles, and not one acre in thirty within sight of it can ever be plowed. Yet the mountains are in good part composed of limestone, so that the narrow, sheltered valleys aredecidedly fertile; and the Vine is often made to thrive on the steep, rocky hill sides, where the plow could not be forced below the surface, and where an ox could not keep his footing. Every inch of ground that can be, is cultivated; little patches of Wheat, or Grass, or Vines are got in wherever there is a speck of soil, though no larger than a cart-body; and far up the sides of steep mountains, wherever a spot is found so moderately inclined that soil will lie on it, there Grass at least is grown.
Human Labor, in such a region, fully peopled, is very cheap and not very efficient. The grape is the chief staple and Wine must be the principal and probably is the only export, at least one third of the arable soil being devoted to the Vine. Wheat is pretty extensively sown and is now heading very thriftily, but I suspect the average size of the patches is not above a quarter of an acre each. The Grass is good; and not much of it cut yet. Indian Corn and Potatoes are generally cultivated, but in deplorable ignorance of their nature. At least four times the proper quantity of seed is put in the ground, neither Corn nor Potatoes being allowed more than eighteen inches between the rows, making the labor of cultivation very great and the chance of a good yield none at all.
I think I saw quite as many women as men at work in the fields throughout Savoy. A girl of fourteen driving a yoke of oxen attached to a cart, walking barefoot beside the team and plying the goadstick, while a boy of her own age lay idly at length in the cart, is one of my liveliest recollections of Savoyard ways. Nut-brown, unbonneted women, hoeing corn with an implement between an adze and a pick-axe (and not a bad implement, either, for so rugged an unplowed soil), women driving hogs, cows, &c., to or from market, we encountered at every turn. So much hard, rough work and exposure are fatal to every trace of beauty, and I do not remember to have seen awoman in Savoy even moderately good-looking, while many were absolutely revolting. That this is not Nature's fault is proved by the general aspect of the children, who, though swarthy, have often good forms and features.
We drove down intoChambery, the capital of ancient Savoy, about 9A. M.This is a town of some fifteen thousand inhabitants, pleasantly situated in the valley of a much larger tributary of the Rhone than that we crossed at the boundary, and with a breadth of arable soil of perhaps two miles between the mountains. No where else in Savoy did we traverse a valley even half a mile wide for any distance. Here is an old ducal palace, with fine spacious grounds, shrubbery, &c. The road from Geneva and the Baths of Aix to Turin comes down this valley and here intersects that from Lyons. We were allowed twenty-five minutes for breakfast, which would have been very well but that the time required for cooking most of the breakfast had to come out of it.
There was enough and good enough to eat, and (as usual throughout all this region) Wine in abundance without charge, but Tea, Coffee or Chocolate must be ordered and paid for extra. Even so, I was unable to obtain a cup of Chocolate, the excuse being that there was not time to make it. I did not understand, therefore, why I was charged more than others for breakfast; but to talk English against French or Italian is to get a mile behind in no time, so I pocketed the change offered me and came away. On the coach, however, with an Englishman near me who had traveled this way before and spoke French and Italian, I ventured to expose my ignorance as follows:
"Neighbor, why was I charged three francs for breakfast, and the rest of you but two and a half?"
"Don't know—perhaps you had Tea or Coffee."
"No, Sir—don't drink either."
"Then perhaps you washed your face and hands."
"Well, it would be just like me."
"O, then, that's it! The half franc was for the basin and towel."
"Ah,oui, oui." So the milk inthatcocoa-nut was accounted for.
Our road, though winding constantly among mountains, was by no means a rugged one. On the contrary, I was surprised to find it so nearly level. Three or four times during the day we came to a hard hill, and usually a yoke of oxen, an extra horse or span, stood at the foot, ready to hitch on and help us up. Of course, we were steadily rising throughout, but so gradually and on so capital a road as to offer little impediment to our progress. A better road made of earth I never expect to see. Every mile of it is plainly under constant supervision, and any defect is instantly repaired. The only exception to its excellence is caused by the villages, which occur at an average of ten miles apart, and consist each of fifty to two hundred poor dwellings, mainly of stone, huddled chaotically together along the two sides of the road, which is twisted and turned by them in every direction, and often crowded into a width of not more than eight or ten feet. It is absolutely impossible that two carriages should pass each other in these narrow, crooked lanes, and dangerous for even a pedestrian to stand outside of a house while the diligence is threading one of these gorges.
There is no town except Chambery on the whole route from Lyons to Turin; but we passed about noon through a village in which a Fair was proceeding. I did not suspect that two thousand people could live within ten miles of the spot; yet I think fully two thousand were here collected, with half as many cows, asses, hogs, &c., which had been brought hither for sale, and about which they were jabbering and gesticulating. Dealers in coarse chip hats and a few kindred fabrics were also present; but it looked as if sellers were more abundant and eager than buyers. It was only by great effort and by the mostexemplary patience that our driver and guard were enabled to clear the road so that we passed through without inflicting any injury.
Wilder and narrower was the gorge, nearer and bleaker rose the mountains, steeper and more palpable became the ascent, keener and crisper grew the air, as the evening fell upon us pursuing our devious way. The valleys were not only insignificant but widely separated by tracts through which the road had with difficulty and at much expense been cut out of the mountain side without infringing on the impetuous torrent that tumbled and foamed by our side; and even where little valleys or glens still existed it was clear that Nature no longer responded with alacrity and abundance to the summons of human industry. The Vine no longer clung to the steep acclivities; the summer foliage of the lower valleys had given place to dark evergreens where shrubbery could still find foot-hold and sustenance. The snow no longer skulked timorously behind the peaks of distant mountains, showing itself only on their northern declivities, but stood out boldly, unblenchingly on all sides, and seemed within a musket-shot of our path. From slight depressions in the brows of the overhanging cliffs, streamlets leaped hundreds of feet in silvery recklessness, falling in feathery foam by our side. I think I saw half a dozen of these cascades within a distance of three miles.
At length, near ten o'clock, we reached the foot of Mount Cenis, where sinuosity of course could avail us no further. We must now face the music. Our five tired horses were exchanged for eight fresh ones, and we commenced the slow, laborious ascent of some six or eight miles. Human habitations had already become scattered and infrequent; but we passed three or four in ascending the mountain. Their inmates of course live upon the travel, in one way or another, for Sterility is here the inexorable law. Yet our ascent was not so steep as mightbe expected, being modified, when necessary, by zig-zags from one direction or one side of the chasm we followed to the other. The horses were stopped to breathe but once only; elsewhere for three hours or more they pursued their firm, deliberate, decided, though slow advance. The shrubbery dwindled as we ascended and at length disappeared, save in the sheltered gorges; the snow came nearer and spread over still larger spaces; at length, it lay in heavy beds or masses, half melted into ice, just by the side of the road and on its edge, though I think there was none actually under the wheels. Finally, a little before one o'clock, we reached the summit, and the moon from behind the neighboring cliff burst upon us fully two hours high. Two or three houses stood here for the use of travelers; around them nothing but snow and the naked planet. Before us lay the valley of the Po, the great plain of Upper Italy.
Six of our horses were here detached and sent back to the Savoy base of the mountain, while with the two remaining we commenced our rapid and dashing descent. Mount Cenis is decidedly steeper on this side than on the other; it is only surmounted by a succession of zig-zags so near each other that I think we traveled three miles in making a direct progress of one, during which we must have descended some 1,500 feet. Daylight found us at the foot with the level plain before us, and at 8 o'clock,A. M.we were in Turin.
Genoa(Italy), June 22, 1851.
The Kingdom of Sardinia was formed, after the overthrow of Napoleon, by the union of Genoa and its dependencies, with the former Kingdom of Piedmont and Savoy including the island of Sardinia, to whose long exiled Royal house was restored a dominion thus extended. That dominion has since stood unchanged, and may be roughly said to embrace the North-Western fourth of Italy, including Savoy, which belongs geographically to Switzerland, but which forms a very strong barrier against invasion from the side of France. Savoy is almost entirely watered by tributaries of the Rhone, and so might be said to belong naturally to France rather than to Italy, regarding the crests of the Alps as the proper line of demarcation between them. Its trade, small at any rate, is of necessity mainly with France; very slightly, save on the immediate sea-coast, with Genoa or Piedmont. Its language is French. Though peopled nearly to the limit of its capacity, the whole number of its inhabitants can hardly exceed Half a Million, nine-tenths of its entire surface being covered with sterile, intractable mountains. Savoy must always be a poor country, with inconsiderable commerce or manufactures (for though its water-power is inexhaustible, its means of communication must ever be among the worst), and seems to have been created mainly as a barrier against that guilty ambition which impels rulers and chieftains tocovet and invade territories which reject and resist their sway. Alas that the Providential design, though so palpable, should be so often disregarded! Doubtless, the lives lost from age to age by mere hardship, privation and exposure, during the passage of invading armies through Savoy, would outnumber the whole present population of the country.
Descending the Alps to the east or south intoPiedmont, a new world lies around and before you. You have passed in two hours from the Arctic circle to the Tropics—from Lapland to Cuba. The snow-crested mountains are still in sight, and seem in the clear atmosphere to be very near you even when forty or fifty miles distant, but you are traversing a spacious plain which slopes imperceptibly to the Po, and is matched by one nearly as level on the other side. This great plain of upper Italy, with the Po in its center, commences at the foot of the lower Alps very near the Mediterranean, far west of Turin and of Genoa, and stretches across the widest portion of the peninsula till it is lost in the Adriatic. The western half of this great valley is Piedmont; the eastern is Lombardy. Its fertility and facility of cultivation are such that even Italian unthrift and ignorance of Agriculture are unable to destroy the former or nullify the latter. I never saw better Wheat, Grass, and Barley, than in my journey of a hundred miles across this noble valley of the Po, or Piedmont, and the Indian Corn, Potatoes, &c., are less promising only because of the amazing ignorance of their requirements evinced by nine-tenths of the cultivators. In the first place, the land is not plowed half deep enough; next, most of it is seldom or never manured; thirdly, it is planted too late; and fourthly, three or four times as much seed is planted as should be. I should judge that twenty seed potatoes, or kernels of corn, to each square yard is about the average, while five of either is quite enough. Then both, but especially Corn, are hilled up, sugar-loaffashion, until the height of each hill is about equal to its breadth at the base, so that two days' hot sun dries the hill completely through, while there is no soil a foot from each stalk for its roots to run in. From such perverse cultivation, a good yield is impossible. There has been no rain of consequence here for some weeks, whence Wheat and Barley are ripening too rapidly, while Corn, Potatoes and Vegetables suffer severely from drouth, when with deeper plowing and rational culture everything would have been verdant and flourishing. Yet this great plain in some parts is and in most might be easily and bountifully irrigated from the innumerable mountain streams which traverse it on their way to the Po. I never saw another region wherein a few Sub-soil Plows, with men qualified to use them and to set forth the nature and advantages of skillful cultivation generally, are so much wanted as in Piedmont.
The Vine is of course extensively cultivated in Piedmont, as everywhere in Italy, but not so universally as in the hilly, rocky region extending from the great valley to this city (some thirty or forty miles). This has a warm though a thin soil, which must be highly favorable to the Vine to induce so exclusive a devotion to it. I think half of the arable soil I saw between this and Arquata, where the plain and (for the present) the Railroad stop, and the hills and the diligence begin, was devoted to the Grape; while from the steeple of the Carignani Church, which I ascended last evening, the semi-circle of towering, receding hill-sides which invests Genoa landward, seems covered with the Vine, and even the Gardens within the town are nearly given up to it. The Fig, the Orange, the Almond, are also native here or in the vicinity.
This kingdom is to-day, after France, the chief point of interest in continental Europe for lovers of Human Liberty. Three years ago, under the impulse of thegeneral uprising of the Nations, its rulers entered upon a course of policy in accordance with the wants and demands of the age, and that policy is still adhered to, though meantime the general aspect of affairs is sadly changed, and Sardinia herself has experienced the sorest reverses. The weak, unstable King whose ambition first conspired to throw her into the current of the movement for the liberation of Italy, has died defeated and broken-hearted, but his wiser son and heir has taken his stand deliberately and firmly on the liberal side, and cannot be driven from his course. His policy, as proclaimed in his memorable Speech from the Throne on the assembling of the present Chambers, is "to rear Free Institutions in the midst of surrounding ruins." A popular Assembly, in which the Ministry have seats, directs and supervises the National Policy, which is avowedly and efficiently directed toward the vigorous prosecution of Reforms in every department. Absolute Freedom in matters of Religion has already been established, and the long crushed and persecuted Vaudois or Waldenses rejoice in the brighter day now opening before them. Their simple worship is not only authorized and protected in their narrow, secluded Alpine valleys, but it is openly and regularly conducted also in Turin, the metropolis, where they are now endeavoring to erect a temple which shall fitly set forth the changed position of Protestantism in Northern Italy. They are still few and poor, and will apply to their brethren in America for pecuniary aid, which I trust will be granted expressly on condition that the church thus erected shall be open, when not otherwise required, to any Protestant clergyman who produces ample testimonials of his good standing with his own denomination at home. Such a church in Turin would be of incalculable service to the cause of Human Emancipation from the shackles of Force, Prescription and Tradition throughout Italy and the Eastern World.
The Freedom of the Press is established in this kingdom,yet no single journal of the Reäctionist type is issued, because there is no demand for one. The only division of political sentiment is that which separates the more impetuous Progressives, or avowed Democrats, from the larger number (apparently) who believe it wiser and safer to hold fast by King and Constitution, especially since the Monarch is among the most zealous and active in the cause of Progress and Reform. I think these are right, though their opponents have ample justification in History, even the most recent, for their distrust of the liberal professions and seemings of Royalty. But were the King and all his House to abdicate and leave the country to-morrow, I believe that would be a disastrous step for Sardinia and for Human Liberty. For this kingdom is almost walled in by enemies—Austria, Tuscany, Rome (alas!) and Naples—all intensely hating it and seeking its downfall because of the Light and Hope which its policy and its example are diffusing among the nations. With the Pope it is directly at variance, on questions of contested jurisdiction deemed vital alike by the Spiritual and the Temporal power; and repeated efforts at adjustment have only resulted in repeated failures. This feud is of itself a source of weakness, since ninety-nine in every hundred of the population are at least nominally Roman Catholic, and the great mass of the Peasantry intensely so, while the Priesthood naturally side with the Ecclesiastical as against the Political contestant. And behind Austria, notoriously hostile to the present policy of Sardinia, stands the black, colossal shadow of the Autocrat, with no power east of the Rhine and the Adriatic able or willing to resist him, and only waiting for an excuse to pour his legions over the sunny plains of Southern Europe. A Democratic Revolution in Sardinia, no matter how peacefully effected, would inevitably, while France is crippled as at present, be the signal (as with Naples and Spain successively some twenty-five to thirty years ago) for overwhelming invasionin the interest and by the forces of utter Despotism. Well-informed men believe that if the present King were to abdicate to-morrow, he would immediately be chosen President by an immense majority of the People.
Yet there is an earnest, outspoken Democratic party in Sardinia, and this city is its focus. Genoa, in fact, has never been reconciled to the decree which arbitrarily merged her political existence in that of the present Kingdom. She fondly cherishes the recollection of her ancient opulence, power and glory, and remembers that in her day of greatness she was the center and soul of a Republic. Hence her Revolutionary struggle in 1848; hence the activity and boldness of her Republican propaganda now. To see Italy a Federal Republic, whereof Piedmont, Savoy, Genoa and Sardinia should be separate and sovereign States, along with Venice, Lombardy, Tuscany, Rome, Naples, &c., would best satisfy her essential aspirations.
Yet Genoa is clearly benefited by her present political connection. From her lovely bay, she looks out over the Mediterranean, Corsica, Sardinia, Africa and the Levant, but has scarcely a glimpse of the continent of Italy. No river bears its products to her expectant wharves; only the most insignificant mill-streams brawl idly down to her harbor and the adjacent shore; steep, naked mountains rise abruptly behind her, scarcely allowing room for her lofty edifices and narrow streets; while from only a few miles back the waters are hurrying to join the Po and be borne away by that rapid, unnavigable stream to the furthest limit of Italy. No commercial City was ever more hardly dealt with by Nature on the land side than Genoa; no one ever stood more in need of intimate political connections suggestive of and cemented by works of Internal improvement. These she is now on the point of securing. A very tolerable Railroad has already been constructed from Turin to Arquata, some seventy miles on the way to Genoa, and the remaining thirty odd milesare now under contract, to be completed in 1852. The portion constructed was easy, while the residue is exceedingly difficult, following the valleys of impetuous mountain torrents, which to-day discharge each minute five gallons and to-morrow five thousand hogsheads. These valleys (or rather clefts) are quite commonly so narrow and their sides so steep and rock-bound that the Railroad track has to be raised several feet on solid masonry to preserve it from being washed away by the floods which follow every violent or protracted rain. Expensive arches to admit the passage of the streams whenever crossed, and of the roads, are also numerous, so that these thirty miles, in spite of the abundance and cheapness of Labor here, will cost at least Three Millions of Dollars. Yet the road will pay when in full operation, and will prove a new day-spring of prosperity to Genoa. From Turin, branches or feeders will run to the Alps in various directions, benefiting that city considerably, but Genoa infinitely more, since nine-tenths of the produce even of Piedmont will run past Turin, without unloading, to find purchasers and exporters here. A coal-mine of promise has just been discovered at Aosta, at the foot of the Alps, to which one of these branches is to be constructed. Genoa is now jealous of Turin's political ascendency, which is just as sensible as would be jealousy of Albany on the part of New-York. Even already, though it has not come near her, the Railroad is sensibly improving her trade and industry; and whenever it shall have reached her wharves every mile added to its extent or to that of any of its branches will add directly and largely to the commerce and wealth of this city. In time this Road will connect with those of France and Germany, by a tunnel through some one of the Alps (Mount Cenis is now under consideration), but, even without that, whenever it shall have reached the immediate base of the Alps on this side and been responded to by similar extensions of the French and Rhine-valleyRailroads on the other, Genoa will supplant Marseilles while continuing preferable to Trieste as the point of embarkation for Cairo and Suez on the direct route from England and Paris for India, China and Southern Asia generally, and can only be superseded in that preëminence by a railroad running hence or from Lake Maggiore and Milan direct to Naples or Salerno—a work of whose construction through so many petty and benighted principalities there is no present probability.
Still, Sardinia has very much before her unaccomplished. She needs first of all things an efficient and comprehensive system of Popular Education. With the enormous superabundance of Sixty Thousand Priests and other Ecclesiastics to a generally poor population of Four Millions, she has not to-day five thousand teachers, good, bad and indifferent, of elementary and secular knowledge. These black-coated gentry fairly overshadow the land with their shovel hats, so that Corn has no fair chance of sunshine. The Churches of this City alone must have cost Ten Millions of Dollars—for you cannot walk a hundred steps without passing one; and the wealth lavished in their construction and adornment exceeds all belief—while all the common school-houses in Genoa would not bring fifty thousand dollars. The best minds of the country are now pondering the urgent necessity of speedily establishing a system of efficient Popular Education.
But the Nation is deeply in debt, and laboring under heavy burdens. Its Industry is inefficient, its Commerce meager, its Revenues slender, while the imminent peril of Austrian invasion compels the keeping up of an Army of Fifty Thousand effective men ready to take the field at a moment's warming. But for the notorious and active hostility of three-fourths of Continental Europe to the liberal policy of its rulers, Sardinia might dispense with three-fourths of this force and save its heavy cost for Education and Internal Improvement. As things are,women must toil in the fields while Physical and Mental Improvement must wait in order that the Nation may sustain in virtual idleness Fifty Thousand Soldiers and Sixty Thousand Priests.
Yet mighty are the blessings of Freedom, even under the greatest disadvantages. Turin is now increasing in Industry and Population with a rapidity unknown to its former history. Looking only at the new buildings just erected or now in progress, you might mistake it for an American city. Unless checked by future wars, Turin will double its population between 1850 and 1860. Genoa has but recently and partially felt the new impulse, yet even here the march of improvement is visible. Three years more of peace will witness the substitution for its long period of stagnation and decay of an activity surpassed by that of no city in Europe.
Turin is eligibly located and well built, most of the houses being large, tall, and the walls of decided strength and thickness; but Genoa is even superior in most respects if not in all. I never saw so many churches so admirably constructed and so gorgeously, laboriously ornamented as the half dozen I visited yesterday and this morning. My guide says there are sixty churches in Genoa (a city about the size of Boston, though with fewer houses and a much smaller area than Brooklyn), and that they are nearly all built and adorned with similar if not equal disregard of cost. A modest, graceful monument to Christopher Columbus, the Genoese discoverer of America, was one of the first structures that met my eye on entering the city, and an eating-house in the square of the chief theater is styled "Café Restaurant à l'Immortel Chr. Columbo," or something very near that. I never before saw so many admirable specimens of costly and graceful architecture as have arrested my attention in wandering through the streets of Genoa. At least half the houses were constructed for the private residences of "merchant princes" inthe palmy days of "Genoa the Superb," and their wealth would seem to have been practically boundless. The "Hotel de Londres," in which I write, was originally a convent, and no house in New-York can vie with it in the massiveness of its walls, the hight of its ceilings, &c. My bed-room, appropriately furnished, would shame almost any American parlor or drawing-room. All around me testifies of the greatness that has been; who shall say that it is not soon to return? The narrow streets (very few of them passable by carriages) and uneven ground-plot are the chief drawbacks on this magnificence; but the city rises so regularly and gracefully from the harbor as to seem like a glorious amphitheater, and the inequality, so wearisome to the legs, is a beauty and a pleasure to the eye. It gives, besides, opportunity for the finest Architectural triumphs. The Carignani Church is approached by a massive bridge thrown across a ravine, from which you look down on the tops of seven-story houses, and I walked this morning in a public garden which looks down into a private one some sixty feet below it. The perpendicular stone wall which separates these gardens is at least five feet thick at the top, and must have cost an immense sum; but in fact the whole city has been three times completely walled in, and the latest and most extensive of these walls is still in good condition, and was successfully defended by Massena in the siege of 1800, until Famine compelled him to surrender. May that stand recorded to the end of human history as the last siege of Genoa!
[This letter, written and mailed at Leghorn on the 24th, has never come to hand, having been entrusted to the tender mercies of theFrenchmail which was to leave Leghorn next day by steamer for Marseilles, and thence be taken, via Paris, to Havre, and by steamship to this city. The wretched old apology for a steamship whereon I had reached Leghorn (80 miles) in eighteen hours from Genoa may not yet have completed her return passage between those ports, though I think she has; but whether her officers know enough to receive and deliver a Mail-bag is exceedingly doubtful. If they did, I see not how my letter can have been stopped this side of Marseilles. I remember that it did particular justice to French Government steamships in the Mediterranean and to American Consuls in Italy, showing how our traveling countrymen are crucified between the worthlessness of the former and the rapacity of the latter. Our Consuls may well rejoice that said Letter XXII. comes up missing, and perhaps the Tuscan Police has cause to join in their exultation.
This letter also gave some account of Leghorn, a well-built modern city, the only port of Tuscany, situated on a flat or marsh scarcely raised above the surface of the Mediterranean, and containing some 80,000 inhabitants. It has few or no antiquities, and not much to attract a traveler's attention.
Some thirty miles inland in a north-easterly direction, isPisa, once a very wealthy and powerful emporium of commerce, now a decaying inland town of no politicalimportance, with perhaps 30,000 inhabitants. It lies on both sides of the Arno, several miles from the sea, and I presume the river-bed has been considerably filled or choked up by sediment and rains since the days of Pisa's glory and power. Her wonderful Leaning Tower is worthy of all the fame it has acquired. It is a beautiful structure, though owing its dignity, doubtless, to some defect in its foundation or construction. The Cathedral of Pisa is a beautiful edifice, most gorgeous in its adornments, and with by far the finest galleries I ever saw. Near these two structures is an extensive burial-place full of sculptures and inscriptions in memory of the dead, some of them 2500 years old, and thence reaching down to the present day. Had I not extended my trip to Rome, I should have brought home far more vivid and lasting impressions of Pisa, which has nevertheless an abiding niche in my memory.
The day before my visit was the anniversary of the Patron Saint of Pisa, which is celebrated every fourth year with extraordinary pomp and festivity. This time, I was informed, the fire-works exploded at the public charge, in honor of this festival, cost over $100,000, though Pisacannot affordto sustain Free Common Schools, or make any provision for the Education of her Children. Of course, she can afford to die, or is certain to do it, whether she can afford it or not. Pisa is located on a beautiful and fertile plain, and is surrounded by gardens, with fruit and ornamental trees; but much of the soil between it and Leghorn is the property of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who keeps it entirely in grass, affording subsistence to extensive and beautiful herds of Cattle, whence he derives a large income, being the chief milk-seller in his own dominions. So, at least, I was informed.]
Rome, Thursday, June 26, 1851.
I left Leghorn night before last in the French steamer Languedoc, which could not obtain passengers in America, but is accounted one of the best boats on the Mediterranean. The fare to Civita Vecchia (125 miles) was 40 francs, but 4 added for dinner (without saying "By your leave") made it $825. There were perhaps twenty-five passengers, mainly for Naples, but eight or ten for Civita Vecchia and Rome, although it is everywhere said that "Nobody goes to Rome at this season," meaning nobody that is anybody—none who can afford to go when they would choose. The night was fair; the sea calm; we left Leghorn at 6 (nominally 5) and reached Civita Vecchia about 5 next morning; but were kept on board waiting the pleasure of the Police until about 7, when we were graciously permitted to land, our Passports having been previously sent on shore for inspection. No steamboat in these waters is allowed to come alongside of the wharf; so we paid a franc each for being rowed ashore; then as much more to the porters who carried our baggage on their backs to the custom-house, where a weary hour was spent in overhauling and sealing it, so that it need not be overhauled again on entering the gate of Rome. For this service a trifle only was exacted from each. Meantime a "commissionaire" had gone after our Passports, for which we paid first the charge of the Papal Police, which I think was about three francs;then for theviséof our several Consuls, we Americans a dollar each, which (though but half what is charged by our Consuls at other Italian ports) is more than is charged by those of any other nation. Then came the charge of our "commissionaire" for his services. We took breakfast; but that, though a severe, was not a protracted infliction; hired places in the Diligence (13 francs in thecoupé, 10 in the body of the stage), and at half-past 10 were to have been on our way to Rome. But the start was rather late, and on reaching the gates of that wretched village, which seems to subsist mainly on such petty swindles as I have hastily described, our Passports, which had been thrice scrutinized that morning within sixty rods, had to run the gauntlet again. I do not remember paying for this, but while detained by it the ostlers from the stables of our Diligence were all upon us, clamoring for money. I think they got little. But we changed horses thrice on the way to Rome, and each postillion was down upon us for money, and out of all patience with those passengers who attempted to put him off with copper.
Aside from those engaged in fleecing us as aforesaid, I saw but three sorts of men in Civita Vecchia—or rather, men pursuing three several avocations—those of Priests, Soldiers and Beggars. Some united two of these callings. A number of brown, bare-headed, wretched-looking women were washing clothes in the hot sun of the sea-side, but I saw no trace of masculine industry other than what I have described. The place is said to contain 7,000 inhabitants, but I think there is scarcely a garden outside its walls.
Half the way thence to Rome, the road runs along the shore of the Mediterranean, through a naturally fertile and beautiful champaign country, once densely peopled and covered with elegant structures, the homes of intelligence, refinement and luxury. Now there is not a garden, scarcely a tree, and not above ten barns and thirty human habitations in sight throughout the whole twenty-five miles.Such utter desolation and waste, in a region so eligibly situated, can with difficulty be realized without seeing it. I should say it can hardly here be unhealthy, with the pure Mediterranean directly on one side, the rugged hills but two to five miles distant on the other, and the plain between very much less marshy than the corresponding district of New-Jersey stretching along the coast from New-York to Perth Amboy. A few large herds of neat cattle are fed on these plains, considerable grass is cut, and some summer grain; but stables for post-horses at intervals of five or six miles, with perhaps as many dilapidated stone dwellings and a few wretched herdsmen's huts of straw or rubbish, are all the structures in sight, save the bridges of the noble "Via Aurelia" which we traversed, the ruins of some of the stately edifices once so abundant here, and the mile-stones. There is not even one tavern of the half dozen pretenders to the name between Civita Vecchia and Rome which would be considered tolerable in the least civilized portion of Arkansas or Texas.
Half way to Rome, the road strikes off from the sea, and there is henceforth more cultivation, more grain, better crops (though all this land produces excellently both of Wheat and Barley, and of Indian Corn also where the cultivation is not utterly suicidal), but still there are very few houses and those generally poor, the wretchedest caricatures of taverns on one of the great highways of the world, no gardens nor other evidences of aspiration for comfort and natural beauty, few and ragged trees, and the very few inhabitants are so squalid, so abject, so beggarly, that it seems a pity they were not fewer. And this state continues, except that the grain-crops grow larger and better, up to within a mile or two of the gates of Rome, which thus seems another Palmyra in the Desert, only that this is a desert of man's making. I presume the twenty-five or thirty miles at this end is unhealthy, even for natives, but it surely need not be so. All this Campagna,with the more pestilent Pontine Marshes on the south, which are now scourging Rome with their deadly malaria and threaten to render it ultimately uninhabitable, were once salubrious and delightful, and might readily be made so again. If they were in England, Old or New, near a city of the size of this, they would be trenched, dyked, drained, and reconverted into gardens, orchards and model-farms within two years, and covered with dwellings, mansions, country-seats, and a busy, energetic, thrifty population before 1860. A tenth part of the energy and devotedness displayed in the attempts to wrest Jerusalem from the Infidels would rescue Rome from a fate not less appalling.
We ought by contract to have arrived here at half past six last evening; we actually reached the gates at half past eight or a little later. There our Passports were taken from us, and carried into the proper office; but word came back that all was not right; we must go in personally. We did so, and found that what was wanted to make all right was money. There was not the smallest pretext for this—no Barbary pirate ever had less—as we were not to get our Passports, but must wait their approval by a higher authority and then go and pay for it. We submitted to the swindle, however, for we were tired, the hour late, we had lodgings yet to seek, and the night-air here is said to be very unwholesome for strangers. This difficulty obviated, another presented itself. The Custom-House stood on the other side of the street, and word came that we were wanted there also, though our slender carpet-bags had been regularly searched and sealed by the Roman functionaries at Civita Vecchia expressly to obviate any pretext for scrutiny or delay here. No use—money. By this time, change and patience were getting scarce in our company. We tried to get off cheap; but it wouldn't do. Finally, rather than stay out till midnight in the malaria, I put down a five-franc-piece, which was accepted and we were let go. Still for form's sake, ourbaggage was fumbled over, but not opened, and one or two more heads looked in at the window for "qualche cosa," but we gave nothing, and soon got away.
We had paid thirteen francs each for a ride of fifty miles over a capital road, where horses and feed are abundant, and must be cheap; but now our postillion came down upon us for more money for taking us to a hotel; and as we could do no better, we agreed to give him four francs to set down four of us (all the Americans and English he had) at one hotel. He drove by the Diligence Office, however, and there three or four rough customers jumped unbidden on the vehicle, and, when we reached our hotel, made themselves busy with our little luggage, which we would have thanked them to let alone. Having obtained it, we settled with the postillion, who grumbled and scolded though we paid him more than his four francs. Then came the leader of our volunteer aids, to be paid for taking down the luggage. I had not a penny of change left, but others of our company scraped their pockets of a handful of coppers, which the "facchini" rejected with scorn, throwing them after us up stairs (I hope they did not pick them up afterwards), and I heard their imprecations until I had reached my room, but a blessed ignorance of Italian shielded me from any insult in the premises. Soon my two light carpet-bags, which I was not allowed to carry, came up with a fresh demand for porterage. "Don't you belong to the hotel?" "Yes." "Then vanish instantly!" I shut the door in his face, and let him growl to his heart's content; and thus closed my first day in the more especial dominions of His Holiness Pius IX.