De Potter is one of the noblest-looking men I ever saw. He is quite bald, with a broad, ample, majestic head, the very model of dignity and intellect. Dr. Spurzheim considers his head one of the most extraordinary he has met.Firmnessis the great development of its organs. His tone and manner are calm and very impressive, and he looks made for great occasions—a man stamped with the superiority which others acknowledge when circumstances demand it. He employs himself in literary pursuits at Paris, and has just published a pamphlet on "the manner of conducting a revolution, so that no after-revolution shall be necessary." I have translated the title awkwardly, but that is the subject.
I have since heard Dr. Spurzheim lecture twice, and have been with him to a meeting of the "Anthropological Society" (of which he is the president and De Potter the secretary), where I witnessed the dissection of the human brain. It was a most interesting and satisfactory experiment, as an illustration of phrenology.David the sculptor is a member of the society, and was present. He looks more like a soldier than an artist, however—wearing the cross of the Legion of Honor, with a military frock coat, and an erect, stern, military carriage. Spurzheim lectures in a free, easy, unconstrained style, with occasionally a little humor, and draws his arguments from admitted facts only. Nothing could be more reasonable than his premises, and nothing more like an axiom than the results, as far as I have heard him. At any rate, true or false, his theory is one of extreme interest, and no time can be wasted in examining it; for it is the study of man, and therefore the most important of studies.
I have had several long conversations with Dr. Spurzheim about America, and have at last obtained his positive assurance that he would visit it. He gave me permission this morning to say (what I am sure all lovers of knowledge will be pleased to hear) that he should sail for New York in the course of the ensuing summer, and pass a year or more in lecturing and travelling in the United States. He is a man to obtain the immediate confidence and respect of a people like ours, of the highest moral worth, and the most candid and open mind.
DEPARTURE FROM PARIS—DESULTORY REMARKS.
I take my departure from Paris to-morrow. I have just been making preparations to pack, and it has given me a fit of bad spirits. I have been in France only a few months, but if I had lived my life here, I could not be more at home. In my almost universal acquaintance, I have of course made pleasant friends, and, however time and travel should make us indifferent to such volant attachments, I can not now cast off these threads of intimacy, without pulling a little upon very sincere feelings. I have been burning the mass of papers and cards that have accumulated in my drawers; and the sight of these French invitations, mementoes, as they are, of delightful and fascinating hours, almost staggers my resolution of departure. It has been an intoxicating time to me. Aside from lighter attractions, this metropolis collects within itself so much of the distinction and genius of the world; and gifted men in Paris, coming here merely for pleasure, are so peculiarly accessible, that one looks upon them as friends to whom he has become attached and accustomed, and leaves thesphere in which he has met them, as if he had been a part of it, and had a right to be regretted. I do not think I shall ever spend so pleasant a winter again. And then my local interest is not a light one. I am a great lover of out-of-doors, and I have ransacked Paris thoroughly. I know it all from its broad faubourgs to its obscurestcul de sac. I have hunted with antiquaries for coins and old armor; with lovers of adventure for the amusing and odd; with the curious for traces of history; with the romantic for the picturesque. Paris is a world for research. It contains more odd places, I believe, more odd people, and every way more material for uncommon amusement, than any other city in the universe. One might live a life of novelty without crossing the barrier. All this insensibly attaches one. My eye wanders at this moment from my paper to these lovely gardens lying beneath my window, and I could not feel more regret if they were mine. Just over the long line of low clipped trees, edging the fashionable terrace, I see the windows of the king within half a stone's throw—the windows at which Napoleon has stood, and the long line of the monarchs of France, and it has become to me so much a habit of thought, sitting here in the twilight and musing on the thousand, thousand things linked with the spot my eye embraces, that I feel as if I had grown to it—as if Paris had become to me, what it is proverbially and naturally enough to a Frenchman—"the world."
I have other associations which I part from less painfully, because I hope at some future time to renew them—those with my own countrymen. There are few pleasanter circles than that of the Americans in Paris. Lafayette and his numerous family make a part of them. I could not learn to love this good man more, but seeing him often brings one's reverence more withinthe limits of the affections; and I consider the little of his attention that has fallen to my share the honored part of my life, and the part best worth recording and remembering. He called upon me a day or two ago, to leave with me some copies of a translation of Mr. Cooper's letter on the finances of our government, to be sent to my friend Dr. Howe; but, to my regret, I did not see him. He neglects no American, and is ever busied about some project connected with their welfare. May God continue to bless him!
And speaking of Mr. Cooper, no one who loves or owns a pride in his native land, can live abroad without feeling every day what we owe to the patriotism as well as the genius of this gifted man. If there is an individual who loves the soil that gave him birth, and so shows it that we are more respected for it, it is he. Mr. Cooper's position is a high one; he has great advantages, and he improves them to the uttermost. His benevolence and activity in all enterprises for the relief of suffering, give him influence, and he employs it like a true philanthropist and a real lover of his country. I say this particularly, though it may look like too personal a remark, because Americans abroad arenotalwaysnational. I am often mortified by reproaches from foreigners, quoting admissions made by my countrymen, which should be the last on their lips. A very distinguished person told me a day or two since, that "the Americans abroad were the worst enemies we had in Europe." It is difficult to conceive at home how such a remark stings. Proportionately, one takes a true patriot to his heart and I feel it right to say here, that the love of country and active benevolence of Mr. Cooper distinguish him abroad, even more than his genius. His house is one of the most hospitable and agreeable in Paris; andwith Morse and the circle of artists and men of distinction and worth about him, he is an acquaintance sincerely to regret leaving.
From Mr. Rives, our Minister, I have received every possible kindness. He has attached me to his legation, to facilitate my access to other courts and the society of other cities, and to free me from all delays and annoyances at frontiers and custom-houses. It is a particular and valuable kindness, and I feel a pleasure in acknowledging it. Then there is Dr. Bowring, the lover and defender of the United States, who, as the editor of the Westminster Review, should be well remembered in America, and of him I have seen much, and from him I have received great kindness. Altogether, as I said before, Paris is a home to me, and I leave it with a heavy heart.
I have taken a place on the top of the diligencefor a week. It is a long while to occupy one seat, but the weather and the season are delicious; and in the covered and roomy cabriolet, with theconducteurfor a living reference, and all the appliances for comfort, I expect to live very pleasantly, night and day, till I reach Marseilles.Vaucluseis on the way, and I shall visit it if I have time and good weather, perhaps. At Marseilles I propose to take the steamboat for Leghorn, and thence get directly to Florence, where I shall remain till I become familiar with the Italian, at least. I lay down my pen till all this plan of travel is accomplished, and so, for the present, adieu!
Chalons, on the saone.—I have broken my route to stop at this pretty town, and take the steamboat which goes down the Saone to Lyons to-morrow morning. I have travelled two days and nights; but an excellent dinner and a quickened imagination indispose me for sleep, and, for want of better amusement in a strange city at night, I will pass away an hour in transcribing the hurried notes I have made at the stopping places.
I chose, by advice, the part of the diligence called thebanquette—a covered seat over the front of the carriage, commanding all the view, and free from the dust of the lower apartments. Theconducteurhad the opposite corner, and a very ordinary-looking man sat between us; the seat holding three very comfortably. A lady and two gentlemen occupied thecoupé; a dragoon and his family, going to join his regiment, filled therotonde; and in the interior was a motley collection, whom I scarce saw after starting; the occupants of the different parts of a diligence having no more association, even in a week's travel, than people living in adjoining houses in the city.
We rolled out of Paris by thefaubourg St. Antoine, and at the end of the first post passed the first object that interested me—a small brick pavilion, built by Henri Quatre for the beautiful Gabrielle d'Estrees. It stands on a dull, level plain, not far from the banks of the river; and nothing but the fact that it was once occupied by the woman who most enslaved the heart of the most chivalrous and fickle of the French monarchs, would call your attention to it for a moment.
For the twenty or thirty miles which we travelled by daylight, I saw nothing particularly curious or beautiful. The guide-book is very diffuse upon the chateaux and villages on the road, but I saw nothing except very ordinary country-houses, and the same succession of small and dirty villages, steeped to the very chimneys in poverty. If ever I return to America, I shall make a journey to the west, for the pure refreshment of seeing industry and thrift. I am sick to the heart of pauperism and misery. Everything that is near the large towns in France is either splendid or disgusting. There is no medium in condition—nothing that looks like content—none of that class we define in our country as the "respectable."
The moon was a little in the wane, but bright, and the night lovely. As we got further into the interior, the towns began to look more picturesque and antique; and, with the softening touch of the moonlight, and the absence of beggars, the old low-browed buildings and half-ruined churches assumed the beauty they wear in description. I slept on the road, but the echo of the wheels in entering a post-town woke me always; and I rarely have felt the picturesque more keenly than, at these sudden wakings from dreams, perhaps, of familiar things, finding myself opposite some shadowy relic of another age; as if it were bymagical transportation, from the fireside to some place of which I had heard or read the history.
I awoke as we drove intoSensat broad daylight. We were just passing a glorious old pile of a cathedral, which I ran back to see while the diligence stopped to change horses. It is of pointed architecture, black with age, and crusted with moss. It was to this town that Thomas a Becket retired in disgrace at his difference with Henry the Second. There is a chapel in the cathedral, dedicated to his memory. The French certainly should have the credit of leaving things alone. This old pile stands as if the town in which it is built had been desolate for centuries: not a letter of the old sculptures chiselled out, not a bird unnested, not a filament of the gathering moss pulled away. All looks as if no human hand had been near it—almost as if no human eye had looked upon it. In America they would paint such an old church white or red, shove down the pillars, and put up pews, sell the pictures for fireboards, and cover the tesselated pavement with sand, or a home-made carpet.
As we passed under a very ancient gate, crowning the old Roman ramparts of the town, a door opened, and a baker, in white cap and apron, thrust out his head to see us pass. His oven was blazing bright, and he had just taken out a batch of hot bread, which was smoking on the table; and what with the chill of the morning air and having fasted for some fourteen hours, I quite envied him his vocation. The diligence, however, pushed on most mercilessly till twelve o'clock, the French never dreaming of eating before their latedejeuner—a mid-day meal always. When we did get it, it was a dinner in every respect—meats of all kinds, wine, and dessert, certainly as solid andvarious as any of the American breakfasts, at which travellers laugh so universally.
Auxerre is a pretty town, on a swelling bank of the river Yonne; and I had admired it as one of the most improved-looking villages of France. It was not till I had breakfasted there, and travelled a league or two towards Chalons, that I discovered by the guide book it was the ancient capital of Auxerrois, a famous town in the time of Julius Cæsar, and had the honor of being ravaged "at different times by Attila, the Saracens, the Normans, and the Calvinists, vestiges of whose devastations may still be seen." If I had not eaten of a positively modernpaté foie gras, and anomelette soufflé, at a nice little hotel, with a mistress in a cap, and a coquettish French apron, I should forgive myself less easily for not having detected antiquity in the atmosphere. One imagines more readily than he realizes the charm of mere age without beauty.
We were now in the province of Burgundy, and, to say nothing of the historical recollections, the vineyards were all about us that delighted the palates of the world. One does not dine at theTrois Fréres, in the Palais Royal, without contracting a tenderness for the very name of Burgundy. I regretted that I was not there in the season of the grape. The vines were just budding, and thepaysans, men and women, were scattered over the vineyards, loosening the earth about the roots, and driving stakes to support the young shoots. At Saint Bris I found the country so lovely, that I left the diligence at the post-house, and walked on to mount a long succession of hills on foot. The road sides were quite blue with the violets growing thickly among the grass, and the air was filled with perfume. I soon got out of sight of the heavy vehicle, and made use of my leisureto enter the vineyards and talk to the people at their work. I found one old man, with all his family about him; the little ones with long baskets on their backs, bringing manure, and one or two grown-up boys and girls raking up the earth with the unhandy hoe of the country, and setting it firmly around the roots with their wooden shoes. It was a pretty group, and I was very much amused with their simplicity. The old man asked my country, and set down his hoe in astonishment when I told him I was an American. He wondered I was not more burnt, living in such a hot country, and asked me what language we spoke. I could scarce get away from his civilities when I bade him "Good day." No politeness could have been more elegant than the manner and expression of this old peasant, and certainly nothing could have appeared sincerer or kinder. I kept on up the hill till I reached a very high point, passing on my way a troop of Italians, going to Paris with their organs and shows—a set of as ragged specimens of the picturesque as I ever saw in a picture. A lovely scene lay before me when I turned to look back. The valley, on one side of which lies St. Bris, is as round as a bowl, with an edge of mountain-tops absolutely even all around the horizon. It slopes down from every side to the centre, as if it had been measured and hollowed by art; and there is not a fence to be seen from one side to the other, and scarcely a tree, but one green and almost unbroken carpet of verdure, swelling up in broad green slopes to the top, and realizing, with a slight difference, the similitude of Madame de Genlis, of the place of satiety, eternal green meadow and eternal blue sky. St. Bris is a little handful of stone buildings around an old church; just such a thing as a painter would throw into a picture—and the different-colored grain, and here and there a ploughed patch of rich yellow earth,and the road crossing the hollow from hill to hill like a white band; and then for the life of the scene, the group of Italians, the cumbrous diligence, and the peasants in their broad straw hats, scattered over the fields—it was something quite beyond my usual experience of scenery and accident. I had rarely before found so much in one view to delight me.
After looking a while, I mounted again, and stood on the very top of the hill; and, to my surprise, there, on the other side lay just such another valley, with just such a village in its bosom, and the single improvement of a river—the Yonne stealing through it, with its riband-like stream; but all the rest of the valley almost exactly as I have described the other. I crossed a vineyard to get a view to the southeast, andonce morethere lay a deep hollow valley before me, formed like the other two, with its little hamlet and its vineyards and mountains—as if there had been three lakes in the hills, with their edges touching like three bowls, and the terrace on which I stood was the platform between them. It is a most singular formation of country, really, and as beautiful as it is singular. Each of these valleys might be ten miles across; and if the dukes of Burgundy in feudal times rode ever to St. Bris, I can conceive that their dukedom never seemed larger to them than when crossing this triple apex of highland.
At Saulieu we left the usual route, and crossed over to Chagny. Between these two places lay a spot, which, out of my own country, I should choose before all others for a retreat from the world. As it was off the route, the guide-book gave me not even the name, and I have discovered nothing but that the little hamlet is calledRochepot. It is a little nest of wild scenery, a mimic valley shut in by high overhanging crags, with the ruinsof a battlemented and noble old castle, standing upon a rock in the centre, with the village of some hundred stone cottages at its very foot. You might stand on the towers of the ruins, and toss a biscuit into almost every chimney in the village. The strong round towers are still perfect, and the turrets and loop-holes and windows are still there; and rank green vines have overrun the whole mass everywhere; and nothing but the prodigious solidity with which it was built could have kept it so long from falling, for it is evidently one of the oldest castles in Burgundy. I never before saw anything, even in a picture, which realized perfectly my idea of feudal position. Here lived the lord of the domain, a hundred feet in the air in his rocky castle, right over the heads of his retainers, with the power to call in every soul that served him at a minute's warning, and with a single blast of his trumpet. I do not believe a stone has been displaced in the village for a hundred years. The whole thing was redolent of antiquity. We wound out of the place by a sharp narrow pass, and there, within a mile of this old and deserted fortress, lay the broad plains of Beaune and Chagny—one of the most fertile and luxurious parts of France. I was charmed altogether. How many things I have seen this side the water that I have made an involuntary vow in my heart to visit again, and at more leisure, before I die!
From Chagny it was but one post to Chalons, and here I am in a pretty, busy town, with broad beautiful quays, where I have promenaded till dark, observing this out-of-doors people; and now, having written a long letter for a sleepy man, I will get to bed, and redeem some portion of my two nights' wakefulness.
PASSAGE DOWN THE SAONE—AN ODD ACQUAINTANCE—LYONS—CHURCH OF NOTRE DAME DE FOURVIERES—VIEW FROM THE TOWER.
I looked out of my window the last thing before going to bed at Chalons, and the familiar constellation ofUrsa Majornever shone brighter, and never made me a more agreeable promise than that of fair weather the following day for my passage down the Saone. I was called at four, and it rained in torrents. The steamboat was smaller than the smallest I have seen in our country, and crowded to suffocation with children, women, and lap-dogs. I appropriated my own trunk, and spreading my umbrella, sat down upon it, to endure my disappointment with what philosophy I might. A dirty-looking fellow, who must have slept in his clothes for a month, came up, with a loaf of coarse bread under his arm, and addressed me, to my sufficient astonishment,in Latin! He wanted to sit under my umbrella. I looked at him a second time, but he had touched my passion. Latin is the only thing I have been driven to, in this world, that I ever really loved; and the clear, mellow, unctuous pronunciation ofmy dirty companion equally astonished and pleased me. I made room for him on my trunk, and, though rusted somewhat since I philosophized over Lucretius, we got on very tolerably. He was a German student, travelling to Italy, and a fine specimen of the class. A dirtier man I never saw, and hardly a finer or more intellectual face. He knew everything, and served me as a talking guide to the history of all the places on the river.
Instead of eating all at once, as we do on board the steamboats in America, the French boats have arestaurant, from which you order what you please, and at any hour. The cabin was set round with small tables, and the passengers made little parties, and breakfasted and dined at their own time. It is much the better method. I descended to the cabin very hungry about twelve o'clock, and was looking about for a place, when a French gentleman politely rose, and observing that I was alone, (my German friend living on bread and water only,) requested me to join his party at breakfast. Two young ladies and a lad of fourteen sat at the table, and addressing them by their familiar names, my polite friend requested them to give me a place; and then told me that they were his daughters and son, and that he was travelling to Italy for the health of the younger girl, a pale, slender creature, apparently about eighteen. I was very well pleased with my position, and rarely have passed an hour more agreeably. French girls of the better classes never talk, but the father was very communicative, and a Parisian, with the cross of the Legion of Honor, and we found abundance of matter for conversation. They have stopped at Lyons, where I write at present, and I shall probably join their party to Marseilles.
The clouds broke away after mid-day, and the banks of the river brightened wonderfully with the change. The Saone isabout the size of the Mohawk, but not half so beautiful; at least for the greater part of its course. Indeed, you can hardly compare American with European rivers, for the charm is of another description, quite. With us it is nature only, here it is almost all art. Our rivers are lovely, because the outline of the shore is graceful, and particularly because the vegetation is luxuriant. The hills are green, the foliage deep and lavish, the rocks grown over with vines or moss, the mountains in the distance covered with pines and other forest-trees; everything is wild, and nothing looks bare or sterile. The rivers of France are crowned on every height with ruins, and in the bosom of every valley lies a cluster of picturesque stone cottages; but the fields are naked, and there are no trees; the mountains are barren and brown, and everything looks as if the dwellings had been deserted by the people, and nature had at the same time gone to decay. I can conceive nothing more melancholy than the views upon the Saone, seen, as I saw them, though vegetation is out everywhere, and the banks should be beautiful if ever. As we approached Lyons the river narrowed and grew bolder, and the last ten miles were enchanting. Naturally the shores at this part of the Saone are exceedingly like the highlands of the Hudson above West Point. Abrupt hills rise from the river's edge, and the windings are sharp and constant. But imagine the highlands of the Hudson crowned with antique chateaux, and covered to the very top with terraces and summer-houses and hanging-gardens, gravel walks and beds of flowers, instead of wild pines and precipices, and you may get a very correct idea of the Saone above Lyons. You emerge from one of the dark passes of the river by a sudden turn, and there before you lies this large city, built on both banks, at the foot and on the sides of mountains. The bridges are fine,and the broad, crowded quays, all along the edges of the river, have a beautiful effect. We landed at the stone stairs, and I selected a hotel by chance, where I have found seven Americans of my acquaintance. We have been spending the evening at the rooms of a townsman of mine, very pleasantly.
There is a great deal of magnificence at Lyons, in the way of quays, promenades, and buildings; but its excessive filthiness spoils everything. One could scarce admire a Venus in such an atmosphere; and you cannot find room to stand in Lyons where you have not some nauseating odor. I was glad to escape from the lower streets, and climb up the long staircases to the observatory that overhangs the town. From the base of this elevation the descent of the river is almost a precipice. The houses hang on the side of the steep hill, and their doors enter from the long alleys of stone staircases by which you ascend. On every step, and at almost every foot of the way, stood a beggar. They might have touched hands from the quay to the summit. If they were not such objects of real wretchedness, it would be laughable to hear the church calendar of saints repeated so volubly. The lame hobble after you, the blind stumble in your way, the sick lie and stretch out their hands from the wall, and all begin in the name of the Virgin Mary, and end with "Mon bon Monsieur," and "un petit sous." I confined my charities to a lovely child, that started out from its mother's lap, and ran down to meet us—a dirty and ragged little thing, but with the large dark eyes of the province; and a skin, where one could see it, of the clearest nut-brown teint. Her mother had five such,and each of them, to any one who loved children, would have been a treasure of beauty and interest.
It was holy-week, and the church ofNotre Dame de Fourvières, which stands on the summit of the hill, was crowded with people. We went in for a moment, and sat down on a bench to rest. My companion was a Swiss captain of artillery, who was a passenger in the boat, a very splendid fellow, with a mustache that he might have tied behind his ears. He had addressed me at the hotel, and proposed that we should visit the curiosities of the town together. He was a model of a manly figure, athletic, and soldier-like, and standing near him was to get the focus of all the dark eyes in the congregation.
The new square tower stands at the side of the church, and rises to the height of perhaps sixty feet. The view from it is said to be one of the finest in the world. I have seen more extensive ones, but never one that comprehended more beauty and interest. Lyons lies at the foot, with the Saone winding through its bosom in abrupt curves; the Rhone comes down from the north on the other side of the range of mountains, and meeting the Saone in a broad stream below the town, they stretch off to the south, through a diversified landscape; the Alps rise from the east like the edges of a thunder-cloud, and the mountains of Savoy fill up the interval to the Rhone. All about the foot of the monument lie gardens, of exquisite cultivation; and above and below the city the villas of the rich; giving you altogether as delicious a nucleus for a broad circle of scenery as art and nature could create, and one sufficiently in contrast with the barrenness of the rocky circumference to enhance the charm, and content you with your position. Half way down the hill lies an old monastery, with a lovely garden walled in from the world;and several of the brotherhood were there, idling up and down the shaded alleys, with their black dresses sweeping the ground, possibly in holy contemplation. The river was covered with boats, the bells were ringing to church, the glorious old cathedral, so famous for its splendor, stood piled up, with its arches and gray towers, in the square below; the day was soft, sunny, and warm, and existence was a blessing. I leaned over the balustrade, I know not how long, looking down upon the scene about me; and I shall ever remember it as one of those few unalloyed moments, when the press of care was taken off my mind, and the chain of circumstances was strong enough to set aside both the past and the future, and leave me to the quiet enjoyment of the present. I have found such hours "few and far between."
DEPARTURE FROM LYONS—BATTEAUX DE POSTE—RIVER SCENERY—VILLAGE OF CONDRIEU—VIENNE—VALENCE—POINT ST. ESPRIT—DAUPHINY AND LANGUEDOC—DEMI-FETE DAY, ETC.
I found a day and a half quite enough for Lyons. The views from the mountain and the river were the only things that pleased me. I made the usual dry visit to the library and the museum, and admired the Hotel de Ville, and the new theatre, and the front of theMaison de Tolosan, that so struck the fancy of Joseph II., and having "despatched the lions," like a true cockney traveller, I was too happy to escape the offensive smells of the streets, and get to my rooms. One does not enjoy much comfort within doors either. Lyons is a great imitation metropolis—a sort of second-hand Paris. I am not very difficult to please, but I found the living intolerable. It was an affectation of abstruse cookery throughout. We sat down to what is called the best table in the place, and it was a series of ludicrous travesties, from the soup to the salad. One can eat well in the country, because the dishes are simple, and he gets the natural taste of things; but to come to a table covered with artificial dishes, which he has been accustomed to see in their perfection, and totaste and send away everything in disgust, is a trial of temper which is reserved for the traveller at Lyons.
The scenery on the river, from Lyons to Avignon, has great celebrity, and I had determined to take that course to the south. Just at this moment, however, the Rhone had been pronounced too low, and the steamboats were stopped. I probably made the last passage by steam on the Saone, for we ran aground repeatedly, and were compelled to wait till horses could be procured to draw the boat into deep water. It was quite amusing to see with what a regular, business-like air, the postillions fixed their traces to the prow, and whipped into the middle of the river. A small boat was my only resource, and I found a man on the quay who plied the river in what is calledbatteaux de poste, rough shallops with flat bottoms, which are sold for firewood on their arrival, the rapidity of the Rhone rendering a return against the current next to impossible. The sight of the frail contrivance in which I was to travel nearly two hundred miles, rather startled me, but the man assured me he had several other passengers, and two ladies among them. I paid thearrhes, or earnest money, and was at the river-stairs punctually at four the next morning.
To my very sincere pleasure the two ladies were the daughters of my polite friend and fellow passenger from Chalons. They were already on board, and the little shallop sat deep in the water with her freight. Besides these, there were two young French chasseurs going home on leave of absence, a pretty Parisian dress-maker flying from the cholera, a masculine woman, the wife of a dragoon, and my friend the captain. We pushed out into the current, and drifted slowly down under the bridges, without oars the padrone quietly smoking his pipe at the helm. In a few minutes we were below the town, and here commenced again thecultivated and ornamented banks I had so much admired on my approach to Lyons from the other side. The thin haze was just stirring from the river's surface, the sunrise flush was on the sky, the air was genial and impregnated with the smell of grass and flowers, and the little changing landscapes, as we followed the stream, broke upon us like a series of exquisite dioramas. The atmosphere was like Doughty's pictures, exactly. I wished a thousand times for that delightful artist, that he might see how richly the oldchateauxand their picturesque appurtenances filled up the scene. It would have given a new turn to his pencil.
We soon arrived at the junction of the rivers, and, as we touched the rapid current of the Rhone, the little shallop yielded to its sway, and redoubled its velocity. The sun rose clear, the cultivation grew less and less, the hills began to look distant and barren, and our little party became sociable in proportion. We closed around the invalid, who sat wrapped in a cloak in the stern, leaning on her father's shoulder, and talked of Paris and its pleasures—a theme of which the French are never weary. Time passed delightfully. Without being decidedly pretty, our two Parisiennes were quiet-mannered and engaging; and the younger one particularly, whose pale face and deeply-sunken eyes gave her a look of melancholy interest, seemed to have thought much, and to feel, besides, that her uncertain health gave her a privilege of overstepping the rigid reserve of an unmarried girl. She talks freely, and with great delicacy of expression and manner.
We ran ashore at the little village of Condrieu to breakfast. We were assailed on stepping out of the boat by thedemoisellesof two or three rivalauberges—nice-looking, black-eyed girls, in white aprons, who seized us by the arm, and pulled each to herown door, with torrents of unintelligiblepatois. We left it to the captain, who selected the best-looking leader, and we were soon seated around a table covered with a lavish breakfast; the butter, cheese, and wine excellent, at least. A merrier party, I am sure, never astonished the simple people of Condrieu. The pretty dress-maker was full of good-humor and politeness, and delighted at the envy with which the rural belles regarded her knowing Parisian cap; the chasseurs sang the popular songs of the army, and joked with the maids of theauberge; the captain was inexhaustibly agreeable, and the hour given us by the padrone was soon gone. We embarked with a thousand adieus from the pleased people, and altogether it was more like a scene from Wilhelm Meister, than a passage from real life.
The wind soon rose free and steady from the north-west, and with a spread sail we ran pastVienne, at ten miles in the hour. This was the metropolis of my old friends, "the Allobrogues," in Cesar's Commentaries. I could not help wondering at the feelings with which I was passing over such classic ground. The little dress-maker was giving us an account of her fright at the cholera, and every one in the boat was in agonies of laughter. I looked at the guide-book to find the name of the place, and the first glance at the word carried me back to my old school-desk at Andover, and conjured up for a moment the redolent classic interest with which I read the history of the land I was now hurrying through. That a laugh with a moderngrisetteshould engross me entirely, at the moment I was traversing such a spot, is a possibility the man may realize much more readily than the school-boy. A new roar of merriment from my companions plucked me back effectually from Andover to the Rhone, and I thought no more of Gaul or its great historian.
We floated on during the day, passingchateauxand ruins constantly; but finding the country barren and rocky to a dismal degree, I can not well imagine how the Rhone has acquired its reputation for beauty. It has been sung by the poets more than any other river in France, and the various epithets that have been applied to it have become so common, that you can not mention it without their rising to your lips; but the Saone and the Seine are incomparably more lovely, and I am told the valleys of the Loire are the most beautiful part of France. From its junction with the Saone to the Mediterranean, the Rhone is one stretch of barrenness.
We passed a picturesque chateau, built very widely on a rock washed by the river, called "La Roche de Glun," and twilight soon after fell, closing in our view to all but the river edge. The wind died away, but the stars were bright and the air mild; and, quite fatigued to silence, our little party leaned on the sides of the boat, and waited till the current should float us down to our resting-place for the night. We reachedValenceat ten, and with a merry dinner and supper in one, which kept us up till after midnight, we got to our coarse but clean beds, and slept soundly.
The following forenoon we ran under thePont St. Esprit, an experiment the guide-book calls very dangerous. The Rhone is rapid and noisy here, and we shot under the arches of the fine old structure with great velocity; but the "Rapids of the St. Lawrence" are passed constantly without apprehension by travellers in America, and those of the Rhone are a mere millrace in comparison. We breakfasted just below, at a village where we could scarce understand a syllable, thepatoiswas so decided, and at sunset we were far down between the provinces ofDauphinyandLanguedoc, with the villages growing thickerand greener, and a high mountain within ten or fifteen miles, covered with snow nearly to the base. We stopped opposite the old castle ofRocheméuseto pay thedroit. It was ademi-feteday, and the inhabitants of a village back from the river had come out to the green bank in their holyday costume for a revel. The bank swelled up from the stream to a pretty wood, and the green sward between was covered with these gay people, arrested in their amusements by our arrival. We jumped out for a moment, and I walked up the bank and endeavored to make the acquaintance of a strikingly handsome woman about thirty, but thepatoiswas quite too much. After several vain attempts to understand each other, she laughed and turned on her heel, and I followed the call of the padrone to the batteau. For five or six miles below, the river passed through a kind of meadow, and an air more loaded with fragrance I never breathed. The sun was just down, and with the mildness of the air, and quiet glide of the boat on the water, it was quite enchanting. Conversation died away, and I went forward and lay down in the bow alone, with a fit of desperate musing. It is as singular as it is certain, that the more one enjoys the loveliness of a foreign land, the more he feels how absolutely his heart is at home in his own country.
INFLUENCE OF A BOATMAN—THE TOWN OF ARLES—ROMAN RUINS—THE CATHEDRAL—MARSEILLES—THE PASS OF OLLIOULES—THE VINEYARDS—TOULON—ANTIBES—LAZARETTO—VILLA FRANCA, ETC.
I entered Avignon after a delicious hour on the Rhone, quite in the mood to do poetical homage to its associations. My dreams of Petrarch and Vaucluse were interrupted by a scene between my friend the captain, and a stout boatman, who had brought his baggage from the batteau. The result was an appeal to the mayor, who took the captain aside after the matter was argued, and told him in his ear that he must compromise the matter, for hedared not give a judgment in his favor! The man had demandedtwelvefrancs where the regulations allowed him butone, and palpable as the imposition was, the magistrate refused to interfere. The captain curled his mustache and walked the room in a terrible passion, and the boatman, an herculean fellow, eyed him with a look of assurance which quite astonished me. After the case was settled, I asked an explanation of the mayor. He told me frankly, that the fellow belongedto a powerful class of men of the lowest description, who, having declared first for the present government, were and would be supported by it in almost any question where favor could be shown—that all the other classes of inhabitants were malcontents, and that, between positive strength and royal favor, the boatmen and their party had become too powerful even for the ordinary enforcement of the law.
The following day was so sultry and warm, that I gave up all idea of a visit to Vaucluse. We spent the morning under the trees which stand before the door of thecaféin the village square, and at noon we took the steamboat upon the Rhone forArles. An hour or two brought us to this ancient town, where we were compelled to wait till the next day, the larger boat which goes hence by the mouths of the Rhone to Marseilles, being out of order.
We left our baggage in the boat, and I walked up with the captain to see the town. An officer whom we addressed for information on the quay politely offered to be our guide, and we passed three or four hours rambling about, with great pleasure. Our first object was the Roman ruins, for which the town is celebrated. We traversed several streets, so narrow, that the old time-worn houses on either side seemed to touch at the top, and in the midst of a desolate and poverty-stricken neighborhood, we came suddenly upon a noble Roman amphitheatre of gigantic dimensions, and sufficiently preserved to be a picturesque ruin. It was built on the terrace of a hill, overlooking the Rhone. From the towers of the gateway, the view across the river into the lovely province of Languedoc, is very extensive. The arena is an excavation of perhaps thirty feet in depth, and the rows of seats, all built of vast blocks of stone, stretch round it in retreatingand rising platforms to the surface of the hill. The lower story is surrounded with dens; and the upper terrace is enclosed with a circle of small apartments, like boxes in a theatre, opening by handsome arches upon the scene. It is the ruin of a noble structure, and, even without the help of the imagination, exceedingly impressive. It seems to be at present turned into a play-ground. The dens and cavities were full of black-eyed and happy creatures, hiding and hallooing with all the delightful spirit and gayety of French children. Probably it was never appropriated to a better use.
We entered the cathedral in returning. It is an antique, and considered a very fine one. The twilight was just falling; and the candles burning upon the altar, had a faint, dull glare, making the dimness of the air more perceptible. I walked up the long aisle to the side chapel, without observing that my companions had left me, and, quite tired with my walk, seated myself against one of the Gothic pillars, enjoying the quiet of the place, and the momentary relief from exciting objects. It struck me presently that there was a dead silence in the church, and, as much to hear the sound of English as for any better motive, I approached the priest's missal, which lay open on a stand near me, and commenced translating a familiar psalm aloud. My voice echoed through the building with a fullness which startled me, and looking over my shoulder, I saw that a simple, poor old woman was kneeling in the centre of the church, praying alone. She had looked up at my interruption of the silence of the place, but her beads still slipped slowly through her fingers, and, feeling that I was intruding possibly between a sincere worshipper and her Maker, I withdrew to the side aisle, and made my way softly out of the cathedral.
Arles appears to have modernized less than any town I have seen in France. The streets and the inhabitants look as if they had not changed for a century. The dress of the women is very peculiar; the waist of the gown coming up to a point behind, between the shoulder blades, and consequently very short in front, and the high cap bound to the head with broad velvet ribands, suffering nothing but the jet black curls to escape over the forehead. As a class, they are the handsomest women I have seen. Nothing could be prettier than the small-featured lively brunettes we saw sitting on the stone benches at every door.
We ran down the next morning, in a few hours to Marseilles. It was a cloudy, misty day, and I did not enjoy, as I expected, the first view of the Mediterranean from the mouths of the Rhone. We put quite out into the swell of the sea, and the passengers were all strewn on the deck in the various gradations of sickness. My friend the captain, and myself, had the only constant stomachs on board. I was very happy to distinguish Marseilles through the mist, and as we approached nearer, the rocky harbor and the islands ofChateau d'IfandPomègue, with the fortress at the mouth of the harbor, came out gradually from the mist, and the view opened to a noble amphitheatre of rocky mountains, in whose bosom lies Marseilles at the edge of the sea. We ran into the narrow cove which forms the inner harbor, passing an American ship, the "William Penn," just arrived from Philadelphia, and lying in quarantine. My blood started at the sight of the starred flag; and as we passed closer and I read the name upon her stern, a thousand recollections of that delightful city sprang to my heart, and I leaned over to her from the boat's side, with a feeling of interest and pleasure to which the foreigntongue that called me to bid adieu to newer friends, seemed an unwelcome interruption.
I parted from my pleasant Parisian friend and his family, however, with real regret. They were polite and refined, and had given me their intimacy voluntarily and without reserve. I shook hands with them on the quay, and wished the pale and quiet invalid better health, with more of feeling than is common with acquaintances of a day. I believe them kind and sincere, and I have not found these qualities growing so thickly in the world that I can thrust aside anything that resembles them, with a willing mistrust.
The quay of Marseilles is one of the most varied scenes to be met with in Europe. Vessels of all nations come trading to its port, and nearly every costume in the world may be seen in its busy crowds. I was surprised at the number of Greeks. Their picturesque dresses and dark fine faces meet you at every step, and it would be difficult, if it were not for the shrinking eye, to believe them capable of an ignoble thought. The mould of the race is one for heroes, but if all that is said of them be true, the blood has become impure. Of the two or three hundred I must have seen at Marseilles, I scarce remember one whose countenance would not have been thought remarkable.
I have remained six days in Marseilles by the advice of the Sardinian consul, who assured me that so long a residence in the south of France, is necessary to escape quarantine for the cholera, at the ports or on the frontiers of Italy. I have obtained his certificate to-day, and depart to-morrow for Nice. My forcedsejourhere has been far from an amusing or a willing one. The "mistral" has blown chilly and with suffocating dryness, so that I have scarce breathed freely since I entered the town, and the streets, though handsomely laid out and built, are intolerable from the dust. The sun scorches your skin to a blister, and the wind chills your blood to the bone. There are beautiful public walks, which, at the more moist seasons, must be delightful, but at present the leaves on the trees are all white, and you cannot keep your eyes open long enough to see from one end of the promenade to the other. Within doors, it is true, I have found everything which could compensate for such evils; and I shall carry away pleasant recollections of the hospitality of the Messrs. Fitch, and others of my countrymen, living here—gentlemen whose courtesies are well-remembered by every American traveller through the south of France.
I sank into the corner of thecoupéof the diligence for Toulon, at nine o'clock in the evening, and awoke with the gray of the dawn at the entrance of the pass ofOllioules, one of the wildest defiles I ever saw. The gorge is the bed of a winter torrent, and you travel three miles or more between two mountains seemingly cleft asunder, on a road cut out a little above the stream, with naked rock to the height of two or three hundred feet almost perpendicularly above you. Nothing could be more bare and desolate than the whole pass, and nothing could be richer or more delightfully cultivated than the low valleys upon which it opens. It is some four or five miles hence to Toulon, and we traversed the road by sunrise, the soft, gray light creeping throughthe olive and orange trees with which the fields are laden, and the peasants just coming out to their early labor. You see no brute animal here except the mule; and every countryman you meet is accompanied by one of these serviceable little creatures, often quite hidden from sight by the enormous load he carries, or pacing patiently along with a master on his back, who is by far the larger of the two.
The vineyards begin to look delightfully; for the thick black stump which was visible over the fields I have hitherto passed, is in these warm valleys covered already with masses of luxuriant vine leaves, and the hill sides are lovely with the light and tender verdure. I saw here for the first time, the olive and date trees in perfection. They grow in vast orchards planted regularly, and the olive resembles closely the willow, and reaches about the same height and shape. The leaves are as slender but not quite so long, and the color is more dusky, like the bloom upon a grape. Indeed, at a short distance, the whole tree looks like a mass of untouched fruit.
I was agreeably disappointed in Toulon. It is a rural town with a harbor—not the dirty seaport one naturally expects to find it. The streets are the cleanest I have seen in France, some of them lined with trees, and the fountains all over it freshen the eye delightfully. We had an hour to spare, and with Mr. Doyle, an Irish gentleman, who had been my travelling companion, since I parted with my friend the Swiss, I made the circuit of the quays. They were covered with French naval officers and soldiers, promenading and conversing in the lively manner of this gayest of nations. A handsome child, of perhaps six years, was selling roses at one of the corners, and for asous, all she demanded, I bought six of the most superb damask buds justbreaking into flower. They were the first I had seen from the open air since I left America, and I have not often purchased so much pleasure with a copper coin.
Toulon was interesting to me as the place where Napoleon's career began. The fortifications are very imposing. We passed out of the town over the draw-bridge, and were again in the midst of a lovely landscape, with an air of bland and exhilarating softness, and everything that could delight the eye. The road runs along the shore of the Mediterranean, and the fields are green to the water edge.
We arrived at Antibes to-day at noon, within fifteen miles of the frontier of Sardinia. We have run through most of the south of France, and have found it all like a garden. The thing most like it in our country is the neighborhood of Boston, particularly the undulated country about Brookline and Dorchester. Remove all the stone fences from that sweet country, put here and there an old chateau on an eminence, and change the pretty white mock cottages of gentlemen, for the real stone cottages of peasantry, and you have a fair picture of the scenery of this celebrated shore. The Mediterranean should be added as a distance, with its exquisite blue, equalled by nothing but an American sky in a July noon—its crowds of sail, of every shape and nation, and the Alps in the horizon crested with snow, like clouds half touched by the sun. It is really a delicious climate. Out of the scorching sun the air is bracing and cool; and though my ears have been blistered in walking up the hills in a travelling cap, I have scarcely experienced an uncomfortable sensation of heat, and this in my winter dress, with flannels and a surtout, as I have worn them for the six months past in Paris. The aircould not be tempered more accurately for enjoyment. I regret to go in doors. I regret to sleep it away.
Antibeswas fortified by the celebratedVauban, and it looks impregnable enough to my unscientific eye. If the portcullises were drawn up, I would not undertake to get into the town with the full consent of the inhabitants. We walked around the ramparts which are washed by the Mediterranean, and got an appetite in the sea-breeze, which we would willingly have dispensed with. I dislike to abuse people, but I must say that thecuisineof Madame Agarra, at the "Gold Eagle," is rather the worst I have fallen upon in my travels. Her price, as is usual in France, was proportionably exorbitant. My Irish friend, who is one of the most religious gentlemen of his country I ever met, came as near getting into a passion with his supper and bill, as was possible for a temper so well disciplined. For myself, having acquired only polite French, I can but "look daggers" when I am abused. We depart presently forNice, in a ricketty barouche, with post-horses, thecourier, or post-coach, going no farther. It is a roomy old affair, that has had pretensions to style some time since Henri Quatre, but the arms on its panels are illegible now, and the ambitious driving-box is occupied by the humble materials to remedy a probable break-down by the way. The postillion is cracking his whip impatiently, my friend has called me twice, and I must put up my pencil.
Antibesagain! We have returned here after an unsuccessful attempt to enter the Sardinian dominions. We were on the road by ten in the morning, and drove slowly along the shores of the Mediterranean, enjoying to the utmost the heavenly weather and the glorious scenery about us. The driver pointed out to us a few miles from Antibes, the very spot on which Napoleon landed on his return from Elba, and the tree, a fine old olive, under which he slept three hours, before commencing his march. We arrived at thePont de Varabout one, and crossed the river, but here we were met by a guard of Sardinian soldiers, and our passports were demanded. The commissary came from the guard-house with a long pair of tongs, and receiving them open, read them at the longest possible distance. They were then handed back to us in the same manner, and we were told we could not pass. We then handed him our certificates of quarantine at Marseilles; but were told it availed nothing, a new order having arrived from Turin that very morning, to admit no travellers from infected or suspected places across the frontier. We asked if there were no means by which we could pass; but the commissary only shook his head, ordered us not to dismount on the Sardinian side of the river, and shut his door. We turned about and recrossed the bridge in some perplexity. The French commissary at St. Laurent, the opposite village, received us with a suppressed smile, and informed us that several parties of travellers, among others an English gentleman and his wife and sister, were at theauberge, waiting for an answer from the Prefect of Nice, having been turned back in the same manner since morning. We drove up, and they advised us to send our passports by the postillion, with a letter to the consuls of ourrespective nations, requesting information, which we did immediately.
Nice is three miles from St. Laurent, and as we could not expect an answer for several hours, we amused ourselves with a stroll along the banks of the Var to the Mediterranean. The Sardinian side is bold, and wooded to the tops of the hills very richly. We kept along a mile or more through the vineyards, and returned in time to receive a letter from the American consul, confirming the orders of the commissary, but advising us to return to Antibes, and sail thence for Villa Franca, a lazaretto in the neighborhood of Nice, whence we could enter Italy, afterseven days quarantine! By this time several travelling-carriages had collected, and all, profiting by our experience, turned back together. We are now at the "Gold Eagle," deliberating. Some have determined to give up their object altogether, but the rest of us sail to-morrow morning in a fishing-boat for the lazaretto.
Lazaretto, Villa Franca.—There were but eight of the twenty or thirty travellers stopped at the bridge who thought it worth while to persevere. We are all here in this pest-house, and a motley mixture of nations it is. There are two young Sicilians returning from college to Messina; a Belgian lad of seventeen, just started on his travels; two aristocratic young Frenchmen, very elegant and very ignorant of the world, running down to Italy in their own carriage, to avoid the cholera; a middle-aged surgeon in the British navy, very cool and very gentlemanly; a vulgar Marseilles trader, and myself.
We were from seven in the morning till two, getting away from Antibes. Our difficulties during the whole day are such a practical comparison of the freedom of European states and ours, that I may as well detail them.
First of all, our passports were to be vised by the police. We were compelled to stand an hour with our hats off, in a close, dirty office, waiting our turn for this favor. The next thing was to get the permission of the prefect of themarineto embark; and this occupied another hour. Thence we were taken to the health-office, where abill of healthwas made out for eight personsgoing to a lazaretto! The padrone's freight duties were then to be settled, and we went back and forth between the Sardinian consul and the French, disputing these for another hour or more. Our baggage was piled upon thecharrette, at last, to be taken to the boat. The quay is outside the gate, and here are stationed thedouanes, or custom-officers, who ordered our trunks to be taken from the cart, and searched them from top to bottom. After a half hour spent in repacking our effects in the open street, amid a crowd of idle spectators, we were suffered to proceed. Almost all these various gentlemen expect a fee, and some demand a heavy one; and all this trouble and expense of time and money to make a voyage offifteen miles in a fishing-boat!
We hoisted the fisherman's latteen sail, and put out of the little harbor in very bad temper. The wind was fair, and we ran along the shore for a couple of hours, till we came to Nice, where we were to stop for permission to go to the lazaretto. We were hailed, off the mole, with a trumpet, and suffered to pass. Doubling a little point, half a mile farther on, we ran into the bay of Villa Franca, a handful of houses at the base of an amphitheatre of mountains. A little round tower stood in thecentre of the harbor, built upon a rock, and connected with the town by a draw-bridge, and we were landed at a staircase outside, by which we mounted to show our papers to the health-officer. The interior was a little circular yard, separated from an office on the town side by an iron grating, and looking out on the sea by two embrasures for cannon. Two strips of water and the sky above was our whole prospect for the hour that we waited here. The cause of the delay was presently explained by clouds of smoke issuing from the interior. The tower filled, and a more nauseating odor I never inhaled. We were near suffocating with the intolerable smell, and the quantity of smoke deemed necessary to secure his majesty's officers against contagion.
A cautious-looking old gentleman, with gray hair, emerged at last from the smoke, with a long cane-pole in his hand, and, coughing at every syllable, requested us to insert our passports in the split at the extremity, which he thrust through the gate. This being done, we asked him for bread. We had breakfasted at seven, and it was now sundown—near twelve hours fast. Several of my companions had been seasick with the swell of the Mediterranean, in coming from Antibes, and all were faint with hunger and exhaustion. For myself, the villainous smell of our purification had made me sick, and I had no appetite; but the rest ate very voraciously of a loaf of coarse bread, which was extended to us with a tongs and two pieces of paper.
After reading our passports, the magistrate informed us that he had no orders to admit us to the lazaretto, and we must lie in our boat till he could send a messenger to Nice with our passports and obtain permission. We opened upon him, however, with such a flood of remonstrance, and with such an emphasis from hunger and fatigue, that he consented to admit us temporarily on his ownresponsibility, and gave the boatmen orders to row back to a long, low stone building, which we had observed at the foot of a precipice at the entrance to the harbor.
He was there before us, and as we mounted the stone ladder he pointed through the bars of a large inner gate to a single chamber, separated from the rest of the building, and promising to send us something to eat in the course of the evening, left us to take possession. Our position was desolate enough. The building was new, and the plaster still soft and wet. There was not an article of furniture in the chamber, and but a single window; the floor was of brick, and the air as damp within as a cellar. The alternative was to remain out of doors, in the small yard, walled up thirty feet on three sides, and washed by the sea on the other; and here, on a long block of granite, the softest thing I could find, I determined to make anal fresconight of it.
Bread, cheese, wine, and cold meat, seethed, Italian fashion, in nauseous oil, arrived about nine o'clock; and, by the light of a candle standing in a boot, we sat around on the brick floor, and supped very merrily. Hunger had brought even our two French exquisites to their fare, and they ate well. The navy surgeon had seen service, and had no qualms; the Sicilians were from a German university, and were not delicate; the Marseilles trader knew no better; and we should have been less contented with a better meal. It was superfluous to abuse it.
A steep precipice hangs immediately over the lazaretto, and the horn of the half moon was just dipping below it, as I stretched myself to sleep. With a folded coat under me, and a carpet-bag for a pillow, I soon fell asleep, and slept soundly till sunrise. My companions had chosen shelter, but all were happy to be early risers. We mounted our wall upon the sea, andpromenaded till the sun was broadly up, and the breeze from the Mediterranean sharpened our appetites, and then finishing the relics of our supper, we waited with what patience we might the appearance of our breakfast.
The magistrate arrived at twelve, yesterday, with a commissary from Villa Franca, who is to be our victualler during the quarantine. He has enlarged our limits, by a stone staircase and an immense chamber, on condition that we pay for an extra guard, in the shape of a Sardinian soldier, who is to sleep in our room, and eat at our table. By the way, wehavea table, and four rough benches, and these, with three single mattresses, are all the furniture we can procure. We are compelled to sleepacrossthe latter of course, to give every one his share.
We have come down very contentedly to our situation, and I have been exceedingly amused at the facility with which eight such different tempers can amalgamate, upon compulsion. Our small quarters bring us in contact continually, and we harmonize like schoolboys. At this moment the Marseilles trader and the two Frenchmen are throwing stones at something that is floating out with the tide; the surgeon has dropped his Italian grammar to decide upon which is the best shot; the Belgian is fishing off the wall, with a pin hook and a bit of cheese; and the two Sicilians are talkinglingua franca, at the top of their voices, to Carolina, the guardian's daughter, who stands coquetting on the pier just outside the limits. I have got out my books and portfolio, and taken possession of the broad stair, depending on the courtesy of my companions to jump over me and my papers whenthey go up and down. I sit here most of the day laughing at the fun below, and writing or reading alternately. The climate is too delicious for discontent. Every breath is a pleasure. The hills of the amphitheatre opposite to us are covered with olive, lemon, and orange trees; and in the evening, from the time the land breeze commences to blow off shore until ten or eleven, the air is impregnated with the delicate perfume of the orange-blossom, than which nothing could be more grateful. Nice is called the hospital of Europe; and truly, under this divine sky, and with the inspiriting vitality and softness of the air, and all that nature can lavish of luxuriance and variety upon the hills, it is the place, if there is one in the world, where the drooping spirit of the invalid must revive and renew. At this moment the sun has crept from the peak of the highest mountain across the bay, and we shall scent presently the spicy wind from the shore. I close my book to go upon the wall, which I see the surgeon has mounted already with the same object, to catch the first breath that blows seaward.
It is Sunday, and an Italian summer morning. I do not think my eyes ever woke upon so lovely a day. The long, lazy swell comes in from the Mediterranean as smooth as glass; the sails of a beautiful yacht, belonging to an English nobleman at Nice, and lying becalmed just now in the bay, are hanging motionless about the masts; the sky is without a speck, the air just seems to me to steep every nerve and fibre of the frame with repose and pleasure. Now and then in America I have felt a June morning that approached it, but never the degree, the fulness, the sunny softness of this exquisite clime. It tranquilizes the mind as well as the body. You cannot resist feeling contented and genial. We are all out of doors, and my companions have brought downtheir mattresses, and are lying along the shade of the east wall, talking quietly and pleasantly; the usual sounds of the workmen on the quays of the town are still, our harbor-guard lies asleep in his boat, the yellow flag of the lazaretto clings to the staff, everything about us breathes tranquillity. Prisoner as I am, I would not stir willingly to-day.
We have had two new arrivals this morning—a boat from Antibes, with a company of players bound for the theatre at Milan; and two French deserters from the regiment at Toulon, who escaped in a leaky boat, and have made this voyage along the coast to get into Italy. They knew nothing of the quarantine, and were very much surprised at their arrest. They will, probably, be delivered up to the French consul. The new comers are all put together in the large chamber next us, and we have been talking with them through the grate. His majesty of Sardinia is not spared in their voluble denunciations.
Our imprisonment is getting to be a little tedious. We lengthen our breakfasts and dinners, go to sleep early and get up late, but a lazaretto is a dull place after all. We have no books except dictionaries and grammars, and I am on my last sheet of paper. What I shall do, the two remaining days, I cannot divine. Our meals were amusing for a while. We have but three knives and four glasses; and the Belgian, having cut his plate in two on the first day, has eaten since from the wash-bowl. The salt is in a brown paper, the vinegar in a shell; and the meats, to be kept warm during their passage by water, are brought in the black utensils in which they are cooked. Ourtablecloth appeared to-day of all the colors of the rainbow. We sat down to breakfast with a general cry of horror. Still, with youth and good spirits, we manage to be more contented than one would expect; and our lively discussions of the spot on the quay where the table shall be laid, and the noise of our dinnersen plein air, would convince the spectator that we were a very merry and sufficiently happy company.
I like my companions, on the whole, very much. The surgeon has been in Canada and the west of New York, and we have travelled the same routes, and made in several instances, the same acquaintances. He has been in almost every part of the world also, and his descriptions are very graphic and sensible. The Belgian talks of his new king Leopold, the Sicilians of the German universities; and when I have exhausted all they can tell me, I turn to our Parisians, whom I find I have met all last winter without noticing them, at the parties; and we discuss the belles, and the different members of thebeau monde, with all the touching air and tone of exiles from paradise. In a case of desperate ennui, wearied with studying and talking, the sea wall is a delightful lounge, and the blue Mediterranean plays the witch to the indolent fancy, and beguiles it well. I have never seen such a beautiful sheet of water. The color is peculiarly rich and clear, like an intensely blue sky, heaving into waves. I do not find the often-repeated description of its loveliness exaggerated.
Our seven days expire to-morrow, and we are preparing to eat our last dinner in the lazaretto with great glee. A temporary table is already laid upon the quay, and two strips of board raised upon some ingenious contrivance, I can not well say what, and covered with all the private and public napkins that retained any portion of their maiden whiteness. Our knives are reduced totwo, one having disappeared unaccountably; but the deficiency is partially remedied. The surgeon has "whittled" a pine knot, which floated in upon the tide, into a distant imitation; and one of the company has produced a delicate dagger, that looks very like a keepsake from a lady; and, by the reluctant manner in which it was put to service, the profanation cost his sentiment an effort. Its white handle and silver sheath lie across a plate, abridged of its proportions by a very formidable segment. There was no disguising the poverty of the brown paper that contained the salt. It was too necessary to be made an "aside," and lies plump in the middle of the table. I fear there has been more fun in the preparation than we shall feel in eating the dinner when it arrives. The Belgian stands on the wall, watching all the boats from town; but they pass off down the harbor, one after another, and we are destined to keep our appetites to a late hour. Their detestable cookery needs the "sauce of hunger."
The Belgian's hat waves in the air, and the commissary's boat must be in sight. As we get off at six o'clock to-morrow morning, my portfolio shuts till I find another resting place, probably Genoa.