Chapter VIII: Part 8

The Protestant, therefore, would be much straitened within the Greek limits. He is forced to teach those who will listen to him that God is much nearer than the priest, and that their own simple and sincere understanding of Christian doctrine is at once more just and more precious than the fallacies and sophisms of an absolute theology. Such teaching will scarcely be more relished by the Greek than by the Romish clergy; yet the Protestant must teach this, or be silent.

And this, after their fashion, the American missionaries do set forth and illustrate. Their merits and demerits I am not here to discuss. How much of polite culture, of sufficient philosophy, goes with their honest purpose, it is not at this time my business to know or to say. Neither is their special theology mine. They believe in a literal atonement, while I believe in the symbolism which makes a pure and blameless sufferer a victim offered in behalf of his enemies. They look for a miraculous, I for a moral regeneration. They make Christ divine of birth, I make him simply divine of life. Their dogmas would reconcile God to man, mine would only reconcile man to God. Finally, they revere as absolute and divine a book which I hold to be a human record of surpassing thoughts and actions, but with the short-comings, omissions, and errors of the human historiographer stamped upon them. With all this diversity of opinion between the church of their communion and that of mine, I still honor, beyond all difference, the Protestant cause for which they stand in Greece, and consider their representation a just and genuine one.

In writing this I have had in mind the three dissenting missionaries, Messrs. Kalopothaki, Constantine, and Zacularius. The older mission of Dr. and Mrs. Hill is an educational one. I believe it to have borne the happiest fruits for Greece. Whenever I have met a scholar of Mrs. Hill, I have seen the traces of a firm, pure, and gentle hand--one to which the wisest and tenderest of us would willingly confide our daughters. In raising the whole scale of feminine education in Greece, she has applied the most potent and subtle agent for the elevation of its whole society. She herself is childless; but she need scarcely regret it, since whole generations are sure to rise up and call her blessed.

Dr. Hill is at present chaplain to the English embassy, at whose chapel he preaches weekly. Mrs. Hill and himself seem to stand in very harmonious relations with Athenian society, as well as with the travelling and visiting world.

The missionaries preach and practise with unremitting zeal. They also publish a weekly religious paper. Their wives labor faithfully in the aid and employment of the Cretan women and children, and, I doubt not, in other good works. But of these things I have now told the little that I know.

THE PIAZZA.

Venice has a Piazza, gorgeous with shops, lights, music, and, above all, the joyous life of the people. Athens also has a Piazza, bordered with hotels and cafes, with a square of trees and flowering shrubs in the middle. It lies broadly open to the sun all day long, and gives back his rays with a torrid refraction. When day declines, the evening breezes sweep it refreshingly. Accordingly, as soon as the shadows permit, the spaces in front of the cafes--or, in Greek, _caffeneions_--are crowded with chairs and tables, the chairs being filled by human beings, many of whom have ripened, so far as the head goes, into a fez--have unfolded, so far as the costume goes, into pali-kari petticoats and leggings. Between the two hotels is mortal antipathy. Ours--"Des Etrangers"--has taken the lead, and manages to keep it. The prices of the other are lower, the _cuisine_ much the same, the upper windows set to command a view of the Acropolis, which is in itself an unsurpassable picture. Where the magic resides which keeps our hotel full and the other empty, I know not, unless it be in the slippery Eastern smile of the landlord--an expression of countenance so singular that it inevitably leads you, from curiosity, to follow it further. In our case it led to no profound of wickedness. We were not cheated, nor plundered, nor got the better of in any way that I remember. Our food was good, our rooms proper, our charges just. Yet I felt, whenever I encountered the smile, that it angled for me, and caught me on a hook cunningly baited.

I must say that our landlord was even generous. Besides our three meals _per diem_,--which grew to be very slender affairs, so far as we were concerned,--we often required lemonades and lokumia, besides sending of errands innumerable. For these indulgences no extra charge was made. In an Italian, French, or English hotel, each one of them would have had its penitentiary record. So the mystery of the smile must have had reference to matters deeply personal to its wearer, and never made known to me.

The cafes seemed to maintain a thrifty existence. But one of them took especial pains to secure the services of a band of music. Hence, on the evenings when the public band did not play, emanated the usual capriccios from Norma, Trovatore, and the agonies of Traviata. Something better and worse than all this was given to us in the shape of certain ancient Greek or Turkish melodies, obviously composed in ignorance of all rules of thorough-bass, with a confusion of majors and minors most perplexing to the classic, but interesting to the historic sense. I rejoiced especially in one of these, which bore the same relation to good harmony that Eastern dress bears to good composition of color. It was obviously well liked by the public, as it was usually played more than once during the same evening.

Before the shadows grew quite dark, a barouche or two, with ladies and livery, would drive across the Piazza, giving a whiff of fashion like the gleam of red costume that heightens a landscape. And the people sat, ate and drank, came and went, in sober gladness, not laughing open-mouthed--rather smiling with their eyes. From our narrow hotel balcony we used to look down and wonder whether we should ever be cool again. For though the evenings were not sultry, their length did not suffice to reduce the fever of the day. And the night within the mosquito-nettings was an agony of perspiration. I now sit in Venice, and am cool; but I would gladly suffer something to hear the weird music, and to see the cheerful Piazza again. Yet when I was there, for ten minutes of this sea-breeze over the lagoons I would have given--Heaven knows what. O Esau!

DEPARTURE.

Too soon, too soon for all of us, these rare and costly delights were ended. We had indeed suffered days of Fahrenheit at 100 deg. in the shade. We had made experience of states of body which are termed bilious, of states of mind more or less splenetic, lethargic, and irritable. We dreamed always of islands we were never to visit, of ruins which we shall know, according to the flesh, never. We pored over Muir and Miss Bremer, and feebly devised outbreaks towards the islands, towards the Cyclades, Santorini, but especially towards Corinth, whose acropolis rested steadily in our wishes, resting in our memory only as a wish. Towards Constantinople, too, our uncertain destinies had one moment pointed. But when the word of command came, it despatched us westward, and not eastward. By this time our life had become somewhat too literally a vapor, and our sublimated brains were with difficulty condensed to the act of packing. Perpetual thirst tormented us. And of this as of other Eastern temptations, I must say, "Resist it." Drinking does not relieve this symptom of hot climates. It, moreover, utterly destroys the tone of the stomach. A little tea is the safest refreshment; and even this should not be taken in copious draughts. Patience and self-control are essential to bodily health and comfort under these torrid skies. The little food one can take should be of the order usually characterized as "nutritious and easy of digestion." But so far as health goes, "Avoid Athens in midsummer" will be the safest direction, and will obviate the necessity of all others.

In spite, however, of all symptoms and inconveniences, the mandate that said, "Pack and go," struck a chill to our collective heart. We visited all the dear spots, gave pledges of constancy to all the kind friends, tried with our weak sight to photograph the precious views upon our memory. Then, with a sort of agony, we hurried our possessions, new and old, into the usual narrow receptacles, saw all accounts discharged, feed the hotel servants, took the smile for the last time, and found ourselves dashing along the road to the Piraeus with feelings very unlike the jubilation in which we first passed that classic transit. It was all over now, like a first love, like a first authorship, like a honey-moon. It was over. We could not say that we had not had it. But O, the void of not having it now, of never expecting to have it again!

Kind friends went with us to soften the journey. At the boat, Dr. and Mrs. Hill met and waited with us. I parted from the apostolic woman with sincere good-will and regret. Warned to be on board by six P. M., the boat did not start till half-past seven. We waved last adieus. We clung to the last glimpses of the Acropolis, of the mountains; but they soon passed out of sight. We savagely went below and to bed. The diary bears this little extract: "The AEgean was calm and blue. Thus, with great pleasure and interest, and with some drawbacks, ends my visit to Athens. A dream--a dream!"

RETURN VOYAGE.

To narrate the circumstances of our return voyage would seem much like descending from the poetic _denouement_ of a novel to all the prosaic steps by which the commonplace regains its inevitable ascendency after no matter what abdication in favor of the heroic. Yet, as travel is travel, whether outward or inward bound, and as our homeward cruise had features, I will try, with the help of the diary, to pick them out of the vanishing chaos of memory, premising only that I have no further _denouement_ to give.

"Story? Lord bless you, I have none to tell, sir."

On referring, therefore, to Clayton's quarto, of the date of July 21, 1867, I find the day to have been passed by us all in the hot harbor of Syra, on board the boat that brought us there. At seven A. M. we did indeed land in a small boat with Vice-Consul Saponsaki, and betake ourselves through several of the steep and sunny streets of the town. At one of the two hotels we staid long enough to order lemonades and drink them. The said hotel appeared, on a cursory survey, to be as dirty and disorderly as need be; but we soon escaped therefrom, and visited the theatre, the Casino, and the Austrian consul. The Casino is spacious and handsome, giving evidence at once of wealth and of taste in those who caused it to be built. Such an establishment would be a boon in Athens, where there is no good public reading-room of any kind. The theatre is reasonable. Here, in winter, a short opera season is enjoyed, and, in consequence, the music books of the young ladies teem with arrangements of Verdi and of Donizetti. We found the square near the quay lively with the early enjoyers of coffee and the narghile. Every precious inch of shade was, as usual, carefully appropriated; but the sun was rapidly narrowing the boundaries of the shadow district. Our chief errand resulted in the purchase of an ok of _lokumias_, which we virtuously resolved to carry to America, if possible. The little boat now returned us to the steamer, where breakfast and dinner quietly succeeded each other, little worthy of record occurring between. One interesting half hour reached us in the shape of a visit from Papa Parthenius, a young and active member of the Cretan Syn-eleusis. He came with tidings for our chief veteran,--tales of the Turks, and how they could get no water at Svakia; tidings also of brave young DeKay, and of his good service in behalf of the island. While these, in the dreadful secrecy of an unknown tongue, impart he did, I seized pen and ink, and ennobled my unworthy sketch-book with a _croquis_ of his finely-bronzed visage. His countenance was such as Miss Bremer would have called dark and energetic. He wore the dress of his calling, which was that of the secular priesthood. He soon detected my occupation, and said, in Greek, "I regret that the kyrie should make my portrait without my arms."

We parted from him very cordially. Consul Campfield afterwards gave us a refreshing row about the harbor, bringing us within view of the two iron-clads newly purchased and brought out to run the Turkish blockade. One of these was famous in the annals of Secessia. Both served that more than doubtful cause. Then we went back to the vessel, and the rest of the day did not get beyond perspiration and patience.

Towards evening a spirited breeze began to lash the waters of the harbor into hilly madness. White caps showed themselves, and we, who were to embark on board another vessel, for another voyage, took note of the same. The friendly Evangelides now came on board, and scolded us for not having sent him word of our arrival. We pleaded the extreme heat of the day, which had made dreadful the idea of visiting and of locomotion of any sort. He was clad from head to foot in white linen, and looked most comfortable. While he was yet with us, the summons of departure came. In our chief's plans, meanwhile, a change had taken place. Determining causes induced him to return to Athens, minus his female _impedimenta_: so the little boat that danced with us from the Lloyd's Syra to the Lloyd's Trieste steamer danced back with him, leaving three disconsolate ones, bereft of Greece, and unprotected of all and any. Nor did we make this second start without a _contretemps_. Having bidden the chief farewell, we proceeded at once to take account of our luggage; and lo! the shawl bundle was not. Now, every knowing traveller is aware that this article of travelling furniture contains much besides the shawl, which is but the envelope of all the odds and ends usually most essential to comfort. For the second in command, therefore, previously designated as _a megale_, there was but one course to pursue. To hire a boat, refuse to be cheated in its price, tumble down the ship's side, row to the Syra steamer, pick up the missing bundle, astonish the chief in a pensive reverie, "_sibi et suis_," on the cabin sofa, and return triumphant, was the work of ten minutes. But the sea ran high, the little boat danced like a cockle-shell, and the neophytes were afraid, and much relieved in mind when the ancient reappeared.

The America (the Trieste steamer) did not weigh anchor before midnight. Soon after the adventure of the shawl bundle, the Syra steamer fired a gun, and slipped out to sea. We had seen the last of the chief for a fortnight at least, and our attention was now turned to the quarters we were to occupy for four days to come. These did not at first sight seem very promising. Our state-rooms were small, and bare of all furniture, except the bed and washing fixtures. Just outside of them, on the deck, was the tent under which the Turkish women horded. For we found, on coming on board, a Turkish pacha and suite, bound from Constantinople to Janina, to take the place of him whom we had, a month before, accompanied on his way from Janina to Constantinople, via Corfu, where we were to be quit of the present dignitary. But before I get to the Turks, I must mention that good Christian, the Austrian consul at Syra, who came on board before we left, and introduced to me a young man in an alarming condition of health, a Venetian by birth, and an officer in the Austrian navy. His illness had been induced by exposure incident to his profession in the hot harbor of Kanea.

The first night we made acquaintance only with various screaming babies, the torment of young mothers who did not know how to take care of them, their nurses having been left at home. The night was sufficiently disturbed up to the period of departure, and these little ones vented their displeasure in tones which argued well for their lungs. The next morning showed us a rough sea, the vessel pitching and tossing, the ladies mostly sea sick--we ourselves well and about, but much incommoded by heat and want of room. A tall member of the pacha's suite came into our little round house, dressed principally in a short, quilted sack of bright red calico. He carried in his arms a teething baby, very dirty and ill-dressed, and tried to nurse and soothe it on his knee, the mother being totally incapacitated by seasickness. This man was tall and fair. I thought he might be an Albanian. I made some incautious remarks in French concerning his dress, which he obviously understood, for he disappeared, and then reappeared dressed in a handsome European suit, with a bran-new fez on his head, but carrying no baby. Another of the suite, unmistakably a Turk, pestered the round-house. This individual wore white cotton drawers under a long calico night shirt of a faded lilac pattern, which was bound about his waist with a strip of yellow calico. The articles of this toilet were far from clean. Glasses and a fez completed it. The wearer we learned to be a fanatical Turk, who came among us in this disorderly dress to show his contempt for Christians in general. His motive was held to be, in his creed, a religious one. It further caused him to take his meals separately from us--a circumstance which we scarcely regretted. He was much amazed at the worsted work in the hands of one of the neophytes, and went so far as to take it up, and to ask a bystander who spoke his language whether the young girl spun the wools herself before she began her tapestry. He then asked the price of the wools, and on hearing the reply exclaimed, "What land on earth equals Turkey, where you can buy the finest wool for twelve piastres an ok!"

Besides these not very appetizing figures, we had on board some Fanariote Greeks, of aristocratic pretensions and Turkish principles; some Hellenes of the true Greek stamp; a Dalmatian sea captain, his wife and daughters, who spoke Italian and looked German; an Armenian lady and young daughter from Constantinople, bound to Paris; several Greeks resident in Transylvania, speaking Greek and German with equal facility; two Armenian priests returning from an Eastern mission, and _en route_ for Vienna; the Austro-Italian before spoken of; a Bohemian glass merchant; and an array of deck passengers as varied and motley as those already enumerated as belonging to the first cabin. With all of the latter we made acquaintance; but although we moved among them with cordiality and good-will, the equilibrium of sympathy was difficult to find. The Fanariotes were no Philhellenes, the Armenian ladies were frequenters of the sultan's palace; the Italian was thoroughly German in his inclinations, and spoke in utter dispraise of his own country when his feeble condition allowed him to speak. Of the Armenian priests, one was quite a man of the world, and somewhat reserved and suspicious. The other showed something of the infirmity of advanced age in the prolixity of his speech, as well as in its matter. In this Noah's ark _e megale_ moved about, mindful of the bull in the china shop, and tried not to upset this one's mustard-pot and that one's vase of perfume. And as all were whole when she parted from them, she has reason to hope that her efforts were tolerably successful.

In the human variety shop just described, I must not forget to speak of my sisters, the Turkish women, imprisoned in a small portion of the deck, protected by a curtain from all intrusion or inspection. As this sacred precinct lay along the outside partition of the ladies' cabin, I became aware of a remote window, through which a practicable breach might be made in their fortress. Thither, on the first day, I repaired, and paid my compliments. They were, I think, five in number, and lay along on mattresses, disconsolately enough. With the help of the stewardess, I inquired after their health, and learned that seasickness held them prostrate and helpless. Nothing ate they, nothing drank they. Two of them were young and pretty. Of these, one was the wife of the bey who accompanied the pacha. She had a delicate cast of features, melancholy dark eyes, and dark hair bound up with a lilac crape handkerchief. The other was the mother of the teething child spoken of above, and the wife of the tall parent who nursed it. By noon on the second day the sea had sunk to almost glassy smoothness. All of the patients were up and about; the children were freshly washed and dressed, and became coaxable. One of the Armenian ladies now volunteered to go with me to look in upon our Turkish friends. We found them up and stirring, making themselves ready to land at Corfu. And to my companion they told what good messes they had brought from Constantinople, and thrown into the blue AEgean; for the heat of the vessel spoiled their victuals much faster than they, being seasick, could keep them from spoiling. And they laughed over their past sufferings much after the fashion of other women. The pretty mother now appeared in a loose gown of yellow calico, holding up her baby. I made a hasty sketch of the pair as they showed themselves at the cabin window; but the flat, glaring light did not allow me to do even as well as usual, which is saying little. The oval face, smooth, black brows, and long, liquid eyes, were beautiful, and her smile was touchingly child-like and innocent. The bey's wife wore a lilac calico; another wore pale green. These dresses consisted of loose gowns, with under-trousers of the same material; they were utterly unneat and tasteless. I presently saw them put on their yashmacs, and draw over their calicoes a sort of cloak of black stuff, not unlike alpaca. They now looked very decently, and, being covered, were allowed to sit on deck until the time of the arrival in Corfu. The pretty one whom I sketched begged to look at my work. On seeing it she exclaimed, "Let no man ever behold this!" Nor could I blame her, for it maligned her sadly. Concerning the landing in Corfu, the meagre diary shows this passage:--

"Went on shore at Corfu at 5.45 P. M., returning at 6.50. Expenses in all, ten francs, including boat, ices, and _valet de place_. The steamer was so hot that this short visit on shore was a great relief, Corfu being at this hour very breezy and shady. Every one says that the Ionian Islands are going to ruin since the departure of the English. This is from the want of capital and of enterprise. So it would seem as if people who have no enterprise of their own must be content to thrive secondarily upon that of other people. The whole type of Greek life, however, is opposed to the Occidental type. Its luxury is to be in health, and to be satisfied with little. We Westerns illustrate the multiplication of wants with that of resources, or _vice versa_. [The diary, prudently, does not attempt to decide the question of antecedence and consequence between these two.] The Greeks seem, so far, to illustrate the converse. Whether this opposition can endure in the present day, I cannot foresee. But this I can see--that Greece will not have more luxury without more poverty. The circle of wealth, enlarging, will more and more crowd those who are unfitted to attain it, and who must be content with the minimum even of food and raiment."

So far the pitiful, sea-addled diary. It does not recount how mercifully the captain of our steamer found a _valet de place_ for us, and told him to take care of us, and bring us back at a given moment. Nor how our payment of ten francs for three persons, instead of Heaven knows what exorbitation, was owing to this circumstance. For it may not be known to the inexperienced that the boatmen of Corfu are wont to make a very moderate charge for setting people ashore on the island. This is done in order to disarm suspicion: _facile descensus Averni--sed revocare gradum_! But when you wish to return to your vessel, the need being pressing, and the time admitting of no delay, the same boatmen are wont to demand fifteen or twenty francs _per capita_, and the more you swear the more they laugh. Among the arrearages of justice adjourned to that supreme chancery term, the Day of Judgment, I fear there must be many of English et al. _vs._ boatmen. But under the captain's happy administration, I made bold, when the boatman insisted on being paid for the return trip in mid-sea, to refuse a single copper. Now, the gift of unknown tongues sometimes resides in the person who hears them. And I received it as a decided advantage that I understood no phrase of the boatmen's low muttering and grumbling. So they were forced to carry us to the gangway of the steamer, where the captain stood to receive us. And I paid the men and the valet under the captain's supervision, and when the former demanded a _bottiglia_, the captain cried out, in energetic tones, "Get off of my ship at once, you scoundrels; you have been well paid already;" the which indeed befell.

Neither does the diary recount how the drivers of public carriages followed us up and down the streets, insisting upon our engaging them, first at their price, and then at ours, for a trip which we had neither time nor mind to make, desisting after half an hour's annoyance; nor how a money changer, given a napoleon, contrived to make up one of its francs by slipping in two miserable Turkish _paras_, not worth half a franc; nor how the whistle of the steamer made our return very anxious and hurried, the passengers accusing us of having delayed the departure, while the captain confided to us that he had assumed this air of extreme hurry, in order to stimulate the disembarkation of the Turks, whose theory of taking one's own time was somewhat loosely applied in the present instance. Well, this is all I know of Corfu. It is little enough, and yet, perhaps, too much.

FARTHER.

Corfu was the last of Greece to us. A tightening at our heartstrings told us so. We consented to depart, but conquered the agony of making farewell verses, dear at any price, in the then state of the thermometer. Our feelings, such as they were, were mutely exchanged with the bronze statue of that late governor, who brought the water into the town. Unless he should prove as frisky as the Commendatore in Don Giovanni, they will never be divulged.

We now set our faces, in conjunction with the tide of conquest, westward. We all suffered heat, ennui, and baby-yell. The Italian invalid languished in his hot state-room, or in our cabin, his weak condition increasing the dangerous discomfort of perspiration--a grave matter when a chill would be death. Worsted work progressed, the hungry sketch-book got a nibble or two, and the mild good-wills of the voyage ripened, never, we fear, to bear future harvests of profit and intercourse. Not the less were we beholden to them for the time. And we will even praise thee here, Armenian Anna, with thy young graces, thy Eastern beauty, thy charming English, and thoroughly genial behavior. Mother and daughter had _distinction_, in the French sense of the word. From the former I had many _apercus_ of Eastern life. She was married at the early age of fourteen, and wore on that occasion the traditional veiling of threads of gold, bound on her brow and falling to her feet. "How glad I was to remove it," she said, "it was so heavy!" "What did you do with it?" I asked. "I divided it into several portions, and endowed with them the marriage of poorer girls, who could not afford it for themselves." But madame informed me that this cumbrous ornament has now passed out of fashion, the tulle veil and orange flowers of French usage having generally taken its place. This lady was supposed by most people to be the elder sister of her pretty daughter. In her soberer beauty one seemed to see the dancing eyes and pouting cheeks of the other carried only a little farther on. And both were among the chief comforts of the voyage.

Of the two Armenian priests, the younger held himself aloof, as if he understood full well the inconveniences of sympathy--a dry, steely, well-balanced man, without enthusiasm, but fine in temperament, well bred, and with at least the culture of a man of the present world. But Pere Michel, the elder, was more willing to impart his mental gifts and experiences to such as would hear them. And he was a man of another age, with obsolete opinions, which he produced like the unconscious bearer of uncurrent coin.

Here is a little specimen of his talk, the subject being that of dreams and revelations: "What is to happen, that God alone can know. But that which is already happening, or which has happened at a distance, this the _demonio_ may know and reveal. And he will reveal it to you in a dream, or in a vision, or by a presentiment."

"But what does the _demonio_ get, Pere Michel, for the trouble of revealing it to us?"

"The satisfaction of making men superstitious?"

_Non c'e male, Pere Michel._ And what, thought I, is the chief advantage of being pope, cardinal, arch-priest, confessor? The satisfaction of making men superstitious. At another time I remarked upon the fact that the monasteries in Greece are usually situated at some height on a mountain side. "They are of the order of St. Basil," said the old man; "he always loved the retirement of the mountains, and his followers imitate him in this." Pere Michel had a pleasant smile, with just enough of second childhood to be guileless, not foolish. And I may here say that the Armenian priesthood appear to me to have quite an individuality of their own, corresponding to no order of the Romish priesthood with which I am acquainted.

The excessive heat of the cabins and after deck one day induced me to head a valorous invasion of the forward deck, followed by as many of the sisterhood as I was able to recruit. The steamer being a very long one, we had to make quite a journey before we entered that almost interdicted region, crossing a long bridge, and passing the captain's sacred office. We carried books and work; our _fauteuils_ followed us. And here we found cool breezes and delicious shade. The sailors and deck passengers lay in heaps about the boards, taking their noonday nap in a very primitive manner. We profited by this discovery so far as to repeat the invasion daily while the voyage lasted.

But it came to end sooner than one might suppose from this long description. We had left Syra on Sunday night; on Thursday afternoon we landed in Trieste. Farewell, Turco-Italians, Austro-Italians, Sieben Gebirgers, Transylvanians, Dalmatians, ladies, babies, priests, and all. When shall we meet again? Scarcely before that great and final analysis which promises to distinguish, once for all, the sheep from the goats. And even for that supreme consummation and its results, all of you may command my best wishes.

FRAGMENTS.

Up to the point last reached, my jottings down had been made with tolerable regularity. Living is so much more rapid than writing, that an impossible babe, who should begin his diary at his birth, would be sure to have large arrears between that period and the day of his death, however indefatigable he might be in his recording. A man cannot live his life and write it too; hence the work that men who live much leave to their biographers. So, of the space that here intervened between Trieste and Paris, I lived the maximum and wrote the minimum; that is, the little death's-head and cross-bone mementos with which the diary is forced to record the spot at which each day fell and lay, together with the current expenses of its interment. In some places even these are wanting, and the stricken soul, looking over the diary, cries out, "O, my leanness!" or words to that effect. Yet the poor document referred to shall help us what it can, beginning with the return from cheap, cosy Trieste to that polished jewel of the Adriatic, which now shines doubly in its new setting of liberty.

We went, as we came, in the Lloyd steamer, declining, however, to engage a state-room, mindful of the exceeding closeness of that in which we suffered on our outward voyage. The embarkation was made, like that from Venice, at the mysterious hour of midnight; and we, coming on board at half past ten, secured such sofa and easy-chair privileges as moved the wrath of a high-talking German party who came at the last moment, and shouted for a quarter of an hour the assertion that his Damen were fully equal, if not superior, to any other Damen on board the steamer, and that if the other Damen had places, his surely ought much more to have them. The cameriere merely shrugged his shoulders, and we failed to be convinced that our first duty would be to vacate our limited accommodations, and stand at large for the benefit of these or any other virgins of the tardy and oily description. The blatant champion thereon took himself and his Damen up stairs. We reserved to ourselves the good intention of sharing our advantages with them at a later period, when the passage of the present acerbity should make intercourse possible. The cabin soon became insufferably hot and close. After various ineffectual attempts at repose, in a cramped position on the sofa, with a shawl bundle for a pillow, I went on deck, where I at least found fresh air and darkness, the blazing lamp in the cabin being enough, of itself, to banish sleep. Every available spot here was occupied by groups or single figures, whose _tout ensemble_, what with the darkness and their draping, constituted a very respectable gallery of figures, much resembling the conspirators in Ernani, or Mme. Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors, in the absence of the illuminating medium. I unconsciously seated myself on one sleeping figure, which kicked and cried, O! With difficulty I found a narrow vacancy on one of the side benches, after occupation of which I wrapped my shawl about me, and gave up to the situation.

"For we were tired, my back and I."

Seasick women sobbed and gasped around me, not having, as we, graduated in the great college of ocean passage. The night was very black. Presently a form nestled at my right. It was the elder neophyte, disgusted with the cabin, and willing to be anywhere else. The moon rose late, a de-crescent. The whole time was amphibious, neither sleeping nor waking, neither day nor night. Suddenly, a perceptible chill seized upon us; a little later the black sky grew gray, and the series of groups that filled the deck were all revealed, like hidden motives in the light of some new doctrine. The sunrise was showery, and attended by a rainbow. The people bestirred themselves, stretched their benumbed limbs, and shook their tumbled garments into shape. Black coffee could now be had for ten sous a cup, and _cafe au lait_ for twenty, with a crust of bread which defied gnawing. The diary says, "L. and I grew quite tearful as we saw beautiful Venice come out of the water, just as we had seen her disappear. At the health station we were fumigated with chloride of lime--an unpleasant and useless process. We arrived opposite the Piazzetta at half past seven A. M. The captain was kind in helping us to find our effects and to get off. The gondoliers asked five francs for bringing us to our lodgings, and got them. The Barbiers could not receive us at our former snug abode, but monsieur went round to show us some rooms in Palazzo Gambaro, which he offered for seven francs _per diem_. We were glad to take them. Went to Florian's cafe for breakfast, visited San Marco, and then proceeded to install ourselves in our new lodging. Ordered a dinner for six francs, which proved abundant. Took a long sleep,--from one to four P. M.,--having only dozed a little during the night. Our lodgings are very roomy and pleasant--two large rooms well furnished, and two smaller ones. We expect to enjoy many things here, and all the more because we now know something of what is to be seen."

This expectation was fully realized during the week that followed, although the meagre entries of the diary give little assistance in recalling the strict outlines of the brilliant picture. It was now height of season in Venice. The grand canal was brilliant, every evening, with gondolas, and gondoliers in costumes. Now we admired full suits of white, with scarlet sashes, trimmed with gold fringe, now gray and blue, edged with silver. Now an ugly jockey costume, got up by some Anglo-maniac, insulted the Italian _beau-ideal_, and, indeed, every other. For the short coat and heavy clothes, suited at once to the saddle and the English climate, were utterly unsuited to the action of rowing, as well as to the full bloom of an Italian summer. I cannot help remarking upon this unsightly livery, because it was an eyesore, and because it was obviously considered by its proprietor as a brilliant success. In stylish gondolas, the rowers are two in number, and always dressed in livery. The fashionables, in height of millinery bliss, float up and down the grand canal, until it is time for the rendezvous on the Piazza. As you pass the palaces, you often see the gondola in waiting below, while in a balcony or arched window above, the fresh, smiling faces make their bright picture; and the domestic stands draped in the white opera-cloaks or bournooses. And I remember a hundred little nonsensical songs about this very passage in Venetian life.

"Prent'e la gondoletta,
Tutt'e serena il mar,
Ninetta, mia diletta,
Vieni solcar il mar
Il marinar, che gioja--che gioja il marinar!"

Which I translate into English equivalency as follows:--

The two-in-hand is waiting,
The groom is in his boots;
The lover's fondly prating,
The lady's humor suits:
Susanna! Susanna!
What joy to flog the brutes!
What joy, what joy in driving!
What joy, what joy to drive!

Like all other poetical visions, these, once seen, speedily become matters of course. Still, we found always a fairy element in the "_Gita in gondoletta_." Our gondolier had always a weird charm in our eyes. He seemed almost a feudal retainer, a servant for life or death. His shrewd glance showed that he was not easily to be astonished. He could tip over an obnoxious person in the dark, stab at a street corner, carry the most audacious of letters, and deliver the contraband answer under the very nose of high-snuffing authority. Nought of all this did we desire of him: in fact, nothing but safe conduct and moderate charges. Yet we admired his mysterious talents, and wondered in what unwritten novels he might have figured. For, indeed, the watery streets of Venice, no less than her gondoliers, suggest the idea of romantic and desperate adventure. What balconies from which to throw a rival, dead or alive! What silent, know-nothing waters to receive him! What clever assistants to aid and abet!

But enough of the evening row, which ends at the Piazzetta. Here you dismiss your man-at-oars, naming the hour at which you shall require his presence, he being meanwhile at liberty to sleep in his gondola, or lo leave it in charge with a friend, and to follow you to the Piazza, where you will amuse yourself after your fashion, he after his. Here the banners are floating, the lights glancing, the band stormily performing. Florian's cafe is represented by a crowd of well-dressed people sitting in the open air, with the appliances of chair and table covered by their voluminous draperies. If you arrive late, you may wait some time before a table, fourteen inches by ten, is vouchsafed to you. Ices are very good, very cheap, and very small. Tea and bread and butter are excellent. While you wait and while you feast, a succession of venders endeavor to impose upon you every small article which the streets of Venice show for sale. Shoes, slippers, alabaster work, shell work, tin gondolas concealing inkstands, nets, bracelets, necklaces,--all these things are offered to you in succession, together with allumettes, cigars, journals, and caramels, or candied fruits strung upon straws. If you are mild in your discouragement of these venders, they will fasten upon you like other vermin, and refuse to depart until they shall have drawn the last drop of your change. I found a brisk charge necessary, with appeals to Florian's _garcon_, after whose interference, life on the Piazza became practicable.

To the mere enjoyment of good victuals, with squabbles intervening, may be superadded the perception of fashionable life, as it goes on in these regions. When your eyes have taken the standard of light of the Piazza, you recognize in some of the groups about you persons whom you have seen, either in the balcony or in the gondola. Here are two young women whom I saw emerge from a narrow passage, this evening, rowed by a fine-looking servant, who stood bareheaded, and one other. They have diamond earrings, fashionable bonnets, and dresses dripping from a baptism of beads. One by one a group of young men, probably of the first water, forms about them. One of the ladies is handsome and quiet, the other plain and voluble. The latter becomes perforce the prominent figure in what goes on, which indeed amounts to nothing worth repeating. These were on my right. On my left soon appeared a lady of a certain age, with "world" written in large letters all over her countenance. She chaperons a daughter, got up with hair _a l'Anglaise_, whose pantomimic countenance suggests that she has been drilled by an English governess with _papa_, _prunes_, _prism_, or some equivalent gymnastic. When addressed, she looks down into her fan, and rolls her eyes as if she saw her face in it. And lady friends come up: "Ah, marchesa! ah, signora contessa!" and the young bloods, hat in hand. So here we are, really, on the borders of high life, without intending it. And the baroness introduces a female relative--_una sorella maritata_--who has been handsome, and whose smile seems accustomed to fold the cloak of her beauty around the poverty of her character. And there is coffee, and there come ices. The ladies sip and gossip, the beaux come and go, talking of intended _villeggiaturas_; for the greatest social illustration for an Italian is that of travel. A third group immediately in front of us shows a young lady in an advanced stage of ambition, attired in a conspicuous tone, accompanied by quieter female relatives and a young boy. She regards with envious eyes the two popular associations on my right and left. She is dying to be noticed, and does not know how to manage it. And while I take note of these and other vanities, beggars whine for pence, or insist upon carrying off our superfluous bread or cake, for which, indeed, we must pay; but they eat the bread before your eyes with such evident relish that you are satisfied.

By and by this palls upon you. You have seen and heard enough. The society to which you belong is over the water. Here your heart finds no place; and from the crowd of strangers even your lodging and quiet bed seem a refuge. So you settle with Florian's _garcon_, close your account with all beggars for the night, wander to the Piazzetta, and cry, "Bastiano!" and he of the mysterious intelligence sooner or later responds. You give a penny to the crab,--the man who superfluously holds the boat while you get in,--and are at home after a brief dream of smooth motion under a starry sky. And in this way end all midsummer days in Venice. Not so smooth, however, is your climbing of three flights of stone stairs in the dark, with thumping and bumping. But you are up at last, and Gianetta--the shrewd maid--receives you with a candle-end. Frugal orders for breakfast, and to rest, with the cherubs of the mantel-piece watching over you.

For over the said mantel-piece, two fair, fat babes, modelled in flat-relief, playfully contended for the mastery, their laughing faces near together, their swinging heels wide apart, as the festoon required. Elsewhere in the same relief were arabesques with birds and flowers. This bedroom of ours has been a room of state in its day. A passage-way and dressing-room have been taken from its stately proportions, and still it remains very spacious for our pretensions. Our _salon_ is larger still, and largely mirrored. Two of its windows give upon a leafy garden, whose tree-tops lie nearer to us than to their owners. Its furniture has been hastily thrown together, and is mostly composed of odds and ends. But one of its pieces moves our admiration. It is a toilet table, enclosing a complete set of utensils in the finest Venetian glass--basins, ewers, toilet bottles and glasses, and the little boxes for soap and powder, all cut after the finest pattern. This toilet was made for a royal personage, a queen of something, whose effects somehow seem to have been sold at auction in these parts. Another relic of her we discover in a bureau entirely incrusted with mother-of-pearl, an article that makes one's mouth water, if one has any mouth, which all men, like all horses, have not. The doors which divide our sitting from our sleeping room are at once objects of wonder and of fear to us. Their size is monstrous, and each of them hangs, or rather clings, by the upper hinge, the lower being dismounted. These doors are left all day at a conciliatory angle between closing and opening. We fear their falling on our heads whenever we approach them. We hear vaguely of some one who shall come to put them in order; but he never appears. Our own veteran, arriving at last, sets this right in as summary a manner as he has dealt with other nuisances. For the veteran, worn with travel, does arrive from Greece one morning, rowing up to our palace just as we have stepped from it to meet our gondola. He has a tale to tell like the wanderings of Ulysses. But between this event and those that precede it, the diary shows the following important entry:--

Thursday, Aug. 1.--To Malamocco this A. M., with three rowers--our own, and two others, who received one florin between them. The row, both in going and returning, was delightful. Arrived at Malamocco, the men demanded one franc for breakfast, and disappeared within the shades of the Osteria. This is a small settlement at the very entrance of the lagoons. It was strongly fortified by the Austrians. The heat, however, did not permit us to inspect the fortifications. We saw little of interest, but visited the church and a peasant's house. One of the daughters was engaged in stringing beads for sale. The beads were in a tray, and she plunged into them a bunch of wire needles some six inches in length, each carrying its slender thread. The merchant, she said, came weekly to bring the beads, and to take away those ready strung for the market. "To earn a penny, signora," said the mother, a substantial-looking person, wearing large gold earrings. The houses here looked very comfortable for people of the plain sort. The men seemed to be mostly away, whether engaged in fishing, or following the sea to foreign parts. On our way back we stopped at San Clementi, an ancient church upon a little island, now undergoing repairs. Within the church we found a marble tabernacle with solid walls, built behind the high altar. It may have been forty feet in length by twenty in breadth, and twelve or more feet in height. A massive door of bronze gave entrance to this huge strong-box, which was formerly used as a prison for refractory priests. We found the interior divided into two compartments. The larger of these was fitted up as a chapel; the smaller had served as the cell of confinement. The altar was erected at the partition which separated the two, and a grating inserted behind the altar figure allowed the prisoner the benefit of the religious services carried on in the chapel. The dreariness of this little prison can scarcely be described. No light had it, unless that of a lamp was allowed. A church within a church, and within the inner church a place of torment! This arrangement seemed to violate even the Catholic immunity of sanctuary. Think of the unfortunate shut up within on a feast day, when faint sounds of outward jubilee might penetrate the marble walls, and heighten his pain by its contrast with the general joyous thrill of life. Think of the cheerless mass or vespers vouchsafed to him,--no friendly face, no brother voice, to sweeten worship. And if he continued recalcitrant, how convenient was this isolation for the final disposition to be made of him! _De profundis clamavit_, doubtless, and the church did not know that God could hear him.

The diary does not record our second visit to the Armenian convent, which took place in these days. I do not even find in its irregular columns any mention of a franc which I am sure I paid to the porter, and which, I faintly hope, has been put to my credit elsewhere. Despite this absence of _pieces justificatives_, the visit still remains so freshly in my memory that I may venture to speak of it. The elder neophyte not having been with us before in Venice, the convent was new ground to her. We who had already seen it felt much more at home on the occasion of our second visit than of our first. For Padre Giacomo had answered our invasion by a friendly call; and did we not now know him to be a most genial and hospitable person? Had we not, moreover, made ourselves familiar with his religion, on our late voyage, by frequent converse with two priests of his profession? Did I not possess Father Michel's views concerning the _demonio_, as well as his version of the Book of Job? And of Pere Isaak did I not know the polished, uncommunicative side which covered his intimate convictions, whatever they may have been? The Armenian ladies, too,--had they not made me free of the guild? One of them had shown me her prayer-book. The other, being but fifteen years of age, had no prayer-book. So, with an assured step, we entered the sacred parlor, and demanded news of Padre Giacomo, and of his monkey. And the father came, smiling a little better than before, but with a sweet Oriental gravity. And he showed us again the library, and hall, and chapel, with the refectory, from whose cruel pulpit one brother is set to read while the others feast. We saw again the printing presses, worked by hand. And in the sacristy he commanded two of the younger brethren to bring the chiefest embroidered garments, reserved for high occasions, judging of us unjustly by our sex. And these satin and velvet wonders were, indeed, embossed with lambs, and birds, and flowers, in needlework of silver and gold, and of various colors, meet for the necks of them that divide the spoil. And we saw also a very fine mummy, as black, and dried, and wizened, as any old Pharaoh could be. A splendid bead covering lay over him, in open rows of blue and white, with hieroglyphic-looking men in black and yellow. This covering had been lately cleaned and repaired at the glass-works of Murano, as Padre Giacomo recounted with pride. He showed us in the old part of the work some curious double beads, which Venice itself, he said, was unable to imitate. The colors were as fresh and clear as if the mummy had clothed himself from the last fancy fair, with a description of afghan well suited to the Egyptian climate.