Chapter VI: Part 6

But all things have an end, and so did our hunt for lodgings. I chanced one day in my walk to find, with no help from the advertisement, very nearly what we desired,--cheerful rooms in a pleasant neighborhood, where the sun comes when it comes out at all, and opposite the Glass Palace, through which the sun streams in the afternoon with a certain splendor, and almost next door to the residence and laboratory of the famous chemist, Professor Liebig; so that we can have our feelings analyzed whenever it is desirable. When we had set up our household gods, and a fire was kindled in the tall white porcelain family monument, which is called here a stove,--and which, by the way, is much more agreeable than your hideous black and air-scorching cast-iron stoves,--and seen that the feather-beds under which we were expected to lie were thick enough to roast the half of the body, and short enough to let the other half freeze, we determined to try for a season the regular German cookery, our table heretofore having been served with food cooked in the English style with only a slight German flavor. A week of the experiment was quite enough. I do not mean to say that the viands served us were not good, only that we could not make up our minds to eat them. The Germans eat a great deal of meat; and we were obliged to take meat when we preferred vegetables. Now, when a deep dish is set before you wherein are chunks of pork reposing on stewed potatoes, and another wherein a fathomless depth of sauerkraut supports coils of boiled sausage, which, considering that you are a mortal and responsible being, and have a stomach, will you choose? Herein Munich, nearly all the bread is filled with anise or caraway seed; it is possible to get, however, the best wheat bread we have eaten in Europe, and we usually have it; but one must maintain a constant vigilance against the inroads of the fragrant seeds. Imagine, then, our despair, when one day the potato, the one vegetable we had always eaten with perfect confidence, appeared stewed with caraway seeds. This was too much for American human nature, constituted as it is. Yet the dish that finally sent us back to our ordinary and excellent way of living is one for which I have no name. It may have been compounded at different times, have been the result of many tastes or distastes: but there was, after all, a unity in it that marked it as the composition of one master artist; there was an unspeakable harmony in all its flavors and apparently ununitable substances. It looked like a terrapin soup, but it was not. Every dive of the spoon into its dark liquid brought up a different object,--a junk of unmistakable pork, meat of the color of roast hare, what seemed to be the neck of a goose, something in strings that resembled the rags of a silk dress, shreds of cabbage, and what I am quite willing to take my oath was a bit of Astrachan fur. If Professor Liebig wishes to add to his reputation, he could do so by analyzing this dish, and publishing the result to the world.

And, while we are speaking of eating, it may be inferred that the Germans are good eaters; and although they do not begin early, seldom taking much more than a cup of coffee before noon, they make it up by very substantial dinners and suppers. To say nothing of the extraordinary dishes of meats which the restaurants serve at night, the black bread and odorous cheese and beer which the men take on board in the course of an evening would soon wear out a cast-iron stomach in America; and yet I ought to remember the deadly pie and the corroding whisky of my native land. The restaurant life of the people is, of course, different from their home life, and perhaps an evening entertainment here is no more formidable than one in America, but it is different. Let me give you the outlines of a supper to which we were invited the other night: it certainly cannot hurt you to read about it. We sat down at eight. There were first courses of three sorts of cold meat, accompanied with two sorts of salad; the one, a composite, with a potato basis, of all imaginable things that are eaten. Beer and bread were unlimited. There was then roast hare, with some supporting dish, followed by jellies of various sorts, and ornamented plates of something that seemed unable to decide whether it would be jelly or cream; and then came assorted cake and the white wine of the Rhine and the red of Hungary. We were then surprised with a dish of fried eels, with a sauce. Then came cheese; and, to crown all, enormous, triumphal-looking loaves of cake, works of art in appearance, and delicious to the taste. We sat at the table till twelve o'clock; but you must not imagine that everybody sat still all the time, or that, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, the principal object of the entertainment was eating. The songs that were sung in Hungarian as well as German, the poems that were recited, the burlesques of actors and acting, the imitations that were inimitable, the take-off of table-tipping and of prominent musicians, the wit and constant flow of fun, as constant as the good-humor and free hospitality, the unconstrained ease of the whole evening, these things made the real supper which one remembers when the grosser meal has vanished, as all substantial things do vanish.

CHRISTMAS TIME-MUSIC

For a month Munich has been preparing for Christmas. The shop windows have had a holiday look all December. I see one every day in which are displayed all the varieties of fruits, vegetables, and confectionery possible to be desired for a feast, done in wax,--a most dismal exhibition, and calculated to make the adjoining window, which has a little fountain and some green plants waving amidst enormous pendent sausages and pigs' heads and various disagreeable hashes of pressed meat, positively enticing. And yet there are some vegetables here that I should prefer to have in wax,--for instance, sauerkraut. The toy windows are worthy of study, and next to them the bakers'. A favorite toy of the season is a little crib, with the Holy Child, in sugar or wax, lying in it in the most uncomfortable attitude. Babies here are strapped upon pillows, or between pillows, and so tied up and wound up that they cannot move a muscle, except, perhaps, the tongue; and so, exactly like little mummies, they are carried about the street by the nurses,--poor little things, packed away so, even in the heat of summer, their little faces looking out of the down in a most pitiful fashion. The popular toy is a representation, in sugar or wax, of this period of life. Generally the toy represents twins, so swathed and bound; and, not infrequently, the bold conception of the artist carries the point of the humor so far as to introduce triplets, thus sporting with the most dreadful possibilities of life.

The German bakers are very ingenious; and if they could be convinced of this great error, that because things are good separately, they must be good in combination, the produce of their ovens would be much more eatable. As it is, they make delicious cake, and of endless variety; but they also offer us conglomerate formations that may have a scientific value, but are utterly useless to a stomach not trained in Germany. Of this sort, for the most part, is the famous Lebkuchen, a sort of gingerbread manufactured in Nurnberg, and sent all over Germany: “age does not [seem to] impair, nor custom stale its infinite variety.” It is very different from our simple cake of that name, although it is usually baked in flat cards. It may contain nuts or fruit, and is spoiled by a flavor of conflicting spices. I should think it might be sold by the cord, it is piled up in such quantities; and as it grows old and is much handled, it acquires that brown, not to say dirty, familiar look, which may, for aught I know, be one of its chief recommendations. The cake, however, which prevails at this season of the year comes from the Tyrol; and as the holidays approach, it is literally piled up on the fruit-stands. It is called Klatzenbrod, and is not a bread at all, but and amalgamation of fruits and spices. It is made up into small round or oblong forms; and the top is ornamented in various patterns, with split almond meats. The color is a faded black, as if it had been left for some time in a country store; and the weight is just about that of pig-iron. I had formed a strong desire, mingled with dread, to taste it, which I was not likely to gratify,--one gets so tired of such experiments after a time--when a friend sent us a ball of it. There was no occasion to call in Professor Liebig to analyze the substance: it is a plain case. The black mass contains, cut up and pressed together, figs, citron, oranges, raisins, dates, various kinds of nuts, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and I know not what other spices, together with the inevitable anise and caraway seeds. It would make an excellent cannon-ball, and would be specially fatal if it hit an enemy in the stomach. These seeds invade all dishes. The cooks seem possessed of one of the rules of whist,--in case of doubt, play a trump: in case of doubt, they always put in anise seed. It is sprinkled profusely in the blackest rye bread, it gets into all the vegetables, and even into the holiday cakes.

The extensive Maximilian Platz has suddenly grown up into booths and shanties, and looks very much like a temporary Western village. There are shops for the sale of Christmas articles, toys, cakes, and gimcracks; and there are, besides, places of amusement, if one of the sorry menageries of sick beasts with their hair half worn off can be so classed. One portion of the platz is now a lively and picturesque forest of evergreens, an extensive thicket of large and small trees, many of them trimmed with colored and gilt strips of paper. I meet in every street persons lugging home their little trees; for it must be a very poor household that cannot have its Christmas tree, on which are hung the scanty store of candy, nuts, and fruit, and the simple toys that the needy people will pinch themselves otherwise to obtain.

At this season, usually, the churches get up some representations for the children, the stable at Bethlehem, with the figures of the Virgin and Child, the wise men, and the oxen standing by. At least, the churches must be put in spick-and-span order. I confess that I like to stray into these edifices, some of them gaudy enough when they are, so to speak, off duty, when the choir is deserted, and there is only here and there a solitary worshiper at his prayers; unless, indeed, as it sometimes happens, when I fancy myself quite alone, I come by chance upon a hundred people, in some remote corner before a side chapel, where mass is going on, but so quietly that the sense of solitude in the church is not disturbed. Sometimes, when the place is left entirely to myself, and the servants who are putting it to rights and, as it were, shifting the scenes, I get a glimpse of the reality of all the pomp and parade of the services. At first I may be a little shocked with the familiar manner in which the images and statues and the gilded paraphernalia are treated, very different from the stately ceremony of the morning, when the priests are at the altar, the choir is in the organ-loft, and the people crowd nave and aisles. Then everything is sanctified and inviolate. Now, as I loiter here, the old woman sweeps and dusts about as if she were in an ordinary crockery store: the sacred things are handled without gloves. And, lo! an unclerical servant, in his shirt-sleeves, climbs up to the altar, and, taking down the silver-gilded cherubs, holds them, head down, by one fat foot, while he wipes them off with a damp cloth. To think of submitting a holy cherub to the indignity of a damp cloth!

One could never say too much about the music here. I do not mean that of the regimental bands, or the orchestras in every hall and beer-garden, or that in the churches on Sundays, both orchestral and vocal. Nearly every day, at half-past eleven, there is a parade by the Residenz, and another on the Marian Platz; and at each the bands play for half an hour. In the Loggie by the palace the music-stands can always be set out, and they are used in the platz when it does not storm; and the bands play choice overtures and selections from the operas in fine style. The bands are always preceded and followed by a great crowd as they march through the streets, people who seem to live only for this half hour in the day, and whom no mud or snow can deter from keeping up with the music. It is a little gleam of comfort in the day for the most wearied portion of the community: I mean those who have nothing to do.

But the music of which I speak is that of the conservatoire and opera. The Hof Theater, opera, and conservatoire are all under one royal direction. The latter has been recently reorganized with a new director, in accordance with the Wagner notions somewhat. The young king is cracked about Wagner, and appears to care little for other music: he brings out his operas at great expense, and it is the fashion here to like Wagner whether he is understood or not. The opera of the “Meister-Singer von Nurnberg,” which was brought out last summer, occupied over five hours in the representation, which is unbearable to the Germans, who go to the opera at six o'clock or half-past, and expect to be at home before ten. His latest opera, which has not yet been produced, is founded on the Niebelungen Lied, and will take three evenings in the representation, which is almost as bad as a Chinese play. The present director of the conservatoire and opera, a Prussian, Herr von Bulow, is a friend of Wagner. There are formed here in town two parties: the Wagner and the conservative, the new and the old, the modern and classical; only the Wagnerites do not admit that their admiration of Beethoven and the older composers is less than that of the others, and so for this reason Bulow has given us more music of Beethoven than of any other composer. One thing is certain, that the royal orchestra is trained to a high state of perfection: its rendition of the grand operas and its weekly concerts in the Odeon cannot easily be surpassed. The singers are not equal to the orchestra, for Berlin and Vienna offer greater inducements; but there are people here who regard this orchestra as superlative. They say that the best orchestras in the world are in Germany; that the best in Germany is in Munich; and, therefore, you can see the inevitable deduction. We have another parallel syllogism. The greatest pianist in the world is Liszt; but then Herr Bulow is actually a better performer than Liszt; therefore you see again to what you must come. At any rate, we are quite satisfied in this provincial capital; and, if there is anywhere better music, we don't know it. Bulow's orchestra is not very large,--there are less than eighty pieces, but it is so handled and drilled, that when we hear it give one of the symphonies of Beethoven or Mendelssohn, there is little left to be desired. Bulow is a wonderful conductor, a little man, all nerve and fire, and he seems to inspire every instrument. It is worth something to see him lead an orchestra: his baton is magical; head, arms, and the whole body are in motion; he knows every note of the compositions; and the precision with which he evokes a solitary note out of a distant instrument with a jerk of his rod, or brings a wail from the concurring violins, like the moaning of a pine forest in winter, with a sweep of his arm, is most masterly. About the platform of the Odeon are the marble busts of the great composers; and while the orchestra is giving some of Beethoven's masterpieces, I like to fix my eyes on his serious and genius-full face, which seems cognizant of all that is passing, and believe that he has a posthumous satisfaction in the interpretation of his great thoughts.

The managers of the conservatoire also give vocal concerts, and there are, besides, quartette soiries; so that there are few evenings without some attraction. The opera alternates with the theater two or three times a week. The singers are, perhaps, not known in Paris and London, but some of them are not unworthy to be. There is the baritone, Herr Kindermann, who now, at the age of sixty-five, has a superb voice and manner, and has had few superiors in his time on the German stage. There is Frau Dietz, at forty-five, the best of actresses, and with a still fresh and lovely voice. There is Herr Nachbar, a tenor, who has a future; Fraulein Stehle, a soprano, young and with an uncommon voice, who enjoys a large salary, and was the favorite until another soprano, the Malinger, came and turned the heads of king and opera habitues. The resources of the Academy are, however, tolerably large; and the practice of pensioning for life the singers enables them to keep always a tolerable company. This habit of pensioning officials, as well as musicians and poets, is very agreeable to the Germans. A gentleman the other day, who expressed great surprise at the smallness of the salary of our President, said, that, of course, Andrew Johnson would receive a pension when he retired from office. I could not explain to him how comical the idea was to me; but when I think of the American people pensioning Andrew Johnson,--well, like the fictitious Yankee in “Mugby Junction,” “I laff, I du.”

There is some fashion, in a fudgy, quaint way, here in Munich; but it is not exhibited in dress for the opera. People go--and it is presumed the music is the attraction in ordinary apparel. They save all their dress parade for the concerts; and the hall of the Odeon is as brilliant as provincial taste can make it in toilet. The ladies also go to operas and concerts unattended by gentlemen, and are brought, and fetched away, by their servants. There is a freedom and simplicity about this which I quite like; and, besides, it leaves their husbands and brothers at liberty to spend a congenial evening in the cafes, beer-gardens, and clubs. But there is always a heavy fringe of young officers and gallants both at opera and concert, standing in the outside passages. It is cheaper to stand, and one can hear quite as well, and see more.

LOOKING FOR WARM WEATHER

FROM MUNICH TO NAPLES

At all events, saith the best authority, “pray that your flight be not in winter;” and it might have added, don't go south if you desire warm weather. In January, 1869, I had a little experience of hunting after genial skies; and I will give you the benefit of it in some free running notes on my journey from Munich to Naples.

It was the middle of January, at eleven o'clock at night, that we left Munich, on a mixed railway train, choosing that time, and the slowest of slow trains, that we might make the famous Brenner Pass by daylight. It was no easy matter, at last, to pull up from the dear old city in which we had become so firmly planted, and to leave the German friends who made the place like home to us. One gets to love Germany and the Germans as he does no other country and people in Europe. There has been something so simple, honest, genuine, in our Munich life, that we look back to it with longing eyes from this land of fancy, of hand-organ music, and squalid splendor. I presume the streets are yet half the day hid in a mountain fog; but I know the superb military bands are still playing at noon in the old Marian Platz and in the Loggie by the Residenz; that at half-past six in the evening our friends are quietly stepping in to hear the opera at the Hof Theater, where everybody goes to hear the music, and nobody for display, and that they will be at home before half-past nine, and have dispatched the servant for the mugs of foaming beer; I know that they still hear every week the choice conservatoire orchestral concerts in the Odeon; and, alas that experience should force me to think of it! I have no doubt that they sip, every morning, coffee which is as much superior to that of Paris as that of Paris is to that of London; and that they eat the delicious rolls, in comparison with which those of Paris are tasteless. I wonder, in this land of wine,--and yet it must be so,--if the beer-gardens are still filled nightly; and if it could be that I should sit at a little table there, a comely lass would, before I could ask for what everybody is presumed to want, place before me a tall glass full of amber liquid, crowned with creamy foam. Are the handsome officers still sipping their coffee in the Cafe Maximilian; and, on sunny days, is the crowd of fashion still streaming down to the Isar, and the high, sightly walks and gardens beyond?

As I said, it was eleven o'clock of a clear and not very severe night; for Munich had had no snow on the ground since November. A deputation of our friends were at the station to see us off, and the farewells between the gentlemen were in the hearty fashion of the country. I know there is a prejudice with us against kissing between men; but it is only a question of taste: and the experience of anybody will tell him that the theory that this sort of salutation must necessarily be desirable between opposite sexes is a delusion. But I suppose it cannot be denied that kissing between men was invented in Germany before they wore full beards. Well, our goodbyes said, we climbed into our bare cars. There is no way of heating the German cars, except by tubes filled with hot water, which are placed under the feet, and are called foot-warmers. As we slowly moved out over the plain, we found it was cold; in an hour the foot-warmers, not hot to start with, were stone cold. You are going to sunny Italy, our friends had said: as soon as you pass the Brenner you will have sunshine and delightful weather. This thought consoled us, but did not warm our feet. The Germans, when they travel by rail, wrap themselves in furs and carry foot-sacks.

We creaked along, with many stoppings. At two o'clock we were at Rosenheim. Rosenheim is a windy place, with clear starlight, with a multitude of cars on a multiplicity of tracks, and a large, lighted refreshment-room, which has a glowing, jolly stove. We stay there an hour, toasting by the fire and drinking excellent coffee. Groups of Germans are seated at tables playing cards, smoking, and taking coffee. Other trains arrive; and huge men stalk in, from Vienna or Russia, you would say, enveloped in enormous fur overcoats, reaching to the heels, and with big fur boots coming above the knees, in which they move like elephants. Another start, and a cold ride with cooling foot-warmers, droning on to Kurfstein. It is five o'clock when we reach Kurfstein, which is also a restaurant, with a hot stove, and more Germans going on as if it were daytime; but by this time in the morning the coffee had got to be wretched.

After an hour's waiting, we dream on again, and, before we know it, come out of our cold doze into the cold dawn. Through the thick frost on the windows we see the faint outlines of mountains. Scraping away the incrustation, we find that we are in the Tyrol, high hills on all sides, no snow in the valley, a bright morning, and the snow-peaks are soon rosy in the sunrise. It is just as we expected,--little villages under the hills, and slender church spires with brick-red tops. At nine o'clock we are in Innsbruck, at the foot of the Brenner. No snow yet. It must be charming here in the summer.

During the night we have got out of Bavaria. The waiter at the restaurant wants us to pay him ninety kreuzers for our coffee, which is only six kreuzers a cup in Munich. Remembering that it takes one hundred kreuzers to make a gulden in Austria, I launch out a Bavarian gulden, and expect ten kreuzers in change. I have heard that sixty Bavarian kreuzers are equal to one hundred Austrian; but this waiter explains to me that my gulden is only good for ninety kreuzers. I, in my turn, explain to the waiter that it is better than the coffee; but we come to no understanding, and I give up, before I begin, trying to understand the Austrian currency. During the day I get my pockets full of coppers, which are very convenient to take in change, but appear to have a very slight purchasing, power in Austria even, and none at all elsewhere, and the only use for which I have found is to give to Italian beggars. One of these pieces satisfies a beggar when it drops into his hat; and then it detains him long enough in the examination of it, so that your carriage has time to get so far away that his renewed pursuit is usually unavailing.

The Brenner Pass repaid us for the pains we had taken to see it, especially as the sun shone and took the frost from our windows, and we encountered no snow on the track; and, indeed, the fall was not deep, except on the high peaks about us. Even if the engineering of the road were not so interesting, it was something to be again amidst mountains that can boast a height of ten thousand feet. After we passed the summit, and began the zigzag descent, we were on a sharp lookout for sunny Italy. I expected to lay aside my heavy overcoat, and sun myself at the first station among the vineyards. Instead of that, we bade good-by to bright sky, and plunged into a snowstorm, and, so greeted, drove down into the narrow gorges, whose steep slopes we could see were terraced to the top, and planted with vines. We could distinguish enough to know that, with the old Roman ruins, the churches and convent towers perched on the crags, and all, the scenery in summer must be finer than that of the Rhine, especially as the vineyards here are picturesque,--the vines being trained so as to hide and clothe the ground with verdure.

It was four o'clock when we reached Trent, and colder than on top of the Brenner. As the Council, owing to the dead state of its members for now three centuries, was not in session, we made no long tarry. We went into the magnificent large refreshment-room to get warm; but it was as cold as a New England barn. I asked the proprietor if we could not get at a fire; but he insisted that the room was warm, that it was heated with a furnace, and that he burned good stove-coal, and pointed to a register high up in the wall. Seeing that I looked incredulous, he insisted that I should test it. Accordingly, I climbed upon a table, and reached up my hand. A faint warmth came out; and I gave it up, and congratulated the landlord on his furnace. But the register had no effect on the great hall. You might as well try to heat the dome of St. Peter's with a lucifer-match. At dark, Allah be praised! we reached Ala, where we went through the humbug of an Italian custom-house, and had our first glimpse of Italy in the picturesque-looking idlers in red-tasseled caps, and the jabber of a strange tongue. The snow turned into a cold rain: the foot-warmers, we having reached the sunny lands, could no longer be afforded; and we shivered along till nine o'clock, dark and rainy, brought us to Verona. We emerged from the station to find a crowd of omnibuses, carriages, drivers, runners, and people anxious to help us, all vociferating in the highest key. Amidst the usual Italian clamor about nothing, we gained our hotel omnibus, and sat there for ten minutes watching the dispute over our luggage, and serenely listening to the angry vituperations of policemen and drivers. It sounded like a revolution, but it was only the ordinary Italian way of doing things; and we were at last rattling away over the broad pavements.

Of course, we stopped at a palace turned hotel, drove into a court with double flights of high stone and marble stairways, and were hurried up to the marble-mosaic landing by an active boy, and, almost before we could ask for rooms, were shown into a suite of magnificent apartments. I had a glimpse of a garden in the rear,--flowers and plants, and a balcony up which I suppose Romeo climbed to hold that immortal love-prattle with the lovesick Juliet. Boy began to light the candles. Asked in English the price of such fine rooms. Reply in Italian. Asked in German. Reply in Italian. Asked in French, with the same result. Other servants appeared, each with a piece of baggage. Other candles were lighted. Everybody talked in chorus. The landlady--a woman of elegant manners and great command of her native tongue--appeared with a candle, and joined in the melodious confusion. What is the price of these rooms? More jabber, more servants bearing lights. We seemed suddenly to have come into an illumination and a private lunatic asylum. The landlady and her troop grew more and more voluble and excited. Ah, then, if these rooms do not suit the signor and signoras, there are others; and we were whisked off to apartments yet grander, great suites with high, canopied beds, mirrors, and furniture that was luxurious a hundred years ago. The price? Again a torrent of Italian; servants pouring in, lights flashing, our baggage arriving, until, in the tumult, hopeless of any response to our inquiry for a servant who could speak anything but Italian, and when we had decided, in despair, to hire the entire establishment, a waiter appeared who was accomplished in all languages, the row subsided, and we were left alone in our glory, and soon in welcome sleep forgot our desperate search for a warm climate.

The next day it was rainy and not warm; but the sun came out occasionally, and we drove about to see some of the sights. The first Italian town which the stranger sees he is sure to remember, the outdoor life of the people is so different from that at the North. It is the fiction in Italy that it is always summer; and the people sit in the open market-place, shiver in the open doorways, crowd into corners where the sun comes, and try to keep up the beautiful pretense. The picturesque groups of idlers and traffickers were more interesting to us than the palaces with sculptured fronts and old Roman busts, or tombs of the Scaligers, and old gates. Perhaps I ought to except the wonderful and perfect Roman amphitheater, over every foot of which a handsome boy in rags followed us, looking over every wall that we looked over, peering into every hole that we peered into, thus showing his fellowship with us, and at every pause planting himself before us, and throwing a somerset, and then extending his greasy cap for coppers, as if he knew that the modern mind ought not to dwell too exclusively on hoary antiquity without some relief.

Anxious, as I have said, to find the sunny South, we left Verona that afternoon for Florence, by way of Padua and Bologna. The ride to Padua was through a plain, at this season dreary enough, were it not, here and there, for the abrupt little hills and the snowy Alps, which were always in sight, and towards sundown and between showers transcendently lovely in a purple and rosy light. But nothing now could be more desolate than the rows of unending mulberry-trees, pruned down to the stumps, through which we rode all the afternoon. I suppose they look better when the branches grow out with the tender leaves for the silk-worms, and when they are clothed with grapevines. Padua was only to us a name. There we turned south, lost mountains and the near hills, and had nothing but the mulberry flats and ditches of water, and chilly rain and mist. It grew unpleasant as we went south. At dark we were riding slowly, very slowly, for miles through a country overflowed with water, out of which trees and houses loomed up in a ghastly show. At all the stations soldiers were getting on board, shouting and singing discordantly choruses from the operas; for there was a rising at Padua, and one feared at Bologna the populace getting up insurrections against the enforcement of the grist-tax,--a tax which has made the government very unpopular, as it falls principally upon the poor.

Creeping along at such a slow rate, we reached Bologna too late for the Florence train, It was eight o'clock, and still raining. The next train went at two o'clock in the morning, and was the best one for us to take. We had supper in an inn near by, and a fair attempt at a fire in our parlor. I sat before it, and kept it as lively as possible, as the hours wore away, and tried to make believe that I was ruminating on the ancient greatness of Bologna and its famous university, some of whose chairs had been occupied by women, and upon the fact that it was on a little island in the Reno, just below here, that Octavius and Lepidus and Mark Antony formed the second Triumvirate, which put an end to what little liberty Rome had left; but in reality I was thinking of the draught on my back, and the comforts of a sunny clime. But the time came at length for starting; and in luxurious cars we finished the night very comfortably, and rode into Florence at eight in the morning to find, as we had hoped, on the other side of the Apennines, a sunny sky and balmy air.

As this is strictly a chapter of travel and weather, I may not stop to say how impressive and beautiful Florence seemed to us; how bewildering in art treasures, which one sees at a glance in the streets; or scarcely to hint how lovely were the Boboli Gardens behind the Pitti Palace, the roses, geraniums etc, in bloom, the birds singing, and all in a soft, dreamy air. The next day was not so genial; and we sped on, following our original intention of seeking the summer in winter. In order to avoid trouble with baggage and passports in Rome, we determined to book through for Naples, making the trip in about twenty hours. We started at nine o'clock in the evening, and I do not recall a more thoroughly uncomfortable journey. It grew colder as the night wore on, and we went farther south. Late in the morning we were landed at the station outside of Rome. There was a general appearance of ruin and desolation. The wind blew fiercely from the hills, and the snowflakes from the flying clouds added to the general chilliness. There was no chance to get even a cup of coffee, and we waited an hour in the cold car. If I had not been so half frozen, the consciousness that I was actually on the outskirts of the Eternal City, that I saw the Campagna and the aqueducts, that yonder were the Alban Hills, and that every foot of soil on which I looked was saturated with history, would have excited me. The sun came out here and there as we went south, and we caught some exquisite lights on the near and snowy hills; and there was something almost homelike in the miles and miles of olive orchards, that recalled the apple-trees, but for their shining silvered leaves. And yet nothing could be more desolate than the brown marshy ground, the brown hillocks, with now and then a shabby stone hut or a bit of ruin, and the flocks of sheep shivering near their corrals, and their shepherd, clad in sheepskin, as his ancestor was in the time of Romulus, leaning on his staff, with his back to the wind. Now and then a white town perched on a hillside, its houses piled above each other, relieved the eye; and I could imagine that it might be all the poets have sung of it, in the spring, though the Latin poets, I am convinced, have wonderfully imposed upon us.

To make my long story short, it happened to be colder next morning at Naples than it was in Germany. The sun shone; but the northeast wind, which the natives poetically call the Tramontane, was blowing, and the white smoke of Vesuvius rolled towards the sea. It would only last three days, it was very unusual, and all that. The next day it was colder, and the next colder yet. Snow fell, and blew about unmelted: I saw it in the streets of Pompeii.

The fountains were frozen, icicles hung from the locks of the marble statues in the Chiaia. And yet the oranges glowed like gold among their green leaves; the roses, the heliotrope, the geraniums, bloomed in all the gardens. It is the most contradictory climate. We lunched one day, sitting in our open carriage in a lemon grove, and near at hand the Lucrine Lake was half frozen over. We feasted our eyes on the brilliant light and color on the sea, and the lovely outlined mountains round the shore, and waited for a change of wind. The Neapolitans declare that they have not had such weather in twenty years. It is scarcely one's ideal of balmy Italy.

Before the weather changed, I began to feel in this great Naples, with its roaring population of over half a million, very much like the sailor I saw at the American consul's, who applied for help to be sent home, claiming to be an American. He was an oratorical bummer, and told his story with all the dignity and elevated language of an old Roman. He had been cast away in London. How cast away? Oh! it was all along of a boarding-house. And then he found himself shipped on an English vessel, and he had lost his discharge-papers; and “Listen, your honor,” said he, calmly extending his right hand, “here I am cast away on this desolate island with nothing before me but wind and weather.”

RAVENNA

A DEAD CITY

Ravenna is so remote from the route of general travel in Italy, that I am certain you can have no late news from there, nor can I bring you anything much later than the sixth century. Yet, if you were to see Ravenna, you would say that that is late enough. I am surprised that a city which contains the most interesting early Christian churches and mosaics, is the richest in undisturbed specimens of early Christian art, and contains the only monuments of Roman emperors still in their original positions, should be so seldom visited. Ravenna has been dead for some centuries; and because nobody has cared to bury it, its ancient monuments are yet above ground. Grass grows in its wide streets, and its houses stand in a sleepy, vacant contemplation of each other: the wind must like to mourn about its silent squares. The waves of the Adriatic once brought the commerce of the East to its wharves; but the deposits of the Po and the tides have, in process of time, made it an inland town, and the sea is four miles away.

In the time of Augustus, Ravenna was a favorite Roman port and harbor for fleets of war and merchandise. There Theodoric, the great king of the Goths, set up his palace, and there is his enormous mausoleum. As early as A. D. 44 it became an episcopal see, with St. Apollinaris, a disciple of St. Peter, for its bishop. There some of the later Roman emperors fixed their residences, and there they repose. In and about it revolved the adventurous life of Galla Placidia, a woman of considerable talent and no principle, the daughter of Theodosius (the great Theodosius, who subdued the Arian heresy, the first emperor baptized in the true faith of the Trinity, the last who had a spark of genius), the sister of one emperor, and the mother of another,--twice a slave, once a queen, and once an empress; and she, too, rests there in the great mausoleum builded for her. There, also, lies Dante, in his tomb “by the upbraiding shore;” rejected once of ungrateful Florence, and forever after passionately longed for. There, in one of the earliest Christian churches in existence, are the fine mosaics of the Emperor Justinian and Theodora, the handsome courtesan whom he raised to the dignity and luxury of an empress on his throne in Constantinople. There is the famous forest of pines, stretching--unbroken twenty miles down the coast to Rimini, in whose cool and breezy glades Dante and Boccaccio walked and meditated, which Dryden has commemorated, and Byron has invested with the fascination of his genius; and under the whispering boughs of which moved the glittering cavalcade which fetched the bride to Rimini,--the fair Francesca, whose sinful confession Dante heard in hell.

We went down to Ravenna from Bologna one afternoon, through a country level and rich, riding along toward hazy evening, the land getting flatter as we proceeded (you know, there is a difference between level and flat), through interminable mulberry-trees and vines, and fields with the tender green of spring, with church spires in the rosy horizon; on till the meadows became marshes, in which millions of frogs sang the overture of the opening year. Our arrival, I have reason to believe, was an event in the old town. We had a crowd of moldy loafers to witness it at the station, not one of whom had ambition enough to work to earn a sou by lifting our traveling-bags. We had our hotel to ourselves, and wished that anybody else had it. The rival house was quite aware of our advent, and watched us with jealous eyes; and we, in turn, looked wistfully at it, for our own food was so scarce that, as an old traveler says, we feared that we shouldn't have enough, until we saw it on the table, when its quality made it appear too much. The next morning, when I sallied out to hire a conveyance, I was an object of interest to the entire population, who seemed to think it very odd that any one should walk about and explore the quiet streets. If I were to describe Ravenna, I should say that it is as flat as Holland and as lively as New London. There are broad streets, with high houses, that once were handsome, palaces that were once the abode of luxury, gardens that still bloom, and churches by the score. It is an open gate through which one walks unchallenged into the past, with little to break the association with the early Christian ages, their monuments undimmed by time, untouched by restoration and innovation, the whole struck with ecclesiastical death. With all that we saw that day,--churches, basilicas, mosaics, statues, mausoleums,--I will not burden these pages; but I will set down is enough to give you the local color, and to recall some of the most interesting passages in Christian history in this out-of-the-way city on the Adriatic.

Our first pilgrimage was to the Church of St. Apollinare Nuova; but why it is called new I do not know, as Theodoric built it for an Arian cathedral in about the year 500. It is a noble interior, having twenty-four marble columns of gray Cippolino, brought from Constantinople, with composite capitals, on each of which is an impost with Latin crosses sculptured on it. These columns support round arches, which divide the nave from the aisles, and on the whole length of the wall of the nave so supported are superb mosaics, full-length figures, in colors as fresh as if done yesterday, though they were executed thirteen hundred years ago. The mosaic on the left side--which is, perhaps, the finest one of the period in existence--is interesting on another account. It represents the city of Classis, with sea and ships, and a long procession of twenty-two virgins presenting offerings to the Virgin and Child, seated on a throne. The Virgin is surrounded by angels, and has a glory round her head, which shows that homage is being paid to her. It has been supposed, from the early monuments of Christian art, that the worship of the Virgin is of comparatively recent origin; but this mosaic would go to show that Mariolatry was established before the end of the sixth century. Near this church is part of the front of the palace of Theodoric, in which the Exarchs and Lombard kings subsequently resided. Its treasures and marbles Charlemagne carried off to Germany.

DOWN TO THE PINETA

We drove three miles beyond the city, to the Church of St. Apollinare in Classe, a lonely edifice in a waste of marsh, a grand old basilica, a purer specimen of Christian art than Rome or any other Italian town can boast. Just outside the city gate stands a Greek cross on a small fluted column, which marks the site of the once magnificent Basilica of St. Laurentius, which was demolished in the sixteenth century, its stone built into a new church in town, and its rich marbles carried to all-absorbing Rome. It was the last relic of the old port of Caesarea, famous since the time of Augustus. A marble column on a green meadow is all that remains of a once prosperous city. Our road lay through the marshy plain, across an elevated bridge over the sluggish united stream of the Ronco and Montone, from which there is a wide view, including the Pineta (or Pine Forest), the Church of St. Apollinare in the midst of rice-fields and marshes, and on a clear day the Alps and Apennines.

I can imagine nothing more desolate than this solitary church, or the approach to it. Laborers were busy spading up the heavy, wet ground, or digging trenches, which instantly filled with water, for the whole country was afloat. The frogs greeted us with clamorous chorus out of their slimy pools, and the mosquitoes attacked us as we rode along. I noticed about on the bogs, wherever they could find standing-room, half-naked wretches, with long spears, having several prongs like tridents, which they thrust into the grass and shallow water. Calling one of them to us, we found that his business was fishing, and that he forked out very fat and edible-looking fish with his trident. Shaggy, undersized horses were wading in the water, nipping off the thin spears of grass. Close to the church is a rickety farmhouse. If I lived there, I would as lief be a fish as a horse.

The interior of this primitive old basilica is lofty and imposing, with twenty-four handsome columns of the gray Cippolino marble, and an elevated high altar and tribune, decorated with splendid mosaics of the sixth century,--biblical subjects, in all the stiff faithfulness of the holy old times. The marble floor is green and damp and slippery. Under the tribune is the crypt, where the body of St. Apollinaris used to lie (it is now under the high altar above); and as I desired to see where he used to rest, I walked in. I also walked into about six inches of water, in the dim, irreligious light; and so made a cold-water Baptist devotee of myself. In the side aisles are wonderful old sarcophagi, containing the ashes of archbishops of Ravenna, so old that the owners' names are forgotten of two of them, which shows that a man may build a tomb more enduring than his memory. The sculptured bas-reliefs are very interesting, being early Christian emblems and curious devices,--symbols of sheep, palms, peacocks, crosses, and the four rivers of Paradise flowing down in stony streams from stony sources, and monograms, and pious rebuses. At the entrance of the crypt is an open stone book, called the Breviary of Gregory the Great. Detached from the church is the Bell Tower, a circular campanile of a sort peculiar to Ravenna, which adds to the picturesqueness of the pile, and suggests the notion that it is a mast unshipped from its vessel, the church, which consequently stands there water-logged, with no power to catch any wind, of doctrine or other, and move. I forgot to say that the basilica was launched in the year 534.

A little weary with the good but damp old Christians, we ordered our driver to continue across the marsh to the Pineta, whose dark fringe bounded all our horizon toward the Adriatic. It is the largest unbroken forest in Italy, and by all odds the most poetic in itself and its associations. It is twenty-five miles long, and from one to three in breadth, a free growth of stately pines, whose boughs are full of music and sweet odors,--a succession of lovely glades and avenues, with miles and miles of drives over the springy turf. At the point where we entered is a farmhouse. Laborers had been gathering the cones, which were heaped up in immense windrows, hundreds of feet in length. Boys and men were busy pounding out the seeds from the cones. The latter are used for fuel, and the former are pressed for their oil. They are also eaten: we have often had them served at hotel tables, and found them rather tasteless, but not unpleasant. The turf, as we drove into the recesses of the forest, was thickly covered with wild flowers, of many colors and delicate forms; but we liked best the violets, for they reminded us of home, though the driver seemed to think them less valuable than the seeds of the pine-cones. A lovely day and history and romance united to fascinate us with the place. We were driving over the spot where, eighteen centuries ago, the Roman fleet used to ride at anchor. Here, it is certain, the gloomy spirit of Dante found congenial place for meditation, and the gay Boccaccio material for fiction. Here for hours, day after day, Byron used to gallop his horse, giving vent to that restless impatience which could not all escape from his fiery pen, hearing those voices of a past and dead Italy which he, more truthfully and pathetically than any other poet, has put into living verse. The driver pointed out what is called Byron's Path, where he was wont to ride. Everybody here, indeed, knows of Byron; and I think his memory is more secure than any saint of them all in their stone boxes, partly because his poetry has celebrated the region, perhaps rather from the perpetuated tradition of his generosity. No foreigner was ever so popular as he while he lived at Ravenna. At least, the people say so now, since they find it so profitable to keep his memory alive and to point out his haunts. The Italians, to be sure, know how to make capital out of poets and heroes, and are quick to learn the curiosity of foreigners, and to gratify it for a compensation. But the evident esteem in which Byron's memory is held in the Armenian monastery of St. Lazzaro, at Venice, must be otherwise accounted for. The monks keep his library-room and table as they were when he wrote there, and like to show his portrait, and tell of his quick mastery of the difficult Armenian tongue. We have a notable example of a Person who became a monk when he was sick; but Byron accomplished too much work during the few months he was on the Island of St. Lazzaro, both in original composition and in translating English into Armenian, for one physically ruined and broken.

DANTE AND BYRON