Part 16

LAZARETTO, VILLA FRANCA.--There were but eight of the twenty or thirty travellers stopped at the bridge who thought it worth while to persevere. We are all here in this pest-house, and a motley mixture of nations it is. There are two young Sicilians returning from college to Messina; a Belgian lad of seventeen, just started on his travels; two aristocratic young Frenchmen, very elegant and very ignorant of the world, running down to Italy in their own carriage, to avoid the cholera; a middle-aged surgeon in the British navy, very cool and very gentlemanly; a vulgar Marseilles trader, and myself.

We were from seven in the morning till two, getting away from Antibes. Our difficulties during the whole day are such a practical comparison of the freedom of European states and ours, that I may as well detail them.

First of all, our passports were to be vised by the police. We were compelled to stand an hour with our hats off, in a close, dirty office, waiting our turn for this favor. The next thing was to get the permission of the prefect of the _marine_ to embark; and this occupied another hour. Thence we were taken to the health-office, where a _bill of health_ was made out for eight persons _going to a lazaretto_! The padrone's freight duties were then to be settled, and we went back and forth between the Sardinian consul and the French, disputing these for another hour or more. Our baggage was piled upon the _charrette_, at last, to be taken to the boat. The quay is outside the gate, and here are stationed the _douanes_, or custom-officers, who ordered our trunks to be taken from the cart, and searched them from top to bottom. After a half hour spent in repacking our effects in the open street, amid a crowd of idle spectators, we were suffered to proceed. Almost all these various gentlemen expect a fee, and some demand a heavy one; and all this trouble and expense of time and money to make a voyage of _fifteen miles in a fishing-boat_!

We hoisted the fisherman's latteen sail, and put out of the little harbor in very bad temper. The wind was fair, and we ran along the shore for a couple of hours, till we came to Nice, where we were to stop for permission to go to the lazaretto. We were hailed, off the mole, with a trumpet, and suffered to pass. Doubling a little point, half a mile farther on, we ran into the bay of Villa Franca, a handful of houses at the base of an amphitheatre of mountains. A little round tower stood in the centre of the harbor, built upon a rock, and connected with the town by a draw-bridge, and we were landed at a staircase outside, by which we mounted to show our papers to the health-officer. The interior was a little circular yard, separated from an office on the town side by an iron grating, and looking out on the sea by two embrasures for cannon. Two strips of water and the sky above was our whole prospect for the hour that we waited here. The cause of the delay was presently explained by clouds of smoke issuing from the interior. The tower filled, and a more nauseating odor I never inhaled. We were near suffocating with the intolerable smell, and the quantity of smoke deemed necessary to secure his majesty's officers against contagion.

A cautious-looking old gentleman, with gray hair, emerged at last from the smoke, with a long cane-pole in his hand, and, coughing at every syllable, requested us to insert our passports in the split at the extremity, which he thrust through the gate. This being done, we asked him for bread. We had breakfasted at seven, and it was now sundown--near twelve hours fast. Several of my companions had been seasick with the swell of the Mediterranean, in coming from Antibes, and all were faint with hunger and exhaustion. For myself, the villainous smell of our purification had made me sick, and I had no appetite; but the rest ate very voraciously of a loaf of coarse bread, which was extended to us with a tongs and two pieces of paper.

After reading our passports, the magistrate informed us that he had no orders to admit us to the lazaretto, and we must lie in our boat till he could send a messenger to Nice with our passports and obtain permission. We opened upon him, however, with such a flood of remonstrance, and with such an emphasis from hunger and fatigue, that he consented to admit us temporarily on his own responsibility, and gave the boatmen orders to row back to a long, low stone building, which we had observed at the foot of a precipice at the entrance to the harbor.

He was there before us, and as we mounted the stone ladder he pointed through the bars of a large inner gate to a single chamber, separated from the rest of the building, and promising to send us something to eat in the course of the evening, left us to take possession. Our position was desolate enough. The building was new, and the plaster still soft and wet. There was not an article of furniture in the chamber, and but a single window; the floor was of brick, and the air as damp within as a cellar. The alternative was to remain out of doors, in the small yard, walled up thirty feet on three sides, and washed by the sea on the other; and here, on a long block of granite, the softest thing I could find, I determined to make an _al fresco_ night of it.

Bread, cheese, wine, and cold meat, seethed, Italian fashion, in nauseous oil, arrived about nine o'clock; and, by the light of a candle standing in a boot, we sat around on the brick floor, and supped very merrily. Hunger had brought even our two French exquisites to their fare, and they ate well. The navy surgeon had seen service, and had no qualms; the Sicilians were from a German university, and were not delicate; the Marseilles trader knew no better; and we should have been less contented with a better meal. It was superfluous to abuse it.

A steep precipice hangs immediately over the lazaretto, and the horn of the half moon was just dipping below it, as I stretched myself to sleep. With a folded coat under me, and a carpet-bag for a pillow, I soon fell asleep, and slept soundly till sunrise. My companions had chosen shelter, but all were happy to be early risers. We mounted our wall upon the sea, and promenaded till the sun was broadly up, and the breeze from the Mediterranean sharpened our appetites, and then finishing the relics of our supper, we waited with what patience we might the appearance of our breakfast.

* * * * *

The magistrate arrived at twelve, yesterday, with a commissary from Villa Franca, who is to be our victualler during the quarantine. He has enlarged our limits, by a stone staircase and an immense chamber, on condition that we pay for an extra guard, in the shape of a Sardinian soldier, who is to sleep in our room, and eat at our table. By the way, we _have_ a table, and four rough benches, and these, with three single mattresses, are all the furniture we can procure. We are compelled to sleep _across_ the latter of course, to give every one his share.

We have come down very contentedly to our situation, and I have been exceedingly amused at the facility with which eight such different tempers can amalgamate, upon compulsion. Our small quarters bring us in contact continually, and we harmonize like schoolboys. At this moment the Marseilles trader and the two Frenchmen are throwing stones at something that is floating out with the tide; the surgeon has dropped his Italian grammar to decide upon which is the best shot; the Belgian is fishing off the wall, with a pin hook and a bit of cheese; and the two Sicilians are talking _lingua franca_, at the top of their voices, to Carolina, the guardian's daughter, who stands coquetting on the pier just outside the limits. I have got out my books and portfolio, and taken possession of the broad stair, depending on the courtesy of my companions to jump over me and my papers when they go up and down. I sit here most of the day laughing at the fun below, and writing or reading alternately. The climate is too delicious for discontent. Every breath is a pleasure. The hills of the amphitheatre opposite to us are covered with olive, lemon, and orange trees; and in the evening, from the time the land breeze commences to blow off shore until ten or eleven, the air is impregnated with the delicate perfume of the orange-blossom, than which nothing could be more grateful. Nice is called the hospital of Europe; and truly, under this divine sky, and with the inspiriting vitality and softness of the air, and all that nature can lavish of luxuriance and variety upon the hills, it is the place, if there is one in the world, where the drooping spirit of the invalid must revive and renew. At this moment the sun has crept from the peak of the highest mountain across the bay, and we shall scent presently the spicy wind from the shore. I close my book to go upon the wall, which I see the surgeon has mounted already with the same object, to catch the first breath that blows seaward.

It is Sunday, and an Italian summer morning. I do not think my eyes ever woke upon so lovely a day. The long, lazy swell comes in from the Mediterranean as smooth as glass; the sails of a beautiful yacht, belonging to an English nobleman at Nice, and lying becalmed just now in the bay, are hanging motionless about the masts; the sky is without a speck, the air just seems to me to steep every nerve and fibre of the frame with repose and pleasure. Now and then in America I have felt a June morning that approached it, but never the degree, the fulness, the sunny softness of this exquisite clime. It tranquilizes the mind as well as the body. You cannot resist feeling contented and genial. We are all out of doors, and my companions have brought down their mattresses, and are lying along the shade of the east wall, talking quietly and pleasantly; the usual sounds of the workmen on the quays of the town are still, our harbor-guard lies asleep in his boat, the yellow flag of the lazaretto clings to the staff, everything about us breathes tranquillity. Prisoner as I am, I would not stir willingly to-day.

* * * * *

We have had two new arrivals this morning--a boat from Antibes, with a company of players bound for the theatre at Milan; and two French deserters from the regiment at Toulon, who escaped in a leaky boat, and have made this voyage along the coast to get into Italy. They knew nothing of the quarantine, and were very much surprised at their arrest. They will, probably, be delivered up to the French consul. The new comers are all put together in the large chamber next us, and we have been talking with them through the grate. His majesty of Sardinia is not spared in their voluble denunciations.

Our imprisonment is getting to be a little tedious. We lengthen our breakfasts and dinners, go to sleep early and get up late, but a lazaretto is a dull place after all. We have no books except dictionaries and grammars, and I am on my last sheet of paper. What I shall do, the two remaining days, I cannot divine. Our meals were amusing for a while. We have but three knives and four glasses; and the Belgian, having cut his plate in two on the first day, has eaten since from the wash-bowl. The salt is in a brown paper, the vinegar in a shell; and the meats, to be kept warm during their passage by water, are brought in the black utensils in which they are cooked. Our tablecloth appeared to-day of all the colors of the rainbow. We sat down to breakfast with a general cry of horror. Still, with youth and good spirits, we manage to be more contented than one would expect; and our lively discussions of the spot on the quay where the table shall be laid, and the noise of our dinners _en plein air_, would convince the spectator that we were a very merry and sufficiently happy company.

I like my companions, on the whole, very much. The surgeon has been in Canada and the west of New York, and we have travelled the same routes, and made in several instances, the same acquaintances. He has been in almost every part of the world also, and his descriptions are very graphic and sensible. The Belgian talks of his new king Leopold, the Sicilians of the German universities; and when I have exhausted all they can tell me, I turn to our Parisians, whom I find I have met all last winter without noticing them, at the parties; and we discuss the belles, and the different members of the _beau monde_, with all the touching air and tone of exiles from paradise. In a case of desperate ennui, wearied with studying and talking, the sea wall is a delightful lounge, and the blue Mediterranean plays the witch to the indolent fancy, and beguiles it well. I have never seen such a beautiful sheet of water. The color is peculiarly rich and clear, like an intensely blue sky, heaving into waves. I do not find the often-repeated description of its loveliness exaggerated.

Our seven days expire to-morrow, and we are preparing to eat our last dinner in the lazaretto with great glee. A temporary table is already laid upon the quay, and two strips of board raised upon some ingenious contrivance, I can not well say what, and covered with all the private and public napkins that retained any portion of their maiden whiteness. Our knives are reduced to two, one having disappeared unaccountably; but the deficiency is partially remedied. The surgeon has "whittled" a pine knot, which floated in upon the tide, into a distant imitation; and one of the company has produced a delicate dagger, that looks very like a keepsake from a lady; and, by the reluctant manner in which it was put to service, the profanation cost his sentiment an effort. Its white handle and silver sheath lie across a plate, abridged of its proportions by a very formidable segment. There was no disguising the poverty of the brown paper that contained the salt. It was too necessary to be made an "aside," and lies plump in the middle of the table. I fear there has been more fun in the preparation than we shall feel in eating the dinner when it arrives. The Belgian stands on the wall, watching all the boats from town; but they pass off down the harbor, one after another, and we are destined to keep our appetites to a late hour. Their detestable cookery needs the "sauce of hunger."

The Belgian's hat waves in the air, and the commissary's boat must be in sight. As we get off at six o'clock to-morrow morning, my portfolio shuts till I find another resting place, probably Genoa.

LETTER XXVI.

SHORE OF THE MEDITERRANEAN--NICE--FUNERAL SERVICES OF MARIA THERESA, ARCHDUCHESS OF AUSTRIA--PRINCIPALITY OF MONACO--ROAD TO GENOA--SARDINIA--PRISON OF THE POPE--HOUSE OF COLUMBUS--GENOA.

The health-magistrate arrived at an early hour, on the morning of our departure from the lazaretto of Villa Franca. He was accompanied by a physician, who was to direct the fumigation. The iron pot was placed in the centre of the chamber, our clothes were spread out upon the beds, and the windows shut. The _chlorin_ soon filled the room, and its detestable odor became so intolerable that we forced the door, and rushed past the sentinel into the open air, nearly suffocated. This farce over, we were permitted to embark, and, rounding the point, put into Nice.

The Mediterranean curves gracefully into the crescented shore of this lovely bay, and the high hills lean away from the skirts of the town in one unbroken slope of cultivation to the top. Large, handsome buildings face you on the long quay, as you approach; and white chimneys, and half-concealed parts of country-houses and suburban villas, appear through the olive and orange trees with which the whole amphitheatre is covered. We landed amid a crowd of half-naked idlers, and were soon at a hotel, where we ordered the best breakfast the town would afford, and sat down once more to clean cloths and unrepulsive food.

As we rose from the table, a note, edged with black, and sealed and enveloped with considerable circumstance, was put into my hand by the master of the hotel. It was an invitation from the governor to attend a funeral service, to be performed in the cathedral that day, at ten o'clock, for the "late Queen-mother, Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria." Wondering not a little how I came by the honor, I joined the crowd flocking from all parts of the town to see the ceremony. The central door was guarded by a file of Sardinian soldiers; and, presenting my invitation to the officer on duty, I was handed over to the master of ceremonies, and shown to an excellent seat in the centre of the church. The windows were darkened, and the candles of the altar not yet lit; and, by the indistinct light that came in through the door, I could distinguish nothing clearly. A little silver bell tinkled presently from one of the side-chapels, and boys dressed in white appeared, with long tapers, and the house was soon splendidly illuminated. I found myself in the midst of a crowd of four or five hundred ladies, all in deep mourning. The church was hung from the floor to the roof in black cloth, ornamented gorgeously with silver; and, under the large dome, which occupied half the ceiling, was raised a pyramidal altar, with tripods supporting chalices for incense at the four corners, a walk round the lower base for the priests, and something in the centre, surrounded with a blaze of light, representing figures weeping over a tomb. The organ commenced pealing, there was a single beat on the drum, and a procession entered. It was composed of the nobility of Nice, and the military and civil officers, all in uniform and court dresses. The gold and silver flashing in the light, the tall plumes of the Sardinian soldiery below, the solemn music, and the moving of the censers from the four corners of the altar, produced a very impressive effect. As soon as the procession had quite entered, the fire was kindled in the four chalices; and, as the white smoke rolled up to the roof, an anthem commenced with the full power of the organ. The singing was admirable, and there was one female voice in the choir, of singular power and sweetness.

The remainder of the service was the usual ceremonies of the Catholic church, and I amused myself with observing the people about me. It was little like a scene of mourning. The officers gradually edged in between the seats, and every woman with the least pretension to prettiness was engaged in anything but her prayers for the soul of the late Archduchess. Some of these, the very young girls, were pretty; and the women, of thirty-five or forty apparently, were fine-looking; but, except a decided air of style and rank, the fairly grown-up belles seemed to me of very small attraction.

I saw little else in Nice to interest me. I wandered about with my friend the surgeon, laughing at the ridiculous figures and villainous uniforms of the Sardinian infantry, and repelling the beggars, who radiated to us from every corner; and, having traversed the terrace of a mile on the tops of the houses next the sea, unravelled all the lanes of the old town, and admired all the splendor of the new, we dined and got early to bed, anxious to sleep once more between sheets, and prepare for an early start on the following morning.

* * * * *

We were on the road to Genoa with the first gray of the dawn: the surgeon, a French officer, and myself, three passengers of a courier barouche. We were climbing up mountains and sliding down with locked wheels for several hours, by a road edging on precipices, and overhung by tremendous rocks, and, descending at last to the sea-level, we entered _Mentone_, a town of the little principality of _Monaco_. Having paid our twenty sous tribute to this prince of a territory not larger than a Kentucky farm, we were suffered to cross his borders once more into Sardinia, having posted through a whole State in less than half an hour.

It is impossible to conceive a route of more grandeur than the famous road along the Mediterranean from Nice to Genoa. It is near a hundred and fifty miles, over the edges of mountains bordering the sea for the whole distance. The road is cut into the sides of the precipice, often hundreds of feet perpendicular above the surf, descending sometimes into the ravines formed by the numerous rivers that cut their way to the sea, and mounting immediately again to the loftiest summits. It is a dizzy business, from beginning to end. There is no parapet, usually, and there are thousands of places where half a "shie" by a timid horse, would drop you at once some hundred fathoms upon rocks wet by the spray of every sea that breaks upon the shore. The loveliest little nests of valleys lie between that can be conceived. You will see a green spot, miles below you in turning the face of a rock; and right in the midst, like a handful of plaster models on a carpet, a cluster of houses, lying quietly in the warm southern exposure, embosomed in everything refreshing to the eye, the mountain sides cultivated in a large circle around, and the ruins of an old castle to a certainty on the eminence above. You descend and descend, and wind into the curves of the shore, losing and regaining sight of it constantly, till, entering a gate on the sea-level, you find yourself in a filthy, narrow, half-whitewashed town, with a population of beggars, priests, and soldiers; not a respectable citizen to be seen from one end to the other, nor a clean woman, nor a decent house. It is so, all through Sardinia. The towns from a distance lie in the most exquisitely-chosen spots possible. A river comes down from the hills and washes the wall; the uplands above are always of the very choicest shelter and exposure. You would think man and nature had conspired to complete its convenience and beauty; yet, within, all is misery, dirt, and superstition. Every corner has a cross--every bench a priest, idling in the sun--every door a picture of the Virgin. You are delighted to emerge once more, and get up a mountain to the fresh air.