Part 10
The wind died away with the disappearance of the sun, and when we took to the mattresses it was a flat calm. I was awoke, next morning, by the creaking of the yards: and rising I found we were working up to Cività Vecchia, with a foul but light wind,--a business we had been engaged in nearly all night. The Roman coast commenced as soon as we were clear of Argentaro, and we were now stretching in towards it, approaching within half a mile. It was low; and the watch-towers, better constructed than common,--a sort of martello tower,--were so near each other as completely to sweep the beach with their guns. They appeared so well that I attributed them to Napoleon, but the padrone affirmed they were constructed a long time since.
Cività Vecchia soon became distinctly visible. It lies around a shallow cove, with an artificial basin within it, and a mole stretching athwart the mouth of the cove. There is good holding-ground off the mole, and against easterly or north-easterly weather a good roadstead, but not much better than is to be found anywhere else on the west side of the boot. At ten we doubled the mole and ran into the port, where we found about fifty vessels, principally feluccas.
We landed and went to an inn, a miserable place at the best. Here we ordered breakfast; but the coffee, almost always bad in Italy, is getting to be worse as we proceed south, though better in the large towns at the south than in the small ones at the north. There was no milk, and even fish was difficult to be had.
Cività Vecchia is small, but not dirty. There is an ancient mole, and a basin that once contained Roman gallies. The bronze rings by which they made fast to the quays still remain! To my surprise I was told there was an American consul here. He proved to be a consular agent, appointed by the consul at Rome; and I found him in a shop weighing some sugar, with a cockade in his hat as large as a small plate. He was civil and useful, however, for he obtained our passports, which had been taken from us on landing, without delay, and was serviceable in getting the necessary papers for the felucca.
After breakfasting and walking through the little town, we were anxious to proceed, for there was not time to look at some curious objects in the vicinity, and as for the town itself it was soon exhausted. By dint of two hours of pretty hard work I got the padrone on board, and compelled him to get under way. We beat into the offing at five, and then made a fair wind of it. The run this evening was delightful. The wind soon hauled and blew fresh from the land, leaving us perfectly smooth water, and we glided along at the rate of seven knots, so near the shore as to discern every thing of moment. Among other objects we passed a fortress of some magnitude. At first the land was high, but, as the day declined, it melted away, until it got to be a low waste. This, we knew, was the water-margin of the celebrated Campagna of Rome; and about nine the padrone pointed out to us the position of Ostia, and the mouths of the Tiber. He kept the vessel well off the shore, pretending that the malaria at this season was so penetrating as to render it dangerous to be closer in with the wind off the land. As this was plausible, and at least safe, I commended his caution.
I was singularly struck by the existence of this subtle and secret danger in the midst of a scene otherwise so lovely. The night was as bright a starlight as I remember to have seen. Nothing could surpass the diamond-like lustre of the placid and thoughtful stars; and the blue waters through which we were gliding, betrayed our passage by a track of molten silver. While we were gazing at this beautiful spectacle, a meteor crossed the heavens, illuminating everything to the brightness of a clear moonlight. It was much the finest meteor I ever saw, and its course included more than half of the arch above us. The movement, apparently, was not swifter than that of a rocket, nor was the size of the meteor much less than one of the ordinary dimensions. Its light, however, was much more vivid and purer, having something intense, much beyond the reach of art, in it. Soon after this beautiful sight, we retired to our mattresses.
Next morning we were off the Pontine Marshes, with Cape Circello, the insulated bluff in which they terminate, and the islands of Ponza and Palmarola, in sight. The latter were the first Neapolitan land we saw. The wind came ahead and light, as had invariably been the case since we left Leghorn in the morning. We gave ourselves no uneasiness on this account, feeling almost certain of a shift to the westward; a change as ancient as the Romans, this being their zephyr, which blows in summer almost daily in this part of the Mediterranean. From the sea the Pontine Marshes did not present an appearance sensibly different from that of the coast near Ostia. Both were low, and in some places reedy; and yet we saw dwellings along them immediately on the coast. One large, naked, treeless house, we were told, was the residence of a cardinal. There was even a small town visible, though nothing of importance, immediately next the marshes. The lowest part of the Pontine Marshes, however, is not on the coast to the west of them, but on the south, near Terracina; the stream that passes through them, as well as the canal, having that direction. The margin of the marshes next to the sea, I take it, is higher than their centre, the drains running north and south.
A favourable slant of wind enabled us to double Cape Circello at noon, when we opened the Gulf of Gaeta, Terracina, and all the grand coast of that vicinity. The volcanic peaks of Ischia loomed in the distance, and the zephyr coming fresh and fair, we soon raised other objects of interest along the Neapolitan shore. Our course was, as near as might be, to the south-east, across the mouth of the Gulf, and, as the coast receded, the fine mountains fell away in haze; but our mariners having an instinct for the land, we got better views than might have been expected, as we did not make a perfectly straight wake.
Towards the middle of the afternoon we had the town and citadel of Gaeta abeam, dimly visible. A thunder-storm among the mountains produced a magnificent effect, though it frightened the padrone into shifting his sails, and even spars, for he sent down the old ones, and sent up a lighter set. We lost time unnecessarily by this precaution, for the wind did not increase. He showed me, however, two Neapolitan gun-vessels struggling through it, two or three leagues in shore of us; and we had the consolation of knowing that, had we been in their places, our smaller sails might have been of use.
Just before the gust appeared, I discovered a conical isolated mountain to the south-east looming up in the haze. It proved to be Vesuvius.--We saw it over the nearer but lower land of Baiæ and its vicinity. As usual, the wind fell at sunset, and finally it shifted. We had a little rain, and went to sleep uncertain of the result.
The next was the sixth day we had passed on board the Bella Genovese. Going on deck at sunrise, I found the felucca contending with a head wind, but luckily in smooth water. On our right lay high dark mountains thrown into picturesque forms, with a shore lined with hamlets and towns. This was Ischia. Ahead was another island, of the same character, resembling a gigantic seawall thrown before the bay. This was Capri.--On our left, lay a small, low, level island, teeming with life; and to the north and east of us, opened the glorious Bay of Naples with thousands of objects of interest, that, by their recollections embrace nearly all of known time.
The wind blew directly in our teeth, and we beat up the whole distance, making short stretches close in with the western, or rather northern side of the bay. The multitude of things of interest we saw and passed, rendered the time short, though it took us three hours.
As the day opened, and we advanced farther into this glorious bay, we could not help exclaiming, “What dunce first thought of instituting a comparison between the bay of New York and this?” It is scarcely possible for two things composed of the same elements to be less alike, in the first place; nor are their excellencies the same in a single essential point. The harbour of New York is barely pretty; there being, within my own knowledge, some fifty ports that equal, or surpass it, even, in beauty. These may not be in England, a country in which we seek every standard of excellence; but the Mediterranean alone is full of them. No one would think of applying the term pretty, or even handsome, to the Bay of Naples; it has glorious and sublime scenery, embellished by a bewitching softness. Neither the water nor the land is the same. In New York the water is turbid and of a dullish green colour, for in its purer moments, it is, at the best, of the greenish hue of the entire American coast; while that of the Bay of Naples has the cerulean tint and limpidity of the ocean. At New York, the land, low and tame, in its best months offers nothing but the verdure and foliage of spring and summer, while the coast of this gulf, or bay, are thrown into the peaks and faces of grand mountains, with the purple and rose-coloured tints of a pure atmosphere and a low latitude. If New York does possess a sort of background of rocks, in the Palisadoes, which vary in height from three to five hundred feet, Naples has a natural wall, in the rear of the Campania Felice, among the Apennines, of almost as many thousands. This is speaking only of nature. As regards artificial accessories, to say nothing of recollections, the shores of this bay are teeming with them of every kind; not Grecian monstrosities, and Gothic absurdities in wood, but palaces, villas, gardens, towers, castles, cities, villages, churches, convents and hamlets, crowded in a way to leave no point fit for the eye unoccupied, no picturesque site unimproved. On the subject of the scale on which these things are done, I will only say, that we tacked the felucca, in beating up to the town, under the empty windows of a ruined palace, whose very base is laved by the water, and whose stones would more than build all the public works on the shores of our own harbour, united.
The public mind in America has got to be so sickly on such subjects, that men shrink from telling the truth; and many of our people not only render themselves, but some render the nation, ridiculous, by the inflated follies to which they give utterance. I can safely say, I never have seen any twenty miles square of Lower Italy, if the marshes and campagnes be excepted, in which there is not more glorious scenery than I can recall in all those parts of America with which I am acquainted. Our lakes will scarcely bear any comparison with the finer lakes of Upper Italy; our mountains are insipid as compared with these, both as to hues and forms; and our seas and bays are not to be named with these. If it be patriotism to deem all our geese swans, I am no patriot, nor ever was; for, of all species of sentiments, it strikes me that your “property patriotism” is the most equivocal. Be on your guard against the statements of certain low political adventurers, who are as notorious for abusing every thing American, while in Europe, as they are for extolling them, when in America.
I am far from underrating the importance of fine natural scenery to a nation; I believe it not only aids character, but that it strengthens attachments. But calling a second-rate, or an inferior thing, a first-rate and a superior, is not making it so. There is, in America, enough of beautiful nature, coupled with the moral advantages we enjoy, to effect all necessary ends, without straining the point to the absurd; but there is very little of the grand, or the magnificent.
We got up with the head of the mole, (the only harbour of Naples being the small basin behind this mole,) about noon, and immediately landed and sought an inn. As we drove along the streets, we met one of the royal equipages, a coach and six, and one of four, with a portly, well-looking man, with a Bourbon face, in the former. It was the Prince of Salerno, a brother of the king. Our guide took us to the hotel _delle Crocelle_, one of the principal inns in the Caija where we found excellent and roomy accommodations.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Americus Vesputius.
[7] The present Commodore ----, when a young man, commanded a merchant ship for a short time. On one occasion, inward bound, the yellow fever broke out in the vessel. Most of the crew died; and all on board, with the exception of the young captain, had the disease. The tasks of tending the sick and of taking care of the ship consequently fell on the latter. He cooked, nursed, made and shortened sail, managed the helm, and, after several days of severe labour, brought his vessel safely up to the Hook. What is more extraordinary, he twice reduced the canvass to reefed topsails, and spread it to the royals. Of course, he brought every thing to the windlass.
[8] The Beautiful Genoese.
LETTER XII.
Comparison between Naples and New York.--Vesuvius.--Effects of the Eruption of 1822.--Pompeii.--The great Eruption of 79.--Ruins of Pompeii.--Places of public resort.--Cicero’s Seat.--Gradual Disinterment of the Town.--The Sarno.--Herculaneum.--Theatre and other ancient Remains.--Droll Exhibition of Royal Etiquette.
You know the conditions on which these letters are written. I shall go on, in my own desultory manner, gleaning what it appears to me others have left, and speaking of such things only as I know from experience I should most like to have been set right in, did I depend on reading for my own information.
Our first night at Naples was absolutely delicious. There was a young moon, and everything was soft and lovely. It reminded us of an evening in August at New York, when people walk without their hats, and enjoy themselves after the intense heat of the day. But Naples has one great advantage over our own town. It lies literally on the sea; for the bay has all the advantages of the sea itself, and scarcely ever wants its refreshing influence. In the deep ravines of streets, one is entirely sheltered from the sun, and on the shore, one feels the air from the water. We have built a northern town in a southern latitude, though not without some excuse for it.
But the two towns are as unlike as their scenery. One is condensed, the houses clinging in places, to rocky cliffs, some of the streets actually lying a hundred or two feet above their immediate neighbours; while the other is straggling, and has a surface shaved down nearly to a water level. One is overflowing with population; the other, properly peopled, would contain five times its present numbers. One is all commerce, shipping, drays, and stevedores, the particles of taste and beauty existing in fragments; the other all picturesque, the trade and the port forming the expection.
Immediately beneath our windows, here, is a line of sea-beach, of more than a mile in extent, that has no sign of trade about it beyond the boats of fishermen, which lie scattered on the sands and shingle as if disposed there for the study of the painter. But I must not anticipate.
Vesuvius alone disappointed our expectations. It appeared low and insignificant compared with the mountains we had seen, filled the eye less in the view than we had imagined, and was altogether differently placed. As to its height, it varies essentially by the rising and falling of the crater, and I am told it is several hundred feet lower now than it was a year since. Indeed, one well-informed person says, its last great fall exceeded a thousand feet. You may easily imagine, however, that a mountain that could bear such a loss must be of respectable dimensions. I should think the present height of Vesuvius not far from three thousand feet; but there are peaks behind Castel-a-mare of double this altitude. The summits of Ischia and Capri are also high, and the whole southern shore of the bay is a noble outline of mountains.
Vesuvius, and indeed Naples, stands differently from what I had thought. The bay itself may be near twenty miles in depth, and its width varies from about fourteen, to something like eighteen miles, it being a little wider at its mouth than at its head. The general direction is east a little north, perhaps east-north-east. Now, the head of this bay, though irregular, is square, rather than rounded. Of the two, it presents a convex line to the water, rather than one that is concave. Naples stands at the north-east corner, and Castel-a-mare at its south east, distant from each other about fifteen miles in a direct line; and Vesuvius occupies the centre, a little nearer to the first than to the last. All idea of danger to either of these places from lava, is an absurdity. They have reason to apprehend earthquakes, and internal convulsions, but nothing that comes out of the crater can ever harm either. Even Portici, which stands on the base of the mountain itself, is deemed to be reasonably safe.
The hazards of this volcano are easily estimated. Lava, the only serious cause of danger, breaks out of the sides of the mountain. It resembles the boiling over of a pot, and its descent can be calculated like that of water. The interposition of a ravine offers an effectual barrier. As to the stones and other fiery missiles that are projected into the air, they necessarily fall in the crater, or on the sides of the mountain; and their flight does not much exceed that of a bullet, at the most. It is probably two miles in an air line, from the limits of their fall to the nearest habitation, if we except the Hermitage, which is near half that distance. The ashes certainly are borne to a great distance; but they do good rather than harm, greatly fertilizing the surrounding country. Vesuvius is, in fact, as far from Naples as the heights of Staten Island are from New York, and the water actually lies between them.
One of our first visits was to Pompeii, which lies, perhaps, more properly at the head of the bay than Castel-a-mare, though they are not far asunder. The distance between the summit of the mountain and Pompeii is about five miles; the direction is from north-west to south-east, Vesuvius lying most northerly. This, of course, brings Pompeii on the side opposite to that of Naples, and about one half nearer to the crater. But lava could no more touch this place, than it could touch Naples, the formation of the land carrying it more towards the water. The road winds round the head of the bay, which has a succession of hamlets, villas, towns, and palaces. Indeed, I scarcely know a spot that is more teeming with population than the base of this terrible mountain. It is true that there is a broad belt of broken rising ground between the sea and the regular ascent, of three or four miles in width; but even this is dotted with habitations, and the lava _does_ find its way across it. We saw two or three towns and villages in ruins, from the great eruption of 1822. The lava had passed directly over houses, when they were strong enough to resist it, and through them, when not. Of course, that which had cooled, remained, and it is not easier to fancy a more complete picture of desolation than these black belts of ruin present in the midst of a moving population;--even the road had been cut through them. These towns are populous, Torre del Greco having twelve or thirteen thousand souls, Castel-a-mare more, and Portici several thousands. The celebrated palace at the latter is so placed that the public highway passes directly through its great court, a singular caprice of royalty.
I think we were all a little disappointed with Pompeii. Perhaps our expectations were wrought up too high, for, certainly, I have approached no place in Europe with the same feverish excitement. Still it is an extraordinary thing to see even these remains of a Roman town, brought to light, as they have been, in their ancient appearance. As some popular errors, however, exist on the subject of this place, and touching the catastrophe by which it was overwhelmed, I shall first endeavour to tell you what I have ascertained on these points on the spot.
You probably know that, while all this region afforded geological evidence of a volcanic origin, as is the fact with Ischia, Sorrento, and so much more of it to-day, including Naples itself, there was no historical account, prior to the great eruption, of there having been an active volcano.--The peak of Vesuvius has now three distinct summits, separated by tolerably deep valleys, and it is probable that these three peaks were formerly united in one, the separation being owing to the explosion. Lest you should form an erroneous notion of the present appearance, however, of this celebrated mountain, it may be necessary to add that the cone, or the peak, which is actually called Vesuvius, is so much higher and more conspicuous than the others, that its form of a cone is not much impaired by the fact; not at all as seen from many points, particularly from the direction of the sea. The three mountains, too, if they can be so termed, stand near each other, on a common base, their dividing valleys, or ravines, not descending more than a few hundred feet, and they are entirely insulated from the ordinary ranges of the Apennines.