Gleanings in Europe

I believe I fancied business called me to Paris, as much as to make the passage of the Maritime Alps, as from any real necessity; for here I am back again at Florence, after an absence of less than three weeks, the journey unaccomplished.

I took the malle-poste, again, on the afternoon of the third day, and left Genoa for Nice, with no other companion than the conducteur. As we whirled round the cliff that forms the western point of the port, I looked back with longing eyes at Genova la Superba, and thought that it well deserved the title.

Now commenced one of the most extraordinary roads it was ever my good fortune to travel. It ran for a long distance on the very margin of the sea, the carriage literally rolling along the beach in places. I cannot recount the names of all the pretty little fishing and trading hamlets that we galloped through in this manner; but they were numberless, and now and then we had a town.—The shore was fairly lined with them; while the mountains, inland, soon began to tower upward to an Alpine magnitude. This was the commencement of the Maritime Alps; and the following day we were to turn their flank along what is aptly enough termed the corniche road.

Imagination cannot portray bits of scenery more picturesque than some that offered on the beach. Wild ravines, down which broad and rapid torrents poured their contributions, opened towards the hills; and bridges of a singular construction and of great antiquity frequently spanned them in bold and imposing flights. Many of those wide arches were half ruined, adding the aid of association to their other charms. As for the beach, it was principally of sand; and wherever a hamlet occurred, it was certain to be lined with boats and feluccas, some lying on their bilges, and others shored up on their keels, with perhaps a sail spread to dry. How some of these crafts, vessels of forty or fifty tons, in the absence of tides, were got there, or how they were to be got off again, exceeded my skill at conjecture; though the conducteur affirmed that they sailed upon the sands, and would sail off again when they wished to put to sea!

Here and there a prettily-modelled felucca was on the ways. Altogether it was an extraordinary passage, differing entirely from any I had ever before made. Night overtook us a little before we reached Savona, and for several hours we travelled in darkness. We had left Noli before the day dawned; and when it came, it opened on an entirely different scene. The beach was deserted,—or rather, there was no longer a beach, but the coast had become rocky and broken.—The land was heaving itself up in gigantic forms, and on our right appeared a peak that bears the name of Monte Finale. It was the last summit of the Alps!

The huge background of mountains protects all this coast from the north winds, and the sun of a low latitude beating against it, joined to the bland airs of this miraculous sea, conspire to render all this region precocious. Even the palm was growing in one or two places; and though only in the first days of March, we felt all the symptoms of a young spring. This harmony between the weather and the views contributed largely to my pleasures.

Although the coast had become so broken we occasionally descended to the margin of the sea. At Ventimiglia we passed a torrent of some width; and this was a point that the King of Sardinia was fortifying extensively, as it completely covered one flank of his Italian possessions. Farther on, we passed a small town called Mentone, which is in the principality of Monaco. This little state lies enclavé in those of Sardinia, contains some six or eight thousand souls, and has passed into the possession of the French family of Valentinois. Why it was preserved through the eventful period of the late wars, I cannot tell you; but three or four of these pigmy governments have shared its fate, let it be for good or for evil.—Among them are Lichtenstein, St. Marino, Knyphausen, and Monaco. The last, however, is not strictly independent, but is under the protection of Sardinia, and is without foreign relations; or it is an independent and sovereign state á la mode de nullification.

A little distance from the town we passed a new building, erected by the prince for a country house. It was not much larger than an American dwelling of the same sort, and, barring the Grecian monstrosities and the shingle palaces, not more respectable. The grounds were small and naked of trees, and altogether it was the most comfortless and unpretending abode of the sort I have seen in Europe. But the Prince of Monaco resides chiefly in France, cannot properly be considered royal, and, I dare say, values his French peerage as highly as his Italian states. We passed barracks that were said to contain an army of twenty men.

Soon after quitting Mentone, the road began to wind its way across the broad and naked breast of a huge mountain. This was, in truth, the point where we crossed the Maritime Alps, the rest of our mounting and descending being merely coquetting on their skirts. The town of Monaco appeared in the distance, seated on a low rocky promontory, with the sea having one of its sides, and the other opening towards a pretty and secluded port. The whole of this coast is as picturesque and glorious, however, as the imagination can paint: and then the associations, which are Oriental, and sometimes even Scriptural, come in to throw a hue over all. I observed to-day, while we were traversing one of the heights or promontories of the coast, a polacre rolling at her anchor, while boats were carrying off to her oil and olives, from the spot where the latter had grown. To give you a still juster notion of the nature of this region, as I sat leaning back in the carriage this afternoon, the line of sight, by clearing the bottom of the carriage window, struck another vessel under her canvass, at the distance of half a league from the shore. We might have been, at the moment, a thousand feet above the sea.—Some of the panoramas, seen from these advanced eminences, were as magnificent as land and water could form; and this the more so from the hue of the Mediterranean, a tint that is eminently beautiful. Indeed, one who has seen no other sea but that which is visible from the American coast, can scarcely form a notion of the beauty of the ocean; for there the tint is a dull green, while in most other parts of the world it is a marine blue. The difference, I think, is owing to the shallowness of our own seas, and the depth of those of this hemisphere,—and, perhaps, also to the magnitude and number of the American rivers.

After climbing a league we reached the summit of the pass, which was a sort of shoulder of the range, and had a short distance of tolerably level route. From this elevation we caught a glimpse of a deep bay, with a town at its head called Villa Franca; and one of the most extraordinary of all the wasp-nest-looking villages I had yet seen presented itself. It literally capped the apex of a cone, whose sides were so steep as to render ascending and descending a work of toil, and even of risk. I should think that a child that fell from the verge of the village must roll down two hundred feet. On this extraordinary pinnacle were perched some fifty or sixty houses built of stone, and resembling, as usual, one single and quaint edifice, from the manner in which they were compressed together. The conducteur deemed this village the most extraordinary thing on his route, and when I asked him what could have induced men to select such a position for a town, he answered, “The bears!” Protection was unquestionably the motive, and the village is probably very ancient. My companion thought there must be a well of great depth to furnish water, and he added, that the inhabitants were chiefly shepherds. It is necessary to see a landscape embellished by towns, convents, castles and churches, occupying sites like this, to form any accurate notion of the manner in which they render it quaint and remarkable.

We now began to descend, and for a long distance the road wound down the breast of the mountain; though it was far from being remarkable as an Alpine pass. At length we reached a sort of basin on a level with the sea, which held the city of Nice; the county of that name lying on both sides of the Alps, and having been entered near Mentone.

A good supper and a bed were the first requisites; but, finding that the malle-poste did not proceed until the next afternoon, the following morning I set about examining the exterior of this celebrated refuge of the valetudinarian. The town is of some size and well built, being divided into two parts by a high bit of table-land, or a low mountain, which is near the sea. I ascended this eminence, and got a bird’s-eye view of its entourage. The port is small, and, I should think, in part artificial, for it is like a dock, with a narrow entrance, from a coast that was a perfectly unbroken and regular curvature. The vessels lie as in a basin, though within a few yards of the open sea, from which they are separated by a low beach. There were a good many crafts in port, partaking of all the picturesque beauties of the polacre, latine-rig, felucca, Lombard, &c. &c.—Among the rest, I was struck with a beautiful little schooner, that had so much of a ship-shape and knowing air about her, that I was just about to inquire whence she came, as an English ensign was set on board her. She was the yacht of an English naval captain, in which he is in the habit of making short excursions in this glorious sea.—If there is a man on earth I envy, it is he! This craft was about thirty tons burthen, well found, and as neat as a marine’s musket.

I walked across the port, and thence around the nearest headland, by a winding footpath, and came out at the mouth of the harbour of Villa Franca, which, I was told, is a haven much used by the Sardinian men-of-war. To me the place seemed stagnant and deserted, and I returned to Nice by the same path. Strolling along the quays of the latter, I found more of those signs of Oriental life, which never fail to transport me in spirit to the regions of a fabulous antiquity. Among other things, I saw a great number of large jars, intended to hold oil, which at once explained the manner in which the forty thieves were secreted,—a difficulty that always destroyed the illusion of the tale. Many of these jars were quite large enough to hold a man; though the attitude he would be compelled to assume might be none of the most agreeable for an ambuscade.

The orange-trees in this vicinity were covered with fruit; but the oranges themselves were sour and unpalatable. On the whole, the situation of Nice, which is almost entirely sheltered by mountains towards the north, must render the climate generally mild; and the proximity of the Mediterranean, no doubt, lends a blandness to the air. But, on the other hand, the sudden changes and cold blasts that certainly do occur among all mountains, cannot but make it a little precarious for consumptive people. If the scirocco, the greatest drawback of this region, blows home at this remote point, it will be an additional objection. I believe that the present condition of the world, and the great facilities for travelling, are bringing other places more into notice, and Nice and Montpelier are in less request than formerly. Still, judging only from my own hasty and imperfect surveys of both, I should recommend Nice much sooner than Pisa.

After dinner, which, for the first time since I came to Europe, was made at a table d’hote filled by men in trade,—a set that struck me as singularly professional on so long an abstinence from the luxury of the craft,—we left Nice for Antibes. The road ran along a level and fertile country, among orange-groves and olive-trees, until we reached a broad and straggling river called the Var, across which was thrown a rude, long, wooden bridge. Near the middle of this bridge was a gate that marked the frontier of France.—At the opposite side of the river, we encountered a custom-house, where my luggage was examined. This was done in a very civil and pro formá manner; and the douceur that was offered, as an acknowledgment of this favour, was declined.—The circumstance deserves to be recorded.

It was dark when we reached Antibes, a walled and garrisoned town, that occupies a low promontory which forms a pretty little haven. This place is known in the history of Napoleon, who landed in a meadow about a league from it, where he encamped for the night, in the celebrated expedition of 1815. An officer, with a few men, was sent to summon Antibes; but they were captured and confined in the town. The moments were too precious to be lost in discussing the matter, and the next day the Emperor moved on, leaving his agent, as the lawyers say, “to abide the event of the suit.” The coast is generally low in this vicinity, and the brigs found good anchorage in an open roadstead. The descent was made at an unprotected point, and as we passed it next morning the conducteur showed me a tree under which Napoleon passed the night. It is now generally understood that his arrival was expected, and that the army was in a great measure prepared to receive him. “Le Petit Caporal.”

From Antibes to Cannes we were at no time far from the coast. The latter is a small town on the strand, and the harbour is little more than a roadstead. As we approached Fréjus, the ruins of an ancient aqueduct were seen on the adjacent plain; and as this is a place of great antiquity, I could gladly have passed a few hours in it. But the malle-poste stops for nothing, except at designated points; not even to eat. To supply the place of a breakfast, however, I ran into a shop and bought a famous biscuit de Savoie, fancying that one ought to get a cake of such a name good so near the frontiers of Savoy itself. At the first mouthful it crumbled into dust, and I discovered that the good woman of the shop had sold me her sign! Swallowing a little water at a fountain to wash away the débris, I ran ahead and examined an amphitheatre that is still standing in the skirts of the place. It is small, but far from being a total ruin, most of the seats being still to be traced quite distinctly. Feste, Farina et Forche,[2] seems to be a political maxim as old as Italy itself; for wherever any traces of ancient Rome are to be found, one usually meets with a theatre or an amphitheatre. These noble traces of a remote civilization, in a retired place like this, had far more interest for me than the personal adventures of Napoleon.

At Fréjus we quitted the coast, for I was tied, for better for worse, to the letter-bags. Our road now lay across a hilly and far from inviting country to Draguinan. We had the cork and the olive for companions, the latter having suffered severely by the frosts of the previous winter. This was the commencement of the mountainous and retired region into which Napoleon plunged when he marched from Antibes, and in which he was lost to observers, for a few days, previously to his brilliant coup de main at Grenoble. Hitherto I had seen little of the real rusticity of France, for everything around Paris and on the great roads leading to it is conventional and maniérée. Draguinan proved to be literally une ville de province, but we got a reasonably good dinner.

From Draguinan to Aix it was, again, night-work; though we got to the latter place in time to enjoy a bed for a few hours. Aix is an ancient and a celebrated town, but it offers little to interest a stranger. I passed a few hours in it, undecided whether to pursue the road to Paris, or to turn again towards the coast, where, I was given to understand, the object of my journey could be effected as well as in the capital. I fear a longing for the blue Mediterranean had its influence on the decision, for I had turned my back on it reluctantly; about noon I got into a diligence and was on my way to Marseilles. I saw little of the beauty of Provence, for a less attractive region than that we drove through is seldom seen. Indeed, I feel persuaded that few countries offer less to the eye of the mere passer-by than France; the tastes of the people being little given to the picturesque, and, like the cookery, in which bad imitations of art mar the natural qualities of the viands, the provincial attempts to resemble Paris destroy the country without properly substituting the town. Nothing, in short, has the simplicity and nature of rural life until one gets as low as dirty blouse and sabots. Between coarseness and mannerism the chasm is wide indeed.

It was Mardi Gras, and as we drew near Marseilles, we met the population making the usual promenade on the highway; there being a sort of corso just without the town. There was the usual number of buffoons and patched faces, a good line of plain carriages, and very many pretty women. Indeed, the women of this town struck me as being much handsomer, generally than those of the North of France.

I remained ten days at Marseilles, which is little besides a commercial town; but which, by its pretty port, beautiful coast, and its movement, offers enough to amuse one for a short time. The new town is built in a good style with wide straight streets; but the old town, like all the places of the middle ages, is narrow, crowded, and dirty. The port is natural, but has all the appearance of an artificial dock, the gates excepted. The entrance does not exceed two hundred feet; and yet the basin within, which lies surrounded by the town, will contain five hundred sail,—vessels of any size, I believe, finding sufficient water. There is a good roadstead, almost a port, outside of this again, and capital anchorage behind an island, on which stands the Lazaretto. As the quarantine laws of this sea are extremely rigid, it is something to enjoy moorings so secure and picturesque.

An Egyptian frigate of French construction, however, was lying in the port; and certes, if such cruisers are fobbed off on the Pasha, he may look forward to many more Navarinos; this being one of your regular wafer-sided and spider-kneed crafts.

I might write a long description of Marseilles—and the place merits it in its way; but such is not my cue,—which, you will always remember, is rather to deal with things that others have omitted. The time was spent in preparations to return to Florence, and, anxious to be afloat again on the Mediterranean, I looked out for something about to sail in that direction. Luckily a large English brig offered, and I took passage in her.—This vessel was of four hundred tons burthen, had a crew of eighteen men, and was commanded by a half-pay naval officer, who was, in part, owner. She had just been in the French transport service, in the expedition to Greece; as, indeed, had been the case with several American vessels in the port. One needs no better evidence than this fact, of the want of aptitude for the sea in the people of the country; the government not being able to transport a few thousand men across a small and tranquil sea, without drawing on the maritime enterprise and resources of foreigners, and in our instance, of a people in the other hemisphere!—One such circumstance is worth a folio on political economy, and, coupled with the fact that France lies between two seas, sufficiently proves that the bias of the national character is terra firma.

One of the mauvaises plaisanteries of Jack is to sing songs at the expense of the soldiers. Our crew were heaving round on the capstan, accompanying their tramp with some pretty rude poetry, one line of which was, “A soldier’s wife is a sailor’s ——.” You will judge of my surprise at hearing this well-known and pathetic sentiment suddenly travestied by the substitution of “Yankee’s” for “soldier’s,” and “Englishman’s” for “sailor’s.” A young Englishman on board felt ashamed of this coarse proof of national antipathy, and he endeavoured to explain it by saying, that the people of the brig had had a quarrel with the crew of an American which lay within hearing. It might have been so; but abuse of America flows so easily from the English tongue, that it was probably owing to the old grudge. I felt gratified, however, in the reflection that on board an American of the same size such coarseness and vulgarity in the people would not have been tolerated. I question if it would have been so in this brig, had the master been on board; but, at the moment, he was ashore; for though a good hater as respects America, he kept up a manly discipline.

We were towed out of the harbour some distance into the roads, when the brig was cast, with a light but fair wind from the north-west. This was the commencement of a mistrail,—a breeze that has much reputation in this part of France on account of its freshness, as well as for its invigorating properties. We took things leisurely however, aboard the brig, and the night had passed before we were up with Toulon. The next morning on turning out, I found a gallant breeze, and our vessel rolling through it as fast as a kettle bottom, a narrow spread of canvass and short masts would permit. Being in light ballast, we got along about seven knots, with the wind over the taffrail, while I am persuaded the brig had nine in her.

It is at all times a delicate matter to give a hint to a sea-officer; but I could not refrain making some inquiries about the light sails. The boom-irons were not on the yards, with a fair wind, and fifteen hours out! By dint of jokes, however, I got an order to have them put on. This was about ten in the forenoon. At meridian two were on, and then the order was countermanded. The master had methodically and deliberately taken the sun, and worked up his longitude; and, judging from his position, he thought we should reach Leghorn in the night, if we carried more sail.—While he was at work with his quadrant, we had the peaks of the Maritime Alps, and those of Corsica, both glittering with snow, in plain sight.—The chart lay spread on the companion-way, and taking the bearings of the land by the eye, I guessed our position—if guess it might be called—within ten miles. Now all this an American master would have seen at a glance; and, I will engage, his quadrant would not have budged, though all his cloth would have been spread.—Not so with our methodical mariner; he took counsel of his instruments, and the boom-irons were sent down again, in spite of several broad hints from me, that one might always lie-to after he had made his run, and that Gorgona would be a capital land-fall; if he was afraid of overrunning his reckoning in the dark. It would not do, however; the irons were sent down, and instead of making more sail, we unbent a top-gallant-sail to mend it. The wind began to fall, and just at sunset we were up with the head of Corsica, with the topsails flapping against the masts. Belonging to another parish, I could only shrug my shoulders. It is too late in the day to deny the seamanship of the English, who, in some particulars, are probably our betters; but the go-ahead properties of the Yankee, and the go-by-rule habits of the Englishman, are every day lessening the distance between the wealth and power of the two people.

The evening was pleasant, and as we gradually rolled past the land, I had a calm pleasure in looking at it. The northern extremity of the island is an attenuated bluff, low in comparison with the ice-covered mountains behind it, seemingly sterile, and with but few signs of habitations. A small rocky island forms an advanced work. Against this, and against the bluff itself, the sea was beating in sullen surge; and we were near enough to see its spray, and to note the marine birds hovering over their nests. The sun set while I was lost in the contemplation of this scene, and of the rocky and indented coasts beyond.

The master of the brig was a respectable man, and he endeavoured to compensate for his want of energy by entertaining me with the marvellous riches of the “nobility and gentry,”—a subject of which Englishmen of his class seldom weary.—He commenced with an account of the value of the plate of the Duke of Northumberland, who had just been appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and who had paid a premium of 90,000l. to get it insured between London and Dublin. As the rate was a half per cent. this made the plate itself worth 1,800,000l. But Englishmen of this class do not often stick at trifles on such a subject,—and yet they coolly accuse us of exaggerating! Another of the tales of my shipmate was an account of a Mr. W—— P——, who had got 500,000l. a year by his wife, and who was in the habit of losing whole streets in London on a game of cards. And yet this man, with all his imagination about guineas, never bethought him of the necessity of a ship’s having boom-irons to make a passage, which is making money. We can talk more “dollar” than the English in a given time, I believe; but we have no parallel to their cool accumulations of tens of thousands a year in the way of incomes.

I got into my berth about nine, and waking up in the morning, I soon discovered that we were pitching instead of rolling. Going on deck, I found the brig under double-reefed topsails, on the wind, and Gorgona just visible in the haze on our weather-bow, the vessel heading to the eastward. In other words, the wind was blowing hard, directly in our teeth. The boom-irons would have carried us up to our port before this change occurred. An hour later, we passed an English brig running before it, and the master manifested a wish to follow her, as she was in ballast,—a sign that freights were scarce in Leghorn; but I encouraged him to stand in, with the assurance that Monte Neve would give timely notice of the dangers of the coast. By three the wind had moderated, so that we carried whole sail, and it hauled sufficiently to enable us to head up to the point where I thought the town lay; though it became so thick, we could not see half a league. Suddenly, the coast appeared; our master became alarmed, and hove-to his brig. At that moment, a boat came in sight, and a pilot soon jumped aboard of us. Had we stood on, we should have made the mole without fail. Instead of shortening sail, the pilot steered straight for the mole-head, under both topsails.—We weathered it by about fifty yards, and shot in astern of a tier of vessels that lay moored behind it. These vessels were Americans and English, and they rode by anchors ahead, while they were steadied by fasts run out to the mole. These fasts were slackened as we came sweeping in, and we ran over them, gradually losing our way by backing the maintopsail, and fetching up on the bights of the hawsers. I never witnessed a bolder or better handling of a vessel of that size, for we came up to the mole-head with four knot way on us. Nothing was parted. A hawser was thrown upon the mole; a line or two, fastened to the ties, steadied us, and brought us head to wind; a kedge was carried off into the port, up to which we hauled where we dropped a bower-anchor, and by hauling in on the stern-fasts we were moored. We could not take the outer berth, for it was occupied, and we thus became the fourth vessel in the tier. Altogether, I repeat, it was one of the prettiest things I ever witnessed, albeit it was performed by an Italian. I fancy that Columbus must have had some such men with him.

The public coaches of Italy are peculiar. If a sufficient number of passengers are ready, (in our case four sufficed,) a small carriage is sent off with them, drawn by post-horses. In this mode I got up to Florence next day, paying about five dollars for myself and man, a distance of sixty miles.