Venice was our happy hunting-ground. Whenever we were a little bit tired of Trieste, we had only to run over there, and I know nothing so resting. If you have been living at too high pressure, you order your gondola, closing the door, lie down in the middle of it, put your head on a cushion, tell them to row you anywhere, and doze and dream until you come round.
Miramar, the sea-palace of poor Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, was a great resource to Trieste people, being an hour's drive from Trieste, built on a rock-promontory out to sea, and backed by beautiful grounds and woods of his own designs. Most people know—but some may not—the touching little history of the Emperor of Austria's brother, married to Princess Charlotte of Belgium, who lived in this palace. They built and made this home themselves, and they lived in a little cottage close by whilst they were so engaged. The lower rooms, occupied by the Archduke himself, were built and arranged exactly like the Admiral's quarters of his ship. The grounds are most romantic and fanciful, full of covered terraces, shady walks, secluded places for reading, the ruins of a very old chapel, Italian gardens, and so on.
They were perfectly adored in Trieste, and he was worshipped by the Navy. Nothing could be happier than their lives. In an evil hour the Imperial Crown of Mexico was offered to him under the protection of Louis Napoleon. The Emperor of Austria approved of it, but Maximilian long hung back. Finally Princess Charlotte, who was ambitious, urged him to accept; he did so, and they departed. There is a picture in Miramar showing their departure in the ship's gig, and crowds from Trieste to see them off, of which most are real portraits. That was their last happy day. Everybody knows how ill that Imperial Mexican crown succeeded, Maximilian's unhappy death, Empress Charlotte's coming over to claim the promised protection of Napoleon, and how the not getting it affected her brain. At one time they took her to Miramar to see if it would cure her, but it only made her worse. The Emperor keeps up his brother's place exactly as if he was living there, and, with exquisite taste and benevolence, throws it open to the people who loved him so much.
Monsieur and Madame Léon Favre, brother to Jules Favre, were our French Consul and Consuless General, and their house was the rendezvous for Spiritualism, where we had frequent séances.
One of their guests at these séances had a very curious faculty. He would sit opposite you, his eyes would glaze, and your face and features changed in his sight, and he saw all the evil in you and all the good, just as if you were a pane of glass. When this fit passed off, his face, and yours also, resumed its natural expression, but he knew you perfectly well, better than if you had told him all your life. I was fortunate enough to please him. He sent for me on his death-bed, but I was away, and did not know it till after; but a year or two after his death, one of his disciples swam up to me in the sea and said that the deceased wanted me to translate and bring out his writings on religion, which were inspired. I have, however, up to the present never had the time nor the money to do so.
Richard sent the following, thinking it might be useful:—
"To the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette.
"Precaution in fighting the Ashantees.
"Sir,—During the last Franco-Prussian War several of my friends escaped severe wounds by wearing in action a strip of hard leather with a rib or angle to the fore. It must be large enough to cover heart, lungs, and stomach-pit, and it should be sewn inside the blouse or tunic; of course the looser the better. Such a defence will be especially valuable for those who must often expose themselves in 'the bush' to Anglo-Ashanti trade-guns, loaded with pebbles and bits of iron. The sabre is hardly likely to play any part in the present campaign, or I should recommend my system of curb-chains worn across the cap, along the shoulders, and down the arms and legs.
"I am, sir, your obedient,
"Richard F. Burton.
"November 25th, 1873."
When we had been there a little while, Richard took it into his head to make a pilgrimage to Loretto, and from there we went on to Rome, seeing twenty-six towns on our way. Here we made acquaintance with our Ambassador, Sir Augustus, and clever, beautiful, charming Lady Paget; also we saw much of Cardinal Howard (who was a connection of mine, and was one of my favourite dancing partners when he was in the Life Guards, and I was a girl), and Mgr. Stonor, Archbishop of Trebizond, between whom and Lady Ashburton we had a delightful time in Rome.
Richard, who had passed a good deal of time here in his boyhood, liked visiting the old places and showing them to me. It would take three months of high pressure and six quiet months to see everything in Rome; but during our short stay, under his guidance, I saw and enjoyed all the principal and best things, and he amused himself with writing long articles on Rome, which came out in Macmillan's Magazine, 1874-5. Religiously speaking, what I enjoyed most was the Ara Cœli, the church built on the site of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus (I wish I knew all the things that have taken place on that site). The other place was the Scala Santa. His Holiness Pius IX., unfortunately for me, went to bed ill the day before I arrived, and got up well the day after I left, so that I did not see him. We also much enjoyed the Catacombs and the Baths of Caracalla; but it was a wet and miserable day that we went to the Baths, and the smells in this last place from the little interstices of the pavement were awful. We dined at some cousins' who had gone with us, and their little bulldog, which had had its nose close to the ground all day, went mad, and died that night, and we found them next day in shocking grief. I got Roman fever. Richard had written the following letter to the Tablet in October, 1872:—
"The Overflow of the Tiber.
"To the Editor of the Tablet.
"Sir,—The very able review in the Times supplement (Oct. 21) of Signor Raffaelle Pareto's report to the Minister of Agriculture, encourages me to address you upon a subject so deeply interesting to the Catholic world, indeed to the whole world, as Rome is.
"That eminent engineer, Mr. Thomas Page (acting engineer of the Thames Tunnel, under Brunel, and the engineer of Westminster Bridge), whose works in England are known to all, has been for some time engaged in a plan for preventing the inundations of the Tiber, and for the assainissement of the Campagna di Roma, undertakings more urgently required every year. He purposes gigantic measures, but measures of no difficulty, and the sooner they are begun and the more promptly they are erected, the more satisfactory will be their results and the more economical their execution.
"Your space will hardly allow me to enter into details concerning his scheme, whose broadest outlines are as follows: Provide a new channel for the Tiber, which, during floods, shall conduct all its waters in a free and uninterrupted course. For the sake of crossing, the line must be governed by the levels of the valley through which it runs. It may be constructed at the junction of the Teverone with the Tiber, be carried along the line of the Fossa della Maranella, and, passing through the higher ground in the line of the second milestone on the Via Tusculana da Roma, it would enter the depression of the Fiume Alarone, and finally anastomose with the old bed near the Ponto della Moletta, about a kilometre and a quarter outside the Porta San Paolo. Mr. Page would continue his new channel so as to cut off the reach of the Prati di S. Paolo, passing to the west of the celebrated Basilica, so called, and, by an embankment with gates and sluices at the sharp bend near the Porta della Puzzolana, he would convert the old channel into the Port of Rome. At the embouchure of the Teverone he would throw a similar embankment; and thus the Tiber, cleansed of all mud and deposits, would become an ornamental stream, or rather lake whose banks, about three miles long, would be the most pleasant of promenades. I need hardly remark that this insulation of Rome, and this replacement by drainage and irrigation of the fatal Campagna atmosphere, would amazingly increase the value of the land, and make the profits of its sale pay for the expenses of the works.
"The Times review of Signor Pareto's labours has sketched for the benefit of the general reader all the interesting features of pasturage and tillage in the large towns known as the Agro Romano. Mr. Page's plan would give the opportunity and the means of training the Campagna into one of the most productive and salubrious districts in Italy. With an extent of 311,550 hectares of valuable land, with a new channel for drainage, and with improved means of irrigation, the suburban district of Rome will soon become worthy of her greatness, past and present.
"I only hope that Mr. Page will soon be permitted to publish in detail this sketch, whose outlines you have allowed me to make public. The Holy City, I need hardly say, is not so much the capital of Italy as the capital of Europe, and consequently the capital of the world.
"I am, sir, yours truly,
"Richard F. Burton, F.R.G.S.
"Southampton, October 24th, 1872."
The Tiber business after this was brought out as a brand-new-idea by another man in 1874, so I had to write the following:—
"The Tiber.
"To the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette.
"Sir,—I venture to draw your attention to the fact that as early as October, 1872, my husband, Captain Burton, proposed the very same measures for relieving the Tiber and for draining the Campagna which are now being taken up by General Garibaldi. Also the paper by Captain Burton, 'Notes on Rome,' published by Macmillan's Magazine in 1873, concluded as follows: 'At the present moment Anglo-Italian companies are out of favour in England and in Italy. It would be an invidious task to explain the reason and to register the complaints on both sides. But there should be no difficulty in raising a "City of Rome Improvements Company," directed by a board which would combine southern thrift with northern energy and capital, a combination hitherto found wanting. Nor do I think that the Municipality of Rome, in whose hands lies acceptance or refusal, would object to the influx of foreign funds, especially if the management were in part confided to their own countrymen—to persons of name and position.'
"These last sentences were the very gist of the whole of the 'Notes on Rome,' but, unhappily, Macmillan's, being an uncommercial magazine, thought proper to omit them, with that unfortunate instinct which taboos one's best bits, and crushes down one's originality until one's work is cut out exactly on the regulation pattern of former writers. This makes author's work in England rather disheartening; for, as in this case, one man sows and another reaps; one invents and originates, and another gets the whole benefit and credit of the idea.
"Captain Burton has had all his plans for the benefit of Rome laid down ever since 1872.
"Yours obediently,
"Isabel Burton.
"March 17th, 1874."
We took my fever on to Assisi, Perugia, Cortona, and to Lake Thrasimene, which is lovely, and to Florence. How flat and ugly is Roman country, the valley of the Tiber, and the Sabine Hills, but after an hour and a half express it becomes beautiful. In Florence we had the pleasure of seeing a great deal of "Ouida" and Lady Orford, who was the Queen of Florence. Thence we went on to Pistojia and Bologna, thence to Venice, and, after a while, back to Trieste in a night of terrible gales.
We only stayed here just to change baggage, as Richard was engaged as reporter to a newspaper for the Great Exhibition of Vienna. I will only say en passant that the journey from Trieste to Vienna by express (fifteen hours) is stupendously lovely for the first six hours, and likewise all round Graz, halfway to Vienna; and the passage over the Semmering is a dream, at any rate for the first and second time. We were three weeks at Vienna. The Exhibition was very fine; the buildings were beautiful; there were royalties from every Court in the world, so that the mob could feast their eyes on them thirty at a time—not that a foreign mob ever stares rudely at royalties. But the Exhibition was spoilt by one or two things. Firstly, the hotels made everything so dear that few people could afford to go there. It is told of Richard, that while travelling on a steamboat he seated himself at the table and called for a beefsteak. The waiter furnished him with a small strip of that article. Taking it upon his fork, and turning it over and examining it with one of his peculiar looks, he coolly remarked, "Yes, that's it. Bring me some."
As a pendant to that, it was during the Viennese Exhibition when supplies at the hotels were charged enormous prices, and all portions were most homœopathic. A waiter brought Richard a cup of coffee, not Turkish coffee, but a doll's cup with the chestnut water which Europeans presume to call coffee. "What is that?" asked Richard, looking at it curiously, with his head on one side. "Coffee for one, sir." "Oh! is it indeed?" inspecting it still more curiously. "H'm! bring me coffee for ten!" "Yes, sir," said the waiter, looking as if he thought it a capital joke, and presently returned with a common-sized cup of coffee.
People waited until the end, hoping things would get cheaper, and by that time the great "Krach," or money failures, had come, followed by the cholera, so that Vienna was huge sums to the bad, instead of gaining. We had a very gay time. Whilst we were there we went to the Viennese Court. There was a great difficulty about Richard, because Consuls are not admissible at the Vienna Court; but upon the Emperor being told this, he said, "Fancy being obliged to exclude such a man as Burton because he is a Consul! Has he no other profession?" And they said, "Yes, your Majesty; he has been in the Army." So he said, "Oh, tell him to come as a military man, and not as a Consul."
It was three weeks of incessant Society and gaiety. I do not know when I have met so many delightful people. I was very much dazzled by the Court; I thought everything so beautifully done, so arranged to give every one pleasure, and somehow it was a graciousness that was in itself a welcome. I shall never forget the first night that I saw the Empress, a vision of beauty clothed in silver, crowned with water-lilies, with large roses of diamonds and emeralds round her small head, in her beautiful hair, and descending all down her dress in festoons. The throne-room is immense, with marble columns down each side. All the men are ranged on one side, all the women on the other, and the new presentations, with their Ambassadors and Ambassadresses, nearest the throne. When the Empress and Emperor come in they walk up the middle, the Emperor bowing, and the Empress curtsying most gracefully and smiling a general gracious greeting. They then ascended the throne, and presently she turned to our side. The presentations first took place, and she spoke to each one in their own language and on their own particular subject. I was quite entranced with her beauty, her cleverness, and her conversation. She passed down the ladies' side, and then came up that of the men, the Emperor doing exactly the same as she had done. He also spoke to us. Then some few of us, whose families the Empress knew about, were asked to sit down, and refreshments were handed round, the present Dowager Lady Dudley sitting by her. It is a thing never to be forgotten to have seen these two beautiful women sitting side by side. The Empress Frederick of Germany was also there, and sent for some of us on another day, which was, in many ways, another memorable event, and the Crown Prince, as he was then, also came in.
It is not to be wondered at that the Austrians are so loyal and wrapped up in their Imperial family. Everything they do is so gracious, and the Emperor enters so keenly into all the events that occur to his people. He is such a thoroughly good man. If they called him their "father," as the Russians do their Czar, it would not be wondered at. At the time that I write of, and for many, many years later, poor Prince Rudolph was literally adored by the people; he had such a charming way of speaking to them. I remember when he came to Trieste from Vienna in early days, an old woman of the people knew he would arrive cold and uncomfortable after fifteen hours' express, and she prepared a nice cup of coffee and hot milk, and rolls and butter, and the moment the train came in she ran up to the carriage with her tray and offered it him, and he received it with such hearty good will and thanks that she was quite overcome, and he put forty florins on her tray. He did many unknown acts of good to the people during his short life, and one could so well understand the enthusiasm felt by the people—not much danger of a republic there. It does not matter where you go in Austria; you might be looking at the oldest church, or the most antique ruin, and your guide will say to you, "On that particular spot stood our Emperor ten years ago;" "Last August the Empress admired that view;" "Prince Rudolph went up those stairs when he was a child;" "He sat on that chair, and we never allow anybody to touch it;" and so on.
To return to the dearness of the hotels which choked strangers off: our humble bill—and we had had nothing but absolute necessaries—was £163 for three weeks. The landlord having assured us that it would be very small, and as the Embassy had taken the rooms for us at fifteen florins a day, we did not think it was good taste to make a fuss about it, so we paid it; and on examining it we found the rooms were charged twenty-five florins a day; single cups of tea in one's bedroom, ten and sixpence apiece; a carriage to convey and set one down at the Exhibition, and to pick one up in the evening back to the hotel, £5 a day for the first few days, and so on. I heard one of the Rothschilds making an awful to-do about £100 for a month, but I thought we, far smaller fry, were much worse off. These things were bruited about, and very few people dared to come. I was taken to one of the great dressmakers' establishments, and what they showed me for £30 I am sure my maid would not have worn, and it was only when they began to show me things from £70 to £90 that they were good enough for me. In England one would have paid £15 or £20 for these last-named dresses.
Charley Drake now arrived on a visit to us, and we went up to see the great Government fête at the Adelsberg Caves. On that one day the Government lights this ninth wonder of the world with a million candles. The remarkable stalactite caverns and grottoes are of the most curious and fantastic shapes, and about seven miles of them are open; then the torrent that rushes into them plunges underground, and comes up again in another part of the Karso, that wild and desolate stony tract of land above Trieste, which is about seventy-five miles each way, and contains some seventy-two Slav villages. It is a mysterious, unnatural, weird land, full of pot-holes, varying from two hundred to two thousand feet deep, abounding in castellieri—prehistoric ruins—waters that disappear and reappear, that bound into the earth at one spot and rush out again some miles distant; and this is supposed to be the safeguard of Trieste against disastrous earthquakes.
Books might be written about it; but the passing stranger in a train would only say, that when God Almighty had finished making the earth, He had thrown all the superfluous rocks there. Then in these mysterious and wonderful caverns there is a large hall like a domed ball-room, formed by nature, and here Austrian bands play at one of the Whitsun fêtes, and the peasants flock down from all parts in their costumes. It is a thing to be seen once in one's life. Richard nearly lost his life here (not on this occasion) by insisting on swimming down the stream, which is ice cold, and wanting to let himself be carried under the mountains to see where he would come out. It was a foolhardy thing, and fortunately he was so cramped before he neared the hole where the water disappears, that he had to be pulled out. I need not say that I was not there, or he would never have been allowed to go in. However, he discovered fish without eyes, which he sent to the Zoological Gardens. From here we drove on to Fiume, about an eight-hour drive—ten with a rest—where we were kindly received by Mr. and Mrs. Smith, née Lever. From their house we visited all the neighbourhood, little thinking that fifteen years later we should come back to Abbazia for Richard's health, and we had the pleasure of making acquaintance with Mr. Whitehead and family of torpedo fame. We then went to Pola, the great naval station, the Spithead of the Austrians. The general world may not know that it has a Colosseum almost, if not quite, as good as that at Rome, with temples, ancient gates, and any amount of ruins.
"Captain Burton's Discoveries in Istria.
"(Anthropological Report.)
"Tizu, February 18, 1874.
"The meeting of the London Anthropological Society held last night was devoted to the account by Captain Burton of his recent extraordinary discoveries in Istria, and was certainly the most interesting and crowded meeting which has taken place since the palmy days of Dr. Hunt and the great Negro question.
"Captain Burton, as most of our readers know, was sent last year by the late Liberal Government to a Consulate at Trieste, and there were many who thought that the lack of interest which the public generally feels in this extremely dull town would induce the gallant Captain to lead a quieter scientific life than he had hitherto followed at Brazil or Damascus. But he has devoted the first holiday he had to the excavation of a new series of prehistoric antiquities. The very existence of the Istrian castellieri was a secret to England. The well-known authority on rude stone monuments, James Fergusson, wrote to Captain Burton that nothing was known of the castellieri, and that a description was interesting and important, as showing they are or are not connected with the prehistoric monuments of Sardinia, or the Giants' Towers of Malta, or the Balearic Isles. The Mediterranean Islands contain many stray antiquities of whose origin we know nothing, and we must wait till congeners are found for us on the continent of Europe. As all schoolboys know, at the northern extremity of the Adriatic Gulf there lies a little triangle of land. This is Istria. Its position must have rendered it in early times a fit habitation, for uncivilized man would naturally prefer it to the cold and sterile Austrian provinces north-east and east of it. The neighbourhood of the sea supplies it with abundant winter rains. The peninsula was doubtless inhabited in early ages, and local students still trace in the modern Veneto-Italian speech remnants of the old Illyrian Istri, or Histri, whose dialect has been vaguely connected with Etruscan, Nubian, Illyrian, Keltic, Greek, and Phœnician. Various barbarous tribes occupied it, and successive revolutions and incursions of many ancient populations have left their traces on the manners, customs, and language of the people. Overrun by the barbarians, subject to a succession of conquerors, annexed by Venice, colonized by Slavs, Istria has been copiously written about. Captain Burton gave an enormous series of references to the past history of the bibliography of Istria, which reflected the greatest possible glory on the natives of a small province of Austria, who have worked up their own country's history to an extent which English antiquaries can scarcely rival. But the pith of Captain Burton's paper was, of course, the minute description of the castellieri themselves. These were hill forts of which a perfect military disposition was effected, so that on all occasions two points were always in sight for convenience of signalling. The experienced eye can always detect at a distance the traces of an earthen ring or ellipse formed by levelling the summit and the gradual rises of the roads, or rather camps, which are, as a rule, comparatively free from trees and thickets. A nearer inspection shows a scatter of pottery, whose rude sandy paste contrasts sharply with the finished produce of the Roman kilns, and the more homogeneous materials of modern times. The contours of these castellieri are distinguished by a definite deposit of black ash from the surface soil of 'red' Istria around them. As a rule, the castellieri occupied the summits of the detached conical hills and mounds which appear to have been shaped and turned by glacial action. Some Istrian towns have been built upon these prehistoric sites. Viewed from below, they appear to be perched upon the summits of inaccessible stone walls. A crow's nest, with a stick driven through it, is the only object they suggest from afar, and they wear a peculiarly ghastly look, like the phantom of settlements when seen through the mists of a dark evening. They can scarcely be called villages, but rather towns in miniature. The whole peninsula was at one time studded over with these villages, and Fate has treated them with her usual caprice. Some have been carried off bodily, especially those lying near the lines of modern road. Others are in process of disappearance, being found useful for villages, and on the heights for the rude huts of the shepherd and the goatherd. But where situation, which determines such 'eternal cities of the world' as Damascus, was favourable, the castellieri, as at Pisino, became successively castles, hamlets, and towns, with the fairest prospects of being promoted to the honour of cityhood. On the other hand, Muggia-Vecchia, on the Bay of Trieste, has in turn been a castle and a church tower, and now it is a ruin. Captain Burton gave a minute description of fifteen castellieri in the territory of Albona. The Cunzi hillock was the chief of these. It is a dwarf, 'lumpy chine,' about a mile long, disposed north-north-east to south-south-west, with lowlands on all sides. The crest of the cone has evidently been cut away in one or more places, leaving part of the original earth-slope to form the parapet base. Upon this foundation were planted large blocks of limestone, sometimes of two cubic yards, in tolerably regular order, invariably without mortar, and never of cut or worked blocks, the tout forming a rough architecture of the style commonly called Cyclopean. The inner thickness of the parapet was apparently fitted with smaller stones, and the thickness varied from eighteen to thirty-one feet. The inner scarp was steep and clear of rubbish. The enceinte, where probably were kept the cattle and goats belonging to the villagers, was mostly grass-grown. In another of the castellieri were found some interesting specimens of stone weapons. All were of the polished category popularly called 'neolithic.' Captain Burton has not found, through any of his researches in Istria, any of the ruder and older type. Most were composed of stone usual in the country. These tools and weapons seem to have travelled as far as Couries. Captain Burton gave a minute description of Trieste, in which the opera-house is old and unclean, fit only for a pauper country town, and the water supply is a disgrace to a civilized community. Here a sterile politic occupies the talent and energy which should be devoted to progress, and an inveterate party feeling prevails. Upon every conceivable proposal there are, and there must be, Vandals of opposite opinions, and the unfortunate city does not know which way to turn. It is a relief to revert to the castellieri. It is not difficult, with the aid of old experience and a little imagination, to restore the ancient savage condition of the settlement. The traveller, and especially the African traveller, has the advantage of having lived in prehistoric times. The villages were probably of wood and thatch, and the huts were of the conical or beehived shape of the lower races, rather than of the squares and parallelograms which mark a step in civilization. The walls were from six to seven feet high, allowing the war-men to use their stones and arrows, and a clear space, where the youths kept guard with axe, spear, and club, separated the huts from the enceinte. The gateways were closed by fascines. As the territory of Albona contains at least twenty castellieri, the population of the district of Eastern Istria would not number less than ten thousand souls. The inhabitants supported themselves by some form of agriculture. Deer, bears, and wolves were rare. Hares, foxes, badgers, and martens were as common as they continue to be. The live stock was penned between the outer and the inner walls. A total want of water supply shows that the days of sieges had not dawned, and that the simple act of taking refuge within the enceinte determined the retreat of the attacking party. The inhabitants were probably cannibals, and their morality was like that of all savage races. The women were not wholly ignorant of spinning. There was no attempt at partitions to the huts, but the polygamist savages turned their progeny out of doors as soon as possible. The fish were shot with arrows, and the hook and line were unknown.
"So ended Captain Burton's interesting paper, which, read in extenso by Dr. Carter Blake, produced an animated discussion. Specimens of the tiles from the castellieri were exhibited on the table, and produced much examination. The President of the Anthropological Society (Dr. R. S. Charnock, F.S.A.) said with regard to the name Istria, it was stated that Colchians having sailed up the Ister, or Danube, passed from that river to the Adriatic, and that they named Istria from the Ister. But, as Spon observes, if the Colchians proceeded from the Ister to the Adriatic, they must have carried their vessels on their shoulders, inasmuch as there is no water communication between the Ister and the Adriatic. Something of this sort is mentioned by Pliny, who seems to have led Spon to make this ludicrous observation. Great gratification appeared to be felt by the members of the Society, that Captain Burton, while he assigned the castellieri to a pre-Roman age, did not identify them with any special race or period. In fact, the caution with which he described all his facts led observers to regard the present as one of the most important contributions to prehistoric literature which has been ever published.
"The meeting passed a hearty vote of thanks to Captain Burton, who is now continuing his researches on the castellieri. The discussion verged on analogous relics. Some remains have been found in Sussex which gullible antiquaries might suppose to be analogous to the Istrian castellieri. But the importance of the 'hill forts,' as some ignorant speculators have called them, is about as much as that of the mound which Scott's Antiquary identified as a Roman prætorium. No educated savant in England believes in the hoax which was played off on the Society of Antiquaries (vol. xlii. pt. i. p. 27) with regard to the hill forts of Sussex, and the genuineness of the relics from Cissbury is not now asserted. We cannot, therefore, in the present state of science, say that the remains discovered by Captain Burton are analogous with any other remains in any other part of Europe, and we must rather look for their representatives in Asia and Africa."
One of our favourite drives was to Lipizza, the Emperor's stud. It was established three hundred years ago. It is about two hours from Trieste. You come to a kind of farm, where you may get something to eat. You are then taken to the stables, where the Emperor keeps about nine thoroughbred Arab stallions, and afterwards you are taken through the park, where are herds of thoroughbred mares, chiefly Hungarians and Croats, most of them with foals, perhaps two hundred including foals. If anything is not perfect it is sold, and thus you see a very good breed of horses, in Trieste, often drawing a cart. The pleasantest way to make this trip for your own comfort is to take a luncheon basket for yourself and nosebags with corn for your horses, as well as a small tub or pail to draw water for them, as nothing will induce them—and rightly—to let your horses come anywhere near the stud, or to drink out of anything belonging to their horses, and two hours there and two hours back is a long way for animals to go without drink or any refreshment.
We had now, after six months, taken our first lodging in Trieste, and we showed Charley Drake all our wonderful country around. Here we had a visit from Schapira of famous memory. One of the charms near Trieste is Aquilea, where there is a museum with all its antiquities; and there was then, until a year or two ago, Doctor Gregorutti and his charming wife and family, who had a far more choice collection than that of the museum, of every sort of thing; but most interesting were his incised gems. He was very anxious to sell his little collection for £4000, which was very reasonable considering what he possessed; though we tried hard we were not successful in obtaining purchasers, and he has since died. There you could see country Italian life in a country-house.
There was another place, called San Bartolo, where people used to go to sup by the sea on summer evenings, about half an hour's drive from Trieste.
Duino is also another romantic place where we frequently went and passed some weeks. The castle and the village belong to the Princess von Hohenlöhe, who is the châtelaine of all the country round, and lives there with her sons and daughters, who were good friends to us all the time we were there. The castle is a romantic and ancient pile, built on a rock overhanging the sea. The next promontory to that is Miramar, and from Trieste we can see both, and especially from our last home, which was also on a wooded promontory projecting into the sea. There are beautiful excursions to be taken by steamer all round the Bay of Trieste.
We crossed over to Venice to see Charley Drake off, when he was obliged to leave us. The Governor's (Ceschi's) party took the whole of the saloon. There were seventy-two first-class passengers, and only twenty-two beds. We passed a delightful night on deck on the skylights, and were awfully amused at the Governor and his wife coming up and envying us, and saying, "You English always know how to get the best places." "We like that," said Richard, "when you have taken the whole of the saloon. It might have been blowing great guns, and seas washing over the deck, and we should have had to sleep here all the same."
In those days, in Venice, a gondolier serenade by moonlight was rather a romantic thing; you paid a hundred and twenty francs. There were choice singers in one large gondola full of coloured lamps; the voices were good. They sang Tasso and Dante, as well as popular songs, and little by little some two hundred gondolas would follow. It was like hunting a fox; you pursued the music gondola under the Rialto, and then came the best singing. Now two gondolas come at once, and try who can bawl the other down under the hotel windows, and sing all sorts of things that one is dead tired of. Latterly it used to drive my husband out of Venice.
Poor Charley Drake left on the 4th of July. We never saw him again; he was dead the following year.
This summer (1874) we got very bad Asiatic cholera, which lasted some three or four months. It killed sixteen daily, and many of them (in fact, I believe most) were ill a very short time; some cases that I know were dead in about half an hour, turning black. When its virulence was going off, I was very bad for fifteen hours; but Richard treated me, and we did not tell anybody what it was, as these things are not advisable, or, at least, were not in those days. At Venice they used to put a gendarme at the door, and, by way of stamping it out, nobody was allowed either to come in or to go out. We had seen so much of it in other countries that we knew quite well what to do if anything could save us, and Richard did not then catch it at all.
This is one of the notes in my journal: "We all felt quite poisoned to-day by a sudden hurricane of wind and dust, which set people howling and running, blew the sea-baths to pieces, and upset the little steamer." These are the sort of delightful surprises that the weather gives one from time to time.
We always had plenty of visitors from England in spring and autumn. At that time Lord Henry Percy, Lord Antrim, and Lord Lindsay came to see us, and Mr. Henry Matthews, our late Home Secretary, Sir Charles Sebright, and Mr. Peyton, popularly known as "Jack Peyton."
One interesting inland excursion was to Prevald, a day's drive. We slept at a peasant's house, and supped on bread and butter, olives, sardines, sausage, and cheese. Next day being Sunday, we went to the village church; the Slav peasants were there in their costumes; the sermon was in Slav, the church clean, and the peasants, though untaught, sang in perfect harmony, with no false notes. Afterwards we ascended the Nanos, a high mountain with snow on it. Prevald, a bright little white Slav village, consists of one street, every house of which is of different shape, with thatched or tiled roofs and wood. It owns a long three-cornered square, a little white church with its pepperbox steeple, its shady grassy graveyard, and wooded hills and mountains; and this description would do for most of the villages. The Nanos is like a big dome, backing the village, from the top of which is a wonderful view.
From here we drove on through splendid mountain scenery to Vipach; there is a village and a castle on a peak, containing a local Marquis de Carabbas. The river rises from under a rock. We drove through a wild, desolate part of the Karso; the heat was burning, the drive jolting, and on the road Richard had a small attack of cholera.
This summer I unearthed my material, and wrote "Inner Life of Syria," which occupied me sixteen months; and we made excursions to Pinguete and San Canziano, where there are also interesting caves on a minor scale than Adelsberg, and where a river dives into the earth.
On the 21st of September there were public prayers and Communion in the churches to stay the cholera; about five hundred went to Communion at a time.
This year also we first had the opera Aïda. We always get our operas in Trieste fresh from La Scala many years before England gets them.
Richard had always one good story to tell that delighted him. The Consular Chaplain, the Rev. Robert O'Callaghan, and I were very good friends. When I greeted him I told him I hoped he would not mind my not belonging to his Church, and he said it need make no difference in our friendship; and, on the other hand, I took care that the Consul's wife being a Catholic should be no detriment to the Protestant Church, nor the cause of the Protestant community lacking any assistance. After we got intimate Richard declared that with a triumphant wave I said, "I have got a convert from your Church." Now, proselytizing does not enter into my occupations, but the fact is that one day my Italian Capuchin confessor, a most holy man, told me that he had got a Protestant under instruction, and he desired that I should be godmother at his reception into the Church. I said, "Certainly, Father; but I think I should like to have a look at him first." When I did look at him, and he had retired, I said, "I think, Father, it is just possible that he may be a convict on leave." "Oh, daughter," he said, with a very shocked look, "he has a beautiful soul under that very rough exterior!" "Well," I said, "Father, it is your business; you ought to know." Accordingly the unprepossessing young man was "received," and I stood godmother. About a month after he was taken up as being the head of a gang of house-breakers, when of course I jeered at my horrified padre, and Mr. O'Callaghan had a tremendous crow over me. But shortly after Richard and I were invited to be present officially at the reception and baptizing in the Protestant church of two converted Jews, and we attended, and there were great rejoicings, but it was not long before they robbed the till and bolted, so I had the laugh back again. Richard rejoiced very much over our mutual conversions, and used to like to tell the story.
On the 28th of November there was a general return thanks in the churches for the cessation of the cholera.
On the 27th of December Richard and I were summoned to visit her Majesty Maria Theresa, ex-Queen of Spain, widow of old Don Carlos. We were very graciously received. She gave me two books, a holy picture, and the photographs of herself and her late husband.
Early in January, 1874, Maria Theresa Contessa de Montelin, ex-Queen of Spain, again sent for me. She gave me a Prayer-book, and she bequeathed to me all her pious works, begging of me to keep up and to promote certain pious societies which she had either started or wished to start. One was the Apostleship of Prayer, whose members were to take an active Sister of Charity part, doing good works, corporal and spiritual, in the town. I accepted the charge, and she died on the 17th of January. The following day we went to condole with the departed princess's entourage, and to pay our respects to the dead, who lay in state. I may mention, en passant, under my hand, that the members eventually increased to fifteen thousand, inscribed in a book; they made me President, and, with the assistance of my Capuchins, we got it into very good working order, dividing ourselves into bands in various quarters of the City, and did a great deal of good. After my husband died (after my sixteen years' work), there was a formal meeting in their church for me to hand over my Presidency to my successor.
One of our amusements in Trieste was, that whenever a ship came in with a captain we knew, he would invite us to dine, and we used to taste English food and see English people, and invite the captain and officers or any especially nice passengers back again.
Richard writes and foretells in his journal, 1873: "It is noticeable that even in 1873 Fiume will ruin Trieste. This place has not long to live."
In May, 1874, Richard and others made an expedition up the Schneeberg Mountain, which is always covered with snow. He used to amuse himself by buying any amount of clothes and greatcoats, which were hanging up in rows, and he always went out lightly clad to harden himself, so he started off with a little thin coat and thin shoes, and he did the expedition; and when the others were housed and warm, he would do more than anybody else, and sleep out in the snow. We had done that when we were obliged (as, for instance, in Teneriffe), but this was not obligatory; it was a very different climate. When he arrived back home it was a dreadful day, and six o'clock in the morning, and three days afterwards he was taken very ill quite suddenly; inflammation settled in the groin, a tumour formed, and he suffered tortures.
The doctor told me that it was going to be a long illness, so I telegraphed home for good port wine and all sorts of luxuries, and put two beds on rollers, so as to be able easily to change him from one to the other, and a couch for myself, so that I might sleep when he slept. We had seventy-eight days and nights of it. The tumour had to be cut out, and afterwards it was discovered that the surgeon had not gone deep enough, and it had to be done again. The doctor and the surgeon came twice a day, and they taught me to dress the wound. I was afraid his life would ebb away, but I kept up his strength with good port wine, egg-flips with brandy, cream and fresh eggs, Brand's essences, and something every hour. His brain was so strong that the doctors had very hard work to get him under chloroform—it took forty minutes, and two bottles of chloroform; but when he did go off it was perfect, and on coming to, he said, "Well, when is it going to begin?" "It is all over long ago, Captain Burton," said the doctor; but in point of fact I had to keep his attention engaged, as they were just clearing away the blood and all traces of the operation. He was so brave, he smoked a cigar and drank a soda-and-brandy an hour after the operation.
It was a curious thing that poor Charley Drake, at the age of twenty-eight, died in Jerusalem on the very day Richard was operated upon. He had caught a severe fever in the malarious valley of the Jordan, living under canvas, in heavy rains. He was only ill three weeks, and had no idea of dying until seven hours before his death. For the first two hours he wept bitterly, and, resigning himself, he constantly said, "Tell my mother I die in the love of Jesus." He talked quite as agnostically as Richard did; but he was a good Protestant at heart, and died a holy death. During the time he was delirious he frequently said to Richard's servant, who remained with him, "Habíb, pitch the tents on Mount Sion; there is such a beautiful place." It was where we had often sat, we three together, and he had said how he should like to be buried there. Richard unfortunately got hold of the letter before I did, and he fell back in a faint with the wound reopened. We had lost a true friend, perhaps a better than we should ever see again, and we felt it bitterly. It was just a year since he left us at Venice.