thriving villages of wooden cottages, with overhanging thatched
roofs, and low protruding windows, glazed with small round panes of
glass like crown-pieces; or how, in every little Swiss homestead,
with its cart or waggon carefully stowed away beside the house, its
little garden, stock of poultry, and groups of red-cheeked
children, there was an air of comfort, very new and very pleasant
after Italy; or how the dresses of the women changed again, and
there were no more sword-bearers to be seen; and fair white
stomachers, and great black, fan-shaped, gauzy-looking caps,
prevailed instead.
Or how the country by the Jura mountains, sprinkled with snow, and
lighted by the moon, and musical with falling water, was
delightful; or how, below the windows of the great hotel of the
Three Kings at Bale, the swollen Rhine ran fast and green; or how,
at Strasbourg, it was quite as fast but not as green: and was said
to be foggy lower down: and, at that late time of the year, was a
far less certain means of progress, than the highway road to Paris.
Or how Strasbourg itself, in its magnificent old Gothic Cathedral,
and its ancient houses with their peaked roofs and gables, made a
little gallery of quaint and interesting views; or how a crowd was
gathered inside the cathedral at noon, to see the famous mechanical
clock in motion, striking twelve. How, when it struck twelve, a
whole army of puppets went through many ingenious evolutions; and,
among them, a huge puppet-cock, perched on the top, crowed twelve
times, loud and clear. Or how it was wonderful to see this cock at
great pains to clap its wings, and strain its throat; but obviously
having no connection whatever with its own voice; which was deep
within the clock, a long way down.
Or how the road to Paris, was one sea of mud, and thence to the
coast, a little better for a hard frost. Or how the cliffs of
Dover were a pleasant sight, and England was so wonderfully neat -
though dark, and lacking colour on a winter's day, it must be
conceded.
Or how, a few days afterwards, it was cool, re-crossing the
channel, with ice upon the decks, and snow lying pretty deep in
France. Or how the Malle Poste scrambled through the snow,
headlong, drawn in the hilly parts by any number of stout horses at
a canter; or how there were, outside the Post-office Yard in Paris,
before daybreak, extraordinary adventurers in heaps of rags,
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groping in the snowy streets with little rakes, in search of odds
and ends.
Or how, between Paris and Marseilles, the snow being then exceeding
deep, a thaw came on, and the mail waded rather than rolled for the
next three hundred miles or so; breaking springs on Sunday nights,
and putting out its two passengers to warm and refresh themselves
pending the repairs, in miserable billiard-rooms, where hairy
company, collected about stoves, were playing cards; the cards
being very like themselves - extremely limp and dirty.
Or how there was detention at Marseilles from stress of weather;
and steamers were advertised to go, which did not go; or how the
good Steam-packet Charlemagne at length put out, and met such
weather that now she threatened to run into Toulon, and now into
Nice, but, the wind moderating, did neither, but ran on into Genoa
harbour instead, where the familiar Bells rang sweetly in my ear.
Or how there was a travelling party on board, of whom one member
was very ill in the cabin next to mine, and being ill was cross,
and therefore declined to give up the Dictionary, which he kept
under his pillow; thereby obliging his companions to come down to
him, constantly, to ask what was the Italian for a lump of sugar -
a glass of brandy and water - what's o'clock? and so forth: which
he always insisted on looking out, with his own sea-sick eyes,
declining to entrust the book to any man alive.
Like GRUMIO, I might have told you, in detail, all this and
something more - but to as little purpose - were I not deterred by
the remembrance that my business is with Italy. Therefore, like
GRUMIO'S story, 'it shall die in oblivion.'
CHAPTER IX - TO ROME BY PISA AND SIENA
THERE is nothing in Italy, more beautiful to me, than the coastroad
between Genoa and Spezzia. On one side: sometimes far below,
sometimes nearly on a level with the road, and often skirted by
broken rocks of many shapes: there is the free blue sea, with here
and there a picturesque felucca gliding slowly on; on the other
side are lofty hills, ravines besprinkled with white cottages,
patches of dark olive woods, country churches with their light open
towers, and country houses gaily painted. On every bank and knoll
by the wayside, the wild cactus and aloe flourish in exuberant
profusion; and the gardens of the bright villages along the road,
are seen, all blushing in the summer-time with clusters of the
Belladonna, and are fragrant in the autumn and winter with golden
oranges and lemons.
Some of the villages are inhabited, almost exclusively, by
fishermen; and it is pleasant to see their great boats hauled up on
the beach, making little patches of shade, where they lie asleep,
or where the women and children sit romping and looking out to sea,
while they mend their nets upon the shore. There is one town,
Camoglia, with its little harbour on the sea, hundreds of feet
below the road; where families of mariners live, who, time out of
mind, have owned coasting-vessels in that place, and have traded to
Spain and elsewhere. Seen from the road above, it is like a tiny
model on the margin of the dimpled water, shining in the sun.
Descended into, by the winding mule-tracks, it is a perfect
miniature of a primitive seafaring town; the saltest, roughest,
most piratical little place that ever was seen. Great rusty iron
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rings and mooring-chains, capstans, and fragments of old masts and
spars, choke up the way; hardy rough-weather boats, and seamen's
clothing, flutter in the little harbour or are drawn out on the
sunny stones to dry; on the parapet of the rude pier, a few
amphibious-looking fellows lie asleep, with their legs dangling
over the wall, as though earth or water were all one to them, and
if they slipped in, they would float away, dozing comfortably among
the fishes; the church is bright with trophies of the sea, and
votive offerings, in commemoration of escape from storm and
shipwreck. The dwellings not immediately abutting on the harbour
are approached by blind low archways, and by crooked steps, as if
in darkness and in difficulty of access they should be like holds
of ships, or inconvenient cabins under water; and everywhere, there
is a smell of fish, and sea-weed, and old rope.
The coast-road whence Camoglia is descried so far below, is famous,
in the warm season, especially in some parts near Genoa, for fireflies.
Walking there on a dark night, I have seen it made one
sparkling firmament by these beautiful insects: so that the
distant stars were pale against the flash and glitter that spangled
every olive wood and hill-side, and pervaded the whole air.
It was not in such a season, however, that we traversed this road
on our way to Rome. The middle of January was only just past, and
it was very gloomy and dark weather; very wet besides. In crossing
the fine pass of Bracco, we encountered such a storm of mist and
rain, that we travelled in a cloud the whole way. There might have
been no Mediterranean in the world, for anything that we saw of it
there, except when a sudden gust of wind, clearing the mist before
it, for a moment, showed the agitated sea at a great depth below,
lashing the distant rocks, and spouting up its foam furiously. The
rain was incessant; every brook and torrent was greatly swollen;
and such a deafening leaping, and roaring, and thundering of water,
I never heard the like of in my life.
Hence, when we came to Spezzia, we found that the Magra, an
unbridged river on the high-road to Pisa, was too high to be safely
crossed in the Ferry Boat, and were fain to wait until the
afternoon of next day, when it had, in some degree, subsided.
Spezzia, however, is a good place to tarry at; by reason, firstly,
of its beautiful bay; secondly, of its ghostly Inn; thirdly, of the
head-dress of the women, who wear, on one side of their head, a
small doll's straw hat, stuck on to the hair; which is certainly
the oddest and most roguish head-gear that ever was invented.
The Magra safely crossed in the Ferry Boat - the passage is not by
any means agreeable, when the current is swollen and strong - we
arrived at Carrara, within a few hours. In good time next morning,
we got some ponies, and went out to see the marble quarries.
They are four or five great glens, running up into a range of lofty
hills, until they can run no longer, and are stopped by being
abruptly strangled by Nature. The quarries, 'or caves,' as they
call them there, are so many openings, high up in the hills, on
either side of these passes, where they blast and excavate for
marble: which may turn out good or bad: may make a man's fortune
very quickly, or ruin him by the great expense of working what is
worth nothing. Some of these caves were opened by the ancient
Romans, and remain as they left them to this hour. Many others are
being worked at this moment; others are to be begun to-morrow, next
week, next month; others are unbought, unthought of; and marble
enough for more ages than have passed since the place was resorted
to, lies hidden everywhere: patiently awaiting its time of
discovery.
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As you toil and clamber up one of these steep gorges (having left
your pony soddening his girths in water, a mile or two lower down)
you hear, every now and then, echoing among the hills, in a low
tone, more silent than the previous silence, a melancholy warning
bugle, - a signal to the miners to withdraw. Then, there is a
thundering, and echoing from hill to hill, and perhaps a splashing
up of great fragments of rock into the air; and on you toil again
until some other bugle sounds, in a new direction, and you stop
directly, lest you should come within the range of the new
explosion.
There were numbers of men, working high up in these hills - on the
sides - clearing away, and sending down the broken masses of stone
and earth, to make way for the blocks of marble that had been
discovered. As these came rolling down from unseen hands into the
narrow valley, I could not help thinking of the deep glen (just the
same sort of glen) where the Roc left Sindbad the Sailor; and where
the merchants from the heights above, flung down great pieces of
meat for the diamonds to stick to. There were no eagles here, to
darken the sun in their swoop, and pounce upon them; but it was as
wild and fierce as if there had been hundreds.
But the road, the road down which the marble comes, however immense
the blocks! The genius of the country, and the spirit of its
institutions, pave that road: repair it, watch it, keep it going!
Conceive a channel of water running over a rocky bed, beset with
great heaps of stone of all shapes and sizes, winding down the
middle of this valley; and THAT being the road - because it was the
road five hundred years ago! Imagine the clumsy carts of five
hundred years ago, being used to this hour, and drawn, as they used
to be, five hundred years ago, by oxen, whose ancestors were worn
to death five hundred years ago, as their unhappy descendants are
now, in twelve months, by the suffering and agony of this cruel
work! Two pair, four pair, ten pair, twenty pair, to one block,
according to its size; down it must come, this way. In their
struggling from stone to stone, with their enormous loads behind
them, they die frequently upon the spot; and not they alone; for
their passionate drivers, sometimes tumbling down in their energy,
are crushed to death beneath the wheels. But it was good five
hundred years ago, and it must be good now: and a railroad down
one of these steeps (the easiest thing in the world) would be flat
blasphemy.
When we stood aside, to see one of these cars drawn by only a pair
down, I hailed, in my heart, the man who sat upon the heavy yoke,
to keep it on the neck of the poor beasts - and who faced
backwards: not before him - as the very Devil of true despotism.
He had a great rod in his hand, with an iron point; and when they
could plough and force their way through the loose bed of the
torrent no longer, and came to a stop, he poked it into their
bodies, beat it on their heads, screwed it round and round in their
nostrils, got them on a yard or two, in the madness of intense
pain; repeated all these persuasions, with increased intensity of
purpose, when they stopped again; got them on, once more; forced
and goaded them to an abrupter point of the descent; and when their
writhing and smarting, and the weight behind them, bore them
plunging down the precipice in a cloud of scattered water, whirled
his rod above his head, and gave a great whoop and hallo, as if he
had achieved something, and had no idea that they might shake him
off, and blindly mash his brains upon the road, in the noon-tide of
his triumph.
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Standing in one of the many studii of Carrara, that afternoon - for
it is a great workshop, full of beautifully-finished copies in
marble, of almost every figure, group, and bust, we know - it
seemed, at first, so strange to me that those exquisite shapes,
replete with grace, and thought, and delicate repose, should grow
out of all this toil, and sweat, and torture! But I soon found a
parallel to it, an
d an explanation of it, in every virtue that
springs up in miserable ground, and every good thing that has its
birth in sorrow and distress. And, looking out of the sculptor's
great window, upon the marble mountains, all red and glowing in the
decline of day, but stern and solemn to the last, I thought, my
God! how many quarries of human hearts and souls, capable of far
more beautiful results, are left shut up and mouldering away:
while pleasure-travellers through life, avert their faces, as they
pass, and shudder at the gloom and ruggedness that conceal them!
The then reigning Duke of Modena, to whom this territory in part
belonged, claimed the proud distinction of being the only sovereign
in Europe who had not recognised Louis-Philippe as King of the
French! He was not a wag, but quite in earnest. He was also much
opposed to railroads; and if certain lines in contemplation by
other potentates, on either side of him, had been executed, would
have probably enjoyed the satisfaction of having an omnibus plying
to and fro across his not very vast dominions, to forward
travellers from one terminus to another.
Carrara, shut in by great hills, is very picturesque and bold. Few
tourists stay there; and the people are nearly all connected, in
one way or other, with the working of marble. There are also
villages among the caves, where the workmen live. It contains a
beautiful little Theatre, newly built; and it is an interesting
custom there, to form the chorus of labourers in the marble
quarries, who are self-taught and sing by ear. I heard them in a
comic opera, and in an act of 'Norma;' and they acquitted
themselves very well; unlike the common people of Italy generally,
who (with some exceptions among the Neapolitans) sing vilely out of
tune, and have very disagreeable singing voices.
From the summit of a lofty hill beyond Carrara, the first view of
the fertile plain in which the town of Pisa lies - with Leghorn, a
purple spot in the flat distance - is enchanting. Nor is it only
distance that lends enchantment to the view; for the fruitful
country, and rich woods of olive-trees through which the road
subsequently passes, render it delightful.
The moon was shining when we approached Pisa, and for a long time
we could see, behind the wall, the leaning Tower, all awry in the
uncertain light; the shadowy original of the old pictures in