University of Virginia Library

71. LETTER LXXI.

The doge of Venice has a fair bride in the Adriatic.
It is the fourth of July, and with the Italian Cape
Colonna on our left, and the long, low coast of Albania
shading the horizon on the east, we are gazing
upon her from the deck of the first American frigate
that has floated upon her bosom. We head for Venice,
and there is a stir of anticipation on board, felt
even through the hilarity of our cherished anniversary.
I am the only one in the ward-room to whom
that wonderful city is familiar, and I feel as if I had
forestalled my own happiness—the first impression of
it is so enviable.

It is difficult to conceive the gay costumes and
handsome features of the Albanese, existing in these
barren mountains that bind the Adriatic. It has been
but a continued undulation of rock and sand, for three
days past; and the closer we hug to the shore, the
more we look at the broad canvass above us, and pray
for wind. We make Capo d'Istria now, a small town
nestled in a curve of the sea, and an hour or two more
will bring us to Trieste, where we drop anchor, we
hope, for many an hour of novelty and pleasure.

Trieste lies sixty or eighty miles from Venice,
across the head of the gulf. The shore between is
piled up to the sky with the “blue Friuli mountains;”
and from the town of Trieste, the low coast of Istria
breaks away at a right angle to the south, forming the
eastern bound of the Adriatic. As we ran into the
harbor on our last tack, we passed close under the
garden walls of the villa of the ex-queen of Naples, a
lovely spot just in the suburbs. The palace of Jerome
Bonaparte was also pointed out to us by the
pilot on the hill just above. They have both removed
since to Florence, and their palaces are occupied by
English. We dropped anchor within a half mile of
the pier, and the flags of a dozen American vessels
were soon distinguishable among the various colors of
the shipping in the port.

I accompanied Commodore Patterson to-day on a
visit of ceremony to the Austrian authorities of the
province. We made our way with difficulty through
the people, crowding in hundreds to the water-side,
and following us with the rude freedom of a showman's
audience. The vice-governor, a polite but
Frenchified German count, received us with every
profession of kindness. His Parisian gestures sat ill
enough upon his national high cheek-bones, lank hair,
and heavy shoulders. We left him to call upon the
military commandant, an Irishman, who occupies part
of the palace of the ex-king of Westphalia. Our
reception by him was gentlemanly, cordial, and dignified.
I think the Irish are, after all, the best-mannered
people in the world. They are found in every
country, as adventurers for honor, and they change
neither in character nor manner. They follow foreign
fashions, and acquire a foreign language; but in the
first they retain their heart, and in the latter their
brogue. They are Irishmen always. Count Nugent
is high in the favor of the emperor, has the commission
of a field marshal, and is married to a Neapolitan
princess, who is a most accomplished and lovely woman,
and related to most of the royal houses of Europe.
His reputation as a soldier is well known, and
he seems to me to have no drawback to the enviableness
of his life, except its expatriation.

Trieste is a busy, populous place, resembling extremely
our new towns in America. We took a stroll

through the principal streets after our visits were
over, and I was surprised at the splendor of the shops,
and the elegance of the costumes and equipages. It
is said to contain thirty thousand inhabitants.

Vienna.—The frigates were to lie three or four
weeks at Trieste. One half of the officers had taken
the steamboat for Venice on the second evening of
our arrival, and the other half waited impatiently their
turn of absence. Vienna was but some four hundred
miles distant, and I might never be so near it again.
On a rainy evening, at nine o'clock, I left Trieste in
the “eil-wagon,” with a German courier, and commenced
the ascent of the spur of the Friuli mountains
that overhangs the bay.

My companions inside were, a merchant from Gratz,
a fantastical and poor Hungarian count, a Corfu shopkeeper,
and an Italian ex-militaire and present apothecary,
going to Vienna to marry a lady whom he had
never seen. After a little bandying of compliments in
German, of which I understood nothing except that
they were apologies for the incessant smoking of three
disgusting pipes, the conversation, fortunately for me,
settled into Italian. The mountain was steep and
very high, and my friends soon grew conversible.
The novelty of two American frigates in the harbor
naturally decided the first topic. Our Gratz merchant
was surprised at the light color of the officers he had
seen, and doubted if they were not Englishmen in the
American service. He had always heard Americans
were black. “They are so,” said the soldier-apothecary;
“I saw the real Americans yesterday in a boat,
quite black.” (One of the cutters of the Constellation
has a negro crew, which he had probably seen at
the pier.) The assertion seemed to satisfy the doubts
of all parties. They had wondered how such beautiful
ships could come from a savage country. It was
now explained. “They were bought from the English,
and officered by Englishmen.” I was too much
amused with their speculations to undeceive them;
and with my head thrust half out of the window to
avoid choking with the smoke of their pipes, I gazed
back at the glittering lights of the town below, and
indulged the never-palling sensation of a first entrance
into a new country. The lantern at the peak of the
“United States” was the last thing I saw as we rose
the brow of the mountain, and started off on a rapid
trot toward Vienna.

I awoke at daylight with the sudden stop of the
carriage. We were at the low door of a German tavern,
and a clear, rosy, good-humored looking girl bade
us good morning, as we alighted one by one. The
phrase was so like English, that I asked for a basin of
water in my mother tongue. The similarity served
me again. She brought it without hesitation; but
the question she asked me as she set it down was like
nothing that had ever before entered my ears. The
count smiled at my embarrassment, and explained that
she wished to know if I wanted soap.

I was struck with the cleanliness of everything.
The tables, chairs, and floors, looked worn away with
scrubbing. Breakfast was brought in immediately,
eggs, rolls, and coffee, the latter in a glass bottle like
a chemist's retort, corked up tightly, and wrapped in
a snowy napkin. It was an excellent breakfast, served
with cleanliness and good humor, and cost about fourteen
cents each. Even from this single meal, it seemed
to me that I had entered a country of simple manners
and kind feelings. The conductor gravely kissed
the cheek of the girl who had waited on us, my companions
lit their pipes afresh, and the postillion, in
cocked hat and feather, blew a stave of a waltz on his
horn, and fell into a steady trot, which he kept up
with phlegmatic perseverance to the end of his post.

As we get away from the sea, the land grows richer,
and the farm-houses more frequent. We are in the
dutchy of Carniola, forty or fifty miles from Trieste.
How very unlike Italy and France, and how very like
New England it is! There are no ruined castles, nor
old cathedrals. Every village has its small white
church with a tapering spire, large manufactories
cluster on the water-courses, the small rivers are rapid
and deep, the horses large and strong, the barns immense,
the crops heavy, the people grave and hard at
work, and not a pauper by the post together. We are
very far north, too, and the climate is like New England.
The wind, though it is midsummer, is bracing,
and there is no travelling as in Italy, with one's hat off
and breast open, dissolving at midnight in the luxury
of the soft air. The houses, too, are ugly and comfortable,
staring with paint and pierced in all directions
with windows. The children are white-headed and
serious. The hills are half covered with woods, and
clusters of elms are left here and there through the
meadows, as if their owners could afford to let them
grow for a shade to the mowers. I was perpetually
exclaiming, “how like America!”

We dined at Laybach. My companions had found
out by my passport that I was an American, and their
curiosity was most amusing. The report of the arrival
of the two frigates had reached the capital of Illyria,
and with the assistance of the information of my
friends, I found myself an object of universal attention.
The crowd around the door of the hotel, looked into
the windows while we were eating, and followed me
round the house as if I had been a savage. One of
the passengers told me they connected the arrival of
the ships with some political object, and thought I
might be the envoy. The landlord asked me if we
had potatoes in our country.

I took a walk through the city after dinner with my
mincing friend the count. The low, two-story wooden
houses, the sidewalks enclosed with trees, the matter-of-fact
looking people, the shut windows, and neat
white churches remind me again strongly of America.
It was like the more retired streets of Portland or
Portsmouth. The Illyrian language spoken here,
seemed to me the most inarticulate succession of
sounds I had ever heard. In crossing the bridge in
the centre of the town, we met a party of German students
travelling on foot with their knapsacks. My
friend spoke to them to gratify my curiosity. I wished
to know where they were going. They all spoke
French and Italian, and seemed in high heart, bold,
cheerful, and intelligent. They were bound for
Egypt, determined to seek their fortunes in the service
of the present reforming and liberal pacha. Their
enthusiasm, when they were told I was an American,
quite thrilled me. They closed about me and looked
into my eyes, as if they expected to read the spirit of
freedom in them. I was taken by the arms at last,
and almost forced into a beer-shop. The large
tankards were filled, each touched mine and the others,
and “America” was drank with a grave earnestness of
manner that moved my heart within me. They shook
me by the hand on parting, and gave me a blessing in
German, which, as the old count translated it, was the
first word I have learned of their language. We had
met constantly parties of them on the road. They all
dress alike, in long travelling frocks of brown stuff, and
small green caps with straight visors; but, coarsely as
they are clothed, and humbly as they seem to be
faring, their faces bear always a mark that can never
be mistaken. They look like scholars.

The roads, by the way, are crowded with pedestrians.
It seems to be the favorite mode of travelling in this
country. We have scarce met a carriage, and I have
seen, I am sure, in one day, two hundred passengers
on foot. Among them is a class of people peculiar to
Germany. I was astonished occasionally at being
asked for charity by stout, well-dressed young men,

to all appearance as respectable as any travellers on
the road. Expressing my surprise, my companions
informed me that they were apprentices, and that the
custom or law of the country compelled them, after
completing their indentures, to travel in some distant
province, and depend upon charity and their own exertions
for two or three years before becoming masters
at their trade. It is a singular custom, and, I should
think, a useful lesson in hardship and self-reliance.
They held out their hats with a confident independence
of look that quite satisfied me they felt no degradation
in it.

We soon entered the province of Styria, and brighter
rivers, greener woods, richer and more graceful uplands
and meadows, do not exist in the world. I had
thought the scenery of Stockbridge, in my own state,
unequalled till now. I could believe myself there,
were not the women alone working in the fields, and
the roads lined for miles together with military wagons
and cavalry upon march. The conscript law of
Austria compels every peasant to serve fourteen years!
and the labors of agriculture fall, of course, almost exclusively
upon females. Soldiers swarm like locusts
through the country, but they seem as inoffensive and
as much at home as the cattle in the farm-yards. It
is a curious contrast, to my eye, to see parks of artillery
glistening in the midst of a wheat-field, and soldiers
sitting about under the low thatches of these
peaceful-looking cottages. I do not think, among the
thousands that I have passed in three days' travel, I
have seen a gesture or heard a syllable. If sitting,
they smoke and sit still, and if travelling, they economise
motion to a degree that is wearisome to the eye.

Words are limited, and the description of scenery becomes
tiresome. It is a fault that the sense of beauty,
freshening constantly on the traveller, compels him
who makes a note of impressions to mark every other
line with the same ever-recurring exclamations of
pleasure. I saw a hundred miles of unrivalled scenery
in Styria, and how can I describe it? I were keeping
silence on a world of enjoyment to pass it over. We
come to a charming descent into a valley. The town
beneath, the river, the embracing mountains, the
swell to the ear of its bells ringing some holyday, affect
my imagination powerfully. I take out my tablets,
What shall I say? How convey to your minds who
have not seen it, the charm of a scene I can only describe
as I have described a thousand others?