University of Virginia Library

26. LETTER XXVI.

The health-magistrate arrived at an early hour on
the morning of our departure, from the lazaretto of
Villa Franca. He was accompanied by a physician,
who was to direct the fumigation. The iron pot was
placed in the centre of the chamber, our clothes were
spread out upon the beds, and the windows shut. The
chlorin soon filled the room, and its detestable odor became
so intolerable that we forced the door, and rushed
past the sentinel into the open air, nearly suffocated.
This face over, we were permitted to embark, and
rounding the point put into Nice.

The Mediterranean curves gracefully into the crescented
shore of this lovely bay, and the high hills lean
away from the skirts of the town in one unbroken
slope of cultivation to the top. Large, handsome
buildings, face you on the long quay, as you approach;
and white chimneys, and half-concealed parts of country-houses
and suburban villas, appear through the
olive and orange trees, with which the whole amphitheatre
is covered. We landed amid a crowd of half-naked
idlers, and were soon at a hotel, where we ordered
the best breakfast the town would afford, and sat
down once more to clean cloths and unrepulsive food.

As we rose from the table, a note, edged with black,
and sealed and enveloped with considerable circumstance,
was put into my hand by the master of the hotel.
It was an invitation from the governor to attend
a funeral service, to be performed in the cathedral that
day, at ten o'clock, for the “late queen-mother, Maria
Therese, archduchess of Austria.” Wondering
not a little how I came by the honor, I joined the
crowd flocking from all parts of the town to see the
ceremony. The central door was guarded by a file of
Sardinian soldiers; and, presenting my invitation to
the officer on duty, I was handed over to the master
of ceremonies, and shown to an excellent seat in the
centre of the church. The windows were darkened,
and the candles of the altar not yet lit; and, by the
indistinct light that came in through the door, I could
distinguish nothing clearly. A little silver bell tinkled
presently from one of the side-chapels, and boys
dressed in white appeared, with long tapers, and the
house was soon splendidly illuminated. I found myself
in the midst of a crowd of four or five hundred
ladies, all in deep mourning. The church was hung
from the floor to the roof in black cloth, ornamented
gorgeously with silver; and under the large dome,
which occupied half the ceiling, was raised a pyramidal
altar, with tripods supporting chalices for incense
at the four corners, a walk round the lower base
for the priests, and something in the centre, surrounded
with a blaze of light, representing figures weeping
over a tomb. The organ commenced pealing, there
was a single beat on the drum, and a procession entered.
It was composed of the nobility of Nice, and
the military and civil officers, all in uniform and court
dresses. The gold and silver flashing in the light, the
tall plumes of the Sardinian soldiery below, the solemn
music, and the moving of the censers from the
four corners of the altar, produced a very impressive
effect. As soon as the procession had quite entered,
the fire was kindled in the four chalices; and as the
white smoke rolled up to the roof, an anthem commenced
with the full power of the organ The singing
was admirable, and there was one female voice in
the choir, of singular power and sweetness.

The remainder of the service was the usual ceremonies
of the catholic church, and I amused myself

with observing the people about me. It was little like
a scene of mourning. The officers gradually edged
in between the seats, and every woman of the least
pretension to prettiness was engaged in anything but
her prayers for the soul of the late archduchess.
Some of these, the very young girls, were pretty; and
the women of thirty-five or forty apparently were fine-looking;
but, except a decided air of style and rank,
the fairly grown-up belles seemed to me of very small
attraction.

I saw little else in Nice to interest me. I wandered
about with my friend the surgeon, laughing at the ridiculous
figures and villanous uniforms of the Sardinian
infantry, and repelling the beggars, who radiated
to us from every corner; and, having traversed the
terrace of a mile on the tops of the houses next the
sea, unravelled all the lanes of the old town, and admired
all the splendor of the new, we dined and got
early to bed, anxious to sleep once more between
sheets, and prepare for an early start on the following
morning.

We were on the road to Genoa with the first gray
of the dawn—the surgeon, a French officer, and myself,
three passengers of a courier barouche. We
were climbing up mountains and sliding down with
locked wheels for several hours, by a road edging on
precipices, and overhung by tremendous rocks, and
descending at last to the sea-level, we entered Mentore,
a town of the little principality of Monaco. Having
paid our twenty sous tribute to this prince of a territory
not larger than a Kentucky farm, we were suffered
to cross his borders once more into Sardinia, having
posted through a whole state in less than half an
hour.

It is impossible to conceive a route of more grandeur
than the famous road along the Mediterranean from
Nice to Genoa. It is near a hundred and fifty miles,
over the edges of mountains bordering the sea for the
whole distance. The road is cut into the sides of the
precipice, often hundreds of feet perpendicular above
the surf, descending sometimes into the ravines formed
by the numerous rivers that cut their way to the sea,
and mounting immediately again to the loftiest summits.
It is a dizzy business from beginning to end.
There is no parapet usually, and there are thousands
of places where half a “shie” by a timid horse would
drop you at once some hundred fathoms upon rocks
wet by the spray of every sea that breaks upon the
shore. The loveliest little nests of valleys lie between
that can be conceived. You will see a green spot,
miles below you, in turning the face of a rock; and
right in the midst, like a handful of plaster models on
a carpet, a cluster of houses, lying quietly in the warm
southern exposure, embosomed in everything refreshing
to the eye, the mountain sides cultivated in a
large circle around, and the ruins of an old castle to a
certainty on the eminence above. You descend and
descend, and wind into the curves of the shore, losing
and regaining sight of it constantly, till, entering at a
gate on the sea level, you find yourself in a filthy, narrow,
half-whitewashed town, with a population of beggars,
priests, and soldiers; not a respectable citizen to
be seen from one end to the other, nor a clean woman,
nor a decent house. It is so all through Sardinia.
The towns from a distance lie in the most exquisitely-chosen
spots possible. A river comes down from the
hills and washes the wall; the uplands above are always
of the very choicest shelter and exposure. You
would think man and nature had conspired to complete
its convenience and beauty; yet within, all is
misery, dirt, and superstition. Every corner has a
cross—every bench a priest, idling in the sun—every
door a picture of the Virgin. You are delighted to
emerge once more, and get up a mountain to the
fresh air.

As we got farther on toward Genoa, the valleys became
longer by the sea, and the road ran through gardens
down to the very beach, of great richness and
beauty. It was new to me to travel for hours among
groves of orange and lemon trees, laden with both
fruit and flower, the ground beneath covered with the
windfalls, like an American apple-orchard. I never
saw such a profusion of fruit. The trees were breaking
under the rich yellow clusters. Among other
things, there were hundreds of tall palms, spreading
out their broad fans in the sun, apparently perfectly
strong and at home under this warm sky. They are
cultivated as ornaments for the churches on sacred
days.

I caught some half dozen views on the way that I
shall never get out of my memory. At one place particularly,
I think near Fenale, we ran round the corner
of a precipice by a road cut right into the face of
a rock, two hundred feet at least above the sea, and a
long view burst upon us at once of a sweet green valley,
stretching back into the mountains as far as the
eye could go, with three or four small towns, with their
white churches, just checkering the broad sweeps of
verdure, a rapid river winding through its bosom, and a
back ground of the Piedmontese Alps, with clouds half-way
up their sides, and snow glittering in the sun on
their summits. Language can not describe these scenes.
It is but a repetition of epithets to attempt it. You
must come and see them to feel how much one loses
to live always at home, and read of such things only.

The courier pointed out to us the place in which
Napoleon imprisoned the pope of Rome; a low house,
surrounded with a wall close upon the sea; and the
house a few miles from Genoa, believed to have been
that of Columbus.

We entered Genoa an hour after sunrise, by a noble
gate, placed at the western extremity of the crescented
harbor. Thence to the centre of the city was one
continued succession of sumptuous palaces. We
drove rapidly along the smooth, beautifully paved
streets, and my astonishment was unbroken till we
were set down at the hotel. Congratulating ourselves
on the hinderances which had conspired to bring us
here against our will, we took coffee, and went to bed
for a few hours, fatigued with a journey more wearisome
to the body than the mind.

I have spent two days in merely wandering about
Genoa, looking at the exterior of the city. It is a
group of hills, piled with princely palaces. I scarce
know how to commence a description of it. If there
were but one of these splendid edifices, or if I could
isolate a single palace, and describe it to you minutely,
it would be easy to convey an impression of the surprise
and pleasure of a stranger in Genoa. The whole
city, to use the expression of a French guide-book,
“respire la magnificence”—breathes of splendor! The
grand street, in which most of the palaces stand, winds
around the foot of a high hill; and the gardens and
terraces are piled back, with palaces above them; and
gardens, and terraces, and palaces still above these,
forming wherever you can catch a vista, the most exquisite
rising perspective. On the summit of this
hill stands the noble fortress of St. George; and behind
it a lovely open garden, just now alive with millions
of roses, a fountain playing into a deep oval basin
in the centre, and a view beneath and beyond of
a broad winding valley, covered with the country villas
of the nobility and gentry, and blooming with all
the luxuriant vegetation of a southern clime.

My window looks out upon the bay, across which I
see the palace of Andrea Doria, the great winner of
the best glory of the Genoese; and just under me
floats an American flag, at the peak of a Baltimore
schooner, that sails to-morrow morning for the United

States. I must close my letter, to send by her. I
shall remain in Genoa a week, and will write you of
its splendor more minutely.