The works of Washington Irving

The estafette came galloping up the
road according to custom, brandishing
over his head a short-handled whip,
with a long, knotted lash, every smack
of which made a report like a pistol.
He was a tight, square-set young fellow,
in the usual uniform: a smart blue coat,
ornamented with facings and gold lace,
but so short behind as to reach scarcely
below his waisthand, and cocked up not
unlike the tail of a wren; a cocked hat,
edged with gold lace; a pair of stiff
riding boots; but, instead of the usual
leathern breeches, he had a fragment of
a pair of drawers, that scarcely furnished
an apology for Modesty to hide behind.

The estafette galloped up to the door,
and jumped from his horse.

"A glass of rosolio, a fresh horse, and
a pair of breeches, and quickly, per
l'amor di Dio. I am behind my time,
and must be off!"

"San Gennaro!" replied the host;
"why, where hast thou left thy garment?"

"Among the robbers between this and
Fondi."

"What, rob an estafette! I never
heard of such folly. What could they
hope to get from thee?"

"My leather breeches!" replied the
estafette. "They were bran new, and
shone like gold, and hit the fancy of the
captain."

"Well, these fellows grow worse and
worse. To meddle with an estafette!
and that merely for the sake of a pair
of leather breeches!"

The robbing of a government messenger
seemed to strike the host with more
astonishment than any other enormity
that had taken place on the road; and,
indeed, it was the first time so wanton
an outrage had been committed; the
robbers generally taking care not to
meddle with any thing belonging to government.

The estafette was by this time equipped,
for he had not lost an instant in
making his preparations while talking.
The relay was ready; the rosolio tossed
off; he grasped the reins and the stirrup.

"Were there many robbers in the
band?" said a handsome, dark young
man, stepping forward from the door of
the inn.

"As formidable a band as ever I
saw," said the estafette, springing into
the saddle.

"Are they cruel to travellers?" said
a beautiful young Venitian lady, who
had been hanging on the gentleman's
arm.

"Cruel, signora!" echoed the estafette,
giving a glance at the lady as he put spurs
to his horse. "Corpo di Bacco! They
stiletto all the men; and, as to the women—"
Crack! crack! crack! crack!
crack!—The last words were drowned
in the smacking of the whip, and away
galloped the estafette along the road to
the Pontine marshes.

"Holy Virgin!" ejaculated the fair
Venitian; "what will become of us!"

The inn of which we are speaking
stands just outside of the walls of Terracina,
under a vast precipitous height
of rocks, crowned with the ruins of the
castle of Theodoric the Goth. The
situation of Terracina is remarkable.
It is a little, ancient, lazy Italian town,
on the frontiers of the Roman territory.
There seems to be an idle pause in every
thing about the place. The Mediterranean
spreads before it—that sea without
flux or reflux. The port is without a
sail, excepting that once in a while a
solitary felucca may be seen disgorging
its holy cargo of baccala, the meagre
provision for the quaresima or Lent.
The inhabitants are apparently a listless,
heedless race, as people of soft
sunny climates are apt to be; but under
this passive, indolent exterior, are said
to lurk dangerous qualities. They are
supposed by many to be little better
than the banditti of the neighbouring
mountains, and indeed to hold a secret

111

correspondence with them. The solitary
watch-towers, erected here and
there along the coast, speak of pirates
and corsairs that hover about these
shores; while the low huts, as stations
for soldiers, which dot the distant road,
as it winds up through an olive grove,
intimate that in the ascent there is danger
for the traveller, and facility for the
bandit. Indeed, it is between this town
and Fondi that the road to Naples is
most infested by banditti. It has several
winding and solitary places, where the
robbers are enabled to see the traveller
from a distance, from the brows of hills
or impending precipices, and to lie in
wait for him at lonely and difficult passes.

The Italian robbers are a desperate
class of men that have almost formed
themselves into an order of society.
They wear a kind of uniform, or rather
costume, which openly designates their
profession. This is probably done to
diminish its skulking, lawless character,
and to give it something of a military
air in the eyes of the common people;
or, perhaps, to catch by outward show
and finery the fancies of the young men
of the villages, and thus to gain recruits.
Their dresses are often very rich and
picturesque. They wear jackets and
breeches of bright colours, sometimes
gaily embroidered; their breasts are
covered with medals and relics; their
hats are broad-brimmed, with conical
crowns, decorated with feathers, or variously-coloured
ribands; their hair is
sometimes gathered in silk nets; they
wear a kind of sandal of cloth or
leather, bound round the legs with
thongs, and extremely flexible, to enable
them to scramble with ease and
celerity among the mountain precipices;
a broad belt of cloth, or a sash of silk
net, is stuck full of pistols and stilettos;
a carbine is slung at the back; while
about them is generally thrown, in a
negligent manner, a great dingy mantle,
which serves as a protection in storms,
or a bed in their bivouacs among the
mountains.

They range over a great extent of
wild country, along the chain of Apennines,
bordering on different states; they
know all the difficult passes, the short
cuts for retreat, and the impracticable
forests of the mountain summits, where
no force dare follow them. They are
secure of the good-will of the inhabitants
of those regions, a poor and semi-barbarous
race, whom they never disturb and
often enrich. Indeed they are considered
as a sort of illegitimate heroes among the
mountain villages, and in certain frontier
towns, where they dispose of their plunder.
Thus countenanced, and sheltered,
and secure in the fastnesses of their
mountains, the robbers have set the weak
police of the Italian states at defiance. It
is in vain that their names and descriptions
are posted on the doors of country
churches, and rewards offered for them
alive or dead; the villagers are either
too much awed by the terrible instances
of vengeance inflicted by the brigands,
or have too good an understanding with
them to be their betrayers. It is true
they are now and then hunted and shot
down like beasts of prey by the gensd'armes,
their heads put in iron cages,
and stuck upon posts by the roadside, or
their limbs hung up to blacken in the
trees near the places where they have
committed their atrocities; but these
ghastly spectacles only serve to make
some dreary pass of the road still more
dreary, and to dismay the traveller,
without deterring the bandit.

At the time that the estafette made his
sudden appearance, almost in cuerpo, as
has been mentioned, the audacity of the
robbers had risen to an unparalleled
height. They had laid villas under contribution,
they had sent messages into
country towns, to tradesmen and rich
burghers, demanding supplies of money,
of clothing, or even of luxuries, with
menaces of vengeance in case of refusal.
They had their spies and emissaries in
every town, village, and inn, along the
principal roads, to give them notice of
the movements and quality of travellers.
They had plundered carriages, carried
people of rank and fortune into the
mountains, and obliged them to write
for heavy ransoms, and had committed
outrages on females who had fallen into
their hands.

Such was briefly the state of the robbers,
or rather such was the amount of
the rumours prevalent concerning them,
when the scene took place at the inn at

112

Terracina. The dark handsome young
man, and the Venitian lady, incidentally
mentioned, had arrived early that afternoon
in a private carriage drawn by
mules, and attended by a single servant.
They had been recently married, were
spending the honeymoon in travelling
through these delicious countries, and
were on their way to visit a rich aunt of
the bride at Naples.

The lady was young, and tender, and
timid. The stories she had heard along
the road had filled her with apprehension,
not more for herself than for her
husband; for though she had been married
almost a month, she still loved him
almost to idolatry. When she reached
Terracina, the rumours of the road had
increased to an alarming magnitude; and
the sight of two robbers' sculls, grinning
in iron cages, on each side of the old
gateway of the town, brought her to
a pause. Her husband had tried in vain
to reassure her, they had lingered all the
afternoon at the inn, until it was too late
to think of starting that evening, and the
parting words of the estafette completed
her affright.

"Let us return to Rome," said she,
putting her arm within her husband's,
and drawing towards him as if for protection,—"Let
us return to Rome, and
give up this visit to Naples."

"And give up the visit to your aunt,
too?" said the husband.

"Nay,—what is my aunt in comparison
with your safety?" said she, looking
up tenderly in his face.

There was something in her tone and
manner that showed she really was thinking
more of her husband's safety at that
moment than of her own; and being so
recently married, and a match of pure
affection too, it is very possible that she
was: at least her husband thought so.
Indeed, any one who has heard the sweet
musical tone of a Venitian voice, and the
melting tenderness of a Venitian phrase,
and felt the soft witchery of a Venitian
eye, would not wonder at the husband's
believing whatever they professed. He
clasped the white hand that had been
laid within his, put his arm around her
slender waist, and drawing her fondly to
his bosom, "This night, at least," said
he, "we will pass at Terracina."

Crack! crack! crack! crack! crack!
Another apparition of the road attracted
the attention of mine host and his guests.
From the direction of the Pontine marshes
a carriage, drawn by half a dozen horses,
came driving at a furious rate; the postilions
smacking their whips like mad,
as is the case when conscious of the
greatness or of the munificence of their
fare. It was a landaulet, with a servant
mounted on the dickey. The compact,
highly-finished, yet proudly simple construction
of the carriage; the quantity
of neat, well-arranged trunks and conveniences;
the loads of box-coats on the
dickey; the fresh, burly, bluff-looking
face of the master at the window; and
the ruddy, round-headed servant, in close-cropped
hair, short coat, drab breeches,
and long gaiters, all proclaimed at once
that this was the equipage of an Englishman.

"Horses to Fondi," said the Englishman,
as the landlord came bowing to the
carriage-door.

"Would not his Eccellenza alight and
take some refreshment?"

"No—he did not mean to eat until he
got to Fondi."

"But the horses will be some time in
getting ready."

"Ah! that's always the way; nothing
but delay in this cursed country."

"If his Excellenza would only walk
into the house—"

"No, no, no!—I tell you no!—I want
nothing but horses, and as quick as possible.
John, see that the horses are got
ready, and don't let us be kept here an
hour or two. Tell him if we're delayed
over the time, I'll lodge a complaint with
the postmaster."

John touched his hat, and set off to
obey his master's orders with the taciturn
obedience of an English servant.

In the mean time, the Englishman got
out of the carriage, and walked up and
down before the inn with his hands in
his pockets, taking no notice of the crowd
of idlers who were gazing at him and his
equipage. He was tall, stout, and well
made; dressed with neatness and precision;
wore a travelling cap of the colour
of gingerbread; and had rather an unhappy
expression about the corners of
his mouth; partly from not having yet

113

made his dinner, and partly from not
having been able to get on at a greater
rate than seven miles an hour. Not that
he had any other cause for haste than an
Englishman's usual hurry to get to the
end of a journey; or, to use the regular
phrase, "to get on." Perhaps too he
was a little sore from having been fleeced
at every stage.

After some time, the servant returned
from the stable with a look of some
perplexity.

"Are the horses ready, John?"

"No, sir—I never saw such a place.
There's no getting any thing done. I
think your honour had better step into
the house and get something to eat; it
will be a long while before we get to
Fundy."

"D—n the house—it's a mere trick—
I'll not eat any thing, just to spite them,"
said the Englishman, still more crusty at
the prospect of being so long without his
dinner.

"They say your honour's very wrong,"
said John, "to set off at this late hour.
The road's full of highwaymen."

"Mere tales to get custom."

"The estafette which passed us was
stopped by a whole gang," said John,
increasing his emphasis with each additional
piece of information.

"I don't believe a word of it."

"They robbed him of his breeches,"
said John, giving, at the same time, a
hitch to his own waistband.

"All humbug!"

Here the dark handsome young man
stepped forward, and addressing the Englishman
very politely, in broken English,
invited him to partake of a repast he was
about to make.

"Thank'ee," said the Englishman,
thrusting his hands deeper into his
pockets, and casting a slight side glance
of suspicion at the young man, as if he
thought, from his civility, he must have
a design upon his purse.

"We shall be most happy, if you will
do us that favour," said the lady in her
soft Venitian dialect. There was a
sweetness in her accents that was most
persuasive. The Englishman cast a look
upon her countenance; her beauty was
still more eloquent. His features instantly
relaxed. He made a polite bow.
"With great pleasure, Signora," said
he.

In short, the eagerness to "get on"
was suddenly slackened; the determination
to famish himself as far as Fondi, by
way of punishing the landlord, was abandoned;
John chose an apartment in the
inn for his master's reception; and preparations
were made to remain there
until morning.

The carriage was unpacked of such of
its contents as were indispensable for the
night. There was the usual parade of
trunks and writing-desks, and portfolios,
and dressing-boxes, and those other oppressive
conveniences which burthen a
comfortable man. The observant loiterers
about the inn-door, wrapped up in
great dirt-coloured cloaks, with only a
hawk's eye uncovered, made many remarks
to each other on this quantity of
luggage, that seemed enough for an
army. The domestics of the inn talked
with wonder of the splendid dressing-case,
with its gold and silver furniture,
that was spread out on the toilet-table,
and the bag of gold that chinked as it
was taken out of the trunk. The strange
milor's wealth, and the treasures he carried
about him, were the talk, that evening,
over all Terracina.

The Englishman took some time to
make his ablutions and arrange his dress
for table; and, after considerable labour
and effort in putting himself at his ease,
made his appearance, with stiff white
cravat, his clothes free from the least
speck of dust, and adjusted with precision.
He made a civil bow on entering,
in the unprofessing English way, which
the fair Venitian, accustomed to the
complimentary salutations of the continent,
considered extremely cold.

The supper, as it was termed by the
Italian, or dinner, as the Englishman
called it, was now served: heaven and
earth, and the waters under the earth, had
been moved to furnish it; for there were
birds of the air, and beasts of the field,
and fish of the sea. The Englishman's
servant, too, had turned the kitchen
topsy-turvy in his zeal to cook his master
a beefsteak; and made his appearance,
loaded with ketchup, and soy, and
Cayenne pepper, and Harvey sauce, and
a bottle of port wine, from that warehouse

114

the carriage, in which his master
seemed desirous of carrying England
about the world with him. Indeed the
repast was one of those Italian farragoes
which require a little qualifying. The
tureen of soup was a black sea, with
livers, and limbs, and fragments of all
kinds of birds and beasts floating like
wrecks about it. A meagre winged animal,
which my host called a delicate
chicken, had evidently died of a consumption.
The macaroni was smoked.
The beefsteak was tough buffalo's flesh.
There was what appeared to be a dish of
stewed eels, of which the Englishman
ate with great relish; but had nearly
refunded them when told that they were
vipers, caught among the rocks of Terracina,
and esteemed a great delicacy.

There is nothing, however, that conquers
a traveller's spleen sooner than
eating, whatever may be the cookery;
and nothings brings him into good humour
with his company sooner than eating
together; the Englishman, therefore,
had not half finished his repast and his
bottle, before he began to think the
Venitian a very tolerable fellow for a
foreigner, and his wife almost handsome
enough to be an Englishwoman.

In the course of the repast, the usual
topics of travellers were discussed, and
among others, the reports of robbers,
which harassed the mind of the fair
Venitian. The landlord and waiter
dipped into the conversation with that
familiarity permitted on the continent,
and served up so many bloody tales
as they served up the dishes that they
almost frightened away the poor lady's
appetite.

The Englishman, who had a national
antipathy to every thing that is technically
called "humbug," listened to them
all with a certain screw of the mouth,
expressive of incredulity. There was
the well-known story of the school of
Terracina, captured by the robbers; and
one of the students coolly massacred, in
order to bring the parents to terms for
the ransom of the rest. And another,
of a gentleman of Rome, who received
his son's ear in a letter, with information,
that his son would be remitted to him in
this way, by instalments, until he paid
the required ransom.

The fair Venitian shuddered as she
heard these tales; and the landlord, like
a true narrator of the terrible, doubled
the dose when he saw how it operated.
He was just proceeding to relate the misfortunes
of a great English lord and his
family, when the Englishman, tired of
his volubility, interrupted him, and pronounced
these accounts to be mere travellers'
tales, or the exaggerations of
ignorant peasants and designing innkeepers.
The landlord was indignant
at the doubt levelled at his stories, and
the inuendo levelled at his cloth; he
cited, in corroboration, half a dozen tales
still more terrible.

"I don't believe a word of them," said
the Englishman.

"But the robbers have been tried and
executed."

"All a farce!"

"But their heads are stuck up along
the road!"

"Old sculls, accumulated during a
century."

The landlord muttered to himself as he
went out at the door, "San Gennaro!
quanto sono singolari questi Inglesi!"

A fresh hubbub outside of the inn announced
the arrival of more travellers;
and, from the variety of voices, or rather
of clamours, the clattering of hoofs, the
rattling of wheels, and the general uproar
both within and without, the arrival
seemed to be numerous.

It was, in fact, the procaccio and its
convoy; a kind of caravan which sets
out on certain days for the transportation
of merchandise, with an escort of soldiery
to protect it from the robbers.
Travellers avail themselves of its protection,
and a long file of carriages generally
accompany it.

A considerable time elapsed before
either landlord or waiter returned; being
hurried hither or thither by that tempest
of noise and bustle, which takes place
in an Italian inn on the arrival of any
considerable accession of custom. When
mine host re-appeared, there was a smile
of triumph on his countenance.

"Perhaps," said he, as he cleared the
table, "perhaps the signor has not heard
of what has happened?"

"What?" said the Englishman, drily.

"Why, the procaccio has brought

115

accounts of fresh exploits of the robbers."

"Pish!"

"There's more news of the English
Milor and his family," said the host, exultingly.

"An English lord? what English
lord?"

"Milor Popkin."

"Lord Popkins? I never heard of
such a title!"

"O sicuro! a great nobleman, who
passed through here lately with mi ladi
and her daughters. A magnifico, one
of the grand counsellors of London, an
almanno!"

"Almanno—almanno?—tut—he
means alderman."

"Sicuro—Aldermanno Popkin, and
the Principessa Popkin, and the Signorine
Popkin!" said mine host, triumphantly.

He now put himself into an attitude,
and would have launched into a full
detail, had he not been thwarted by the
Englishman, who seemed determined
neither to credit nor indulge him in his
stories, but drily motioned for him to
clear away the table.

An Italian tongue, however, is not
easily checked: that of mine host continued
to wag with increasing volubility,
as he conveyed the relics of the repast
out of the room; and the last that could
be distinguished of his voice, as it died
away along the corridor, was the iteration
of the favourite word, Popkin—
Popkin—Popkin—pop—pop—pop.

The arrival of the procaccio had, indeed,
filled the house with stories, as it
had with guests. The Englishman and
his companions walked after supper up
and down the large hall, or common
room of the inn, which ran through the
centre of the building. It was spacious
and somewhat dirty, with tables placed
in various parts, at which groups of travellers
were seated; while others strolled
about, waiting, in famished impatience,
for their evening's meal.

It was a heterogeneous assemblage of
people of all ranks and countries, who
had arrived in all kind of vehicles.
Though distinct knots of travellers, yet
the travelling together, under one common
escort, had jumbled them into a
certain degree of companionship on the
road: besides, on the continent travellers
are always familiar, and nothing is more
motley than the groups which gather
casually together in sociable conversation
in the public rooms of inns.

The formidable number, and formidable
guard of the procaccio, had prevented
any molestation from banditti; but every
party of travellers had its tale of wonder,
and one carriage vied with another in
its budget of assertions and surmises.
Fierce, whiskered faces had been seen
peering over the rocks; carbines and
stilettos gleaming from among the
bushes; suspicious-looking fellows, with
flapped hats and scowling eyes, had
occasionally reconnoitred a straggling
carriage, but had disappeared on seeing
the guard.

The fair Venitian listened to all these
stories with that avidity with which we
always pamper any feeling of alarm;
even the Englishman began to feel interested
in the common topic, and desirous
of getting more correct information
than mere flying reports. Conquering,
therefore, that shyness which is prone to
keep an Englishman solitary in crowds,
he approached one of the talking groups,
the oracle of which was a tall, thin
Italian, with long aquiline nose, a high
forehead, and lively prominent eye,
beaming from under a green velvet
travelling-cap, with gold tassel. He
was of Rome, a surgeon by profession,
a poet by choice, and something of an
improvisatore.

In the present instance, however, he
was talking in plain prose, but holding
forth with the fluency of one who talks
well, and likes to exert his talent. A
question or two from the Englishman
drew copious replies; for an Englishman
sociable among strangers is regarded as
a phenomenon on the continent, and
always treated with attention for the
rarity's sake. The improvisatore gave
much the same account of the banditti
that I have already furnished.

"But why does not the police exert
itself, and root them out?" demanded the
Englishman.

"Because the police is too weak, and
the banditti are too strong," replied the
other. "To root them out would be a

116

more difficult task than you imagine.
They are connected and mostly identified
with the mountain peasantry and the
people of the villages. The numerous
bands have an understanding with each
other, and with the country round. A
gendarme cannot stir without their being
aware of it. They have their scouts
every where, who lurk about towns,
villages, and inns, mingle in every
crowd, and pervade every place of
resort. I should not be surprised if
some one should be supervising us at
this moment."

—The fair Venitian looked round
fearfully, and turned pale.

Here the improvisatore was interrupted
by a lively Neapolitan lawyer.

"By the way," said he, "I recollect
a little adventure of a learned doctor, a
friend of mine, which happened in this
very neighbourhood; not far from the
ruins of Theodoric's Castle, which are
on the top of those great rocky heights
above the town."

A wish was, of course, expressed to
hear the adventure of the doctor by all
excepting the improvisatore, who, being
fond of talking and of hearing himself
talk, and accustomed, moreover, to harangue
without interruption, looked rather
annoyed at being checked when in
full career. The Neapolitan, however,
took no notice of his chagrin, but related
the following anecdote.

University of Virginia Library

THE INN AT TERRACINA.