Mentone, Cairo, and Corfu

"How these poor timid little towns clung close to and under their lords' walls!" said Baker, with the fine contempt of a young American. "They are all alike: the castle towering above; next the church and the priest; and the people – nowhere!"

"The people were happy enough, living in this air," said Mrs. Clary. "How does it strike you? To me it seems delicious; but many persons find it too exciting."

"It certainly gives me an appetite," I said, taking another sandwich.

Miss Elaine found it "too warm." Miss Graves found it "too cold." Mrs. Trescott, having been made herself again by a glass of the "good little white wine" of Gorbio, said that it was "almost too idealizing." Lloyd remarked that it was not "too anything unless too delightful," and that, for his part, he wished that, with the present surroundings, he might "breathe it forever!" This was gallant. Janet looked at him: he was the only one who had not bowed at her shrine, and it made her pensive. Meanwhile Inness's gayety continued; he made a voyage of discovery through the narrow streets below, coming back with the legend that he had met the prettiest girl he had seen since his "pretty girl of Arles," whose eyes, "enshrined beside those of Miss Trescott" (with a grand bow), had remained ever since in his "heart's inmost treasury." This, like Baker's L' Annunziata speech, was both un-American and unnecessary in the presence of a second young lady, and I looked at Inness, surprised. But Miss Elaine only smiled on.

The Professor now appeared, having come out from Mentone on a donkey. We immediately became historical. It appeared that the castle upon whose old battlements we were idly loitering was one of the "homes" of the Lascaris, Counts of Ventimiglia, who in 1358 transferred it with its domains to the Grimaldis, Princes of Monaco.

"These Lascaris and Grimaldis seem to have played at seesaw for the possession of this coast," said Baker. "Now one is up, and now the other, but never any one else."

But Janet was impressed. "Again the Lascaris!" she murmured.

"What is your idea of them?" said Verney.

"I hardly know; but of course they were knights in armor; and of course, being Greeks, they had classic profiles. They were impulsive, and they were generous; but if any one seriously displeased them, they immediately ordered him cast into that terrible oubliette we saw below."

"That," said the Professor, mildly, "is only the well." Then, as if to strengthen her with something authentic, he added, "The village was sacked by the Duke of Guise towards the end of the sixteenth century, when this castle was reduced to the ruined condition in which we find it now."

"Happily it is not altogether ruined," said Mrs. Trescott, putting up her eye-glass; "one of the – the apartments seems to be roofed, and to possess doors."

"That," said the Professor, "is a donkey-stable, erected – or rather adapted – later."

"Do the donkeys come up all these stairs?" I said, amused.

"I believe they do," replied the Professor. "Indeed, I have seen them coming up after the day's work is over."

"I am sorry, Janet, but I shall never be able to think of this home of your Lascaris after this without seeing a procession of donkeys coming up-stairs on their way to their high apartments," I said, laughing.

"The procession might have been the same in the days of the Lascaris," suggested Baker.

Roccabruna – brown rock – is an appropriate name for the village, which is so brown and so mixed with and built into the cliff to which it clings that it is difficult to tell where man's work ends and that of nature begins.

"The town was the companion of Mentone in its rebellion against the Princes of Monaco," said the Professor. "Mentone and Roccabruna freed themselves, but Monaco remained enslaved."

"They are all now in France," said Baker.

"Sir!" replied the Professor, with heat, "it is in a much worse place than France that wretched Monaco now finds herself!"

We went homeward down the mountain-side, passing the little chapel of the Madonna della Pausa – a pause being indeed necessary when one is ascending. Here, where the view was finest, there was another way-side cross. Farther on, as we entered the old olive wood below, Margaret dismounted; she always liked to walk through the silver-gray shade; and Lloyd seemed to have adopted an equal fondness for the same tint.

That evening, when we were alone, Margaret explained the secret of Inness's remarkable and unflagging gayety. It seemed that Miss Elaine had, during the day before, confided to Verney – as a fellow-countryman, I suppose – her self-reproach concerning "that poor young American gentleman, Mr. Inness." What should she do? Would he advise her? She must go to some one, and she did not feel like troubling her dear mamma. It was true that Mr. Inness had been with her a good deal, had helped her wind her worsteds in the evening, but she never meant anything – never dreamed of anything. And now, she could not but feel – there was something in his manner that forced her to see – In short, had not Mr. Verney noticed it?

Now I have no doubt but that Verney told her he had "seen" and had "noticed" everything she desired. But in the meanwhile he could not resist confiding the story to Baker, who having been already a victim, was overcome with glee, and in his turn hastened to repeat the tale to Inness.

Inness raged, but hardly knew what to do. He finally decided to become a perfect Catharine-wheel of gayety, shooting off laughter and jokes in all directions to convince the world that he remained heart-whole.

"But it will be of no avail," I said to Margaret, laughing, as I recalled the look of soft pity on Miss Elaine's face all day; "she will think it but the gayety of desperation." Then, more soberly, I added: "Mr. Lloyd told you this, I suppose? You are with him a great deal, are you not?"

"You see that I am, aunt. But it is only because she has not come yet."

"Who?"

"The brighter and younger woman who will take my place." But I did not think she believed it.

On another day we went to Castellare, a little stone village much like Gorbio, perched on its ridge, and rejoicing in an especial resemblance to one of Cæsar's fortified camps. The castle here was not so much a castle as a château; its principal apartment was adorned with frescos representing the history of Adam and Eve. We should not have seen these frescos if it had not been for Miss Graves: I am afraid we should have (there is no other word) shirked them. But Miss Graves had heard of the presence of ancient works of art, and was bent upon finding them. In vain Lloyd conducted her in and out of half a dozen old houses, suggesting that each one was "probably" all that was left of the "château." Miss Graves remained inflexibly unconvinced, and in the end gained her point. We all saw Adam and Eve.

"Why did they want frescos away out here in this primitive little village to which no road led, hardly even a donkey path?" I said.

"That is the very reason," replied Margaret. "They had no society, nothing to do; so they looked at their frescos exhaustively."

"What do those eagles at the corners represent?" said Janet.

"They are the device of the Lascaris," replied the Professor.

"Do you mean to tell me that this was one of their homes also?" she exclaimed. "Let a chair be brought, and all of you leave me. I wish to remain here alone, and imagine that I am one of them."

"Couldn't you imagine two?" said Inness. And he gained his point.

On our way home we found another block in the main street, and paused. We were near what we called the umbrella place – an archway opening down towards the old port; here against the stone wall an umbrella-maker had established his open-air shop, and his scarlet and blue lined parasols and white umbrellas, hung up at the entrance, made a picturesque spot of color we had all admired. This afternoon we were late; it was nearly twilight, and, in this narrow, high-walled street, almost night. As we waited we heard chanting, and through the dusky archway came a procession. First a tall white crucifix borne between two swinging lamps; then the surpliced choir-boys, chanting; then the incense and the priests; then a coffin, draped, and carried in the old way on the shoulders of the bearers, who were men robed in long-hooded black gowns reaching to the feet, their faces covered, with only two holes for the eyes. These were members of the Society of Black Penitents, who, with the White Penitents, attend funerals by turn, and care for the sick and poor, from charitable motives alone, and without reward. Behind the Penitents walked the relatives and friends, each with a little lighted taper. As the procession came through the dark archway, crossed the street, and wound up the hill into the "old town," its effect, with the glancing lights and chanting voices, was weirdly picturesque. It was on its way to the cemetery above.

"Did you ever read this, Mr. Lloyd?" I heard Margaret say behind me, as we went onward towards home:

"'One day, in desolate wind-swept space,In twilight-land, in no-man's-land,Two hurrying Shapes met face to face,And bade each other stand."And who art thou?" cried one, agape,Shuddering in the gloaming light."I do not know," said the second Shape:"I only died last night."'"

I turned. Lloyd was looking at her curiously, or rather with wonder.

"Come, Margaret," I said, falling behind so as to join them, "the English are not mystical, as some of us are. They are content with what they can definitely know, and they leave the rest."

During the next week, after a long discussion, we decided to go up the valley of the Nervia. The discussion was not inharmonious: we liked discussions.

"This is by no means one of the ordinary Mentone excursions," said Mrs. Clary, as our three carriages ascended the Cornice Road towards the east, on a beautiful morning after one of the rare showers. "Many explore all of the other valleys, and visit Monaco and Monte Carlo; but comparatively few go up the Nervia."

The scene of the instalment of our twelve selves in these three carriages, by-the-way, was amusing. Between the inward determination of Inness, Verney, Baker, and the Professor to be in the carriage which held Janet, and the equally firm determination of Miss Elaine to be in the carriage which held them, it seemed as if we should never be placed. But no one said what he or she wished; far from it. Everybody was very polite, wonderfully polite; everybody offered his or her place to everybody else. Lloyd, after waiting a few moments, calmly helped Margaret into one of the carriages, handed in her shawl, and then took a seat himself opposite. But the rest of us surged helplessly to and fro among the wheels, not quite knowing what to do, until the arrival of the hotel omnibus hurried us, when we took our places hastily, without any arrangement at all, and drove off as follows: in the first carriage, Mrs. Trescott, Janet, Miss Elaine, and myself; in the second, Miss Graves, Inness, Verney, and Baker; in the third, Mrs. Clary, Margaret, Lloyd, and the Professor. This assortment was so comical that I laughed inwardly all the way up the first hill. Miss Elaine looked as if she was on the point of shedding tears; and the Professor, who did not enjoy the conversation of either Margaret or Mrs. Clary, was equally discomfited. As for the faces of the three young men shut in with Miss Graves, they were a study. However, it did not last long. The young men soon preferred "to walk uphill." Then we stopped at Mortola to see the Hanbury garden, and took good care not to arrange ourselves in the same manner a second time. Still, as four persons cannot, at least in the present state of natural science, occupy at the same moment the space only large enough for one, there was all day more or less manœuvring. From Mortola to Ventimiglia I was in the carriage with Janet, Inness, and Verney.

"What ruin is that on the top of the hill?" said Janet. "It looks like a castle."

"It is a castle – Castel d'Appio," said Verney; "a position taken by the Genoese in 1221 from the Lascaris, who – "

"Stop the carriage! – I must go up," said Janet.

"I assure you, Miss Trescott, that, Lascaris or no Lascaris, you will find yourself mummied in mud after this rain," said Inness. "I went up there in a dry time, and even then had to wade."

Now if there is anything which Janet especially cherishes, it is her pretty boots; so Castel d'Appio remained unvisited upon its height, in lonely majesty against the sky. The next object of interest was a square tower, standing on the side-hill not far above the road; it was not large on the ground, rather was it narrow, but it rose in the air to an imposing height. I could not imagine what its use had been: it stood too far from the sea for a lookout, and, from its shape, could hardly have been a residence; in its isolation, not a fortress. Inness said it looked like a steeple with the church blown away; and then, inspired by his own comparison, he began to chant an ancient ditty about

"'The next thing they saw was a barn on a hill:One said 'twas a barn;The other said "Na-ay;"And t'other 'twas a church with its steeple blown away:Look – a – there!'"

This extremely venerable ballad delighted Miss Graves in the carriage behind so that she waved her black parasol in applause. She asked if Inness could not sing "Springfield Mountain."

"There is nothing left now," I said, laughing, "but the 'Battle of the Nile.'"

Verney, who had sketched the tower early in the winter, explained that the old road to Ventimiglia passed directly through the lower story, which was built in the shape of an arch. All the carriages were now together, as we gazed at the relic.

"The road goes through?" said Miss Graves. "Probably, then, it was a toll-gate."

This was so probable, although unromantic, that thereafter the venerable structure was called by that name, or, as Inness suggested, "not to be too disrespectful, the mediæval T.G."

Ventimiglia, seven miles from Mentone, was "one of the most ancient towns in Liguria," the Professor remarked. Mrs. Trescott, Mrs. Clary, and I looked much wiser after this information, but carefully abstained from saying anything to each other of the cloudy nature of our ideas respecting the geographical word. However, we noticed, unaided, that its fortifications were extensive, for we rolled over a drawbridge to enter it, passing high stone-walls, bastions, and port-holes, while on the summit of the hill above us frowned a large Italian fort. The Roya, a broad river which divides the town into two parts, is crossed by a long bridge; and we were over this bridge and some distance beyond before we discovered that we had left the old quarter on the other side, its closely clustering roofs and spires having risen so directly over our heads on the steep side-hill that we had not observed them. Should we go back? The carriages drew up to consider. We had still "a long drive before us;" these "old Riviera villages" were "all alike;" the hill seemed "very steep;" and "we can come here, you know, at any time" – were some of the opinions given. The Professor, who really wished to stop, gallantly yielded. Miss Graves, alone in the opposition, was obliged to yield also; but she was deeply disappointed. The cathedral, formerly dedicated to Jupiter, "'possesses a white marble pulpit incrusted with mosaics, and an octagon font, very ancient,'" she read, mournfully, aloud, from her manuscript note-book. "'The Church of St. Michael, also, guards Roman antiquities of surpassing interest.'" This word "guards" had a fine effect.

But, "we can come here at any time, you know," carried the day; and we drove on. I may as well mention that, as usual in such cases, we never did "come here at any time," save on the one occasion of our departure for Florence – an occasion which no railway traveller going to Italy by this route is likely soon to forget, the Ventimiglia custom-house being modelled patriotically upon the circles of Dante's "Inferno."

When we were at a safe distance – "I suppose you know, Miss Trescott, that Ventimiglia was the principal home of your Lascaris?" said Verney. "First of all, they were Counts of Ventimiglia: that Italian port stands on the site of their old castle. I have been looking into their genealogy a little on your account; and I find that the first count of whom we have authentic record was a son of the King of Italy, A.D. 950. His son married the Princess Eudoxie, daughter of Theodore Lascaris, Emperor of Greece, and assumed the arms and name of his wife's family. Their descendants, besides being Counts of Ventimiglia, became Seigniors of Mentone, Castellare, Gorbio, Peille, Tende, and Briga, Roccabruna, and what is now L'Annunziata. They also had a château at Nice."

"Let us go back!" said Janet.

"To Nice?" I asked, smiling.

But Verney appeased her with an offering – nothing less than a sketch he had made. "The Lascaris," he said, as if introducing them. And there they were, indeed, a group of knights on horseback, dressed in velvet doublets and lace ruffles, with long white plumes, followed by a train of pages and squires with armor and led-horses. All had Greek profiles: in truth, they were but various views of the Apollo Belvedere. This splendid party was crossing the drawbridge of a castle, and, from a latticed casement above, two beautiful and equally Greek ladies, attired in ermine, with long veils and golden crowns, waved their scarfs in token of adieu.

"Charming!" said Janet, much pleased. (And in truth it was, if fanciful, a very pretty sketch.) "But who are those ladies above?"

"I suppose they had wives and sisters, did they not?" said Verney.

"I suppose they did – of some sort," said Janet, disparagingly.

But Verney now produced a second sketch; "another study of the same subject," he called it. This was a picture of the same number of men, clad in clumsy armor, with rough, coarse faces, attacking a pass and compelling two miserable frightened peasants with loaded mules to yield up what they had, while, from a rude tower above, like our mediæval T. G., two or three swarthy women with children were watching the scene. The wrappings of the two sketches being now removed, we saw that one was labelled, "The Lascaris – her Idea of them;" and the other, "The Lascaris – as they were."

We all laughed. But I think Janet was not quite pleased. After the next change Verney found himself, by some mysterious chance, left to occupy the seat beside Miss Elaine, while Baker had his former place.

The Nervia, a clear rapid little snow-formed river, ran briskly down over its pebbles towards the sea. Our road followed the western bank, and before long brought us to Campo Rosso, a little village with a picturesque belfry, a church whose façade was decorated with old frescos, two marble sirens spouting water, and numberless "bits" in the way of vistas through narrow arched passages and crooked streets, which are the delight of artists. But Campo Rosso was not our destination, and entering the carriage again, we went onward through an olive wood whose broad terraces extended above, below, and on all sides as far as eye could reach. When we had stopped wondering over its endlessness, and had grown accustomed to the gray light, suddenly we came out under the open sky again, with Dolce Acqua before us, its castle above, its church tower below, and, far beyond, our first view of snow-capped peaks rising high and silvery against the deep blue sky. Inness and Baker threw up their hats and saluted the snow with an American hurrah. "What with those white peaks and this Italian sky, I feel like the Merry Swiss Boy and the Marble Faun rolled into one," said Baker.

We drove up to the Locanda Desiderio, or "Desired Inn," as Inness translated it. It was now noon, and in the brick-floored apartment below a number of peasants were eating sour bread and drinking wine. But the host, a handsome young Italian, hastened to show us an upper chamber, where, with the warm sunshine flooding through the open windows across the bare floor, we spread our luncheon on a table covered with coarse but snowy homespun, and decked with remarkable plates in brilliant hues and still more brilliant designs. The luncheon was accompanied by several bottles of "the good little white wine" of the neighborhood – an accompaniment we had learned to appreciate.

Upon the chimney-piece of a room adjoining ours, whose door stood open, there was an old brass lamp. In shape it was not unlike a high candlestick crowned with an oval reservoir for oil, which had three little curving tubes for wicks, and an upright handle above ending in a ring; it was about a foot and a half high, and from it hung three brass chains holding a brass lamp-scissors and little brass extinguishers. Mrs. Clary, Mrs. Trescott, Miss Graves, Miss Elaine, and myself all admired this lamp as we strolled about the rooms after luncheon before starting for the castle. It happened that Janet was not there; she had gone, by an unusual chance, with Lloyd, to look at some cinque-cento frescos in an old church somewhere, and was, I have no doubt, deeply interested in them. When she returned she too spied the old lamp, and admired it. "I wish I had it for my own room at home," she exclaimed. "I feel sure it is Aladdin's."

"Come, come, Janet," called Mrs. Trescott from below. "The castle waits."

"It has waited some time already," said Inness – "a matter of six or seven centuries, I believe."

"And looks as though it would wait six or seven more," I said, as we stood on the arched bridge admiring the massive walls above.

"It has withstood numerous attacks," said the Professor. "Genoese armies came up this valley more than once to take it, and went back unsuccessful."

"To me it is more especially distinguished by not having been a home of the Lascaris," said Baker.

"To whom, then, did it belong?" said Janet, contemptuously.

We all, in a chorus, answered grandly, "To the Dorias!" (We were so glad to have reached a name we knew.)

The castle crowned the summit of a crag, ruined but imposing; in shape a parallelogram, it had in front square towers, five stories in height, pierced with round-arched windows. It was the finest as well as largest ruin we lately landed Americans had seen, and we went hither and thither with much animation, telling each other all we knew, and much that we did not know, about ruined towers, square towers, drawbridges, moats, donjon keeps, and the like; while Miss Elaine, who had placed herself beside Verney on the knoll where he was sketching, looked on in a kindly patronizing way, as much as to say: "Enjoy yourselves, primitive children of the New World. We of England are familiar with ruins."

Margaret and Lloyd found a seat in one of the ruined windows of the south tower; I stood beside them for a few moments looking at the view. On the north the narrow valley curved and went onward, while over its dark near green rose the glittering snowy peaks so far away. In the south, the blue of the Mediterranean stretched across the mouth of the valley, whose sides were bold and high; the little river gleamed out in spots of silver here and there, and the white belfry of Campo Rosso rose picturesquely against the dark olive forest. Directly under us were the roofs of the village, and the old stone bridge of one high arch. "Do you notice that many of these roofs are flat, with benches, and pots of flowers?" said Lloyd. "You do not see that in Mentone. It is thoroughly Italian."

Janet, Mrs. Trescott, Inness, Baker, and the Professor were up on the highest point of the crag, where the Professor was giving a succinct account of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. His words floated down to us, but to which of those celebrated and eternally quarrelling factions these Dorias belong I regret to say I cannot now remember. But it was evident that he was talking eloquently, and Inness, who was quite distanced, by way of diversion threw pebbles at the north tower.

We came down from the castle after a while, and strolled through the village streets – all of us save Margaret and Lloyd, who remained sitting in their window. Mrs. Trescott, seeing a vaulted entrance, stopped to examine it, and the broad doors being partly open, she peeped within. As there was more vaulting and no one to forbid, she stepped into the old hall, and we all followed her. We were looking at the massive, finely proportioned stairway, when a little girl appeared above gazing down curiously. She was a pretty child of seven or eight, and held some little thumbed school-books under her arm.