From the Lakes of Killarney to the Golden Horn

In the recesses of the hills are many sheltered spots, protected from the northern winds, and open to the southern sun, which are the favorite resorts of invalids for the winter, as here sun and sea combine to give a softened air like that of a perpetual spring. When winter rages over the north of Europe, when snow covers the open country, and even drifts in the streets of great capitals, then it seems as if sunshine and summer retreated to the shores of the Mediterranean, and here lingered among the orange gardens that look out from the terraced slopes upon the silver sea. The warm south wind from African deserts tempers the fierceness of the northern blasts. And not only invalids, but people of wealth and fashion, who have the command of all countries and climates, and who have only to choose where to spend the winter with least of discomfort and most of luxury and pleasure, flock to these resorts. Last winter the Empress of Russia took up her quarters at San Remo, to inhale the balmy air – a simple luxury, which she could not find in her palace at St. Petersburg. And Prince Amadeus, son of the king of Italy, who himself wore a crown for a year, occupied a villa near by, and found here a tranquil happiness which he could never find on the troubled throne of Spain. A still greater resort than San Remo is Mentone, which for the winter months is turned into an English colony, with a sprinkling of Americans, who altogether form a society of their own, and thus enjoy, along with this delicious climate, the charms of their English and American life.

It is a pity that there should be a serpent in this garden of Paradise. But here he is – a huge green monster, twining among the flowers and the orange groves. Midway between Mentone and Nice is the little principality of Monaco, the smallest sovereignty in Europe, covering only a rocky peninsula that projects into the sea, and a small space around it. But small as it is, it is large enough to furnish a site for a pest worse than a Lazaretto – worse than the pirates of the Barbary coast that once preyed on the commerce of the Mediterranean – for here is the greatest gambling house in Europe. The famous – or infamous – establishments that so long flourished on the Rhine, at Homburg and Baden Baden, drawing hundreds and thousands into their whirlpools of ruin, have been broken up since the petty principalities have been absorbed in the great German empire. Thus driven from one point to another, the gamblers have been, like the evil spirit, seeking rest and finding none, till at last, by offering a large sum – I heard that it was four hundred thousand francs (eighty thousand dollars) a year – to the Prince of Monaco, they have induced him to sell himself to the Devil, and to allow his petty State to become a den of thieves. Hearing of this notorious establishment, I had a curiosity to see it, and so we were driven to Monte Carlo, which is the pretty name for a very bad place. Surely never was the palace of pleasure decked with more attractions. The place has been made like a garden. Extensive grounds have been laid out, where orange trees and palms are in full bloom. Winding walks conduct the visitor to retired and shady retreats. The building itself is of stately proportions, and one goes up the steps as if he were ascending a temple. Within the broad vestibule servants in livery receive the stranger with studied politeness, as a welcome guest, and with courtly smiles bow him in. The vestibule opens into a large assembly room for concerts and dancing, where one of the finest bands in Europe discourses delicious music. Entrance is free everywhere, except into the gaming-room, which however requires only your card as a proof of your respectability. One must give his name, and country, and profession! See how careful they are to have only the most select society. I was directed to the office, where two secretaries, of sober aspect, who looked as if they might be retired Methodist clergymen, required my name and profession. I felt that I was getting on rather dangerous ground, but answered by giving only my surname and the profession of editor, and received a card of admission, and passed in. We were in a large hall, with lofty ceiling, and walls decorated in a style that might become an apartment in a royal palace. There were three tables, at two of which gaming was going on. At the third the gamblers sat around idle, waiting for customers, for "business" is rather slack just now, as the season has not begun. A few weeks later, when the hotels along the sea are filled up, the place will be thronged, and all these tables will be kept going till midnight. At the two where play was in progress, we stood apart and watched the scene. There was a long table, covered with green cloth (I said it was a green monster), over which were scattered piles of gold and silver, and around which were some twenty-five persons, mostly men, though there were two or three women (it is well known that some of the most infatuated and desperate gamblers at Baden Baden were women). The game was what is known as roulette or rouge et noir [red and black].5 You lay down a piece of coin, a napoleon or a sovereign, or, if you cannot afford that, a five-franc piece, for they are so democratic that they are willing to take the small change of the poor, as well as the hundred or thousand francs of the rich. The wager is that, when a horizontal wheel which is sunk in the table – the roulette– is set revolving, a little ball like a boy's marble, which is set whirling in it, will rest on the black or red spot. Of course the thing is so managed that the chances are many to one that you will lose your money. But it looks fair, and the greenhorn is easily persuaded that it is an even chance, and that he is as likely to win as to lose, until experience makes him a sadder and a wiser man. Of those about the table, it was quite apparent, even to my inexperienced eye, that the greater part were professional gamblers. There is a look about them that is unmistakable. My companion, who had looked on half curious and half frightened, and who shrank up to my side (although everything is kept in such order, and with such an outward show of respectability, that there is no danger), remarked the imperturbable coolness of the players. The game proceeded in perfect silence, and no one betrayed the least emotion, whether he lost or won. But I explained to her that this was probably owing in part to the fact that they were mostly employés of the establishment, and had no real stake in the issue; but if they were not, a practised gambler never betrays any emotion. This is a part of his trade. He schools himself to it as an Indian does, who scorns to show suffering, even if he is bound at the stake. I noticed only one man who seemed to take his losses to heart. I presumed he was an outsider, and as he lost heavily, his face flushed, but he said nothing. This is the general course of the game. Not a word is spoken, even when men are losing thousands. Instances have occurred in which men gambled away their last dollar, and then rose from the table and blew out their brains – which interrupted the play disagreeably for a few moments; but the body was removed, the blood washed away, and the game proceeded as usual.

When we had watched the silent spectacle for half an hour, we felt that we had quite enough, and after strolling through the grounds and listening to the music, returned to our carriage and drove off, moralizing on the strange scene we had witnessed.

Did I regret that I had been to see this glittering form of temptation and sin? On the contrary, I wished that every pastor in New York could have stood there and looked on at that scene. We have had quite enough of firing at all kinds of wickedness at long range. It is time to move our batteries up a little nearer, and engage the enemy at close quarters. If those pastors had seen what we saw in that half hour, they would realize, as they cannot now, the dangers to which young men are exposed in our cities. They would see with their own eyes how broad is the road, and how alluring it is made, that leads to destruction, and how many there be that go in thereat. I look upon Monte Carlo as the very mouth of the pit, covered up with flowers, so that giddy creatures dance along its perilous edge till it crumbles under their feet. Thousands who come here with no intention of gambling, put down a small sum "just to try their luck," and find that "a fool and his money are soon parted." Many do not end with losing a few francs, or even a few sovereigns. It is well if they do not leave behind them what they can ill afford to lose. Very many young men leave what is not their own. That such a place of temptation should be allowed to exist here in this lovely spot on the shores of the Mediterranean, is a disgrace to Monaco, and to the powers on both sides of it, France and Italy, which, if they have no legal right to interfere, might by a vigorous protest put an end to the accursed thing. Probably it will after awhile provoke its own destruction. I should be glad to see the foul nest of gamblers that have congregated here, broken up, and the wretches sent to the galleys as convicts, or forced in some way to earn an honest living.

But is not this vice of gambling very wide-spread? Does it not exist in more forms than one, and in more countries than the little State of Monaco? I am afraid the vice lies deep in human nature, and may be found in some shape in every part of the world. Is there not a great deal of gambling in Wall street? When men bet on the rise and fall of stocks, when they sell what they do not possess, or buy that for which they have no money to pay, do they not risk their gains or losses on a chance, as much as those who stake thousands on the turning of a wheel, on a card or a die? It is the old sin of trying to get the fruits of labor without labor, to get something for nothing, that is the curse of all modern cities and countries, that demoralizes young men in New York and San Francisco, as well as in Paris and London. The great lesson which we all need to learn, is the duty and the dignity of labor. When a man never claims anything which he does not work for, then he may feel an honest pride in his gains, and may slowly grow in fortune without losing the esteem of the good, or his own manly self-respect.

Leaving this gorgeous den of thieves behind us, we haste away to the mountains; for while the railroad seeks its level path along the very shore of the sea, the Corniche road, built before railroads were thought of, finds its only passage over stupendous heights. We have now to climb a spur of the Alps, which here pushes its great shoulder close to the sea. It is a toilsome path for our little ponies, but they pull up bravely, height after height. Every one we mount, we hope to find the summit; but we keep going on and on, and up and up, till it seems like a Jacob's Ladder, which reaches to Heaven. When on one of the highest points, we look right down into Monte Carlo as into the crater of a volcano. It does not burn or smoke, but it has an open mouth, and many there be that there go down quick into hell.

We are at last on the top, and pass on from one peak to another, all the time enjoying a wide outlook over the blue Mediterranean, which lies calmly at the foot of these great mountains, with only a white sail here and there dotting the mighty waters.

It was nearly sunset when we came in sight of Nice, gleaming in the distance on the sea-shore. We had been riding all day, and our driver, a bright young Savoyard, seemed eager to have the long journey over, and so he put his ponies to their speed, and we came down the mountain as if shot out of a gun, and rattled through the streets of Nice at such a break-neck pace, that the police shouted after us, lest we should run over somebody. But there was no stopping our little Jehu, and on we went at full speed, till suddenly he reined us up with a jerk before the hotel.

In the old days when I first travelled in the south of Europe, Nice was an Italian town. It belonged to the small kingdom of Sardinia. But in 1860, as a return for the help of Napoleon in the campaign of 1859 against Austria, by which Victor Emmanuel gained Lombardy, it was ceded with Savoy to France, and now is a French city. I think it has prospered by the change. It has grown very much, until it has some fifty thousand inhabitants. Its principal attraction is as a winter resort for English and Americans. There are a number of Protestant churches, French and English. The French Evangelical church has for its pastor Rev. Leon Pilatte, who is well known in America.

It was now Saturday night, and the Sabbath drew on. Never was its rest more grateful, and never did it find us in a more restful spot. Everybody comes here for repose, to find rest and healing. The place is perhaps a little saddened by the presence of so many invalids, some of whom come here only to die. In yonder hotel on the shore, the heir of the throne of all the Russias breathed his last a few winters ago. These clear skies and this soft air could not save him, even when aided by all the medical skill of Europe. I should not have great faith in the restoring power of this or of any climate for one far gone in consumption. But certainly as a place of rest, if it is permitted to man to find rest anywhere on earth, it must be here, with the blue skies above, and the soft flowery earth below, and with no sound to disturb, but only the murmur of the moaning, melancholy sea.

But a traveller is not allowed to rest. He comes not to stay, but only to see– to look, and then to disappear; and so, after a short two days in Nice, we took a quick return by night, and in eight hours found ourselves again in Genoa.

CHAPTER XXI.

IN THE VALE OF THE ARNO

Florence, September 27th.

We are getting more into the heart of Italy as we come farther south. In the old Roman days the country watered by the Po was not a part of Italy; it was Cisalpine Gaul. This we leave behind as we turn southward from Genoa. The road runs along the shore of the Mediterranean; it is a continuation of the Riviera as far as Spezzia, where we leave the sea and strike inland to Pisa, one of the Mediæval cities, which in its best days was a rival of Genoa, and which has still some memorials of its former grandeur. Here we spent a night, and the next morning visited the famous Leaning Tower, and the Cathedral and Baptistery, and the Campo Santo (filled with earth brought from Jerusalem in fifty-three ships, that the faithful might be buried in holy ground), and then pursued our way along the Valley of the Arno to Florence.

And now the inspiration of the country, the genius loci, comes upon us more and more. We are in Tuscany, one of the most beautiful portions of the whole peninsula. We are favored by the season of the year. Before we came abroad I consulted some of my travelled friends as to the best time of the year to visit Italy. Most tourists come here in the winter. Rome especially is not thought to be safe till late in the autumn. But Dr. Bellows told me that, so far from waiting for cold weather, he thought Italy could be seen in its full beauty only in an earlier month, when the country was still clothed with vegetation. Certainly it is better to see it in its summer bloom, or in the ripeness of autumn, than when the land is stripped, when the mountains are bleak and bare, when there is not a leaf on the vine or the fig-tree, and only naked branches shiver in the wintry wind. We have come at a season when the earth has still its glory on. The vineyards are full of the riches of the year; the peasants are now gathering the grapes, and we have witnessed that most picturesque Italian scene, the vintage. Dark forests clothe the slopes of the Apennines. At this season there is a soft, hazy atmosphere, like that of our Indian summer, which gives a kind of purple tint to the Italian landscapes. The skies are fair, but not more fair than that heaven of blue which bends over many a beloved spot in America. Nor is the vegetation richer, nor are the landscapes more lovely, than in our own dear vales of Berkshire. Even the Arno at this season, like most of the other rivers of Italy, is a dried up bed with only a rivulet of muddy water running through it. Later in the autumn, when the rains descend; or in the spring, when the snows melt upon the mountains, it is swollen to such a height that it often overflows its banks, and the full stream rushes like a torrent. But at present the mighty Arno, of which poets have sung so much, is not so large as the Housatonic, nor half so beautiful as that silver stream, on whose banks the meadows are always fresh and green, and where the waters are pure and sparkling that ripple over its pebbled bed.

But the position of Florence is certainly one of infinite beauty, lying in a valley, surrounded by mountains. The approach to it by a railroad, when one gets his first view from a level, is much less picturesque than in the old days when we travelled by vettura, and came to it over the Apennines, and after a long day's journey reached the top of a distant hill, from which we saw Florence afar off, sitting like a queen in the Valley of the Arno, the setting sun reflected from the Duomo and the Campanile, and from all its domes and towers.

In this Valley of Paradise we have spent a week, visiting the galleries of pictures, and making excursions to Fiesolé and other points of view on the surrounding hills, from which to look down on as fair a scene as ever smiled beneath an Italian sun.

Florence is in many respects the most attractive place in Italy, as it unites the charms of art with those of modern life; as it exists not only in the dead past, but in the living present. It is a large, thriving, prosperous city, and has become a great resort of English and Americans, who gather here in the winter months, and form a most agreeable society. There are a number of American sculptors and painters, whose works are well known on the other side of the Atlantic. Some of their studios we visited, and saw abundant evidence, that with all our intensely practical life, the elements of taste and beauty, and of a genius for art, are not wanting in our countrymen.

Florence has had a material growth within a few years, from being for a time the capital of the new kingdom of Italy. When Tuscany was added to Sardinia, the capital was removed from Turin to Florence as a more central city, and the presence of the Court and the Parliament gave a new life to its streets. Now the Court is removed to Rome, but the impulse still remains, and in the large squares which have been opened, and the new buildings which are going up, one sees the signs of life and progress. To be sure, there is not only growing but groaning, for the taxes are fearfully high here, as everywhere in Italy. The country is bearing burdens as heavy as if it were in a state of war. If only Italy were the first country in Europe to reduce her armaments, she could soon lighten the load upon her people.

But leaving aside all political and financial questions, one may be permitted to enjoy this delightful old city, with its treasures of art, and its rich historical memories. Florence has lately been revelling in its glories of old days in a celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of the birth of Michael Angelo – as a few years since it celebrated the six hundredth anniversary of the birth of Dante. Surely few men in history better deserve to be remembered than Michael Angelo, whose rugged face looks more like that of a hard-headed old Scotchman, than of one who belonged to the handsome Italian race. And yet that brain was full of beautiful creations, and in his life of eighty-nine years he produced enough to leave, not only to Florence, but to Rome, many monuments of his genius. He was great in several forms of art – as painter, sculptor, and architect – and even had some pretension to be a poet. He was the sculptor of David and Moses; the painter of the Last Judgment and the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, and the architect who built St. Peter's. And his character was equal to his genius. He was both religious and patriotic, not only building churches, but the fortifications that defended Florence against her enemies. Such was Michael Angelo – a simple, grand old man, whose name is worthy to live with the heroes of antiquity.

We were too late to enjoy the fétes that were given at this anniversary, and were only able to be present at the performance of Verdi's Requiem, which concluded the whole. This sublime composition was written for the great Italian author Manzoni, and to be sung in the Cathedral of Milan, whose solemn aisles were in harmony with its mournful and majestic strains. Now it would have seemed more fitting in the Duomo of Florence than in a theatre, though perhaps the latter was better constructed for an orchestra and an audience. The performance of the Requiem was to be the great musical event of the year; we had heard the fame of it at Milan and at Venice, and having seen what Italy could show in one form of art, we were now able to appreciate it in another. Months had been spent in preparation. Distinguished singers were to lead in the principal parts, while hundreds were to join their voices in the tremendous chorus. On the night that we witnessed the representation, the largest theatre in Florence was crowded from pit to dome, although the price of admission was very high. In the vast assembly was comprised what was most distinguished in Florence, with representatives from other cities of Italy, and many from other countries. The performance occupied over two hours. It began with soft, wailing melodies, such as might be composed to soothe a departing soul, or to express the wish of survivors that it might enter into its everlasting rest. Then succeeded the Dies Iræ – the old Latin hymn, which for centuries has sounded forth its accents of warning and of woe. Those who are familiar with this sublime composition will remember the terrific imagery with which the terrors of the Judgment are presented, and can imagine the effect of such a hymn rendered with all the power of music. We had first a quiet, lulling strain – almost like silence, which was the calm before the storm. Then a sound was heard, but low, as of something afar off, distant and yet approaching. Nearer and nearer it drew, swelling every instant, till it seemed as if the trumpets that should wake the dead were stirring the alarmed air. At last came a crash as if a thunder peal had burst in the building. This terrific explosion, of course, was soon relieved by softer sounds. There were many and sudden transitions, one part being given by a single powerful voice, or by two or three, or four, and then the mighty chorus responding with a sound like that of many waters. After the Dies Iræ followed a succession of more gentle strains, which spoke of Pardon and Peace. The Agnus Dei and other similar parts were given with a tenderness that was quite overpowering. Those who have heard the Oratorio of the Messiah, and remember the melting sweetness of such passages as "He leadeth me beside the still waters," and "I know that my Redeemer liveth," can form an idea of the marvellous effect. I am but an indifferent judge of music, but I could not but observe how much grander such a hymn as the Dies Iræ sounds in the original Latin than in any English version. Eternal rest are sweet words in English, but in music they can never be rendered with the effect of the Latin REQUIEM SEMPITERNAM, on which the voices of the most powerful singers lingered and finally died away, as if bidding farewell to a soul that was soaring to the very presence of God. This Requiem was a fitting close to the public celebrations by which Florence did honor to the memory of her illustrious dead.

Michael Angelo is buried in the church of Santa Croce, and near his tomb is that of another illustrious Florentine, whose name belongs to the world, and to the heavens– "the starry Galileo." We have sought out the spots associated with his memory – the house where he lived and the room where he died. The tower from which he made his observations is on an elevation which commands a wide horizon. There with his little telescope – a very slender tube and very small glass, compared with the splendid instruments in our modern observatories – he watched the constellations, as they rose over the crest of the Apennines, and followed their shining path all night long. There he observed the mountains in the moon, and the satellites of Jupiter. What a commentary on the intelligence of the Roman Catholic Church, that such a man should be dragged before the Inquisition – before ignorant priests who were not worthy to untie his shoes – and required, under severe penalties, to renounce the doctrine of the revolution of the globe. The old man yielded in a moment of weakness, to escape imprisonment or death, but as he rose from his knees, his spirit returned to him, and he exclaimed "But still it moves!" A good motto for reformers of all ages. Popes and inquisitors may try to stop the revolution of the earth, but still it moves!