between them and the land. Well, we are just coming to the point from which we shall see Hyeres: for we are not going outside the islands, as I think, but between them and a projecting point of the coast, connected only by a low strip of sand or shingle with the mainland. And now the sun is almost setting, and from him to us there is one golden line through the water, and the mountains, sea, and sky are all putting on a sober and a deeper tint. It is solemnly beautiful to see the sea under the vessel, just where the foam caused by the paddles melts away into the mass of blue. the restless but yet beautiful finite lost in the peaceful and more beautiful infinite. The historical interest of this coast and sea almost sink in their natural beauties; together, they give to this scene an interest not to be surpassed. And now, good night, my darling, and all of you: you know how soon night comes here after the sun is down; and even now his orb is touching the mountains. May God's blessing be with you and with us, through Jesus Christ. - Genoa, July 4, 1840. 4. We are now farther from England than at any time in our former tour, dearest but our faces are still set onwards, and I believe that the more I dislike Italy, or rather the Italians, so the more eagerly do I desire to see those parts of it which remind me only of past times, and allow me to forget the present. Certainly I do greatly prefer France to Italy, Frenchmen to Italians; for a lying people, which these emphatically are, stink in one's moral nose all the day long. Good and sensible men, no doubt, there are here in abundance; but no nation presents so bad a side to a traveller as this. For, whilst we do not see its domestic life and its private piety and charity, the infinite vileness of its public officers, the pettiness of the Governments, the gross ignorance and the utter falsehood of those who must come in your way, are a continual annoyance. When you see a soldier here, you feel no confidence that he can fight; when you see a so-called man of letters, you are not sure that he has more knowledge than a baby; when you see a priest, he may be an idolater or an unbeliever; when you see a judge or a public functionary, justice and integrity may be utter strangers to his vocabulary. It is this which makes a nation vile, when profession, whether Godward or manward, is no security for performance. Now in England we know that every soldier will fight, and every public functionary will be honest. In France and in Prussia we know the same; and with us, though many of our clergy may be idolaters, yet we feel sure that none is an unbeliever. 5. Pisa, July 5, 1840. But O the solemn and characteristic beauty of that cathedral, with its simple, semicircular arches of the twelfth century, its double aisles, and its splendor of marbles and decoration of a later date, especially on the ceiling. Then we went to the Baptistery, and lastly to the Campo Santo, a most perfect cloister, the windows looking towards the burying-ground within, being of the most delicate work. But that burying-ground itself is the most striking thing of all; it is the earth of the Holy City; for when the Pisan Crusaders were in Palestine, they thought no spoil which they could bring home was so precious as so many feet in depth of the holy soil, as a burying-place for them and their children. This was not like Anson watching the Pacific from Tinian to Acapulco, in order to catch the Spanish treasure-ship. Now, however, this noble burying-ground is disused, and only a few favored persons are laid there by the special permission of the Grand Duke. The wild vine grows freely out of the ground, and clothes it better, to my judgment, than four cypresses, two at each end, which have been lately planted. The Campo Santo is now desecrated by being made a museum. The famous Cenotaphium Pisanum is here, a noble monument, but Julia's sons and Augustus's grandsons have no business on the spot which the Pisans filled with the holy earth of Jerusalem. The town itself is very striking; the large flat pavement filling up the whole street as at Florence, and the oróa on each side, or else good and clean houses, varied with some of illustrious antiquity. And after all we were not searched at the gate of Pisa; it seems it has been lately forbidden by the government, — a great humanity. And now, dearest -, good night, and God bless you and all our darlings, and wish us a prosperous journey of three days to the great city of cities; for Naples, I confess, does in comparison appear to me to be viler than vile, a city without one noble association in ancient days or modern. July 6, 1840. C. And now we are on the great road from Florence to Rome. Rome once again, but now how much dearer, and to me more interesting than when I saw it last, and in how much dearer company. Yet how sad will it be not to find Bunsen there, and to feel that Niebuhr is gone. I note here in every group of people whom I meet many with light, very light eyes. Is this the German blood of the middle-age conquests and wars, or are the mass of the present Italians descended from the Roman slaves, Ligurians, Kelts, Germans, and from all other nations? However, of the fact of the many light eyes in Tuscany I am sure. The country is beautiful, and we are going up amidst oak woods chiefly. The hedges here are brilliant; the Sweet William pinks of the deepest color; the broom, the clematis, and the gum-cistus Salvianus, that beautiful flower which I have never seen wild since 1827. Here is the beginning of the mountain scenery of Central Italy, only a very faint specimen of it; but yet bearing its character, -the narrow valley, the road in a terrace above it, the village of Staggia with its old walls and castle tower, the vines, figs, and olives over all the country, and the luxuriant covering of all the cliffs and road-side banks, the wild fig and wild vine. Arrived at Castiglioncello 1.45. Left it 1.53. Ascending gradually towards Sienna, which is at the top of the whole country, dividing the streams which feed the Arno from those that feed the Ombrone. The road here is a defile through oak woods, very beautiful; and after having got up through the wood, we are in a high plain, but with higher hills around us, and a great deal of wood. Here the country looks parched, for the soil is shallow. Arrived at the gates of Sienna 3.16. I hope that I shall not have much time to write; nor have I, for the carriage is at the door. Left Sienna 4.50. We did not stop long, as is evident, but we dined, for two pauls each (about one franc), and we saw the cathedral, a thing very proper to do, and moreover the cathedral is fine and very rich, and has some pictures; amongst the rest, a set of pictures of the events of the life of my old friend Æneas Silvius, designed, it is said, by Raphaelle in his early youth. There were also some fine illuminations of some ancient music-books, and some very well-executed Mosaics. Yet I should be a false man if I professed to feel much pleasure in such things. What I did rejoice in was the view which we had, far and wide, from the heights of Sienna, a boundless range of Apennines. And coming out of Sienna, we have just had a shower of Cicada drop from the trees upon the carriage, who hopped off when anything threatened them behind with an agility truly marvellous. And now we are descending from our height, amidst a vast extent of corn-fields just cleared, and the view is not unlike that from Pain à Bouchain, only some of the Apennines before us are too fine for the hills about Roanne. Let me notice now several things to the credit of the Italians hereabouts. First of all, the excessive goodness of the Albergo del' Ussaro at Pisa, where the master, who speaks English, changed my French money into Tuscan and Roman, a convenience to avoid the endless disputes about the exact value of the foreign coinage. Next, at Castiglioncello, the stage before Sienna, there is "Terzo Cavallo," and justly, seeing that the whole stage is up hill. I said to the ostler, "You have a right, I believe, here, to a third horse;" to which he said, "Yes." But presently he added, “You are only two persons, and I shall send you with two;" and this he did without any compromise of paying for two horses and a half: but we had two, and we paid only for two. And finally, the Sienna dinner, at four pauls, at the Aquila Nera, was worthy of all commendation. As I have occasion to complain often of the Italians, it is pleasant to be able to make these exceptions. Sienna stands like Langres, and as we have been descending, two little streams have risen in the hill-sides right and left, and now they meet and form a green valley, into which we are just descended, and find again the hedgerows, the houses, and the vines. Arrived at Montaroni 5.57. Left it 6.4. And still, I believe we are going to have another stage of descent to Buon Convento. Alas! an adventure has sadly delayed us, for though the stage be mostly descent or level ground, yet there was one sharp little hill soon after we left Montaroni, in the middle of which our horses absolutely would not go on, wherefore the carriage would go back, and soon got fast in the ditch. M- got out very safely, and we got the carriage out of the ditch, but it was turned round in the doing it, and the road was so narrow that we could not turn it right again for a long time. Meanwhile, a passing traveller kindly carried a message back to the post for a Terzo, and after a while Terzo and a boy came to our aid, and brought us up the hill valiantly; and Terzo is now trotting on, a bright example to his companions. July 7. Left Buon Convento 5.16. Again a lovely morning, dearest and certainly if a man does not glorify God in this country, yet, as we have just been reading,* "the very stones do indeed cry out." The country is not easy to describe, for the framework of the Apennines here is very complicated, the ribs of the main chain being very twisted, and throwing out other smaller ribs which are no less so, so that the valleys are infinitely winding; but, generally we were on the Ombrone at Buon Convento, and at Torrinieri shall be on one of his feeders, which runs so as to form a very acute angle with him at his confluence. Between the two the ground is thrown about in swells and falls indescribable. The country is generally open corn land, just cleared, but varied with patches of copse, of heath, and of vines and other trees in the valleys, and the farm-houses perched about in the summit of the hills with their odd little corn-stacks, some scattered all over the fields, and others making a belt round the houses. Il Cavallo Inglese at Buon Convento was a decent place as to beds, but roguish, as the small places always are, in their charges. The Terzo did well, and brought us well to Buon Convento after all. At this moment, Monte Alcino, on a high mountain on the right, is looking splendidly under the morning sun, with its three churches, its castle, and the mass of trees beneath it. Arrived at Torrinieri 6.15. Left it 6.21, with four horses, but only three are to be paid for, which is all quite right; the fourth is for their own pleasure. We have just crossed the Orcia, and these great ascents, which require the Terzo, are but shoulders dividing one feeder of the Ombrone from another, the Orcia from the Tressa. We have had one enormous ascent, and descent by zig and zag to a little feeder, and now we are up again to go down to another. On this intermediate height, rising out of a forest of olives, with its old wall, its church, with a fine Norman doorway, and its castle tower, stands S. Quirico, on no river, my M- but a place beginning with a Q., when we "play at Geographical." We are just under its walls, with a mass of ilex sloping down from the foot of the walls to the road; the machicolations of the walls are very striking. We are descending towards the Tressa, a vast view before us, bounded by the mountains of Radicofani. The hills which we are descending are thickly wooded on our right, with the most picturesque towns on their summits; while the deep furrows in this blue marl, though * That is, in the daily lessons of Scripture, which, with the Te Deum, they used to read every morning on starting. |