thorities that I would request, as I required, an interview with my ambassador on the subject of my passport. This intimation produced only a contemptuous sneer, and some insulting remark from one of the young officials, which I answered by actually clenching my fist, stretching out my arm, and threatening to punish the offender on the spot. To my surprise, I was politely requested to be seated, and assured that my passport would be forthcoming securo e momento, and in fifteen minutes it was in my pocket. Then I hurried back to my hotel, paid my bill, got into a cab, and drove off to the harbour at a canter, and found myself no more than in time for the steamer sailing to Civita Vecchia; whereas I had meant to have travelled by land, had I got my passport in any reasonable time.

I was snug on board, and of course, right glad to be relieved from such pitiful annoyances. The steam was up, and the hour for starting just at hand, when all the passengers were mustered rank and file on the quarter-deck, the list of their names was called over, their passports and persons were inspected, and they were counted and compared, and allowed to sail, or taken on shore again, at the will and pleasure of two policemen, who are sent there in every case for the purpose. Thank God, I was permitted to remain on board, and now the anchor was heaved, and we all moved, fully resolved never to trust ourselves in such hands again.

Another fact requires to be stated; in itself it is apparently trifling, but in my situation it indicated a trap into which I might have fallen, and against the danger of which travellers to Naples should be warned. I found myself in a position in which it was impossible to tell when I might be permitted to leave, and I wrote home to my friend, the

MY LETTER INTERCEPTED.

505

minister of the contiguous parish of Newlands, requesting him to perform for me my duty at a neighbouring sacrament on a certain day, in the event of my being detained. I stated in this letter, that no sooner had I escaped the delays caused in the East by quarantines, than I was involved in Italy with political obstructions, far less reasonable, and perhaps of longer duration, than a five days' imprisonment in a Turkish lazaretto. I have sufficient reason to believe that this letter, which I posted with my own hands, was intercepted, opened, and laid before the prefect of the police, or the minister of the interior, for the purpose of creating a charge, if possible, against me; for of all the letters written from Suez, Grand Cairo, Damietta, Jaffa, Jerusalem, Smyrna, and Athens, the one from Naples alone never reached its destination. Fortunately I was cautious in what I wrote, it having occurred to me that the letter would certainly be opened at the post-office in Naples, and produced against me. Nay, I even hesitated whether it was safe to trust such a crew with a specimen of my penmanship, lest the writers they employ for the purpose might, by imitating my hand-writing, forge grounds of accusation against me.

Here, however, it is but fair to mention, that I suffered no annoyance from the Pope's Nuncio at Naples-on the contrary, at my first call, every thing was adjusted in ten minutes, and the Secretary, shaking my hand, politely wished me a good voyage, and a safe return to Englandknowing all the while, from my passport, my profession to be that of a protestant clergyman.

I spoke of my difficulties to an English gentleman on his travels, and he told me how severely he had suffered too in

506

MY BEARD A BADGE OF RADICALISM.

Naples. He said he had actually been dragged by the police from his seat in the railway train, when setting out for Pompeii, but for what reason he could not conceive, unless it was from senseless suspicion and fear. He added, that it was, in all the circumstances, somewhat remarkable that I was not detained, or more severely handled, because I had just come from Malta, the great retreat of Neapolitan refugees, who were constantly sending out emissaries. And more unfortunate still, I happened to have a long white beard of four months' growth, which was well known to be the badge of the liberal Philosophers, or Red Radicals as they are called. But he assured me that my beard would be quite acceptable both at Rome and Florence.

CHAPTER XX.

ROME, ISLAND OF ELBA, LEGHORN, PISA, FLORENCE,
CORSICA, AND FRANCE.

WHEN I approached Rome, I was impressed with an intensity of feeling, second to that only which I felt when I caught my first sight of Jerusalem. Notwithstanding all that I had seen on the shores of the Atlantic ocean, the Mediterranean sea, the Levant, the Red sea, the Dead sea, the sea of Galilee; in Phoenicia, Cilicia, Pisidia, Lycia, Caria, Lydia; among the islands of the Pamphylian and Ægean seas; in the Eastern Archipelago; on the shores of the Hellespont, the Marmora, and the Black sea; among the Ionian islands, in Greece, Sicily, and at Naples, I approached with an elevation of sentiment beyond description imperial Rome, the capital of Italy, the seat of the Roman government, pagan and papal, the centre of the fourth great empire, the Lord of the whole earth, and queen of it, the mistress of the ancient and modern world, in population, arts, and arms. I had seen Athens, Alexandria, Grand Cairo, Constantinople, the plains of Troy, and the ruins at Greece, Pompeii, and Pæstum, but all these were inferior in interest to Rome itself, the renowned city founded on the Palatine hill by Romulus and Remus of old, of which Propertius says, 1. iii. ix 57:

Septem urbs alta jugis, toto quæ præsidet orbi.

508

PUTEOLI-GÆTA—CIVITA VECCHIA.

When speaking of Rome Papal, the writer of the Apocalypse describes it in terms so very identical with Propertius as to be almost a literal translation. "A woman seated on seven hills and reigning over the kings of the earth," (Rev. xvii. 9.) But there is a passage in Virgil Georg. l. ii. ver. 532 still more to the purpose.

Scilicet et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma,
Septemque una sibi muro circumdedit arces.

A city so remarkable both in civil and sacred history, might well awaken some curiosity in my mind, when approaching it for the first and last time in my life.

In sailing in-shore along the coast, Puteoli was pointed out, where the apostle Paul and Josephus were both landed on their way to the eternal city: and Gaeta on the coast was noticed, the strong fortress to which the present pope fled, in the disguise of a flunkey, from the Vatican, during the uproars in 1848. I grudged to pass the mouth of the celebrated Tiber, and to be taken fifty miles north to Civita Vecchia, where I was landed merely to travel back along the same coast towards Rome.

This harbour was the Trajani Portus of the ancients, and, according to some, the place where the Apostle Paul first landed on his way to Rome. The entrance to the harbour is guarded by a light-house with forts, and a sort of canal extends from it into the town, along which there is a quay with numerous buildings for the galley slaves. Of these miserable creatures there are here about two thousand, all in fetters, and many of them apparently quite worn out by toil. The dead dull state of Civita Vecchia, was enlivened a little by the disembarkation of French troops, and by the