Pencillings by the Way Part 12

I entered Avignon after a delicious hour on the Rhone, quite in the mood to do poetical homage to its a.s.sociations. My dreams of Petrarch and Vaucluse were interrupted by a scene between my friend the captain, and a stout boatman, who had brought his baggage from the batteau. The result was an appeal to the mayor, who took the captain aside after the matter was argued, and told him in his ear that he must compromise the matter, for he _dared not give a judgment in his favor_! The man had demanded _twelve_ francs where the regulations allowed him but _one_, and palpable as the imposition was, the magistrate refused to interfere. The captain curled his mustache and walked the room in a terrible pa.s.sion, and the boatman, an herculean fellow, eyed him with a look of a.s.surance which quite astonished me.

After the case was settled, I asked an explanation of the mayor. He told me frankly, that the fellow belonged to a powerful cla.s.s of men of the lowest description, who, having declared first for the present government, were and would be supported by it in almost any question where favor could be shown--that all the other cla.s.ses of inhabitants were malcontents, and that, between positive strength and royal favor, the boatmen and their party had become too powerful even for the ordinary enforcement of the law.

The following day was so sultry and warm, that I gave up all idea of a visit to Vaucluse. We spent the morning under the trees which stand before the door of the _cafe_ in the village square, and at noon we took the steamboat upon the Rhone for _Arles_. An hour or two brought us to this ancient town, where we were compelled to wait till the next day, the larger boat which goes hence by the mouths of the Rhone to Ma.r.s.eilles, being out of order.

We left our baggage in the boat, and I walked up with the captain to see the town. An officer whom we addressed for information on the quay politely offered to be our guide, and we pa.s.sed three or four hours rambling about, with great pleasure. Our first object was the Roman ruins, for which the town is celebrated. We traversed several streets, so narrow, that the old time-worn houses on either side seemed to touch at the top, and in the midst of a desolate and poverty-stricken neighborhood, we came suddenly upon a n.o.ble Roman amphitheatre of gigantic dimensions, and sufficiently preserved to be a picturesque ruin. It was built on the terrace of a hill, overlooking the Rhone.

From the towers of the gateway, the view across the river into the lovely province of Languedoc, is very extensive. The arena is an excavation of perhaps thirty feet in depth, and the rows of seats, all built of vast blocks of stone, stretch round it in retreating and rising platforms to the surface of the hill. The lower story is surrounded with dens; and the upper terrace is enclosed with a circle of small apartments, like boxes in a theatre, opening by handsome arches upon the scene. It is the ruin of a n.o.ble structure, and, even without the help of the imagination, exceedingly impressive. It seems to be at present turned into a play-ground. The dens and cavities were full of black-eyed and happy creatures, hiding and hallooing with all the delightful spirit and gayety of French children. Probably it was never appropriated to a better use.

We entered the cathedral in returning. It is an antique, and considered a very fine one. The twilight was just falling; and the candles burning upon the altar, had a faint, dull glare, making the dimness of the air more perceptible. I walked up the long aisle to the side chapel, without observing that my companions had left me, and, quite tired with my walk, seated myself against one of the Gothic pillars, enjoying the quiet of the place, and the momentary relief from exciting objects. It struck me presently that there was a dead silence in the church, and, as much to hear the sound of English as for any better motive, I approached the priest's missal, which lay open on a stand near me, and commenced translating a familiar psalm aloud. My voice echoed through the building with a fullness which startled me, and looking over my shoulder, I saw that a simple, poor old woman was kneeling in the centre of the church, praying alone. She had looked up at my interruption of the silence of the place, but her beads still slipped slowly through her fingers, and, feeling that I was intruding possibly between a sincere wors.h.i.+pper and her Maker, I withdrew to the side aisle, and made my way softly out of the cathedral.

Arles appears to have modernized less than any town I have seen in France. The streets and the inhabitants look as if they had not changed for a century. The dress of the women is very peculiar; the waist of the gown coming up to a point behind, between the shoulder blades, and consequently very short in front, and the high cap bound to the head with broad velvet ribands, suffering nothing but the jet black curls to escape over the forehead. As a cla.s.s, they are the handsomest women I have seen. Nothing could be prettier than the small-featured lively brunettes we saw sitting on the stone benches at every door.

We ran down the next morning, in a few hours to Ma.r.s.eilles. It was a cloudy, misty day, and I did not enjoy, as I expected, the first view of the Mediterranean from the mouths of the Rhone. We put quite out into the swell of the sea, and the pa.s.sengers were all strewn on the deck in the various gradations of sickness. My friend the captain, and myself, had the only constant stomachs on board. I was very happy to distinguish Ma.r.s.eilles through the mist, and as we approached nearer, the rocky harbor and the islands of _Chateau d'If_ and _Pomegue_, with the fortress at the mouth of the harbor, came out gradually from the mist, and the view opened to a n.o.ble amphitheatre of rocky mountains, in whose bosom lies Ma.r.s.eilles at the edge of the sea. We ran into the narrow cove which forms the inner harbor, pa.s.sing an American s.h.i.+p, the "William Penn," just arrived from Philadelphia, and lying in quarantine. My blood started at the sight of the starred flag; and as we pa.s.sed closer and I read the name upon her stern, a thousand recollections of that delightful city sprang to my heart, and I leaned over to her from the boat's side, with a feeling of interest and pleasure to which the foreign tongue that called me to bid adieu to newer friends, seemed an unwelcome interruption.

I parted from my pleasant Parisian friend and his family, however, with real regret. They were polite and refined, and had given me their intimacy voluntarily and without reserve. I shook hands with them on the quay, and wished the pale and quiet invalid better health, with more of feeling than is common with acquaintances of a day. I believe them kind and sincere, and I have not found these qualities growing so thickly in the world that I can thrust aside anything that resembles them, with a willing mistrust.

The quay of Ma.r.s.eilles is one of the most varied scenes to be met with in Europe. Vessels of all nations come trading to its port, and nearly every costume in the world may be seen in its busy crowds. I was surprised at the number of Greeks. Their picturesque dresses and dark fine faces meet you at every step, and it would be difficult, if it were not for the shrinking eye, to believe them capable of an ign.o.ble thought. The mould of the race is one for heroes, but if all that is said of them be true, the blood has become impure. Of the two or three hundred I must have seen at Ma.r.s.eilles, I scarce remember one whose countenance would not have been thought remarkable.

I have remained six days in Ma.r.s.eilles by the advice of the Sardinian consul, who a.s.sured me that so long a residence in the south of France, is necessary to escape quarantine for the cholera, at the ports or on the frontiers of Italy. I have obtained his certificate to-day, and depart to-morrow for Nice. My forced _sejour_ here has been far from an amusing or a willing one. The "_mistral_" has blown chilly and with suffocating dryness, so that I have scarce breathed freely since I entered the town, and the streets, though handsomely laid out and built, are intolerable from the dust. The sun scorches your skin to a blister, and the wind chills your blood to the bone.

There are beautiful public walks, which, at the more moist seasons, must be delightful, but at present the leaves on the trees are all white, and you cannot keep your eyes open long enough to see from one end of the promenade to the other. Within doors, it is true, I have found everything which could compensate for such evils; and I shall carry away pleasant recollections of the hospitality of the Messrs.

Fitch, and others of my countrymen, living here--gentlemen whose courtesies are well-remembered by every American traveller through the south of France.

I sank into the corner of the _coupe_ of the diligence for Toulon, at nine o'clock in the evening, and awoke with the gray of the dawn at the entrance of the pa.s.s of _Ollioules_, one of the wildest defiles I ever saw. The gorge is the bed of a winter torrent, and you travel three miles or more between two mountains seemingly cleft asunder, on a road cut out a little above the stream, with naked rock to the height of two or three hundred feet almost perpendicularly above you.

Nothing could be more bare and desolate than the whole pa.s.s, and nothing could be richer or more delightfully cultivated than the low valleys upon which it opens. It is some four or five miles hence to Toulon, and we traversed the road by sunrise, the soft, gray light creeping through the olive and orange trees with which the fields are laden, and the peasants just coming out to their early labor. You see no brute animal here except the mule; and every countryman you meet is accompanied by one of these serviceable little creatures, often quite hidden from sight by the enormous load he carries, or pacing patiently along with a master on his back, who is by far the larger of the two.

The vineyards begin to look delightfully; for the thick black stump which was visible over the fields I have hitherto pa.s.sed, is in these warm valleys covered already with ma.s.ses of luxuriant vine leaves, and the hill sides are lovely with the light and tender verdure. I saw here for the first time, the olive and date trees in perfection. They grow in vast orchards planted regularly, and the olive resembles closely the willow, and reaches about the same height and shape. The leaves are as slender but not quite so long, and the color is more dusky, like the bloom upon a grape. Indeed, at a short distance, the whole tree looks like a ma.s.s of untouched fruit.

I was agreeably disappointed in Toulon. It is a rural town with a harbor--not the dirty seaport one naturally expects to find it. The streets are the cleanest I have seen in France, some of them lined with trees, and the fountains all over it freshen the eye delightfully. We had an hour to spare, and with Mr. Doyle, an Irish gentleman, who had been my travelling companion, since I parted with my friend the Swiss, I made the circuit of the quays. They were covered with French naval officers and soldiers, promenading and conversing in the lively manner of this gayest of nations. A handsome child, of perhaps six years, was selling roses at one of the corners, and for a _sous_, all she demanded, I bought six of the most superb damask buds just breaking into flower. They were the first I had seen from the open air since I left America, and I have not often purchased so much pleasure with a copper coin.

Toulon was interesting to me as the place where Napoleon's career began. The fortifications are very imposing. We pa.s.sed out of the town over the draw-bridge, and were again in the midst of a lovely landscape, with an air of bland and exhilarating softness, and everything that could delight the eye. The road runs along the sh.o.r.e of the Mediterranean, and the fields are green to the water edge.

We arrived at Antibes to-day at noon, within fifteen miles of the frontier of Sardinia. We have run through most of the south of France, and have found it all like a garden. The thing most like it in our country is the neighborhood of Boston, particularly the undulated country about Brookline and Dorchester. Remove all the stone fences from that sweet country, put here and there an old chateau on an eminence, and change the pretty white mock cottages of gentlemen, for the real stone cottages of peasantry, and you have a fair picture of the scenery of this celebrated sh.o.r.e. The Mediterranean should be added as a distance, with its exquisite blue, equalled by nothing but an American sky in a July noon--its crowds of sail, of every shape and nation, and the Alps in the horizon crested with snow, like clouds half touched by the sun. It is really a delicious climate. Out of the scorching sun the air is bracing and cool; and though my ears have been blistered in walking up the hills in a travelling cap, I have scarcely experienced an uncomfortable sensation of heat, and this in my winter dress, with flannels and a surtout, as I have worn them for the six months past in Paris. The air could not be tempered more accurately for enjoyment. I regret to go in doors. I regret to sleep it away.

_Antibes_ was fortified by the celebrated _Vauban_, and it looks impregnable enough to my unscientific eye. If the portcullises were drawn up, I would not undertake to get into the town with the full consent of the inhabitants. We walked around the ramparts which are washed by the Mediterranean, and got an appet.i.te in the sea-breeze, which we would willingly have dispensed with. I dislike to abuse people, but I must say that the _cuisine_ of Madame Agarra, at the "Gold Eagle," is rather the worst I have fallen upon in my travels.

Her price, as is usual in France, was proportionably exorbitant. My Irish friend, who is one of the most religious gentlemen of his country I ever met, came as near getting into a pa.s.sion with his supper and bill, as was possible for a temper so well disciplined. For myself, having acquired only polite French, I can but "look daggers"

when I am abused. We depart presently for _Nice_, in a ricketty barouche, with post-horses, the _courier_, or post-coach, going no farther. It is a roomy old affair, that has had pretensions to style some time since Henri Quatre, but the arms on its panels are illegible now, and the ambitious driving-box is occupied by the humble materials to remedy a probable break-down by the way. The postillion is cracking his whip impatiently, my friend has called me twice, and I must put up my pencil.

_Antibes_ again! We have returned here after an unsuccessful attempt to enter the Sardinian dominions. We were on the road by ten in the morning, and drove slowly along the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean, enjoying to the utmost the heavenly weather and the glorious scenery about us. The driver pointed out to us a few miles from Antibes, the very spot on which Napoleon landed on his return from Elba, and the tree, a fine old olive, under which he slept three hours, before commencing his march. We arrived at the _Pont de Var_ about one, and crossed the river, but here we were met by a guard of Sardinian soldiers, and our pa.s.sports were demanded. The commissary came from the guard-house with a long pair of tongs, and receiving them open, read them at the longest possible distance. They were then handed back to us in the same manner, and we were told we could not pa.s.s. We then handed him our certificates of quarantine at Ma.r.s.eilles; but were told it availed nothing, a new order having arrived from Turin that very morning, to admit no travellers from infected or suspected places across the frontier. We asked if there were no means by which we could pa.s.s; but the commissary only shook his head, ordered us not to dismount on the Sardinian side of the river, and shut his door. We turned about and recrossed the bridge in some perplexity. The French commissary at St. Laurent, the opposite village, received us with a suppressed smile, and informed us that several parties of travellers, among others an English gentleman and his wife and sister, were at the _auberge_, waiting for an answer from the Prefect of Nice, having been turned back in the same manner since morning. We drove up, and they advised us to send our pa.s.sports by the postillion, with a letter to the consuls of our respective nations, requesting information, which we did immediately.

Nice is three miles from St. Laurent, and as we could not expect an answer for several hours, we amused ourselves with a stroll along the banks of the Var to the Mediterranean. The Sardinian side is bold, and wooded to the tops of the hills very richly. We kept along a mile or more through the vineyards, and returned in time to receive a letter from the American consul, confirming the orders of the commissary, but advising us to return to Antibes, and sail thence for Villa Franca, a lazaretto in the neighborhood of Nice, whence we could enter Italy, after _seven days quarantine_! By this time several travelling-carriages had collected, and all, profiting by our experience, turned back together. We are now at the "Gold Eagle,"

deliberating. Some have determined to give up their object altogether, but the rest of us sail to-morrow morning in a fis.h.i.+ng-boat for the lazaretto.

LAZARETTO, VILLA FRANCA.--There were but eight of the twenty or thirty travellers stopped at the bridge who thought it worth while to persevere. We are all here in this pest-house, and a motley mixture of nations it is. There are two young Sicilians returning from college to Messina; a Belgian lad of seventeen, just started on his travels; two aristocratic young Frenchmen, very elegant and very ignorant of the world, running down to Italy in their own carriage, to avoid the cholera; a middle-aged surgeon in the British navy, very cool and very gentlemanly; a vulgar Ma.r.s.eilles trader, and myself.

We were from seven in the morning till two, getting away from Antibes.

Our difficulties during the whole day are such a practical comparison of the freedom of European states and ours, that I may as well detail them.

First of all, our pa.s.sports were to be vised by the police. We were compelled to stand an hour with our hats off, in a close, dirty office, waiting our turn for this favor. The next thing was to get the permission of the prefect of the _marine_ to embark; and this occupied another hour. Thence we were taken to the health-office, where a _bill of health_ was made out for eight persons _going to a lazaretto_! The padrone's freight duties were then to be settled, and we went back and forth between the Sardinian consul and the French, disputing these for another hour or more. Our baggage was piled upon the _charrette_, at last, to be taken to the boat. The quay is outside the gate, and here are stationed the _douanes_, or custom-officers, who ordered our trunks to be taken from the cart, and searched them from top to bottom. After a half hour spent in repacking our effects in the open street, amid a crowd of idle spectators, we were suffered to proceed.

Almost all these various gentlemen expect a fee, and some demand a heavy one; and all this trouble and expense of time and money to make a voyage of _fifteen miles in a fis.h.i.+ng-boat_!

We hoisted the fisherman's latteen sail, and put out of the little harbor in very bad temper. The wind was fair, and we ran along the sh.o.r.e for a couple of hours, till we came to Nice, where we were to stop for permission to go to the lazaretto. We were hailed, off the mole, with a trumpet, and suffered to pa.s.s. Doubling a little point, half a mile farther on, we ran into the bay of Villa Franca, a handful of houses at the base of an amphitheatre of mountains. A little round tower stood in the centre of the harbor, built upon a rock, and connected with the town by a draw-bridge, and we were landed at a staircase outside, by which we mounted to show our papers to the health-officer. The interior was a little circular yard, separated from an office on the town side by an iron grating, and looking out on the sea by two embrasures for cannon. Two strips of water and the sky above was our whole prospect for the hour that we waited here. The cause of the delay was presently explained by clouds of smoke issuing from the interior. The tower filled, and a more nauseating odor I never inhaled. We were near suffocating with the intolerable smell, and the quant.i.ty of smoke deemed necessary to secure his majesty's officers against contagion.

A cautious-looking old gentleman, with gray hair, emerged at last from the smoke, with a long cane-pole in his hand, and, coughing at every syllable, requested us to insert our pa.s.sports in the split at the extremity, which he thrust through the gate. This being done, we asked him for bread. We had breakfasted at seven, and it was now sundown--near twelve hours fast. Several of my companions had been seasick with the swell of the Mediterranean, in coming from Antibes, and all were faint with hunger and exhaustion. For myself, the villainous smell of our purification had made me sick, and I had no appet.i.te; but the rest ate very voraciously of a loaf of coa.r.s.e bread, which was extended to us with a tongs and two pieces of paper.

After reading our pa.s.sports, the magistrate informed us that he had no orders to admit us to the lazaretto, and we must lie in our boat till he could send a messenger to Nice with our pa.s.sports and obtain permission. We opened upon him, however, with such a flood of remonstrance, and with such an emphasis from hunger and fatigue, that he consented to admit us temporarily on his own responsibility, and gave the boatmen orders to row back to a long, low stone building, which we had observed at the foot of a precipice at the entrance to the harbor.

He was there before us, and as we mounted the stone ladder he pointed through the bars of a large inner gate to a single chamber, separated from the rest of the building, and promising to send us something to eat in the course of the evening, left us to take possession. Our position was desolate enough. The building was new, and the plaster still soft and wet. There was not an article of furniture in the chamber, and but a single window; the floor was of brick, and the air as damp within as a cellar. The alternative was to remain out of doors, in the small yard, walled up thirty feet on three sides, and washed by the sea on the other; and here, on a long block of granite, the softest thing I could find, I determined to make an _al fresco_ night of it.

Bread, cheese, wine, and cold meat, seethed, Italian fas.h.i.+on, in nauseous oil, arrived about nine o'clock; and, by the light of a candle standing in a boot, we sat around on the brick floor, and supped very merrily. Hunger had brought even our two French exquisites to their fare, and they ate well. The navy surgeon had seen service, and had no qualms; the Sicilians were from a German university, and were not delicate; the Ma.r.s.eilles trader knew no better; and we should have been less contented with a better meal. It was superfluous to abuse it.

A steep precipice hangs immediately over the lazaretto, and the horn of the half moon was just dipping below it, as I stretched myself to sleep. With a folded coat under me, and a carpet-bag for a pillow, I soon fell asleep, and slept soundly till sunrise. My companions had chosen shelter, but all were happy to be early risers. We mounted our wall upon the sea, and promenaded till the sun was broadly up, and the breeze from the Mediterranean sharpened our appet.i.tes, and then finis.h.i.+ng the relics of our supper, we waited with what patience we might the appearance of our breakfast.

The magistrate arrived at twelve, yesterday, with a commissary from Villa Franca, who is to be our victualler during the quarantine. He has enlarged our limits, by a stone staircase and an immense chamber, on condition that we pay for an extra guard, in the shape of a Sardinian soldier, who is to sleep in our room, and eat at our table.

By the way, we _have_ a table, and four rough benches, and these, with three single mattresses, are all the furniture we can procure. We are compelled to sleep _across_ the latter of course, to give every one his share.

We have come down very contentedly to our situation, and I have been exceedingly amused at the facility with which eight such different tempers can amalgamate, upon compulsion. Our small quarters bring us in contact continually, and we harmonize like schoolboys. At this moment the Ma.r.s.eilles trader and the two Frenchmen are throwing stones at something that is floating out with the tide; the surgeon has dropped his Italian grammar to decide upon which is the best shot; the Belgian is fis.h.i.+ng off the wall, with a pin hook and a bit of cheese; and the two Sicilians are talking _lingua franca_, at the top of their voices, to Carolina, the guardian's daughter, who stands coquetting on the pier just outside the limits. I have got out my books and portfolio, and taken possession of the broad stair, depending on the courtesy of my companions to jump over me and my papers when they go up and down. I sit here most of the day laughing at the fun below, and writing or reading alternately. The climate is too delicious for discontent. Every breath is a pleasure. The hills of the amphitheatre opposite to us are covered with olive, lemon, and orange trees; and in the evening, from the time the land breeze commences to blow off sh.o.r.e until ten or eleven, the air is impregnated with the delicate perfume of the orange-blossom, than which nothing could be more grateful. Nice is called the hospital of Europe; and truly, under this divine sky, and with the inspiriting vitality and softness of the air, and all that nature can lavish of luxuriance and variety upon the hills, it is the place, if there is one in the world, where the drooping spirit of the invalid must revive and renew. At this moment the sun has crept from the peak of the highest mountain across the bay, and we shall scent presently the spicy wind from the sh.o.r.e. I close my book to go upon the wall, which I see the surgeon has mounted already with the same object, to catch the first breath that blows seaward.

It is Sunday, and an Italian summer morning. I do not think my eyes ever woke upon so lovely a day. The long, lazy swell comes in from the Mediterranean as smooth as gla.s.s; the sails of a beautiful yacht, belonging to an English n.o.bleman at Nice, and lying becalmed just now in the bay, are hanging motionless about the masts; the sky is without a speck, the air just seems to me to steep every nerve and fibre of the frame with repose and pleasure. Now and then in America I have felt a June morning that approached it, but never the degree, the fulness, the sunny softness of this exquisite clime. It tranquilizes the mind as well as the body. You cannot resist feeling contented and genial. We are all out of doors, and my companions have brought down their mattresses, and are lying along the shade of the east wall, talking quietly and pleasantly; the usual sounds of the workmen on the quays of the town are still, our harbor-guard lies asleep in his boat, the yellow flag of the lazaretto clings to the staff, everything about us breathes tranquillity. Prisoner as I am, I would not stir willingly to-day.

We have had two new arrivals this morning--a boat from Antibes, with a company of players bound for the theatre at Milan; and two French deserters from the regiment at Toulon, who escaped in a leaky boat, and have made this voyage along the coast to get into Italy. They knew nothing of the quarantine, and were very much surprised at their arrest. They will, probably, be delivered up to the French consul. The new comers are all put together in the large chamber next us, and we have been talking with them through the grate. His majesty of Sardinia is not spared in their voluble denunciations.

Our imprisonment is getting to be a little tedious. We lengthen our breakfasts and dinners, go to sleep early and get up late, but a lazaretto is a dull place after all. We have no books except dictionaries and grammars, and I am on my last sheet of paper. What I shall do, the two remaining days, I cannot divine. Our meals were amusing for a while. We have but three knives and four gla.s.ses; and the Belgian, having cut his plate in two on the first day, has eaten since from the wash-bowl. The salt is in a brown paper, the vinegar in a sh.e.l.l; and the meats, to be kept warm during their pa.s.sage by water, are brought in the black utensils in which they are cooked. Our tablecloth appeared to-day of all the colors of the rainbow. We sat down to breakfast with a general cry of horror. Still, with youth and good spirits, we manage to be more contented than one would expect; and our lively discussions of the spot on the quay where the table shall be laid, and the noise of our dinners _en plein air_, would convince the spectator that we were a very merry and sufficiently happy company.

I like my companions, on the whole, very much. The surgeon has been in Canada and the west of New York, and we have travelled the same routes, and made in several instances, the same acquaintances. He has been in almost every part of the world also, and his descriptions are very graphic and sensible. The Belgian talks of his new king Leopold, the Sicilians of the German universities; and when I have exhausted all they can tell me, I turn to our Parisians, whom I find I have met all last winter without noticing them, at the parties; and we discuss the belles, and the different members of the _beau monde_, with all the touching air and tone of exiles from paradise. In a case of desperate ennui, wearied with studying and talking, the sea wall is a delightful lounge, and the blue Mediterranean plays the witch to the indolent fancy, and beguiles it well. I have never seen such a beautiful sheet of water. The color is peculiarly rich and clear, like an intensely blue sky, heaving into waves. I do not find the often-repeated description of its loveliness exaggerated.

Our seven days expire to-morrow, and we are preparing to eat our last dinner in the lazaretto with great glee. A temporary table is already laid upon the quay, and two strips of board raised upon some ingenious contrivance, I can not well say what, and covered with all the private and public napkins that retained any portion of their maiden whiteness. Our knives are reduced to two, one having disappeared unaccountably; but the deficiency is partially remedied. The surgeon has "whittled" a pine knot, which floated in upon the tide, into a distant imitation; and one of the company has produced a delicate dagger, that looks very like a keepsake from a lady; and, by the reluctant manner in which it was put to service, the profanation cost his sentiment an effort. Its white handle and silver sheath lie across a plate, abridged of its proportions by a very formidable segment.

There was no disguising the poverty of the brown paper that contained the salt. It was too necessary to be made an "aside," and lies plump in the middle of the table. I fear there has been more fun in the preparation than we shall feel in eating the dinner when it arrives.

The Belgian stands on the wall, watching all the boats from town; but they pa.s.s off down the harbor, one after another, and we are destined to keep our appet.i.tes to a late hour. Their detestable cookery needs the "sauce of hunger."

The Belgian's hat waves in the air, and the commissary's boat must be in sight. As we get off at six o'clock to-morrow morning, my portfolio shuts till I find another resting place, probably Genoa.

LETTER XXVI.

Sh.o.r.e OF THE MEDITERRANEAN--NICE--FUNERAL SERVICES OF MARIA THERESA, ARCHd.u.c.h.eSS OF AUSTRIA--PRINc.i.p.aLITY OF MONACO--ROAD TO GENOA--SARDINIA--PRISON OF THE POPE--HOUSE OF COLUMBUS--GENOA.