The excellence of the hotel lay rather in the faded pomp of its
sleeping-rooms, and the vastness of its salle a manger, than in anything
very good to eat or drink.
We left it, after a poor breakfast, and went to the railway station.
Looking at the mountainous heap of our luggage the night before, we had
missed a great carpet-bag; and we now found that Miss M------'s trunk had
been substituted for it, and, there being the proper number of packages
as registered, it was impossible to convince the officials that anything
was wrong. We, of course, began to generalize forthwith, and pronounce
the incident to be characteristic of French morality. They love a
certain system and external correctness, but do not trouble themselves to
be deeply in the right; and Miss M------ suggested that there used to be
parallel cases in the French Revolution, when, so long as the assigned
number were sent out of prison to be guillotined, the jailer did not much
care whether they were the persons designated by the tribunal or not. At
all events, we could get no satisfaction about the carpet-bag, and shall
very probably be compelled to leave Marseilles without it.
This day's ride was through a far more picturesque country than that we
saw yesterday. Heights began to rise imminent above our way, with
sometimes a ruined castle wall upon them; on our left, the rail-track
kept close to the hills; on the other side there was the level bottom of
a valley, with heights descending upon it a mile or a few miles away.
Farther off we could see blue hills, shouldering high above the
intermediate ones, and themselves worthy to be called mountains. These
hills arranged themselves in beautiful groups, affording openings between
them, and vistas of what lay beyond, and gorges which I suppose held a
great deal of romantic scenery. By and by a river made its appearance,
flowing swiftly in the same direction that we were travelling,--a
beautiful and cleanly river, with white pebbly shores, and itself of a
peculiar blue. It rushed along very fast, sometimes whitening over
shallow descents, and even in its calmer intervals its surface was all
covered with whirls and eddies, indicating that it dashed onward in
haste. I do not now know the name of this river, but have set it down as
the "arrowy Rhone." It kept us company a long while, and I think we did
not part with it as long as daylight remained. I have seldom seen
hill-scenery that struck me more than some that we saw to-day, and the
old feudal towers and old villages at their feet; and the old churches,
with spires shaped just like extinguishers, gave it an interest
accumulating from many centuries past.
Still going southward, the vineyards began to border our track, together
with what I at first took to be orchards, but soon found were plantations
of olive-trees, which grow to a much larger size than I supposed, and
look almost exactly like very crabbed and eccentric apple-trees. Neither
they nor the vineyards add anything to the picturesqueness of the
landscape.
On the whole, I should have been delighted with all this scenery if it
had not looked so bleak, barren, brown, and bare; so like the wintry New
England before the snow has fallen. It was very cold, too; ice along the
borders of streams, even among the vineyards and olives. The houses are
of rather a different shape here than, farther northward, their roofs
being not nearly so sloping. They are almost invariably covered with
white plaster; the farm-houses have their outbuildings in connection with
the dwelling,--the whole surrounding three sides of a quadrangle.
We travelled far into the night, swallowed a cold and hasty dinner at
Avignon, and reached Marseilles sorely wearied, at about eleven o'clock.
We took a cab to the Hotel d'Angleterre (two cabs, to be quite accurate),
and find it a very poor place.
To go back a little, as the sun went down, we looked out of the window of
our railway carriage, and saw a sky that reminded us of what we used to
see day after day in America, and what we have not seen since; and, after
sunset, the horizon burned and glowed with rich crimson and orange
lustre, looking at once warm and cold. After it grew dark, the stars
brightened, and Miss M------ from her window pointed out some of the
planets to the children, she being as familiar with them as a gardener
with his flowers. They were as bright as diamonds.
We had a wretched breakfast, and J----- and I then went to the railway
station to see about our luggage. On our walk back we went astray,
passing by a triumphal arch, erected by the Marseillais, in honor of
Louis Napoleon; but we inquired our way of old women and soldiers, who
were very kind and courteous,--especially the latter,--and were directed
aright. We came to a large, oblong, public place, set with trees, but
devoid of grass, like all public places in France. In the middle of it
was a bronze statue of an ecclesiastical personage, stretching forth his
hands in the attitude of addressing the people or of throwing a
benediction over them. It was some archbishop, who had distinguished
himself by his humanity and devotedness during the plague of 1720. At
the moment of our arrival the piazza was quite thronged with people, who
seemed to be talking amongst themselves with considerable earnestness,
although without any actual excitement. They were smoking cigars;
and we judged that they were only loitering here for the sake of the
sunshine, having no fires at home, and nothing to do. Some looked like
gentlemen, others like peasants; most of them I should have taken for the
lazzaroni of this Southern city,--men with cloth caps, like the classic
liberty-cap, or with wide-awake hats. There were one or two women of the
lower classes, without bonnets, the elder ones with white caps, the
younger bareheaded. I have hardly seen a lady in Marseilles; and I
suspect, it being a commercial city, and dirty to the last degree,
ill-built, narrow-streeted, and sometimes pestilential, there are few or
no families of gentility resident here.
Returning to the hotel, we found the rest of the party ready to go
out; so we all issued forth in a body, and inquired our way to the
telegraph-office, in order to send my message about the carpet-bag. In a
street through which we had to pass (and which seemed to be the Exchange,
or its precincts), there was a crowd even denser, yes, much denser, than
that which we saw in the square of the archbishop's statue; and each man
was talking to his neighbor in a vivid, animated way, as if business were
very brisk to-day.
At the telegraph-office, we discovered the cause that had brought out
these many people. There had been attempts on the Emperor's life,--
unsuccessful, as they seem fated to be, though some mischief was done to
those near him. I rather think the good people of Marseilles were glad
of the attempt, as an item of news and gossip, and did not very greatly
care whether it were successful or no. It seemed to have roused their
vivacity rather than their interest. The only account I have seen of it
was in the brief public despatch from the Syndic (or whatever he be) of
Paris to the chief authority of Marseilles, which was printed and posted
in various conspicuous places. The only chance of knowing the truth with
any fulness of detail would be to come across an English paper. We have
had a banner hoisted half-mast in front of our hotel to-day as a token,
the head-waiter tells me, of sympathy and sorrow for the General and
other persons who were slain by this treasonable attempt.
J----- and I now wandered by ourselves along a circular line of quays,
having, on one side of us, a thick forest of masts, while, on the
other, was a sweep of shops, bookstalls, sailors' restaurants and
drinking-houses, fruit-sellers, candy-women, and all manner of open-air
dealers and pedlers; little children playing, and jumping the rope, and
such a babble and bustle as I never saw or heard before; the sun lying
along the whole sweep, very hot, and evidently very grateful to those who
basked in it. Whenever I passed into the shade, immediately from too
warm I became too cold. The sunshine was like hot air; the shade, like
the touch of cold steel,--sharp, hard, yet exhilarating. From the broad
street of the quays, narrow, thread-like lanes pierced up between the
edifices, calling themselves streets, yet so narrow, that a person in the
middle could almost touch the houses on either hand. They ascended
steeply, bordered on each side by long, contiguous walls of high houses,
and from the time of their first being built, could never have had a
gleam of sunshine in them,--always in shadow, always unutterably nasty,
and often pestiferous. The nastiness which I saw in Marseilles exceeds
my heretofore experience. There is dirt in the hotel, and everywhere
else; and it evidently troubles nobody,--no more than if all the people
were pigs in a pigsty. . . . .
Passing by all this sweep of quays, J----- and I ascended to an elevated
walk, overlooking the harbor, and far beyond it; for here we had our
first view of the Mediterranean, blue as heaven, and bright with
sunshine. It was a bay, widening forth into the open deep, and bordered
with heights, and bold, picturesque headlands, some of which had either
fortresses or convents on them. Several boats and one brig were under
sail, making their way towards the port. I have never seen a finer
sea-view. Behind the town, there seemed to be a mountainous landscape,
imperfectly visible, in consequence of the intervening edifices.