diversity of grain-fields, vineyards, rows of trees, &c., though the
bright moon was now shining, and, shutting out the chill night-air, I
disposed myself on my old great-coat and softest carpet-bag for a
drowse, having ample room at my command if I could but have brought it
into a straight line. But the road was hard, the coach a little the
uneasiest I ever hardened my bones upon, and my slumber was of a
disturbed and dubious character, a dim sense of physical discomfort
shaping and coloring my incoherent and fitful visions. For a time I
fancied myself held down on my back while some malevolent wretch
drenched the floor (and me) with filthy water: then I was in a rude
scuffle and came out third or fourth best, with my clothes badly torn;
anon I had lost my hat in a strange place and could not begin to find
it; and at last my clothes were full of grasshoppers and spiders who
were beguiling their leisure by biting and stinging me. The misery at
last became unbearable and I awoke.--But where? I was plainly in a
tight, dark box, that needed more air: I soon recollected that it was a
stage-coach, wherein I had been making my way from Ferrara to Padua. I
threw open the door and looked out. Horses, postillions and guard were
all gone: the moon, the fields, the road were gone: I was in a close
court-yard, alone with Night and Silence: but where? A church clock
struck three; but it was only promised that we should reach Padua by
four, and I, making the usual discount on such promises, had set down
five as the probable hour of our arrival. I got out to take a more
deliberate survey, and the tall form and bright bayonet of an Austrian
sentinel, standing guard over the egress of the court-yard, were before
me. To talk German was beyond the sweep of my dizziest ambition, but an
Italian runner or porter instantly presented himself. From him I made
out that I was in Padua of ancient and learned renown (Italian
_Padova_), and that the first train for Venice would not start for three
hours yet. I followed him into a convenient _Cafe_, which was all open
and well lighted, where I ordered a cup of chocolate and proceeded
leisurely to discuss it. When I had finished, the other guests had all
gone out, but daylight was coming in, and I began to feel more at home.
The _Cafe_ tender was asleep in his chair; the porter had gone off; the
sentinel alone kept awake on his post. Soon the welcome face of the
coach-guard, whom I had borne company from Bologna, appeared; I hailed
him, obtained my baggage, hired a porter, and, having nothing more to
wait for, started at a little past four for the Railroad station, nearly
a mile distant; taking observations as I went. Arrived at the depot, I
discharged my porter, sat down and waited for the place to open, with
ample leisure for reflection. At six o'clock I felt once more the
welcome motion of a Railroad car, and at eight was in Venice.
XXIX.
VENICE.
MILAN, Wednesday, July 9, 1851.
Venice! Queen of the Adriatic! "City of the Heart!" how can I ever
forget thee? Brief, too brief was my halt amid thy glorious structures,
but such eras are measured not by hours, but by sensations, and my first
day in Venice must ever hold its place among the most cherished
recollections of my life.
Venice lies so absolutely and wholly on the water's bosom that the
landward approach to her is not imposing and scarcely impressive. The
view from the sea-side may be somewhat better, but not much--not
comparable to that of Genoa from the Mediterranean. No part of the
islets upon and around which Venice was built having been ever ten feet
above the surface of the Adriatic, while the adjacent mainland for
miles is also just above the water level, you do not see the city from
any point of observation outside of it--only the distant outline of a
low mass of buildings perhaps two miles long, but which may not be three
blocks wide, for aught you can see. Formerly two miles of shallow lagoon
separated the city from the land; but this has been overcome by the
heavy piling and filling required for the Railroad which now connects
Venice with Verona, via Vicenza, and is to reach this city via Brescia
whenever the Austrian Government shall be able to complete it. At
present a noble enterprise, through one of the richest, most populous
and most productive Agricultural regions of the earth, and connecting
the Political with the Commercial metropolis of Austrian Italy, is
arrested when half-finished, entailing a heavy annual charge on the
Treasury for the interest of the sum already expended, yet yielding
little or no net revenue in return, because of its imperfect condition.
The wisdom of this would be just equal to that of our ten years' halt
with the Erie Canal Enlargement, except for the fact that the Austrians
would borrow and complete if they could, while New York has had no such
excuse for her slothful blunder.
The approach to Venice across the Lagoon is like that of Boston across
the Charles River marshes from the West, though of course on a much
grander scale. The embankment or road-bed was commenced by gigantic
piling, and is very broad and substantial. You reach the station just in
the edge of the city, run the Passport gauntlet, and are let out on the
brink of a wide canal, where dozens of gondoliers are soliciting your
custom. I engaged one, and directed him (at a venture) to row me to the
Hotel l'Europe. This proved (like nearly or quite all the other great
Hotels) to be located on the same line or water-front with the Ducal
Palace, Church of St. Mark, and most of the notabilities of modern
Venice, with the inner harbor and shipping just on the left and the
Adriatic in plain sight before us, only two or three little islets
covered with buildings partially intervening. Of course, my first row
was a long one, quite through the city from west to east, including
innumerable turnings and windings. After this, whomsoever may assert
that the streets of Venice are dusty or not well watered, I shall be
able to contradict from personal observation.
After outward renovation and breakfast, I hired a boat for the day, and
went in search of American friends--a pursuit in which I was ultimately
successful. With these I visited the various council-rooms and galleries
in the Ducal Palace, saw the "Lion's Mouth," descended into the ancient
dungeons, now tenantless, and crossed the "Bridge of Sighs." These last
are not open to the public, but a silver key gives access to them.
Thence we visited the famous picture-gallery of the Manfrini Palace, and
after that the Academy, thus consuming the better part of the day.
The works of Art in the Grand Palace did not, as a whole, impress me
strongly. Most of the larger ones are historical illustrations of the
glories of Venice; the battle of Lepanto; the taking of Zara; the Pope
and Venice uniting against or triumphing over the Emperor, &c., &c. Some
of the most honorable achievements of Venice, including her long and
memorable defense of Candia (or Crete) against the desperate and finally
successful attacks of the Turks, are not even hinted at. But these
galleries are palpably in a state of dilapidation and decay, which
implies that the Austrian masters of Venice, though they cannot stoop to
the meanness of demolishing or mutilating the memorials of her ancient
glories, will be glad to see them silently and gradually perish. The
whole Palace has a dreary and by-gone aspect, seeming conscious that
either itself or the Austrian soldiers drilling in front of it must be
an anachronism--that both cannot belong to the same place and time.
"The traitor clock forsakes the hours,
And points to times, O far away!"
The paintings in the Manfrini Palace seem to me by no means equal to
those in the Orsini, Doria, and some other private collections of Rome;
even of those extravagantly praised by Lord Byron, I failed to perceive
the admirable qualities apparent to his more cultivated taste. The
collection in the Academy I thought much better, but still far enough
behind similar galleries in Rome. The fact is, modern Italy is
poverty-stricken in Art and Genius as well as in Industry, and lives
upon the trophies and the memory of her past greatness. I have not heard
in all this land the name of one living Italian mentioned as likely to
attain eminence in Painting, nor even in Sculpture.
Toward evening, my friend and I ascended the Campanile or Bell-Tower of
St. Mark's, some 330 feet high, and had thence a glorious view of the
city and its neighborhood. From this tower, the houses might almost be
counted, though of the Canals which separate them only a few of the
largest are discerned. But the port, the shipping outside, the gardens
(naturally few and contracted), the adjacent main-land, the Railroad
embankment across the Lagoon, the blue Euganian hills in the distance,
&c., &c., are all as palpable as Boston Harbor from Bunker Hill
Monument. Immediately beneath is the Place of St. Mark, the Wall-street
of Venice; just beside you is the old Palace and the famous Cathedral
Church of St. Mark; to the north is the Armory, one of the largest and
most interesting in Europe; while the dome of every Church in Venice and
all the windings of the Grand Canal are distinctly visible. An Austrian
steamship in the harbor and an Austrian regiment marching from the north
end of the city into the grand square to take post there, completed the
panorama. The sun setting in mild radiance after a most lovely summer
day, and the full moon shining forth in all her luster, gave it a
wondrous richness and beauty of light and shadow. I was loth indeed to
tear myself away from its contemplation and commence the tedious descent
of the now darkened circular way up and down the inside of the tower.
In the evening, we improved our gondoliers' time in rowing leisurely
from one point of interest to another. Together we stood on the true
Rialto--a magnificent (and the only) bridge over the Grand Canal, in
good part covered with shops of one kind or another. Here a boy was
industriously and vociferously trying to sell a lot of cucumbers, which
he had arranged in piles of three or four each, and was crying "any pile
for" some piece of money, which I was informed was about half a Yankee
cent. Vegetables, and indeed provisions of all kinds, are very cheap in
Venice. I said this bridge is a grand one, as it is; but Venice is full
of bridges across its innumerable canals, and nearly all are of the best
construction. Arches more graceful in form, or better fitted to defy the
assaults of time, I have never seen.
We passed from the true to Shakspeare's Rialto--the ancient Exchange of
Venice, where its large Commercial and Moneyed transactions took place
prior to the last three centuries. Here is seen the ancient Bank of
Venice--the first, I believe, established in the world; here also the
"stone of shame"--an elevated post which each bankrupt was compelled to
take and hold for a certain time, exposed to the derision of the
confronting thousands. (Now-a-days it is the bankrupt who flouts, and
his too confiding creditors who are jeered and laughed at.) This ancient
focus of the world's commerce is now abandoned to the sellers of market
vegetables, who were busily arranging their cabbages, &c., for the next
morning's trade when we visited it.
Venice is full of deserted Palaces, which, though of spacious dimensions
and of the finest marble, may be bought for less than the cost of an
average brick house in the upper part of New-York. The Duchess de Berri,
mother of the Bourbon Pretender to the throne of France, has bought one
of these and generally inhabits it; the Rothschilds own another; the
dancer Taglioni, it is said, owns four, and so on. Cheap as they are,
they are a poorer speculation than even corner lots in a lithographic
city of Nebraska or Oregon.
That evening in the gondola, with one old and two newer friends, is
marked with a white stone in my recollection. To bones aching with rough
riding in Diligences by night as well as day, the soft cushions and
gliding motion of the boat were soothing and grateful as "spicy gales
from Araby the blest." The breeze from the Adriatic was strong and
refreshing after the fervid but not excessive heat of the day, and the
clear, mild moon seemed to invest the mossy and crumbling palaces with a
softened radiance and spiritual beauty. Boats were passing on every
side, some with gay parties of three to six, others with but two
passengers, who did not seem to need the presence of more, nor indeed to
be conscious that any others existed. The hum of earnest or glad voices
here contrasted strongly with silence and meditation there. Venice is a
City of the Past, and wears her faded yet queenly robes more gracefully
by night than by day.
Yes, the Venice of to-day is only a reminiscence of glories that were,
but shall be never again. Wealth, Luxury, Aristocracy ate out her soul;
then Bonaparte, perfidious despot that he ever was, robbed her of her
independence; finally the Holy Alliance of conquerors of Bonaparte made
his wrong the pretext for another, and wholly gave her to her ancient
enemy Austria, who greedily snatched at the prey, though it was her
assistance rendered or proffered to Austria in 1798-9 which gave
Napoleon his pretext for crushing her. Her recent struggle for
independence, though fruitless, was respectable, and protracted beyond
the verge of Hope; and not even Royalist mendacity has yet pretended
that _her_ revolt from Austria, or her prolonged defence under
bombardment and severe privation was the work of foreigners. But the
Croat again lords it in her halls; Trieste is stealing away her remnant
of trade; and the Railroads which should regain or replace it are
postponed from year to year, and may never be completed, or at least not
until it is utterly too late. Weeds gather around the marble steps of
her palaces; her towers are all swerving from their original
uprightness, and there is neither energy nor means to arrest their fall.
Nobody builds a new edifice within her precincts, and the old ones,
though of the most enduring materials and construction, cannot eternally
resist the relentless tooth of Time. Full of interest as is everything
in Venice, I do not remember to have detected there the effectual
working of a single idea of the last century, save in the Railroad,
which barely touches without enlivening her, the solitary steamboat
belonging to Trieste, and two or three larger gondolas marked
"_Omnibus_" this or that, which appeared to be conveying good loads of
passengers from one end of the city to the other for one-sixth or eighth
of the price which the same journey _solus_ cost me. The Omnibus
typifies ASSOCIATION--the simple but grandly fruitful idea which is
destined to renovate the world of Industry and Production, substituting
Abundance and Comfort for Penury and Misery. For Man, I trust, this
quickening word is yet seasonable; for Venice it is too late. It is far
easier to found two new cities than to restore one dead one. Fallen Queen
of the Adriatic! a long and mournful Adieu!
XXX.
LOMBARDY.
MILAN, Thursday, July 10, 1851.
Lombardy is of course the richest and most productive portion of Italy.
Piedmont alone vies with her, and is improving far more rapidly, but
Lombardy has great natural capacities peculiarly her own. Her soil,
fertile and easily tilled from the first, was long ago improved by a
system of irrigation which, probably from small and casual beginnings,
gradually overspread the whole table land, embracing, beside that of the
Adige, the broad valley of the Po and the narrower intervals of its many
tributaries, which, rushing down from the gorges of the Alps on the west
and the north, are skillfully conducted so as to refresh and fertilize
the whole plain, and, finding their way ultimately to the Po, are thence
drawn again by new canals to render like beneficence to the lower,
flatter intervals of Venezia and the Northern Papal States. Nowhere can
be found a region capable of supporting a larger population to the
square mile than Lombardy.
American Agriculture has just two arts to learn from Lombardy--IRRIGATION
and TREE-PLANTING. Nearly all our great intervales might be irrigated
immensely to the profit of their cultivators. Even where the vicinity of
mountains or other high grounds did not afford the facility here taken
advantage of, I am confident that many plains as well as valleys might be
profitably irrigated by lifting water to the requisite height and thence
distributing it through little canals or ditches as here. Where a head of
water may be obtained to supply the requisite power, the cost need not be
considerable after the first outlay; but, even though steam-power should
be requisite, in connection with the admirable Pumping machinery of our
day, Irrigation would pay liberally in thousands of cases. Such easily
parched levels as those of New-Jersey and Long Island would yield at least
double their present product if thoroughly irrigated from the turbid
streams and marshy ponds in their vicinity. Water itself is of course
essential to the growth of every plant, but the benefits of Irrigation
reach far beyond this. Of the fertilizing substances so laboriously and
necessarily applied to cultivating lands, at least three times as great
a proportion is carried off in running water as is absorbed and exhausted
by the crops grown by their aid; so that if Irrigation simply returned to
the land as much fertility as the rains carry off, it would, with decent
husbandry, increase in productiveness from year to year. The valley of
the Nile is one example among many of what Irrigation, especially from
rivers at their highest stage, will do for the soil, in defiance of the
most ignorant, improvident and unskillful cultivation. Such streams as the
Raritan, the Passaic and most of the New Jersey rivers, annually squander
upon the ocean an amount of fertilizing matter adequate to the comfortable
subsistence of thousands. By calculation, association, science, labor,
most of this may be saved. One hundred thousand of the poor immigrants
annually arriving on our shores ought to be employed for years, in
New-Jersey alone, in the construction of dams, canals, &c., adequate to
the complete irrigation of all the level or moderately sloping lands in
that State. Farms are cheaper there to-day than in Iowa for purchasers
who can pay for and know how to use them. Long Island can be rendered
eminently fertile and productive by systematic and thorough Irrigation;
otherwise I doubt that it ever will be.
Much of Lombardy slopes very considerably toward the Po, so that the
water in the larger or distributing canals is often used to run mills
and supply other mechanical power. It might be used also for
Manufacturing if Manufactures existed here, and nearly every farmer
might have a horse-power or so at command for domestic uses if he chose.
We passed yesterday the completely dry beds of what seemed to be small
rivers, their water having been entirely drawn away into the irrigating
canals on either side, while on either hand there were grist-mills
busily at work, and had been for hundreds of years, grinding by
water-power where no stream naturally existed. If I mistake not, there
are many such in this city, and in nearly all the cities and villages of
Lombardy. If our farmers would only investigate this matter of
Irrigation as thoroughly as its importance deserves, they would find
that they have neglected mines of wealth all around them more extensive
and far more reliable than those of California. One man alone may not
always be able to irrigate his farm except at too great a cost; but let
the subject be commended to general attention, and the expense would be
vastly diminished. Ten thousand farms together, embracing a whole
valley, may often be irrigated for less than the cost of supplying a
hundred of them separately. I trust our Agricultural papers will agitate
this improvement.
As to Tree-Planting, there can be no excuse for neglecting it, for no
man needs his neighbor's cooeperation to render it economical or
effective. We in America have been recklessly destroying trees quite
long enough; it is high time that we began systematically to reproduce
them. There is scarcely a farm of fifty acres or over in any but the
very newest States that might not be increased in value $1,000 by $100
judiciously expended in Tree-Planting, and a little care to protect the
young trees from premature destruction. All road-sides, steep
hill-sides, ravines and rocky places should be planted with Oak,
Hickory, Chestnut, Pine, Locust, &c., at once, and many a farm would,
after a few years, yield $100 worth of Timber annually, without
subtracting $10 from the crops otherwise depended on. By planting
Locust, or some other fast-growing tree, alternately with Oak, Hickory,
&c., the former would be ready for use or sale by the time the latter
needed the whole ground. Utility, beauty, comfort, profit, all combine
to urge immediate and extensive Tree-Planting; shall it not be
commenced?
Here in Lombardy there is absolutely no farm, however small, without its
rows of Mulberry, Poplar, Walnut, Cherry, &c., overshadowing its canals,
brooks, roads, &c., and traversing its fields in all directions. The
Vine is very generally trained on a low tree, like one of our Plum or
small Cherry trees, so that, viewed at a distance or a point near the
ground, the country would seem one vast forest, with an undergrowth
mainly of Wheat and Indian Corn. Potatoes, Barley, Rye, &c., are grown,
but none of them extensively, nor is much of the soil devoted to Grass.
There are no forests, properly so called, but a few rocky hill-sides,
which occur at intervals, mainly about half way from Venice to Milan,
are covered with shrubbery which would probably grow to trees if
permitted. Wheat and all Summer Grains are very good; so is the Grass;
so the Indian Corn will be where it is not prevented by the vicious
crowding of the plants and sugar-loaf hoeing of which I have frequently
spoken. I judge that Italy altogether, with an enormous area planted,
will realize less than half the yield she would have from the same acres
with judicious cultivation. With Potatoes, nearly the same mistake is
made, but the area planted with these is not one-tenth that of Corn and
the blunder far less vital.
This ought to be the richest country in the world, yet its people and
their dwellings do not look as if it were so. I have seen a greater
number of Soldiers and Beggars in passing through it than of men at
work; and nearly all work out-doors here who work at all. The dwellings
are generally shabby, while Barns are scarce, and Cattle are treading
out the newly harvested wheat under the blue sky. New houses and other
signs of improvement are rare, and the people dispirited. And this is
the garden of sunny, delicious Italy!
THE ITALIANS.
I leave Italy with a less sanguine hope of her speedy liberation than I
brought into it. The day of her regeneration must come, but the
obstacles are many and formidable. Most palpable among these is an
insane spirit of local jealousy and rivalry only paralleled by the
"Corkonian" and "Far-down" feud among the Irish. Genoa is jealous of
Turin; Turin of Milan; Florence of Leghorn; and so on. If Italy were a
Free Republic to-day, there would be a fierce quarrel, and I fear a
division, on the question of locating its metropolis. Rome would
consider herself the natural and prescriptive capital; Naples would urge
her accessible position, unrivaled beauty and ascendency in population;
Florence her central and healthful location; Genoa her extensive
commerce and unshaken devotion to Republican Freedom, &c., &c. And I
should hardly be surprised to see some of these, chagrined by an adverse
decision, leaguing with foreign despots to restore the sway of the
stronger by way of avenging their fancied wrongs!