I pushed. The sun was now hidden behind the mountain and the way was
shady. But still it was warm work and wearisome; for before long the
road became almost perpendicular and was full of loose stones. How much
more of this was there, we asked a woman watching swine on the hillside?
"A mile," was her answer; and yet she must have known there were at
least three. Finally, after what seemed hours of toiling, we asked
another peasant standing in front of a lonely farm-house how much
farther it still was to the top. "You are here now," she said. She at
least was truthful. A few feet more, and we looked down a road as
precipitous as that up which we had come, and so winding that we could
see short stretches of it, like so many terraces, all the way down the
mountain. We walked for about a hundred yards, and it was as hard to
hold back the machine as before it had been to push it. Then we began to
ride, but the strain on the brake loosened the handle a second time. We
dismounted, and J. tried to push it back into place: it snapped in two
pieces in his hands. Here we were, eight miles from Terni, in a lonely
mountain road in the evening,--the sun had already set,--with a
brakeless machine, which, if allowed to start down-hill with its heavy
load of two riders and much baggage, would soon be more unmanageable
than a runaway horse. The seven miles' coast to which we had looked
forward for days, was to be a walk after all. Like the King of France
and his twenty thousand men, we had marched up the mountain that we
might march down again. Is it any wonder that we both lost our tempers,
and that an accident was the smallest evil we wished the manufacturers
of our tricycle? Because they cared more for lightness than for
strength,--since record-making is as yet the chief end of the
cycling,--the necks of people who ride for pleasure are forsooth to be
risked with impunity!
However, there was nothing to do but to walk into Terni. It was very
cold, and we had to put on our heavy coats. Presently the moon rose
above the mountains on our left. By its light we could see the white
road,--now provokingly good, but steep and winding and all unknown,--the
hills that shut us in on every side, and, far below, the stream making
its way through the narrow pass. The way was unpleasantly lonely and
silent. Now for an hour or more we went wearily on without hearing a
sound but our steady tramp; and now we passed a farm-house within which
many voices were raised in anger, while from the barn a dog barked
savagely upon our coming. At times we thought we saw in the distance a
castle with tall towers or an old ruin, but when we drew near we found
in its place great rocks and cliffs of tufa. Once we went through a
small village. The way here was not so steep, and for a few minutes we
rode. Just beyond the houses three men, driving home a large white bull,
walked in the middle of the road. J. shouted, that they might give us
more space to pass; but they only laughed, and tried to set the bull on
us with loud cries of _Via!_ Before the last died away we were walking
again.
On and on we walked, all the time holding back the tricycle. But at last
we began to meet more people. Men with carts and donkeys went by at long
intervals, but they spake never a word, and we too were silent. Now and
then we heard the near tinkling of cow-bells, and came to olive-gardens,
where in the moonlight the black twisted trunks took grotesque goblin
shapes, and the branches threw a network of shadows across our path.
Then we came to a railroad, and we knew we were at the foot of the
mountains, and that Terni was not far off. We were at the end of the
seven miles' coast and could ride again. Two men just then coming our
way, J. asked them how far we were from the town; but they stood still
and stared for answer. A second time he asked, and still they were
speechless. "_Imbecile!_" he cried, and we left them there dumb and
motionless. Not far beyond the road divided, and on either side were a
few houses. A woman (or a fiend in female form) sat in front of one.
"Which is the way to Terni?" we asked. She was silent. Once more we
asked. _Chi lo sa?_--"Who knows?"--she answered. This was more than
tired human nature could endure; J. turned upon her with a volley of
choice Italian abuse. It conquered her as the prayers of Saint Anthony
vanquished her sister demons. She arose and meekly showed us the way.
In another minute the lights of Terni were in sight. Then we wheeled by
a foundry with great furnace in full blast, by a broad avenue with rows
of gas-jets, to the gates of the city, to find them shut. There was a
second of despair, but J. was now not to be trifled with, and he gave a
yell of command which was an effectual "open-sesame." And so we rode on
through lively streets and piazza to the hotel, to supper, and to bed!
TERNI AND ITS FALLS.
"_Well, keep all things so in thy
mind, that they may be as a goad in
thy sides to prick thee forward in
the way thou must go._"
"_What thing so deserving as to
turn us out of the way to see it?_"
I know little of Terni, except that in the month of October the hotel is
so cold that the waiter comes into the dining-room in the morning with
hat on, and wrapped in overcoat and muffler, and that there is an
excellent blacksmith in the town; for the next morning, as soon as J.
had had the brake mended, he paid the bill and loaded the tricycle. The
_padrone_ was surprised at the shortness of our stay. Did we not know
there were waterfalls, and famous ones too, but three miles distant? We
could not take the time to visit them? Well, then, at least we must look
at their picture; and he showed us a chromo pasted on the hotel omnibus.
I am afraid he took us for sad Philistines; but the fear of another kind
of waterfall was still a goad to hurry us onward. Now we were so near
our journey's end, no wonder, however great, could have led us from the
straight path.
IN THE LAND OF BRIGANDS.
"_But by this place Christian went
without much danger, whereat I
somewhat wondered_."
There was a great _festa_ that day, and all along the street and out on
the country road we met men and women in holiday dress carrying baskets
and bunches and wreaths of pink chrysanthemums. In Narni, on the heights
which Martial called inaccessible, men were lounging in the piazza or
playing cards in the _caffè_. For the shepherds alone there was no rest
from every-day work. Before we reached even Narni, but ten miles across
the valley from Terni, we saw several driving their sheep and goats into
the broad meadows. They wore goat-skin breeches, and by that sign alone
we should have known we were nearing Rome. We lunched at Narni on coffee
and cakes, for it was the last town through which we should pass on that
day's ride. It was here that Quintus, in its Roman prosperity, stayed so
long that Martial reproached him for his wearisome delay. Could he come
to it now, I doubt if his friend would have the same reason for
complaint. It did not seem an attractive place, and when we asked a man
about the country beyond, he said it was "_bruto_." We did not learn
till afterwards that this applied to the people, and not to the country,
and that here we ought to have been briganded.
We were now high up on the mountain,--on one side steep rocks, on the
other a deep precipice. Far below in a narrow valley ran the little
river Nar, and on the bank above it the railroad. It was not an easy
road to travel, and often the hills were too steep to coast or to climb.
The few farm-houses by the way were closed, for the peasants had gone to
church. We saw an occasional little gray town crowning the top of sheer
gray cliffs, like those in Albert Dürer's pictures, or an old castle
either deserted or else with farm-house built in its ruins, where
peasants leaned over the battlemented walls. But the only villages
through which we rode were Otricoli, just before we descended to the
valley of the Tiber, where we created so great a sensation that an old
woman selling chestnuts--cooked, I think, by a previous generation--was
at first too frightened to wait on us, and Borghetto, on the other side
of the valley, where we saw in the piazza the stage from Cività
Castellana, in which town we were to spend the night.
There were a few people abroad. In the loneliest part of the mountain an
old man in a donkey-cart kept in front of us on a long upgrade.
Interested in the tricycle, he forgot the donkey, which gave up a
straight for a spiral course, and monopolized the road. J. angrily asked
its driver which side he meant to take. But the old man heaped coals of
fire on his head by offering to carry us up in his wagon. After we left
him far behind, we passed two travellers resting by the wayside. Their
bags lay on the ground, and they looked weary and worn. They gave us
good-day, and where we were going they of course wanted to know. They
too were bound for Rome, it turned out, and had come from Bologna. After
the two gentlemen of Bologna, we overtook a group of merry peasants,
coats slung over their shoulders for no possible reason but the sake of
picturesqueness, and hats adorned with gay pompons of colored paper and
tinsel. One carried branches of green leaves and red fruit like
cherries, and as we went by he gave us a branch and wished us a good
journey. Next went by an old woman, who said with a smile that we could
go without horse or donkey,--a witticism heard so often it could no
longer make us laugh. And then a little boy all alone came "piping down
the valley wild."
[Illustration: "PIPING DOWN THE VALLEY."]
We went with much content over the plain by the Tiber, where there were
broad grassy stretches full of sheep and horses, and here and there the
shepherds' gypsy-looking huts. It was such easy work now, that we eat
our chestnuts as we rode; but beyond the bridge, on which Sixtus V. and
Clement VIII. and Gregory XIII., in true papal fashion, have left their
names, the hills began again. On we toiled, beneath shady oaks and by
rocky places, until we came out on a wide upland. From the treeless road
the meadows rolled far beyond to high mountains, on whose sloping side
the blue smoke of charcoal-burners curled upward. The moon already had
risen, and in the west the setting sun filled the sky with glowing amber
light, against which the tired peasants going home were sharply
silhouetted.
We were glad to see Cività Castellana. One or two men in answer to our
questions had told us we were close to it, but we did not believe them.
The fields seemed to stretch for miles before us, and there was not a
house or tower in sight. But suddenly the road turned and went
down-hill, and there below was the city perched on tufa cliffs, a deep
ravine surrounding it. Two _carabinieri_, in cocked hats and folded
cloaks like the famous two solitary horsemen, were setting out on their
night patrol. Vespers were just over in the church near the bridge, and
along the way where happy little Etruscan schoolboys once whipped
homewards their treacherous schoolmaster, little Italian boys and girls,
let loose from church, ran after us, torturing us with their shrill
cries. Soon their elders joined them, and we were closely beset with
admirers. The town too was in a hubbub about us, and in the streets
through which we wheeled, men and women came from their houses to follow
in our train. At the door of the Albergo, where we were detained for
several minutes, the entire population collected. We had difficulty in
getting a room. The _festa_, the _padrone_ said, had brought many
country people into the town, and the inns were full to overflowing. If
J. would go with him he would see what could be done for us. The search
led them through three houses. In the mean time I kept guard over the
machine. It was well I did, for once J. had gone the natives closed upon
me. Toddling infants and gray-haired men, ragged peasants and gorgeous
officers pushed and struggled together in their desire to see. Every now
and then a stealthy hand was thrust through the crowd and felt the tire
or tried the brake. I turned from left to right crying, "_Guarda!
Guarda!_" I lifted exploring hands from the wheels. But in vain. What
was one against so many? A man sitting in the doorway took pity on my
sad plight. He came out, and with a stick mowed the people back. Then J.
returned, having found a room in the first house, which the _padrone_
had thought fit to conceal until the last.
A MIDDLING INN.
"_The good of the place is before
you._"
"_But here they tarried and slept._"
The Albergo of Cività Castellana was but a middling inn. The _padrone_,
in English tweed, high boots, and Derby hat, looked half cockney, half
brigand. His wife wore an elaborate false front, and much lace about her
neck. But they were far finer than their house. We were lodged in the
garret, in a room the size of a large closet. The way to it led through
another bed-chamber, long and low, in which four cots were ranged in a
row along the wall. When we crossed it on the way downstairs to dinner I
devoutly prayed that on our return four nightcaps would not be nodding
on the pillows. Later in the evening, when we had dined, we strolled out
to the piazza. To see the life of an Italian town you have only to go to
the _caffè_. We went to one near the Albergo. There were two tables in
it. We sat at the smaller, and at the other were four ragged boys
playing cards!
Fortunately we were the first to go to bed in the garret. All through
the night, however,--for the mattress was hard and I slept little,--I
heard loud snores and groans, and the sound of much tossing to and fro.
We rose early in the morning, but when we opened our door the cots were
empty, though they had not been so long.
ACROSS THE CAMPAGNA.
"_They compassed them round on
every side; some went before, some
behind, and some on the right, some
on the left._"
"_Here they were within sight of
the city they were going to, also
here met them some of the
inhabitants thereof ... and drawing
near the city they had yet a more
perfect view thereof._"
Early as we were, the whole town was stirring when we came downstairs.
But who ever knew the hour when the people of an Italian town were not
up and abroad? No sooner did J. bring the tricycle from the stable,
where it had been kept all night, to the Albergo, than the piazza was
again crowded. On they all came with us, men, women, and children,
hooting and shouting, jumping and dancing through the vilely paved
streets, and finally sprawling over the walls and on the rocks beyond
the gate.
There they stayed until we had gone down the hill over the bridge,
crossing the stream at its foot, and up the hill on the opposite side,
passing from their sight around the first curve. Soon we were on an
upland and now really at the beginning of the Campagna. The morning was
cold. For many miles we rode through a champaign gleaming white with
frost. But as the sun rose higher in the heavens, and the yellow light,
which at first was spread over the sky, faded and left a clear blue
expanse above, the air grew warmer and the frost disappeared. The road
wound on and on between oak woods and wide cultivated fields, and green
grassy plains which gradually changed into great sweeps of rolling
treeless country, like the moors. By the roadside were thick bushes of
low green sage and tangled blackberries, and in places the broad
flagstones of the old Flaminian Way, with weeds and dandelions and
pretty purple flowers growing from the crevices. Sometimes a paving of
smaller stones stretched all across the road, so that for a minute or
two we were badly shaken, or else, coming on them suddenly at the foot
of a hill, all but upset. Truly, as has been said, it could have been no
joke for the old Romans to ride.
To our left rose the great height of Soracte, not snow-covered as Horace
saw it, but bare and brown save where purple shadows lay. At first we
met numbers of peasants all astride of donkeys, going towards Cività
Castellana, families riding together and eating as they went. Later,
however, no one passed but an occasional lonely rider (who in his long
cloak and high-pointed hat looked a genuine Fra Diavolo), or else
sportsmen and their dogs. It was strange that though we saw many of the
latter, we never once heard the singing or chirping of birds. There were
hillsides and fields full of large black cattle, or herds of horses, or
flocks of sheep and goats. There were shepherds, too, sleeping in the
shade or by the roadside, leaning on their staffs or ruling their flock
with rod and rustic word, as in the days when Poliziano sung. And if
there was no bird's song to break the silence of the Campagna, there was
instead a loud baaing of sheep, led by the shrill piercing notes of the
lambs. If it was to such an accompaniment that Corydon and Thyrsis sang
in rivalry, their song could have been poetical only in Virgil's verse.
How hard we worked now that our pilgrimage was almost ended! We scarcely
looked at the little village through which we wheeled, and where a White
Brother was going from door to door, nor at the ruins which rose here
and there in the hollows and on the slopes of the hills; and when at
last we saw on the horizon the dome coming up out of the broad
undulating plain, we gave it but a short greeting, and then hurried on
faster than ever. We would not even go to Castel Nuovo, which lies a
quarter of a mile or so from the road, but eat our hasty lunch in a
_trattoria_ by the wayside, while a man--an engineer he said he
was--showed us drawings he had made on his travels, and asked about our
ride. How brave it was of the _Signora_ to work! he exclaimed, and how
brave of the _Signore_ to sketch from his velocipede!
And after this "the hills their heights began to lower," and with feet
up we went like the wind, and every time we looked at the dome it seemed
larger and more clearly defined against the sky. But about six miles
from Rome our feet were on the pedals again and we were working with all
our might. Sand and loose stones covered the road, which grew worse
until, in front of the staring pink quarantine building, the stones were
so many that in steering out of the way of one we ran over another, and
the jar it gave us loosened the screw of the luggage-carrier. We were so
near Rome we let it go. This was a mistake. But a little farther, and
the whole thing gave way, and bags and knapsack rolled in the dust. It
took some fifteen minutes to set it to rights again; and all the time we
stood in the shadeless road, under a burning sun, for the heat in the
lower plains of the Campagna was as great as if it were still summer. As
the luggage-carrier was slightly broken, we were afraid to put too great
a strain upon it, and for the rest of the journey the knapsack went like
a small boy swinging on behind.
[Illustration: FROM VIA FLAMINIA, NEAR PONTE MOLLE.
_Page 170._]
Like those other pilgrims, we were much discouraged because of the way.
But at last, wheeling by pink and white _trattorie_, whose walls were
covered with illustrated bills of fare, and coming to an open place
where street-cars were coming and going, the Ponte Molle, over a now
yellow Tiber, lay before us, and we were under the shadow of the dome we
from afar had watched for many hours. Over the bridge we went with cars
and carts, between houses and gardens and wine-shops, where there was a
discord of many hurdy-gurdies, to the Porta del Popolo, and so into
Rome.
_Carabinieri_ were lounging about the gate, and carriages were driving
to the Pincian; but we rode on and up the street on the right of the
piazza. When we had gone a short distance we asked a man at a corner our
way to the Piazza di Spagna. We should have taken the street to our
left, he said, but now we could reach it by crossing the Corso
diagonally. As we did so we heard a loud _sst_, _sst_ behind us, and we
saw a _gendarme_ running up the street; but we went on. When we wheeled
into the Piazza di Spagna, however, a second, almost breathless, ran out
in front of us, and cried, _Aspetti!_ ("Wait!") But still we rode.
_Aspetti!_ he cried again, and half drew his sword. In a minute we were
surrounded. Models came flying from the Spanish steps; an old countryman
carrying a fish affectionately under his arm, bootblacks, clerks from
the near shops, young Roman swells,--all these and many more gathered
about us.
"_Aspetti!_" the _gendarme_ still cried.
"_Perchè?_" we asked.
And then his fellow-officer, whom we had seen on the Corso, came up.
"Get down!" he said, in fierce tones of command.
"_Perchè?_" we asked again.
"_Per Christo!_" was his only answer.
The crowd laughed with glee. Hackmen shouted their applause. It was
ignominious, perhaps, but the wisest policy, to get down and walk to our
hotel.
THE FINISH.
"_It pities me much for this poor
man: it will certainly go ill with
him at the last._"
What pilgrim of old times thought his pilgrimage really over until he
gave either out of his plenty or nothing in alms? Two months later we
too gave our mite, not to the church or to the poor, but to the
Government; for we were then summoned before a police magistrate and
fined ten francs for "_furious_ riding on the Corso, and refusing to
descend when ordered."
And so our pilgrimage ended.
APPENDIX.
VETTURINO _versus_ TRICYCLE.
BY JOSEPH PENNELL.
_From "Outing."_
Who has not journeyed through a country with his favorite author long
before he makes the actual trip himself? and who, when he comes to see
with his own eyes that at which he has hitherto looked through some one
else's, does not find himself his best guide? Long before I came to
Italy I had travelled along its highways and by-ways with many authors,
more especially with Hawthorne in his "Italian Note-Book," and Mr.
Howells in his "Italian Journeys" and "Venetian Life." When it was
finally my good fortune to make the journey myself, I was at first lucky
enough to have for a companion, not his books, but Mr. Howells himself;
and I frankly confess I found him far more delightful and satisfactory
in person than in print. A year later I started for the same country,
this time encumbered with a wife and a tricycle. Mr. Howells could no
longer be my _cicerone_: in the first place he was back in Boston,--I
might add, as if in parenthesis, calling me "lucky dog" for being able
to go so soon again over the well-known ground; and, in the second
place, because the route I now intended to take is not described in his
books. But it is in Hawthorne's "Note-Book," a volume which, as I have
just said, I had frequently studied. But of course I forgot to put it in
my knapsack, and so had not a chance to see it until I arrived in Rome.
When I there looked into it, naturally in a more critical
spirit--inspired by personal knowledge of the subject--than I ever had
before, the first thing that struck me was the advantage I had had over
my old master in travelling by tricycle instead of by diligence. From
the little village of Passignano to Rome we had followed exactly the
same road, and though we began our rides at its opposite ends, I could
still easily compare the time we had made, and the comfort and
convenience and pleasure we had enjoyed by the way. As this comparison
may be interesting to many who intend some day to make the cycling tour
of Italy, I will here briefly indicate Hawthorne's experience,
principally as to time and roads, and then mine:--
HAWTHORNE'S JOURNEY
TO FLORENCE. MY NOTES.
FIRST DAY OF TRIP. LAST DAY OF TRIP.