In what had now become a sight-seeing perfect holiday time for Henty,
prior to his being present to witness the entry of the Italian troops
into Venice and the departure of the Austrians, Ravenna, with its
antiquities, its museums and traditions, was too great an attraction to
a literary man to be passed over. He appreciated to the full the ruins
of the old Christian churches, the cathedrals, the traces of the Roman
emperors, the glorious fir woods with their pleasant shades, and raked
up memories of poet and student who had been attracted there in their
time, such as Dante, Boccaccio, and Dryden. All three have written
their recollections, while Byron worked there, finding other points of
interest beyond its quiet charm. For it was in Venice that he wrote
_Marino Faliero_, _The Two Foscari_, _Cain_, and other poems.
But every city of the Italian plains had its attractions for Henty, and
his writings at this date are one long record of a country which teems
with memories of the past.
Much as he was interested in the fairs and markets and antiquities,
Henty was too much of the sailor and soldier not to be attracted by a
little scene at Ancona on his last morning there, and that was in
connection with the landing from the fleet of a body of sailors for
certain evolutions upon the parade. They brought ashore twelve light
guns, apparently about five-pounders, each manned by six Italian Jacks.
These guns were promptly taken to pieces, and a couple of the men caught
up the gun, the rest the wheels, ammunition boxes and carriages, and
bore them down to the boats. Then, at the word of command, they carried
them up again to the drill-ground, and in a little over a minute the
guns were put together, mounted, loaded, and ready to open fire, the
limber, in charge of two of the six men, standing a little in the rear.
The whole evolution was remarkably good, and the rapidity most striking.
At the word of command the guns were fired; they limbered up directly,
and the men attached a sort of harness which went across their chests,
and dashed off as fast as they could run till a halt was called, fresh
position taken up, the guns unlimbered, loaded, and discharged again in
an incredibly short space of time.
As Henty watched them the sailors seemed to be taking their task as if
it afforded them the greatest amusement, and to one who had never
witnessed any such drill before it appeared to be an exercise that ought
to be introduced to our own navy, which, as far as he knew, had not been
furnished with these light portable guns for landing operations, "for
there is no question," he says, "that they would be of immense service
if two or three of these little guns were added to every vessel of our
fleet."
This was, of course, prior to Henty's experience in connection with
Magdala and Ashantee, where he found our sailors on landing expeditions
in no wise behind those of the Italian fleet. Later it came to his lot,
after his own war-correspondent campaigns were at an end, to deal with
correspondence, letters, and telegrams connected with the Boer war, in
which our Jacks performed wonders, not with toy guns, but with the
monsters on their specially-contrived carriages, under the manipulation
of Captain Hedworth Lambton and Captain Percy Scott, which startled our
enemies.
With ears relieved from the incessant roar of cannon to listen instead
to the ringing of joy-bells and the cheers which welcomed the
declaration of an armistice, Henty gladly availed himself of an
opportunity to visit the old Italian cities, so as to see what life was
like in these old-world places. Much of the quaint and antiquated still
lingers round these towns, not only in the buildings, but in the habits
of the people, suggestive of the days when Shakespeare and his
contemporaries constructed their dramas, laying their scenes in Verona,
Venice, Padua, Mantua, and other places, the very names of which suggest
slashed doublets, rapiers, family enmities, relentless vendettas,
keen-bladed swords, stilettoes, bravoes, feathered caps, poisoned cups,
and all the rest.
Starting from Ancona, he went over to Sinigaglia, now upon the railway,
but formerly a Roman station, and later of considerable importance in
the Middle Ages, when war used often to rage between the states of the
Pope and the family of Malatesta at Rimini. Here, too, Caesar Borgia
made his name infamous by causing the Condottieri, his allies, to be
strangled, an act of treachery suggestive of the massacre of the
Janissaries at Constantinople.
These names suggest old-world celebrity, but Henty had come over for a
change, sick for the time being of war and its rumours. The bow-string
had been tight for some time, sending literary arrows speeding west, and
the fact that a rather famous fair was being celebrated attracted him,
in expectation of seeing what Italy would be like when its people were
_en fete_ at a function similar to our own old Bartlemy or Greenwich.
In visiting Sinigaglia, a place associated with such names as the above,
he fully expected to revel in the picturesque; but he found that the
Italians, troubled as they are with such terrible epidemic visitations,
have grown to pay greater respect to sanitary measures than did their
ancestors, and in consequence ancient ruins with their echoes of the
past do not receive the respect we pay to them in England. He found one
grand old citadel, but the Italians had been behaving to it like
Vandals, or, to be more familiar of speech, like our honest old British
churchwardens when they distribute whitewash. Other ruins, such as
nowadays we place under the care of some learned society, he found had
been patched up and turned to some useful purpose.
The fair was in full force, but by no means English-looking. There were
no roundabouts, either steam or worked by expectant boys in return for
an occasional ride; no swings, no dramatic shows, no giants, no fat or
spotted ladies, no freaks such as our American friends accustomed to
Saint Barnum of show fame rejoice to see, no music, no noise. It did
not seem at all like a fair; but he found other attractions in the large
town of about twenty-three thousand inhabitants, which was built as a
fort about a third of a mile from the almost tideless sea, which, after
the fashion of Venice, was connected therewith by a wide and deep canal.
This canal offered passage for good-sized vessels, and ran up right
through the town, all of which was very interesting from a commercial
point of view; but it was the middle of hot August, and the place had a
greater attraction for our traveller because it happened to be one of
the most fashionable watering-places of eastern Italy. Henty here draws
attention to the great advantage the Italians possess in living on a sea
like the Mediterranean, where bathing-places can be erected, and where
at all times there is a sufficient depth of water to enable one so
desirous, to have a plunge without having to go lumbering out in one of
the miserable rickety boxes on wheels which we call bathing-machines.
The same advantages are offered in the harbour of Ancona, at which town,
at this period, Henty was making his head-quarters. Here he found
floating baths represented by a chamber of about fifteen feet square,
into which the sea had free ingress, and also a larger bath big enough
for a swim, while if one were so disposed there was egress to the sea.
To return to Sinigaglia: seeing that it was fair time the streets were
furnished with awnings to keep off the sun, and the place was after all
very attractive, with its streets filled with women displaying their
baskets of goods for sale. Being a fete day the peasantry had flocked
in from the surrounding country in their best and most picturesque
costumes of bright colours and snowy white, with their hair carefully
dressed in a peculiar fashion, and a plentiful display of gold necklaces
or ear-rings. Their dark hair, warm complexions, and large dark eyes
all tended to form a very attractive scene.
Henty however always displayed a mind receptive of anything connected
with utility. As a rule he looked out for matters concerning
sanitation, and while he condemned the vandalism, he had a word to say
here respecting the purifying effect of whitewash. But in a place like
this, so intimately associated with the old and historical, it is
amusing to find that he takes a walk round the outskirts of the ancient
city, and very unpoetically notes that the hills about Sinigaglia would
gladden the heart of a London brickmaker if they could be dropped down
in the neighbourhood of the metropolis. It stands to reason that he
must have had Southall in his eye, for he says that the Sinigaglia hills
are entirely composed of fine brick clay of apparently unlimited depth
and extent.
As far as the fair was concerned, Henty writes soon after from Rimini--
most poetic of names!--that he was glad that he went back to Ancona for
the fair in that town, for it differed entirely from that at Sinigaglia,
in that it was especially lively, amusing, and attractive.
"The fair," he says, "begins where Ancona ceases." The attractions were
almost entirely devoted to the young, so that for the time being the
place was turned into an attractive toy-land. The Grand Promenade of
Ancona, in the neighbourhood of the sea, and planted with rows of trees,
was the centre of interest. The fair stalls, which were most abundant,
were small, but were made most attractive. Each had its speciality, and
was, of course, thronged with eager, bright-eyed children. One
contained drums only; the next military toys, small swords, guns and
pistols; the next would be all small carts; then came one with dolls'
furniture, most neatly made in japanned tin or iron. A little farther
on the stalls were filled with the noisy playthings so dear to
children's hearts--whistles, trumpets, accordions, and rattles of the
most ingenious construction and maddening power. Then, again, there
were stalls displaying the ingenuity and delicacy of Italian taste,
where they sold only dolls' head-dresses, the most jaunty little caps,
hats, and veils conceivable, quite an equipment, in fact, for the heads
of a whole troop of little fairies.
Then, again, there were many stalls with dolls dressed in the extreme of
fashion; but in a fatherly manner, suggestive of thoughts of home, he
goes on to say that "the dolls themselves would not at all come up to an
English child's idea of what such a toy ought to be, being all cheap
wooden dolls. I did not see one made of wax in the fair."
Many of the toys exhibited were unquestionably German, similar to those
seen in our own bazaars, but some, particularly the drums, he noticed
were Italian. It was easy to detect the difference in the colouring,
the paints used being of less clear and bright shades; and they were
unvarnished, which is seldom or never the case with German toys. Round
these stalls the crowd of little people and their friends was constant.
Observant of the country again, Henty goes on to say, with thoughts of
home: "Children here have few amusements, few toys, and still fewer of
those charming story-books with which so many of our booksellers' shop
windows are full, especially about Christmas time." It is worthy of
notice that this was in 1866, about two years previous to the production
of Henty's first boys' story, and over thirty years before the time
when, with scrupulous regularity, the booksellers' shop windows were
annually displaying two or more of his own productions specially written
for the young.
The parents and the friends seemed disposed to indulge the children to
the utmost upon this occasion, for all had their hands full of toys.
Boys drummed and blew trumpets and whistles till he was nearly deafened;
little girls clung tightly to the skirts of their mothers' dresses with
one hand, and with the other held out their new dolls admiringly before
them; and appeared to be continually questioning their friends as to
whether they were quite sure that sundry other purchases carried in
paper bags were safe.
It was a charming scene, for the stalls were lit up by candles, which
burned steadily in the serene summer air. Nothing could have been more
attractive--the crowds, the pleasure of the children, the number of
well-dressed people in their varied refinements of fashion, and the
peasant women in their bright-coloured handkerchiefs, but many with no
other decoration to their heads save their abundant smooth and
neatly-braided hair.
Other picturesque features in the crowd were afforded by the soldiers,
sailors, and marines, with their round hats and drooping plumes of black
cocks' feathers, and the uniforms of the National Guards and officers of
all these services.
Passing onward, he came upon stalls significant of his being in a hot
country, for at these only fans were sold--fans of every size and
colour. In Italy, it must be remembered, as in Japan, nearly everyone
carries a fan, and uses it instead of a parasol to shade the face when
walking and to cool the bearer when sitting down.
And now began the stalls of the vendors of more useful articles. First
were the basket-makers and turners, trades which seemed to be generally
united, as if the women of the family pursued the one branch, the men
the other. There were baskets of every size and form, from those which
might hold a lady's fancy-work, right up to the enormous holder in which
Falstaff himself might have been borne.
The turners' display of the works of their lathes was wonderful in
variety, and included wooden bowls, platters, distaffs, and spindles,
strings of buttons, bowls, and articles that were more the work of the
carving tool, in the shape of spoons, taps, and pegs.
Then there were stalls with articles made from horn instead of wood,
followed by displays of articles in iron and tin, notably small charcoal
stoves, coffee-roasting apparatus, and ladles, while last in utility
there were sieves of cane, wire, and horse-hair. The variety was
wonderful. Now the stalls were covered with hats--from the coarsest
straw or chip, to those once fashionable in England and worn by our
grandmothers under the name of Tuscan and Leghorn,--while a brisk sale
of cutlery was being carried on, men selling wooden-handled knives of
the cheapest kind, such as the peasants always have at hand.
Elsewhere there were copper cooking utensils in plenty. Cooking in
Italy is almost always done in copper pans and pots, and there is no
cottage so poor that it has not its half-dozen, at least, of these
brightly kept vessels.
And now, where the crowd was thickest, Henty found that he had been too
hurried in his judgment of Italian fairs, for he found the old English
fair equalled, if not excelled. Here were the shows and menageries,
with the outside pictures of terrific combats with impossible animals,
conspicuous among them being a snake, by the side of which the sea
serpent would sink into insignificance, engaged in the operation of
devouring a boat-load of Hindus, or so they seemed to be by their
complexion and costume. This show boasted a band, while its neighbour
contained our old friends the wax figures, representing heroes of modern
times, among which he noted that, in remembrance of the Crimea, the
showman had done England the honour of placing Lord Raglan. By way of
extra attraction the little exhibition was furnished with an organ and
cymbals.
If he had shut his eyes now, he says, he could almost have imagined
himself in England--the music, the shouting of the touters at the
booths, the blowing of trumpets and whistles, the beating of small
drums, all recalling home. But there was one difference that was
unmistakable. There was no pushing, no foul language; there were no
drunken people, no roughs, all of which appear to be the inseparable
elements of an English fair.
There were a great number of fruit stalls, which seemed to be doing a
good business among the lower orders, especially at the counters devoted
to the sale of slices of water-melon, which the people of Italy seem
never tired of eating. Henty ventures to say they were very nice to one
who got used to them, but for his part, he declares he would just as
soon have eaten the same weight of grass.
When he left the place that night the proceedings were still in full
swing, and when he returned to it at six o'clock the next morning, there
was the same crowd as late the night before, and a brisk trade was still
going on. Noticing again the vast number of fruit stalls, the thought
occurred to him that it was fortunate that there was no cholera in the
town, for if all the fruit that he saw in Ancona were consumed by the
people before it got bad, it would produce an increase of that epidemic
which was terrible to contemplate. There were hundreds of cart-loads of
melons, water-melons, and peaches, which were poor tasteless things and
always picked too soon; he declares he never tasted a ripe peach while
he was in Italy. Pears too, figs, and grapes were plentiful; but he
gives them no praise.
To his surprise and amusement, perhaps consequent upon Ancona being so
old-world a city, he came upon one relic of the past, and that was a
stall for supplying the matches such as our grandmothers used, such, in
fact, as used to be sold by every pitiful vendor in the streets, in the
shape of long thin strips of wood cut into a sharp point at each end,
dipped in melted sulphur, and then tied up in bunches like fans. These
were, of course, the predecessors of the lucifer matches, as they were
called, which were sold in neat little boxes, with an oblong piece of
sanded card laid on the top. This folded across, and between its folds
the match was drawn sharply, when it burst into flame. These were soon
succeeded by a somewhat similar match, with the sand-paper a fixture on
the bottom of the box, and the priming of the match so increased in
inflammability that the ignition took place as at the present time, and
the name Congreve Light came in, the "light" soon dying out, and giving
way to Congreve or matches only. Of course, those which Henty saw on
sale were for use in connection with the old-world flint and steel and
tinder-box.
Passing on that morning, he went through the Custom House, to find
beyond it the regular food market at its height. Hundreds of neatly
dressed peasant women and girls were standing with their baskets before
them, ready to supply eggs, butter, cheeses, fowls, turkeys, ducks,
pigeons, and larks, for the most part alive, but doomed. There were one
or two baskets which contained puppies, probably, however, not doomed,
at least, to be cooked. But there were baskets in plenty containing
delicacies in the nature of molluscs! He was within reach of the sea,
but they were neither oysters, scallops, mussels, cockles, nor winkles,
but the fine pale-shelled, spiral, Roman snails, that doubtless had been
captured in the moist eve or early morn when ascending the poles of some
vineyard. Delicate, but not tempting to the English taste.
To do the fair thoroughly, Henty, before leaving, visited the cattle, to
find that the supply of horses was just then very small; but there was
the prospect that, directly peace was signed and the enormous transport
train paid off, horses would become as cheap in Italy as they then were
dear.
There was a large show, though, of the beautiful patient, docile,
draught oxen, which were fetching from twenty to thirty pounds a pair;
and with these he concluded his inspection of the two fairs. He then
suffered a most Inquisition-like examination of his baggage, and started
for a visit to one of the smallest republics in the world, a country
close to the Adriatic shore, which had been for some time attracting his
attention. This he hoped to see and report upon before the festivities
of peace should commence consequent upon the complete freedom of Italy,
or troubles should arise once more and make busy in other ways the war
correspondent's pen.