THE ARRIVAL AT ROME.
When Mr. George and Rollo awoke from their sleep, they found that they
were coming into the environs of Rome. The country was green and
beautiful, but it seemed almost uninhabited; and in every direction were
to be seen immense ruins of tombs, and aqueducts, and other such
structures, now gone to decay. There was an ancient road leading out of
Rome in this direction, called the _Appian Way_. It was by this road
that the apostle Paul travelled, in making his celebrated journey to
Rome, after appealing from the Jewish jurisdiction to that of Caesar.
Indeed, the Appii Forum and the Three Taverns, places mentioned in the
account of this journey contained in the Acts, were on the very road
that Mr. George and Rollo had been travelling in their journey from
Naples to Rome.
The remains of the Appian Way are still to be traced for many miles
south of Rome. The road was paved, in ancient times, with very large
blocks of an exceedingly hard kind of stone. These stones were of
various shapes, but they were fitted together and flattened on the top,
and thus they made a very smooth, and at the same time a very solid,
pavement. In many places along the Appian Way this old pavement still
remains, and is as good as ever.
At length the diligence arrived at the gate of the city. It passed
through an arched gateway, leading through an ancient and very venerable
wall, and then stopped at the door of a sort of office just within.
There were two soldiers walking to and fro before the office.
"What are we stopping for here?" asked Rollo.
"For the passports, I suppose," said Mr. George.
The conductor of the diligence came to the door of the coupe and asked
for the passports. Mr. George gave him his and Rollo's, and the
conductor carried them, together with those which he had obtained from
the other passengers, into the office. He then ordered the postilions to
drive on.
"How shall we get our passports again?" asked Rollo.
"We must send for them to the police office, I suppose," said Mr.
George.
It is very customary, in the great capitals of Europe, for the police to
take the passports of travellers, on their arrival at the gates of the
city, and direct them to send for them at the central police office on
the following day.
After passing the gate, the diligence went on a long way, through a
great many narrow streets, leading into the heart of the city. There was
nothing in these streets to denote the ancient grandeur of Rome,
excepting now and then an old and venerable ruin, standing neglected
among the other buildings.
Rollo, however, in looking out at the windows of the coupe, saw a great
many curious sights, as the diligence drove along. Among these one of
the most remarkable was a procession of people dressed in a most
fantastic manner, and wearing masks which entirely concealed their
faces. There were two round holes in the masks for the eyes. Mr. George
told Rollo that these were men doing penance. They had been condemned to
walk through the streets in this way, as a punishment for some of their
sins.
"Why, they treat them just as if they were children," said Rollo.
"They _are_ children," said Mr. George, "in every thing but years."
[Illustration: DOING PENANCE.]
Not long after this, Rollo saw a very magnificent carriage coming
along. It was perfectly resplendent with crimson and gold. The horses,
too, and the coachman, and the footmen, were gorgeously caparisoned and
apparelled in the same manner.
Rollo pointed it out to Mr. George. Mr. George said it was a cardinal's
carriage.
"I wish the cardinal was in it," said Rollo. "I would like to have seen
him."
"I presume he would have looked very much like any other man," replied
Mr. George.
"Yes, but he would have been dressed differently, wouldn't he?"
"Perhaps so," said Mr. George.
"Perhaps he would have had his red hat on," said Rollo. "I should like
to see a cardinal wearing his red hat."
The badge of the cardinal's office is a hat and dress of a red color.
At length the diligence passed under an archway which led into a large
open court, similar to the one in Naples where the journey had been
commenced. The passengers got out, the horses were unharnessed, and the
baggage was taken down. The trunks were all taken into an office
pertaining to the custom house, to be examined by the officers there, in
order to see whether there were any contraband goods in them.
Mr. George unlocked his trunk and lifted up the lid. An officer came up
to the place, and patting with his hand upon the top of the clothes, as
if to prevent Mr. George from lifting them up to show what was below, he
said,--
"Very well; very well; it is sufficient."
So saying, he shut down the top of the trunk again, and marked it,
"Passed." He then touched his hat, and asked Mr. George if he would make
some small present for the benefit of the custom house officers.
That is to say, he evaded the performance of his duty as an officer of
the customs, in expectation that the traveller would pay him for his
delinquency. Most travellers are very willing to pay in such cases. They
have various articles in their trunks which they have bought in other
countries, and which, strictly speaking, are subject to duty in entering
Rome, and they are willing to pay a fee rather than to have their trunks
overhauled. Others, of more sturdy morality, refuse to pay these fees.
They consider them as of the nature of bribes. So they say to the
officers,--
"Examine the baggage as much as you please, and if you find any duties
due, I will pay them. But I will not pay any bribes."
"Now, Rollo," said Mr. George, when he had got possession of his trunk,
"we want a carriage to take us and the baggage to the hotel. You may go
and see if you can find one, and I will stay here and look after the
baggage. Engage the carriage by the hour."
So Rollo went out of the court, and soon found a carriage. Before he got
into it, he said to the coachman,--
"_Per hora!_"
This means, By the hour.
At the same time Rollo held up his watch to the coachman, in order to
let him see what o'clock it was.
"_Si, signore_," said the coachman.
_Si, signore_, is the Italian for Yes, sir.
Rollo could not say in Italian where he wished the coachman to go, and
so he stood up in the carriage and pointed. Following his indications,
the coachman drove in through the archway to the court of the post
office, where he found Mr. George waiting. The trunk and the bags were
put upon the carriage, in front, and Mr. George got in with Rollo.
"Hotel d'Amerique," said Mr. George to the coachman.
"_Si, signore_," said the coachman, and immediately he began to drive
away.
The Hotel d'Amerique was the one where Mr. George had concluded to go.
He had found the name and a description of this hotel in his guide book.
"Why did you want me to take the carriage by the hour?" asked Rollo.
"Because it is very probable," said Mr. George, "that we shall not get
in at the Hotel d'Amerique, and in that case we shall have to go to
other hotels, and unless we take him by the hour, he would charge a
course for every hotel that we go to, and the charge even for _two_
courses, is more than for an hour."
The event showed that Mr. George was right in his calculations. The
Hotel d'Amerique was full. The waiter, who came out, as soon as he saw
the carriage stop at the door, told Mr. George this in French.
"Then please tell our coachman," said Mr. George, "to drive us to any
other principal hotel that is near here, and if that is full, to
another; and so on, until he finds a good place where they can take us
in."
Mr. George said this, of course, in French. The waiter delivered the
message to the coachman in Italian.
"Yes," said the coachman, to himself, "that I'll do. But I shall take
good care that you don't find any place where you can get in this two
hours, if I can help it."
The reason why the coachman did not wish that his travellers should find
a hotel soon was, of course, because he wished to earn as much money as
possible by driving them about.
He immediately began to think what hotels would be most likely to be
full, and drove first to those. The first of all was a hotel, situated
quite near one of the gates of the city, the one where the principal
entrance is for all travellers coming from the north. It is called the
"Gate of the People,"--or in Italian, _Porto del Popolo_. The gate opens
into a large triangular space, which is called the _Piazza del Popolo_.
_Piazza_,[3] in Italian, means a public square.
[Footnote 3: Pronounced _Piatza_.]
This Piazza del Popolo is one of the most celebrated places in Rome.
There are three streets that radiate from it directly through the heart
of the town. Between the centre and the two side streets, at the corners
where they come out upon the square, are two churches exactly alike.
They are called sometimes the _twin churches_, on this account.
The Piazza del Popolo is a great place for public parades. On one side
is a high ascent, with a broad expanse of gardens upon the top, and
zigzag roads, handsomely walled up, and ornamented with statues and
fountains, and with marble seats placed here and there for foot
passengers to rest themselves upon, when ascending.
Every year, at the end of what they call Holy Week, they have a great
celebration of fireworks from the side of this hill and from the terrace
above; and then all the people assemble in the Piazza below to witness
them.
But I must go back to Mr. George and Rollo. The coachman stopped at a
large hotel, fronting upon this square. On inquiring at the bureau, (on
the continent of Europe they call an office a bureau) Mr. George found
that all the rooms were occupied except one large apartment, of four
rooms. This was, of course, more than Mr. George wanted.
At the next hotel where the coachman stopped, there were no rooms at all
vacant, and at the next only one small room, with a single narrow bed in
it.
"If we can't find any other," said Rollo, "we will come back and take
this, and I will sleep on the floor."
"O, no!" said Mr. George.
"Why, uncle George!" said Rollo, "I can make it very comfortable on the
floor, by rolling up two coats or cloaks into two long rolls, and
wedging them in under me, one on one side of me and the other on the
other, and then putting a carpet bag under my head for a pillow. It
feels just as if you were in a good bed."
Mr. George smiled, and got into the carriage again, and the coachman
drove on.
After a while, he stopped at the door of a hotel which stood in rather a
retired place among narrow streets, though there was an open space in
front of it. Mr. George inquired for rooms here, and the waiter said
that they had one left.
"Are there two beds in it?" asked Mr. George.
"No, sir," said the waiter, "but we can put two beds in. Would you like
to go and see it, sir?"
"No," said Mr. George, "I will take it without going to see it. It is
the best that we can do."
So the porter of the hotel took off the baggage, while Mr. George paid
the coachman for an hour and a half of time. Mr. George and Rollo then
followed the porter to their room. In order to reach it, they had to
ascend several stories, up massive staircases of stone, and then to go
out to the extreme end of a long corridor. The room, when they came to
it, proved to be quite small, and there was but one bed in it. There
was, however, room for another; and the waiter, who had followed them
up, said that he would cause another one to be put in without any
delay.