A RAMBLE.
"And now, uncle George," said Rollo, "we'll get ready, and then the
first thing that we will do, will be to go down into the dining room and
get some breakfast."
"Why, we have had our breakfast already," said Mr. George. "We had it at
two o'clock this morning, on the Pontine Marshes."
"O, no," said Rollo, "that was our supper for last night."
"Very well," said Mr. George, "we will have some breakfast. You may go
down and order it as soon as you are ready. I will come down by the time
that it is on the table."
"What shall I order?" asked Rollo.
"Whatever you please," said Mr. George.
Accordingly Rollo, as soon as he was ready, went down stairs, and
looking about in the entrance hall, he saw a door with the words TABLE
D'HOTE, in gilt letters, over it.
"Ah," said he to himself, "this is the place."
He opened the door, and found himself in a long, narrow room, which
seemed, however, more like a passage way than like a room. There was a
sort of rack on one side of it for hats and coats. There were several
pictures in this room, with prices marked upon them, as if they were for
sale, and also a number of very pretty specimens of marble, and inlaid
paper weights, and models of columns, temples, and ruins of various
kinds, and other such curiosities as are kept every where in Rome to
sell to visitors. Rollo looked at all these things as he passed through
the room, considering, as he examined them, whether his uncle George
would probably wish to buy any of them.
One of them was a model of a column, with a spiral line of sculptures
extending from the base to the summit. These sculptures represented
figures of men and horses, sometimes in battle, sometimes crossing
bridges, and sometimes in grand processions entering a town.
"This must be a model of some old column in Rome, I suppose," said Rollo
to himself. "Perhaps I shall find it some time or other, when I am
rambling about the streets. But now I must go and see about breakfast."
So saying, Rollo passed on to the end of the passage way, where there
was a door with curtains hanging before it. He pushed these curtains
aside, opened the door, and went in. He found himself ushered into a
dining room, with a long table extending up and down the centre of it.
There was a row of massive columns on each side of the table, which
supported the vaultings of the ceiling above. In different parts of this
table there were small parties of gentlemen and ladies, engaged in
taking late breakfasts.
Rollo walked down on one side of the table. There was on that side a
party consisting of a lady and gentleman with two children, a girl and a
boy,--all dressed in such a manner as to give them a foreign air. The
gentleman was speaking to the waiter in French when Rollo passed by the
party. The boy was sitting next to one of the great pillars. These
pillars were so near the table that each one of them took the place of a
seat.
Rollo walked on and took his seat next beyond the pillar. Of course the
pillar was between him and the boy.
In a few minutes a waiter came to ask what Rollo would have for
breakfast. He asked in French. Rollo gave an order for breakfast for
two. He said that his uncle would be down in a few minutes.
"Very well, sir," said the waiter.
As soon as the waiter had gone, Rollo looked round the other way, and
he saw that the other boy was peeping at him from behind the pillar. The
boy laughed when he caught Rollo's eye, and Rollo laughed too. The boy
seemed to be about nine years old.
A moment afterwards the boy began to peep at Rollo from behind the
pillar on the back side, and then again on the front side, thus playing
a sort of bo-peep. In this way, in a few minutes the two boys began to
feel quite acquainted with each other, without, however, having spoken a
word. They would, perhaps, have continued this game longer, but just at
this moment the breakfast for the party came in, and the boy set himself
at work eating a warm roll, buttered, and drinking his coffee.
"Can you speak French?" asked Rollo,--of course speaking French himself
in asking the question.
"Yes," said the boy, "but not very well."
"Then," said Rollo to himself, "he cannot be a French boy. Perhaps he is
an Italian boy."
"Italian?" asked Rollo.
"No," said the boy, "not at all. All I know of Italian is _grazia_."[4]
[Footnote 4: Pronounced _gratzia_.]
"What does that mean?" asked Rollo.
"It means, Thank you," said the boy.
"He must be a German boy, I think," said Rollo to himself.
After pausing a moment, Rollo ventured to ask the boy what his name was.
"Charles Beekman," said the boy. He pronounced the name in so English a
fashion, that Rollo perceived at once that he must speak English, so he
changed from French to English himself, and said,--
"So you are an English boy."
"No," said Charles, "I'm an American boy."
Rollo here laughed outright, to think how much trouble they had both
been taking to speak to each other in French, each supposing the other
to be some outlandish foreigner, when, after all, they were both
Americans, and could talk perfectly well together in their own mother
tongue. Such adventures as these, however, are very frequently met with,
in travelling in foreign countries.
After finding that they could both speak English, the two boys talked
with each other like old friends, for some minutes; and at length
finding that the pillar between them was very much in the way, Charles,
with his mother's permission, moved his seat round to Rollo's side of
it, Rollo himself moving to the next chair, to make room for him. Mrs.
Beekman readily consented to this, having first observed that Rollo
appeared to be a boy of agreeable and gentlemanly manners and demeanor.
When Mr. George at length came down, he was at first quite surprised to
find that Rollo had thus obtained a companion; but before the breakfast
was completed, he had become quite well acquainted with the Beekman
family himself. Towards the end of the breakfast Rollo said that he was
going out to take a walk, and he asked Mrs. Beekman to let Charles go
with him. Mr. George was going to finish some letters in his room, and
was then going to the post office and to the bankers, where Rollo did
not particularly wish to go.
"It will be better for you and me to go out and take a walk by
ourselves," said he to Charles, "if your mother is willing."
"Yes," said Mrs. Beekman, "I am willing. Only you must take care and not
get lost."
"O, no," said Rollo; "I'll take care of that. Besides, if we should get
lost, I know exactly what to do."
"What would you do?" asked Mr. Beekman.
"I would just take a carriage," replied Rollo, "and order the coachman
to drive right to the hotel."
"Very good," said Mr. Beekman, "that would do very well."
Accordingly, after breakfast Mr. George went to his room to finish his
letters, while Rollo and Charlie set out on their walk, to see what they
could see of Rome.
Rollo's plan of taking a carriage, in case of getting lost in a strange
city, and ordering the coachman to drive to the hotel, is a very
excellent one; but one thing is quite essential to the success of it,
and that is, that the person lost should know the name of his hotel.
Unfortunately, Rollo was going out without this requisite. Neither he
himself nor Mr. George had observed the name of the hotel where the
coachman whom they had employed, on their arrival, had finally left
them; and in going out Rollo forgot to observe what it was. He did not
even take notice of the name of the street. He did observe, however,
that the hotel had a small open space, like a square, before it, with a
fountain on one side. The water from the fountain flowed into a small
stone basin, with curious figures sculptured on the side of it.
"Let us go and look at this basin," said Charles, "and see if it would
not be a good place for us to sail little boats."
The basin was in a cool and pleasant place, being overshadowed by the
drooping branches of a great tree. Rollo, however, did not wish to stay
by it long.
"Let us go now and see the streets of Rome," said he; "we can come out
and look at this basin at any time."
So the two boys walked along, paying little attention to the direction
in which they were going.
"We shall find some of the great streets pretty soon," said Rollo, "and
then we will take an observation."
"What do you mean by that?" asked Charles.
"Why, we will take particular notice of some great building, or
something else that is remarkable where we come out into the street, and
by that means we shall be able to find our way back to the hotel."
"Yes," said Charles, "that will be an excellent plan."
So the boys went on, and presently they came out into what seemed to be
quite a busy street. It was not very wide, but it was bordered with
gay-looking shops on each side. These shops were for the sale of models,
specimens of marbles, Etruscan vases, mosaics, cameos, and other such
things which are sold to visitors in Rome. The number of mosaics and
cameos was very great. They were displayed in little show cases, placed
outside the shops, under the windows and before the doors, so that
people could examine them as they walked along.
"O, what a quantity of mosaics and _cameos_!" exclaimed Rollo.
"What are mosaics and cameos?" asked Charles.
As perhaps some of the readers of this book may not know precisely the
meaning of these words, I will here explain to them, as Rollo did to
Charles, how mosaics and cameos are made.
In the first place, in respect to cameos. Imagine a small flat piece of
stone, of different colors on the two sides, say white and black. We
will suppose that the white extends half through the thickness of the
stone, and that the remaining part of the thickness is black. Stones are
often found with such a division of colors, not only white and black,
but of all other hues.
Now, the artist takes such a stone as this, and marks out some design
upon one side of it, say upon the white side. Perhaps the design may be
the figure of a man. Then he cuts away all the white of the stone except
the figure; and the result is, that he has the figure of the man, or
whatever else his design may be, in white, on a black ground, and the
whole in one piece of stone, all solid.
Besides stone, shell is often used for cameos; many shells being pink,
or of some other such color on the inside, and white towards the
outside. In such a case, the figures of the design would be pink, or
whatever else the color of the stone might be, on a white ground.
The artists of Rome are celebrated for making beautiful cameos, both in
shell and in stone. The figures are very nicely drawn, and are very
beautifully cut, and when finished are set as pins, bracelets, and other
ornaments.
The _mosaics_, on the other hand, are made in a very different way. In
these, the design is represented by different colored stones or bits of
glass worked in together, with great care, in an opening made in the
material serving for the groundwork. Rollo and Charlie went into one
of the shops, and saw a man making one of these mosaics. He was working
at a table. On one side was a small painting on a card, which was his
model. He was copying this painting in mosaic. The bits of glass that he
was working with were in the form of slender bars, not much larger than
a stiff bristle. They were of all imaginable colors--the several colors
being each kept by itself, in the divisions of a box on the table. The
man took up these bars, one by one, and broke off small pieces of them,
of the colors that he wanted, with a pair of pincers, and set them into
the work. He put them in perpendicularly, and the lower ends went into
some soft composition, placed there to receive and hold them. The upper
ends, of course, came together at the surface of the work.
The man who was making the mosaic told Rollo, that as soon as he had
finished placing the pieces for the whole design, he should grind off
the surface so as to make it smooth, and polish it. It would then have
the appearance of a painted picture.
You would think that as the colors of the design are thus represented by
separate pieces of glass, put in one after the other, the result would
be a sort of mottled appearance, or at least that the gradations of hue
would be sharp and harsh in their effect. But it is not so. The pieces
are so small, and the different shades succeed each other so regularly,
that when viewed from the ordinary distance, the junctions disappear
altogether, and the shades mingle and blend together in the softest and
most perfect manner.
The mosaic which the workman was making in the shop where Rollo and
Charles went in, was a small one, intended to form part of a bracelet.
There were, however, some in the same shop that were quite large. They
were framed like pictures, and were hanging up against the wall.
Indeed, there was nothing but the circumstance that they were in a
mosaic shop, to denote that they were not pictures, beautifully painted
in oil. One was a landscape; another was a portrait of a beautiful girl;
another was a basket of fruit and flowers.
In some of the churches of Rome, there are mosaics of very large size,
which are exact and beautiful copies of some of the most celebrated
paintings in the world. Strangers coming into the churches and looking
at these pictures, never imagine them to be mosaics, and when they are
told that they are so, they can scarcely believe the story. But on
examining them very near, or in looking at them through an opera
glass,--for sometimes you cannot get very near them,--you can easily see
the demarcations between the little stones.
It is a very curious circumstance that the most ancient pictures in the
churches of Rome and Italy are mosaics, and not paintings. Mosaics seem
to have come first in the history of art, and paintings followed, in
imitation of them. Indeed, the arranging of different colored stones in
a pavement, or in a floor, so as to represent some ornamental design,
would naturally be the first attempt at decoration made in the
construction of buildings. Then would follow casing the walls with
different colored marbles, arranged in pretty ways, and finally the
representation of men and animals would be attempted. This we find, from
an examination of ancient monuments, was the actual course of things,
and painting in oil came in at the end as an imitation of pictures in
stone.
Rollo and Charles were induced to go into the mosaic shop by the
invitation of the workman, whose table, as it happened, stood near the
door. He saw the two boys looking in somewhat wistfully, as they went
by, and he invited them to walk in. He saw at once from their appearance
that they were visitors that had just arrived in town, and though he did
not expect that they would buy any of his mosaics themselves, he thought
that there might be ladies in their party who would come and buy, if he
treated the boys politely. It was on that account that he invited them
to come in. And when they had looked about the establishment as much as
they wished, and were ready to go away, he gave them each one of his
cards, and asked them to give the cards to the ladies of their party.
"But there are no ladies of my party," said Rollo.
"Who is of your party?" asked the workman.
"Only a young gentleman," said Rollo.
"O, very well," rejoined the man, "that will do just as well. He will
certainly wish to buy mosaics, while he is in Rome, for some of the
young ladies of his acquaintance."
"I think that is very doubtful," said Rollo; "but nevertheless I will
give him the card."
So Rollo and Charles bade the mosaic man good by, and went away.
They had been so much interested in what they had seen in the mosaic
shop, and their attention, now that they had left it, was so much
occupied with looking at the display of mosaics and cameos which they
saw in the little show cases along the street, that Rollo forgot
entirely his resolve to take an observation, so as not to lose his way.
The boys walked on together until they came to a long and straight,
though not very wide street, which was so full of animation and bustle,
and was bordered, moreover, on each side by so many gay looking shops,
that Rollo said he was satisfied it must be one of the principal streets
of the town.
It was, in fact, the principal street in the town. The street is called
_the Corso_. It runs in a straight line from the Porto del Popolo, which
I have already described, into the very heart of the city. It is near
the inner end of this street that the great region of ancient ruins
begins.
Rollo and Charles began to walk along the Corso, looking at the shops as
they went on. They were obliged, however, to walk in the middle of the
street, for the sidewalks, where there were any, were so narrow and
irregular as to be of very little service. Indeed, almost all the
pedestrians walked in the middle of the street. Now and then a carriage
came along, it is true, but the people in that case opened to the right
and left, and let it go by.
After going on for some distance, Charles began to look about him
somewhat uneasily.
"Rollo," said he, "are you sure that we can find our way home again?"
"O! I forgot about the way home," said Rollo; "but never mind; I can
find it easily enough. I can inquire. What is the name of the hotel?"
"I don't know," said Charles.
"Don't know?" repeated Rollo, in a tone of surprise. "Don't know the
name of the hotel where you are lodging?"
"No," said Charles, "we only came last night, and I don't know the name
of the hotel at all."
"Nor of the street that it is in?" asked Rollo.
"No," said Charles.
"Then," said Rollo, in rather a desponding tone, "I don't know what we
shall do."
Just then a carriage was seen coming along; and Rollo and Charles, who
had stopped suddenly in the middle of the street, in their surprise and
alarm, were obliged to run quick to get out of the way. The carriage was
a very elegant one in red and gold, and there were two elegantly dressed
footmen standing behind.
"That must be a cardinal's carriage," said Rollo, when the carriage had
gone by.
"How do you know?" asked Charles.
"Uncle George told me about them," said Rollo. "You see Rome and all the
country about here is under the government of the pope, and the chief
officers of his government are the cardinals; and uncle George told me
that they ride about in elegant carriages, in red and gold, very
splendid and gay. We saw one of them, too, when we were coming into
town."
Charles watched the carriage a minute or two, until it had gone some
distance away, and then turning to Rollo again, he said,--
"And how about finding our way home again, Rollo?"
"Ah!" said Rollo, "in regard to that I don't know. We shall have to take
a carriage when we want to go home, so we may as well go on and have our
walk out. We are lost now, and we can't be any more lost go where we
will."
So the boys walked on. Presently they came to a large square, with an
immense column standing in the centre of it. This column was so similar
to the little model which Rollo had seen at the hotel, that he exclaimed
at once that it was the same. It had a spiral line of sculptures winding
round and round it, from the base to the summit. The figures, however,
were very much corroded and worn away, as were indeed all the angles and
edges of the base, and of the capital of the column, by the tooth of
time. The column had been standing there for eighteen or twenty
centuries.
"I saw a model of that very column," said Rollo, "in a little room at
the hotel. It is the column of Trajan. I'll prove it to you."
So Rollo asked a gentleman, who was standing on the sidewalk with a
Murray's Guide Book in his hand, and who Rollo knew, by that
circumstance, was an English or American visitor, if that was not the
column of Trajan.
"No," said the gentleman; "it is the column of Antonine."
Rollo looked somewhat abashed at receiving this answer, which turned his
attempt to show off his learning to Charles into a ridiculous failure.
"I thought it was called the column of Trajan," said he.
The gentleman, who, as it happened, was an Englishman, made no reply to
this observation, but quietly took out an opera glass from a case, which
was strapped over his shoulder, and began studying the sculptures on the
column.
So Rollo and Charles walked away.
"I believe the name of it is the column of Trajan," said Rollo, "for I
saw the name of it on the model at the hotel. That man has just come,
and he don't know."
"Are you sure it is the same column?" suggested Charles.
"Yes," said Rollo, "for it was exactly of that shape, and it had the
same spiral line of images going round and round it, and a statue on the
top. See, how old and venerable it looks! It was built almost two
thousand years ago."
"What did they build it for?" asked Charles.
"Why, I don't know exactly," said Rollo, looking a little puzzled; "for
ornament, I suppose."
"But I don't see much ornament," said Charles, "in a big column standing
all by itself, and with nothing for it to keep up."
"But it _has_ something to keep up," rejoined Rollo. "Don't you see,
there is a statue on the top of it."
"If that's what it is to keep up," said Charles, "I don't see any sense
in making the column so tall as to hold up the statue so high that we
can't see it."
"Nor I," said Rollo, "but they often made tall columns, like these, in
ancient times."
After rambling about a short time longer, the boys came to another open
space, where there was a second column very similar in appearance to the
first.
"Ah!" said Rollo, "perhaps this is the column of Trajan."
Rollo was right this time. There are several large columns standing
among the ruins of Rome, and among them are two with spiral lines of
sculpture around them, which are extremely similar to each other, and it
is not at all surprising that Rollo was at first deceived by the
resemblance between them.
These columns were built in honor of the victories of great generals,
and the spiral lines of sculptures were representations of their
different exploits. The statue upon the top of the column was,
originally, that of the man in whose honor the column was erected. But
in the case of the Roman columns, these original statues have been taken
down, and replaced by bronze images of saints, or of the Virgin Mary.
Near the column of Trajan was a large sunken space, in the middle of
the square, with a railing around it. In the bottom of this sunken space
was a pavement, which looked very old, and rising from it were rows of
columns with the tops broken off. The old pavement was eight or ten feet
below the level of the street.
"This must be some old ruin or other," said Rollo; "a temple perhaps."
"Only I do not see," said Charles, "why they built their temples down so
low."
"Nor do I," said Rollo.
"But, Rollo," said Charles, "I think it is time for us to begin to try
to find our way home. I don't see how you are going to find the way at
all."
"If I only knew the name of the hotel, or even the name of the street,"
said Rollo, "I should know at once what to do."