GETTING LOST.
"And now," said Rollo, "the first thing is to find somebody that can
speak French or English, for us to inquire of."
"What good will that do?" asked Charles, "as long as we don't know what
to ask them for?"
"True," said Rollo. "That's a real difficulty. I wish we just knew the
name of the hotel. At any rate, we will walk along until we find a
carriage, and I will be thinking what we had better do."
The boys walked along together. Charles kept silence, so as not to
interrupt Rollo in his thinking.
"All I know," said Rollo, after a short pause, "is, that the long,
straight street that we came through, is the Corso. I have heard of that
street before. If we could only find our way to the Corso, I believe
that I could follow it along, and at last find the mosaic shop, and so
get back to our hotel."
"Very well," said Charles, "let us try."
"Or, we might get into a carriage," said Rollo, "and direct the coachman
which way to drive by pointing."
"So we could," said Charles. "And I should like that, for I am tired of
walking so much."
"Then we will get a carriage," said Rollo. "We will take the first one
that we see. You shall get inside, and I will mount upon the box with
the coachman, and show him which way to go."
"No," said Charles, "we will both get inside, for we can stand up there
and point."
"So we can," said Rollo.
There are carriages to be found almost every where in the streets of
Rome, especially in the neighborhood of the most interesting ruins. It
was not long before Rollo and Charles came in sight of one. The coachman
was looking toward them, and was cracking his whip to attract their
attention.
Rollo and Charles walked directly towards the spot, and Rollo, taking
out his watch, and showing the coachman what o'clock it was, said,--
"_Per hora._"
This was to notify the coachman that he took the carriage by the hour.
"_Si, signore_," said the coachman; and then Rollo and Charles got in.
The carriage was entirely open,--the top being turned back,--so that it
afforded an uninterrupted view in every direction; and also, by standing
up and pointing forward, the boys could easily indicate to the coachman
which way they wished him to drive. Rollo, however, in the first
instance, directed him in words to drive to the Corso.
"_Si, signore_," said the coachman; and so he drove on.
The boys sat in the carriage, or stood up to look back at the various
objects of interest that attracted them as they passed. The scenes
through which the driver took them seemed very strange. Every thing in
Rome was strange to them, and their course now lay through a part of the
city which they had not been in before. Their attention was continually
attracted first upon this side of the carriage and then upon the other,
as they rode along; and they pointed out to each other the remarkable
objects they were passing.
The driver meanwhile upon his seat drove on, entirely indifferent to it
all. The scenes that were so new to the boys, were perfectly familiar to
him.
[Illustration: RIDING AMONG THE RUINS.]
He soon entered a region of dark, crooked, and winding alleys, where
Rollo said that he and Charles could never have found their way, if they
had undertaken it alone. They frequently passed portions of old ruins.
In some places these ruins consisted of columns standing alone, or
immense fragments of broken arches that had fallen down, and now lay
neglected upon the ground. In other places, the remains of ancient
temples stood built in with the houses of the street, with market women
at their stalls below, forming a strange and incongruous spectacle of
ancient magnificence and splendor, surrounded and overwhelmed with
modern poverty and degradation. As the carriage drove through these
places, Rollo and Charles stood up in it, supporting themselves by
pressing their knees against the front seat, and holding on to each
other. They stood up thus partly to be enabled to see better, and partly
so as to be ready to point out the way as soon as they should enter the
Corso.
It was not long before they came to the Corso. The coachman then looked
round, as if to inquire of the boys what he was to do next.
"Go right on," said Rollo; and so saying, he stood up in the carriage,
and pointed forward. The coachman, of course, did not understand the
words, but the gesture was significant enough, and so he drove on.
"Now watch, Charley, sharp," said Rollo; "and when you see the street
that you think is the one where we came into the Corso, tell me."
So the boys drove on through the Corso, standing up all the time in the
middle of the carriage, and looking about them in a very eager manner.
They went on in this way for some time, but they could not identify any
of the branch streets as the one by which they had come into the Corso.
"Never mind," said Rollo; "we will turn off into any of these streets,
and perhaps we shall come upon the hotel. We will take the streets that
look most like it, and at any rate, we shall have a good ride, and see
the city of Rome."
Rollo accordingly pointed to a side street when he wished the coachman
to turn. The coachman said, "_Si, signore_," and immediately went in
that direction. As he advanced in the new street, the boys looked about
on all sides to see if they could recognize any signs of their approach
to their hotel.
After going on a little way, and seeing nothing that looked at all
familiar, Rollo made signs to the coachman to turn down another street,
which he thought looked promising. The coachman did as he was directed,
wondering a little, however, at the strange demeanor of the boys; and
feeling somewhat curious to know where they wanted to go. He, however,
felt comparatively little interest in the question, after all; for, as
he was paid by the hour, it was of no consequence to him where they
directed him to drive.
Rollo now perceived that Charles began to be somewhat anxious in respect
to the situation they were in, and so he tried in every way to encourage
him, and to amuse his mind.
"I'll tell you what we will do," said Rollo. "This street that we are in
now seems to be a good long one, and we will drive through the whole
length of it, and you shall look down all the streets that open into it
on the right hand, and I will on the left; and if we see any thing that
looks like our hotel, we will stop."
So they rode on, each boy looking out on his side, until at length they
came to the end of the street, where there was a sort of opening, and a
river. There was a bridge across the river, and an ancient and
venerable-looking castle on the other side of it.
"Ah," said Rollo, "here is the River Tiber."
"How do you know that that is the name of it?" asked Charles.
"Because I know it is the Tiber that Rome is built upon," replied
Rollo,--"the Yellow Tiber, as they call it. Don't you see how yellow it
is?"
As Rollo said this, he made signs for the coachman to turn out to the
side of the street at the entrance of the bridge, and to stop there.
The coachman did as he was directed, and then Rollo and Charles, still
standing up in the carriage, had a fine view of the bridge and of the
river, and also of the Castle of St. Angelo beyond. The water of the
river was quite turbid, and was of a yellow color.
"That's the river," said Rollo, "that Romulus and Remus were floated
down on, in that little ark."
"What little ark?" asked Charles.
"Why, you see," replied Rollo, "when Romulus and Remus were babies, the
story is that somebody wanted to have them killed; but he did not like
to kill them himself with his own hand, and therefore he put them into a
sort of basket, made of bulrushes, and set them afloat on this river, up
above here a little way. So they floated down the stream, and came along
by here."
"Under this bridge?" asked Charles.
"Under where this bridge is now," said Rollo; "but of course there was
no bridge here then. There was no town here then--nothing but fields and
woods."
"And what became of the babies?" asked Charles.
"Why, they floated down below here a little way," said Rollo, "to a
place where there is a turn in the river; and there the basket went
ashore, and was upset, and the children crawled out on the sand, and
began to cry. Pretty soon a wolf, who was in the thicket near by, heard
the crying, and came down to see what it was."
"And did he eat them up?" asked Charles.
"It was not a he wolf," said Rollo; "it was a she wolf--an old mother
wolf. She thought that the children were little wolves, and she came to
them, and lay down by them, nursed them, and took care of them, just as
if she had been a cat, and they had been her two kittens."
"O Rollo," said Charles, "what a story! I don't believe it."
"Nor I," said Rollo. "Indeed, I don't think any body nowadays believes
it exactly. But that is really the story. You can read it in the history
of Rome. These two children, when they grew up, laid the foundations of
Rome. I don't really believe that the story is true; but if it is true,
this is the very place where the basket, with the two babies in it, must
have drifted along."
Charles gazed for a few minutes in silence on the current of turbid
water which was shooting swiftly under the bridge, and then said that it
was time for them to go.
"Yes," said Rollo; "and we will turn round and go back, for it is of no
use to go over the bridge. I am sure that we did not come over the
river when we set out from the hotel, and so we must keep on this side."
Rollo concluded, however, not to go back the same way that he came; and
so making signs to the coachman for this purpose, he turned into another
street, and as the carriage drove along, he and Charles looked out in
every direction for their hotel; but no signs of it were to be seen.
After going on for some distance, Rollo's attention was attracted by a
sign in English over a shop door as follows:--
MANUFACTURE OF ROMAN SCARFS. ENGLISH SPOKEN.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, suddenly, "that is just what I wanted to find." And
he immediately made a sign for the coachman to stop at the door.
"What is it?" asked Charles.
"It is a place where they make Roman scarfs," said Rollo, "and I want to
get one for my cousin Lucy. She told me to be sure, if I came to Rome,
to get her a Roman scarf. You can't get them in any other place."
As Rollo said this, he descended from the carriage, and Charles followed
him.
"They speak English here," said Rollo, as he went into the shop, "and so
we shall not have any difficulty."
These Roman scarfs are very pretty ornaments for the necks and shoulders
of ladies. They are made of silk, and are of various sizes, some being
large enough to form a good wide mantle, and others not much wider than
a wide ribbon. The central part of the scarf is usually of some uniform
hue, such as black, blue, green, or brown; and the ends are ornamented
with stripes of various colors, which pass across from side to side.
Rollo wished to get a small scarf, and the ground of it was to be green.
This was in accordance with the instructions which Lucy had given him.
He found great difficulty, however, in making the shopman understand
what he wanted. To all that Rollo said, the shopman smiled, and said
only, "Yes, sir, yes, sir," and took down continually scarfs and aprons
of different kinds, and showed them to Rollo, to see if any of them were
what he wanted.
At last, by pointing to a large one that had a green ground, and saying,
"Color like that," and then to a small one of a different kind, and
saying, "Small, like that," the shopman began to understand.
"Yes, sir," said the shopman; "yes, sir; I understand. Must one
make--make. See!"
So saying, the shopman opened a door in the back side of the shop, and
showed Rollo and Charles the entrance to a room in the rear, where the
boys had heard before the sound of a continual thumping, and where now
they saw several silk looms, with girls at work at them, weaving scarfs.
"Ah, yes," said Rollo. "You mean that you can make me one. That will be
a good plan, Charley," he added. "Lucy will like it all the better if I
tell her it was made on purpose for her.
"When can you have it done?" asked Rollo.
"Yes, sir," said the shopman, bowing and smiling; "yes, sir; yes, sir."
"When?" repeated Rollo. "What time?"
"Ah, yes, sir," said the shopman. "The time. All time, every time.
Yesterday."
"Yesterday!" repeated Rollo, puzzled.
"To-morrow," said the man, correcting himself. He had said yesterday by
mistake for to-morrow. "To-morrow. To-morrow he will be ready--the
scarf."
"What time to-morrow shall I come?" asked Rollo.
"Yes, sir," said the shopman, bowing again, and smiling in a very
complacent manner. "Yes, sir, to-morrow."
"But what _time_ to-morrow?" repeated Rollo, speaking very distinctly,
and emphasizing very strongly the word _time_. "What time?"
"O, every time," said the man; "all time. You shall have him every time
to-morrow, because you see he will make begin the work on him this day."
"Very well," said Rollo, "then I will come to-morrow, about noon."
So Rollo and Charles bade the shopman good by, and went out of the shop.
"Is that what they call speaking English?" asked Charles.
"So it seems," said Rollo. "Sometimes they speak a great deal worse than
that, and yet call it speaking English."
So Rollo and Charles got into the carriage again. Rollo took out his
wallet, and made a memorandum of the name of the shop where he had
engaged the sash, and of the street and number. The coachman sat quietly
upon his seat, waiting for Rollo to finish his writing, and expecting
then to receive directions where he was to go.
"If I could only find a commissioner that speaks French or English,"
said Rollo, "I could tell him what we want, and he could tell the
coachman, and in that way we should soon get home."
"Can't you find one at some hotel?" asked Charles.
"Why, yes," said Rollo. "Why did not I think of that? We'll stop at the
very first hotel we come to. I'll let him drive on till he comes to one.
No; I'll tell him to go to the Hotel d'Amerique. That is the only name
of a hotel that I know."
So Rollo pronounced the words "Hotel d'Amerique" to the coachman, and
the coachman, saying, "_Si, signore_," drove on. In a short time he drew
up before the door of the hotel where Mr. George had stopped first, on
arriving in town. A waiter came to the door.
"Is there a commissioner here who speaks English or French?" asked
Rollo.
"Yes, sir," said a man who was standing by the side of the door when the
carriage stopped, and who now came forward. "_I_ speak English."
"I want you to help us find our hotel," said Rollo. "We don't know the
name of it. I shall know it when I see it; and so I want you to get on
the box with the coachman, and direct him to drive to one hotel after
another, till I see which is the right one."
"Very well," said the commissioner, "I will go. Do you remember any
thing about the hotel,--how it was situated."
"There was a small, open space before it," said Rollo, "and a fountain
under a tree by the side of it."
"It must have been the Hotel d'Angleterre," said the commissioner.
"In going in at the front door, we went _down_ one or two steps, instead
of up," said Rollo.
"Yes," said the commissioner, "it was the Hotel d'Angleterre." Then
seating himself on the box by the side of the coachman, he said to the
latter, addressing him in Italian,--
"Lo canda d'Ingleterra," which is the Italian for Hotel d'Angleterre,
or, as we should express it in our language, "The English Hotel."
The coachman drove on, and in a few minutes came to the hotel.
"Yes," said Rollo, as soon as he came in sight of it. "Yes, this is the
very place."
If Rollo had had any doubts of his being right, they would have been
dispelled by the sight of Mr. George, who was standing at the hotel door
at the time they arrived.
"So you come home in a carriage," said Mr. George.
"Why, we got lost," said Rollo. "I did not take notice of the name of
our hotel when we went out, and so we could not find our way home
again."
"That's of no consequence," said Mr. George. "I am glad you had sense
enough to take a commissioner. Whenever you get into any difficulty
whatever in a European town, go right to a commissioner, and he will
help you out."
So Rollo paid the coachman and the commissioner, and then he and Charles
went into the hotel.