Allemands, dont 52 avec fam., 171
Anglais, ” 70 ” 167
Austro–Hongrois, ” 10 ” 25
Belges, ” 4 ” 6
Français, ” 13 ” 21
Hollandais, ” 8 ” 15
Italiens, ” 24 ” 64
Portugais, ” 1 ” 1
Roumains, ” 1 ” 1
Russes, ” 11 ” 30
Suedois, ” 3 ” 5
Suisses, ” 5 ” 11
Americains, ” 13 ” 28
——— ———
Total, dont 215 avec fam., 545
From these lists it appears that San Remo is principally frequented
by the Germans and the English. A reason for the Germans flocking to
San Remo, is no doubt to be found in the fact that Cannes, Nice, and
Mentone are within French territory, where Germans are not particularly
welcome—in truth, are sometimes, as I know in one instance, received
by the French with marked rudeness; though it is to be hoped that this
state of feeling, not unnatural after the late calamitous war, is now
subsiding. But it may be taken as corroborative of this observation,
that, judging from the lists published in the beginning of December
1877 (the very commencement of the season), out of about 850 names of
strangers in Mentone (I state it roughly and without computing the
number of families these names represent), only between 70 and 80 were
German, principally ladies; while, so far as I can ascertain, there was
only one German doctor in Mentone against six German doctors in San
Remo—a fact, if I be correct, which speaks for itself.
Excluding the German element, therefore, it will be seen that the
English very nearly equal all those of other nations put together. At
the same time, one must observe that such lists require to be taken
in a very general way. Implicit reliance upon them cannot be placed,
as I have so often seen that names which ought to have appeared have
been omitted for a whole season. Everything depends upon how the list
is made up. If made up from persons handing in their own names to the
newspapers, then it fails, because there are many who never think of
doing so, while even hotelkeepers (whose interest one would think is to
reveal the popularity of their houses) are very careless in furnishing
complete information.
* * * * *
The San Remo _Liste Générale des Étrangers_, besides other
intelligence, gives the names of the ‘Medicins,’—viz., six German,
three English, one French, one Russian, and thirteen Italian doctors.
There are both German and English Protestant churches. The English
church is a commodious building: the incumbent is the Rev. Mr. Fenton.
The United Presbyterians of Scotland—I think the only station possessed
by that body abroad—had worship in two rooms of the Villa Marguerita,
where once a day on Sundays, the Rev. James Robertson of Edinburgh
(just deceased) was, during our first visit, addressing, in a homely
manner, crowded audiences; while in the evening he had service in
a room of the Hotel des Londres, in which he was then residing,
the English visitors of the hotel turning in to listen to one much
respected by them all,—all sympathizing, too, in the sad cause which
brought him to a place where he was destined, like so many others, to
leave a loved one behind.
* * * * *
The great industry of San Remo necessarily consists in the cultivation
of the olive tree; but one minor occupation is derived from the olive
groves in the fabrication of articles of olive wood. That of San Remo
is of a lighter colour and richer grain, and takes a higher polish than
the olive wood of Sorrento. In the matter of inlaying, however, it
does not appear to me that San Remo comes up to the better quality of
Sorrento work, while the articles made are sold at a much higher price.
The shopkeepers, I was told, consider the foreigners, and I suppose
especially the English, as legitimate prey, and charge them more than
the natives; nor do they ask high prices, as they do in other Italian
places, with the intention of after abatement, but they stick to the
price demanded, and are very stiff to move.
On one of the hill–slopes about a mile and a half out of town, we found
a chocolate manufactory, the material for which comes all the way from
Bordeaux.
* * * * *
The women when young are good–looking; many have the dark Italian eye,
but, like the Mentone women, soon acquire, from the drudgery to which
they are exposed, a hard–looking and dried–up appearance. They are
treated as very beasts of burden, and are accustomed from early years
to carry enormous loads upon their heads, far more so than at Mentone,
and they glory in the amount they can carry. I have beheld one carrying
an enormous log of wood on her head; and barrels, and every description
of heavy articles, are constantly to be seen so carried. A lady told me
she had a heavy oak table carried home to her house by her gardener’s
wife, and it was thought nothing of. Such a thing as a rope and
pulley, much less a crane to lift stones from the ground to the floors
where masons are building a house, are utterly unknown. The women are
employed as day–labourers, at something like a shilling a day, to carry
the stones aloft on their heads. I have seen a woman, time after time,
carrying a stone or a couple of uneven stones balanced, the one on the
top of the other, on her head, up ladders nearly perpendicular, to a
height of two storeys, to the stage where the masons were working. All
they do is just to twist a handkerchief in a coil on the head, and
then, with a most extraordinary power of balancing, they convey the
load to where it is wanted. Men very seldom undertake the drudgery. If
they do, they carry a lighter load, not, however, on their heads, but
on the bent back or shoulders, protected by a sack. I have observed a
woman carrying a stone on her head which it took four of them to lift.
Their skulls and spines no doubt thicken and acquire some strange
amount of hardy strength, but any nobler faculty must be crushed out of
them; yet they never seem to feel their degradation, and would resent,
I presume, the introduction of appliances by which their labour would
be saved, and at the same time a means of livelihood taken from them.
Of all the instances, however, of this nature which I witnessed, the
most marvellous was that of carrying a pianoforte on the head. On
our second visit to San Remo, a lady informed me she had seen this
sight. It seemed truly incredible, and perhaps, as she was an American,
I was at first inclined to set it down to the national tendency to
imaginative exaggeration. I looked anxiously for visual corroboration,
seeing being in such a case believing, and I was not disappointed. The
very day of leaving I had the good fortune to witness the scene, and
was thus enabled to give full credit to the story. Happening to be in
town, I met three women walking steadily along the street, their bodies
erect, one in front and two behind, with the huge load of a heavy
cabinet piano on their heads. I think each had one hand, at least,
raised to steady it—a very painful exertion of itself to most people.
Apparently, keeping pace together, this burden was sturdily carried as
if it cost them no effort; while by their side marched a man in charge,
who, I was thankful to observe (although, as I have read somewhere, it
may be observed elsewhere, I think at Pompeii), carried no instrument
of flagellation in his hand. Probably he would condescend to assist in
raising the piano at starting, and in lowering it at its destination.
On this subject the writer of the little guide–book I have already
referred to (_San Remo as a Winter Residence_), makes these
observations (p. 26):—
‘The inhabitants of both sexes, but more particularly the women, are
very good–looking, especially those from the country. You see most
lovely faces amongst the girls from fifteen to twenty–five; they
have as a rule good figures also, and neat feet and legs. They walk
remarkably well, with a firm easy step, holding themselves erect. This
results from their always carrying burdens on their heads, with which
they go along at a quick steady pace, uphill or down, on rough roads or
smooth, without ever raising a hand to support them, unless very large
or clumsy in form. You seldom see a woman without something on her
head; if she has not her bundle or her panniken, she will place the pad
there on which she carries them. But this constant bearing of weights
on the head has another and less admirable result, which is that the
women very soon lose their beauty and their youth. I am told that it
is quite usual for a woman to carry 100 kilogrammes on her head (220
lbs.) up to the mountains, and this every day; she will also bring
a heavy bundle of grass or something back again. The men walk beside
them empty–handed, or oftener still ride the mules and donkeys. Almost
all the carrying is done on women’s heads. If a man has to transport
a heavy weight, he takes his wife with him to carry it. I ordered a
wooden horse for my saddle; the joiner who made it brought it home
certainly, but on his pretty little wife’s head, not his own. The men
consider it a disgrace to carry anything, a parcel even, and a woman’s
highest ambition is to keep her husband in perfect idleness. A friend
of mine, an English lady, was riding on a donkey one very hot day,
accompanied by my servant Giovanni, a San Remese, who was, of course,
trudging on foot by her side, and reflecting the heat of the day on her
face. As they went along, they met a party of country people coming
down from the mountains. In passing, a man, one of the party, stopped
and spoke earnestly to my servant, who gave a laughing reply. When
they had passed, my friend asked what the man had said. “Oh,” replied
Giovanni, “he was telling me I ought to make you get off the donkey,
and ride myself instead.” We had lectured him so often on the disgrace
of the men taking their ease while the women worked so hard, that he
quite entered into the facetiousness of the man’s proposition, an
Englishwoman being in the case.’
In the redress of these women’s wrongs, might not an excellent field
for the operations of the Women’s Rights Association be found?
* * * * *
Photographs are not cheap in San Remo; but one photographer (P. Guidi),
under the direction of Signor Panizzi, has produced a large collection,
numbering, I think, upwards of 150 specimens, size of nature, of the
botany of San Remo. These are beautifully coloured from the plants
themselves, and form a valuable and interesting illustration of the
flora of the district.
* * * * *
We remained in San Remo from Saturday till the following Wednesday.
The weather having been wet and disagreeable, we were by no means
sorry when, the Wednesday morning proving fine, we resolved to quit a
place where we had felt far from comfortable, and to proceed to Genoa
by railway. I had, on arrival, exchanged at the banker’s a circular
note, for which i got at the rate of 27·20 francs or lire per £ in
Italian paper money. It was my first experience of this kind of
money, and although it brought a premium of 22 francs per £10, the
bundle of little notes was at first by no means assuring. However, I
soon began to find it extremely convenient as well as profitable to
exchange into paper. I paid the hotel bill and the railway fares both
in paper, even although in the former case there was a notice up in
the hotel requiring (although paper is a legal tender) visitors to pay
in gold; and everywhere afterwards in Italy, paper was received as
full value for what it represented. We had here for the first time to
pay for all registered luggage according to weight. Putting railway
fare and luggage cost together, however, the expense was, especially
reckoning a deduction of 9 per cent. by use of paper, moderate. The
fare first–class from San Remo to Genoa was 15 francs each, adding
proportion of charge for luggage, nearly 3 francs[27] additional for
each, say 18 francs or 15s., and deducting exchange, 13s. 4d. for a
journey of about eighty–five miles, which is probably about a shade
more than the average at home for second–class fare for a similar
distance. However, the cost necessarily varies according to the
quantity of luggage registered. To most Italians, who register none,
it would be so much less; to many ladies who cannot travel without
innumerable dresses, so much more.
Upon escaping from San Remo, the railway leaves the coast line and
keeps a little inland—at least it nowhere cuts off any of the coast
towns from the sea; nor could it well do so, as nearly all are built
close upon the beach. It therefore proceeds rather behind them or
through their outskirts; and, partly owing to this and partly to the
numerous—vexatiously numerous—tunnels through which the railway is,
from the hilly nature of the country, constrained to run, the views
had, of the towns at least, cannot be equal to what is obtained by
driving along the Corniche road. These Italian towns are exceedingly
picturesque, both in appearance and in situation, and there can be no
doubt that one misses much by travelling by rail, although it must be
added that the route between San Remo and Genoa by no means equals that
between Nice and San Remo. Clear, pleasing photographs of the towns on
the line are published, and may give one some idea of them; but they
are not, with one or two exceptions, the views seen from the railway.
All views from railway carriage windows, however, even where no ogre
sits to pull down the blinds, labour under disadvantage, and are too
transient, and often too detached and interrupted, to enable passengers
to catch and retain in memory general views of any place which a
railway passes. On this occasion we had the carriage to ourselves, and
eagerly availed ourselves of the opportunity to draw up blinds and gaze
out right and left.
* * * * *
About three miles from San Remo, looking up a valley, one of those
curious old towns which are perched on the top of a hill becomes
visible. I had thought it to be Ceriana, which lies in that direction,
a visit to which is one of the excursions from San Remo; but it
proved, according to Bædeker, to be a similar town called Bussana. The
picturesque town of Porto Maurizio is invisible from the railway, which
passes under it; while a little farther on, Oneglia and its harbour are
just seen in approaching, and the railway stops at the landward end of
it. However, at next station, Diana Marina, the railway traveller is
rewarded by a most charming landscape. A chain of mountains hems in a
valley, in the centre of which a conical hill rises abruptly, and on
its top Diano Castello stands, another of those curious and picturesque
towns which are so common in the Riviera and in Italy. The scene is
one in which an artist’s pencil might luxuriate. The _tout ensemble_
would make, as it no doubt has often made, a striking picture. At
Alassio, nine miles farther on, we rested on our journey in the
following year, and I shall return to it, therefore, further on. But
leaving Alassio and passing under its west boundary the promontory of
Santa Croce, looking seawards there was seen, perhaps about two miles
out, the small rocky desolate–looking island of Gallenaria, on which
a former proprietor had built a house for residence, but where, we
were told, and could readily believe, his more sociable wife refused
to live. Farther on upon the left, inland, but near the railway, the
town of Albenga appears prominently. This is an old Roman town, and is
an episcopal residence. Its many and thickly–planted towers give to it
quite the aspect of a cathedral city. Touching shortly afterwards at
Finalmarina and Noli, in about three and a half hours from the time of
leaving San Remo, the large and imposing town of Savona, beautifully
situated, came into view a massive–looking fort towering over and
protecting the harbour below. Here many who travel by carriage leave
the road and proceed to Genoa by rail, and those for Genoa going
westward take carriage from Savona, the reason being, that the road and
rail between Savona and Genoa run parallel to each other, while the
route lacks the attractions of the remainder of the Corniche drive.
From Savona, also, there is a direct line of railway to Turin. The
train moves on, and eleven miles beyond Savona, reaches Cogoletto,
which is said to have been the birthplace of Columbus, and is therefore
a town of interest. The town, like so many others, lies on the beach,
and the railway station only affords a view of backs of houses. Shortly
after, the train stops at Pegli, a place about six miles from Genoa, a
place of winter residence, and famous for its gardens, which attract
excursions by visitors at Genoa, besides inducing others to take up
their abode for more or less time at the hotels of the place. A little
after six o’clock we arrived at Genoa, the train slackening speed
as it passed amidst ranges of lofty buildings, which looked all the
more grand that our eyes for so long had been unaccustomed to the
dimensions of a town so large.