The coast-road between Nice and Genoa,--known throughout the world for
its unrivalled beauty of scenery, the altitudes to which it climbs, and
the depths to which it dives,--now on the olive-clad heights, now close
down upon the shore shaded by palm or carob-trees, now stretching inland
amid orange-grounds and vineyards, now rounding some precipitous point
that hangs hundreds of feet over the Mediterranean,--is generally seen
with all the advantage of an unclouded sky above, and a sea as blue
beneath.
It was the fortune of a certain party of four to behold it under the
unusual aspect of bad weather. They set out in the diligence one winter
evening, expecting to arrive at Genoa by the same time next day,
according to ordinary course. But no one unaccustomed to the effect of
rain, continuous rain, in mountainous districts, can conceive the
wonders worked by a long succession of wet days. The arrival was
retarded six hours, and the four found themselves in _Genova la superba_
somewhere about midnight. However, this was only the commencement of the
pouring visitation; and the roads had been rendered merely so "heavy" as
to make the horses contumacious when dragging the ponderous vehicle up
hill, which contumacy had occasioned the delay in question. Despite the
hopes entertained that the weather would clear, the rain set in; and
during no interval did it hold up, with the exception of a short period,
which permitted one gentleman of the party of four to visit on business
two bachelor brothers, manufacturers in Genoa. The residence of these
brothers being in rather an out-of-the-way quarter of the city, and
being very peculiar in itself, the gentleman advised the rest of his
party to accompany him on this visit.
The four, only too glad to find themselves able to get out of doors, set
forth on foot through the steep and narrow streets of Genoa, which make
driving in a carriage a fatigue, and walking a feat of great excitement,
especially when mud prevails. Trucks, ponderously laden with bales
of goods, and pushed along at a reckless rate of speed by
mahogany-complexioned men; dashing coaches, impelled by drivers
hallooing when close upon you with distracting loudness and abruptness;
mules coming onward with the blundering obtuseness peculiar to their
tribe, or with their heads fastened to doorways, and their flanks
extending across the street, affording just space enough for the
passenger to slide behind their heels; a busy, jostling crowd of people
hurrying to and fro, with no definite current, but streaming over any
portion of the undistinguishable carriage-way and foot-way,--all combine
to make Genoese pedestrianism a work only less onerous than driving.
Choosing the minor trouble, our party trusted to their own legs; and,
after picking their way through sludge and mire, along murky alleys that
branched off into wharves and quays, and up slippery by-ways that looked
like paved staircases without regular steps, the four emerged upon an
open space in front of a noble church. Leaving this on their left hand,
they turned short into a place that wore something the appearance of a
stable-yard,--with this difference, that there were neither steeds nor
stabling to be seen; but instead there were blank walls, enclosing a
kind of court adjoining a huge old mansion, and beyond there was a steep
descent leading down to the sea-side.
On ringing a bell that hung beside a gate in the wall enclosure, the
door opened apparently of itself, and a dismal scream ensued. The scream
proceeded from a sea-gull, peering out of a kind of pen formed by a
wooden paling in one corner of a grass-grown patch, half cabbage-garden,
half excavated earth and rock; and the mysterious opening of the door
was explained by a connecting cord pulled by some unseen hand within a
smaller house that stood near to the huge old mansion. From the house
appeared, advancing towards us, the two bachelor brothers, who welcomed
our friend and his three companions with grave Italian courtesy.
Understanding the curiosity the four felt to see their premises, they
did the honors of their place, with a minuteness as politely considerate
towards the strangers as it was gratifying to the interest felt by them.
First the visitors were led by the bachelor brothers to see the huge old
mansion, which they called the _Palazzo_. Let no one who has seen an
ordinary Genoese palace, magnificent with gilding, enriched by priceless
pictures, supplied with choice books, and adorned with gorgeous
furniture, figure to himself any such combination in the _palazzo_ in
question. This was a vast pile of building, that would make five
moderate-sized dwelling-houses, one in the roof, and the other four in
the habitable portion of the edifice. A general air of ramshackledness
pervaded the exterior, while the interior presented an effect of
interminable ranges of white-washed walls, divided off into numberless
apartments of various sizes, from a saloon on the _piano nobile_, or
principal floor, measuring more than forty feet long, to small square
attic rooms that were little more than cupboards. But this attic story
was not all composed of chambers thus dimensioned. Among its apartments
were rooms that might have accommodated a banqueting assemblage, had
diners been so inclined; while among the accommodations comprised in
this garret range was a kitchen, with spacious dressers, stoves,
closets, and a well of water some hundred and odd feet deep. It was
impossible for the imagination to refrain from picturing the troops of
ghosts which doubtless occupied these upper chambers of the old
_palazzo_, and held nightly vigil, undisturbed, amid the silence and
solitude of their neglected spaces. Through one of the dwarf windows
that pierced at intervals all sides of the mansion, just beneath the
lofty roof, and which gave light to the attic story, we were directed to
look by the emphatic words of the elder bachelor brother,--"Ma, veda che
vista c' e!"
The view thence was indeed well worthy his praise; and he himself formed
an appropriate companion-picture to the scene. Bluish-gray eyes, a
fairer complexion than usually belongs to men of his clime and country,
a look of penetration, combined with an expression of quiet content,
were surmounted by a steeple-crowned hat that might have become a Dutch
burgomaster, or one of Teniers's land-proprietors, rather than a denizen
of a southern city. Yet the association which his face, figure, and
costume had with some of George Cruikshank's illustrations of German
tales afforded pictorial harmony with the range of ghostly rooms we were
viewing. He "marshalled us the way that we should go," by leading us
down a steep flight of steps, which landed us on the _piano nobile_.
This, for the present, was tenanted by a set of weavers, to whom the
principal floor of the _palazzo_ had been let for a short term. They had
proved but turbulent occupants, being in a constant state of
refractoriness against their landlords, the bachelor brothers, who
seemed to be somewhat in awe of them. On the present occasion, for
instance, the brothers apologized for being unable to show us the grand
saloon, as the weavers (whom we could hear, while he spoke, singing in a
loud, uproarious, insurgent kind of way, that might well have drawn
three souls out of one of their own craft, and evidently made the souls
of their two landlords quail) did not like to be disturbed.
Their contumacious voices, mingled with the clamor of their looms, died
off in the distance, while we proceeded down the back staircase to the
ground-floor. We at first fancied that this apparently surreptitious
proceeding was perhaps traceable to the awe entertained by the bachelor
brothers for their unruly tenants; but we were relieved from the sense
of acting in a style bordering on poltroonery, by finding that the
principal staircase had been boarded up to preserve its marble steps and
sides from injury. On arriving at the foot we found ourselves in a
spacious hall, opposite the approach to the grand staircase, which
looked like an archway built for giants, toweringly defined above the
scaffold-planks by which it was barricaded. Many doors opened from this
hall, to each of which, in turn, one of the bachelor brothers applied
successive keys from a ponderous bunch that he held in his hand. These
doors led to vast suites of apartments, all unfurnished, like the upper
rooms, with the exception of one suite, which the brothers had lent to a
friend of theirs, and which was sparely supplied with some old Italian
furniture, of so antique a fashion that each article might have been a
family heirloom ever since the times of that famous Genoese gentleman,
Christopher Columbus. One peculiarity the four remarked, which spoke
volumes for the geniality of the climate: in all this huge rambling
edifice they saw only one room which could boast of a fireplace. The
sun's warmth evidently supplied all the heat necessary, and--as might be
conjectured from its other peculiarities as well as this--anything like
what the English call "the joys and comforts of the domestic hearth"
seemed an impossible attainment in this dreary old _palazzo_. The social
amenities must wither in its desolate atmosphere, and dwindle to chill
shadows, like the ghosts that haunt the attic story.
To complete the air of saddening vacancy that clung like a damp to the
really arid white walls, when the brothers led us down a wide staircase
to the vaulted space beneath the basement, we came upon some hundreds of
small bird-cages, containing each a miserable linnet, titmouse, or
finch, condemned to chirp out its wretched existence in this airless
underground region. In reply to our pitying exclamation, we were told
that the bachelors' friend who occupied the corner apartment on the
ground-floor was a great sportsman, and devotedly fond of _la caccia_;
that these unhappy little prisoners were employed by him in the season
as decoy-birds; that they were kept in these dungeons during the other
months of the year; and that they were BLINDED to make them sing better
and be more serviceable at the period when he needed them. As we looked
shudderingly at these forlorn little creatures, and expressed our
commiseration at their fate, the younger brother stepped forward, and,
examining one of the cages, in which sat hunched up in one corner a
stiff lump of feathers, coolly announced that "this goldfinch" was dead.
It was with a feeling of relief that we left the death-released bird,
and the vaults beneath the old _palazzo_, to return once more to the
fresh air and the breathing-space of the broad earth and sky. Our next
visit was to the bachelor brothers' factory, which was for the
fabrication of wax candles. Adjoining this was a terrace-plot of ground,
dotted over with what looked like Liliputian tombstones. We were
beginning to wonder whether this were a cemetery for the dead
birds,--speculating on the probability that these might be the
monumental tributes placed over their graves by the sportsman friend of
the two brothers,--when the elder informed us that this was the place
they used for bleaching the wax, and that the square stones we saw were
the supports on which rested the large flat stands whereon it was laid
to whiten in the sun. From this terrace-plot of ground,--which projected
in a narrowish green ledge, skirted by a low ivy-grown wall, over the
sea,--we beheld a prospect of almost matchless beauty. Before us
stretched a wide expanse of Mediterranean waters; to the extreme left
was just visible the bold rocky point of Porto Fino; to the right
extended westward a grand line of picturesque coast, including the
headlands of Capo di Noli and Capo delle Mele; and near at hand lay the
harbor of Genoa, with its shipping, its amphitheatre of palaces,
surmounted by the high ground above, and crowned by the fortressed
summits beyond.
We were roused from the absorbing admiration which this majestic sea and
land view had excited, by one of the four asking whether there were any
access to the _palazzo_ from this terrace. Whereupon the brothers showed
us a winding turret staircase, which led by a subterranean passage into
one of the lower vaulted rooms. Nothing more like a place in a wonderful
story-book ever met us in real life; and while we were lost in a dream
of romantic imaginings, one of the brothers was engaged in giving a
prosaic relation of how the old _palazzo_ had come into their family by
a lawsuit, which terminated in their favor, and left them possessors of
this unexpected property. During the narrative a brood of adolescent
chickens had come near to where we stood listening on the green plot,
and eyed us with expectant looks, as if accustomed to be fed or noticed.
The elder brother indulged the foremost among the poultry group--a white
bantam cock of courageous character--by giving him his foot to assault.
Valiantly the little fellow flew at, and spurred, and pecked the boot
and trousers; again and again he returned to the charge, while the
blue-gray eyes beamed smilingly down from beneath the steeple-crowned
hat, as the old man humored the bird's pugnacious spirit.
Presently a shy little girl of some ten or twelve years came peering out
at the strangers from beneath a row of evergreen oaks that ornamented
the back of the dwelling-house overlooking the terrace. There she stood
at the foot of the ilexes, shading her eyes with one hand, (for the sun
coyly gleamed through the rain-clouds at that moment,) while the other
was employed in restraining the lumbering fondness of two large
bull-dogs, that gambolled heavily round her. She was introduced to us as
the daughter of the younger of the two brothers; who proved after all to
be no bachelor, but a widower. One ponderous brindled brute poked his
black muzzle against the child with such a weight of affection that we
expected to see her overturned on the sward; but she seemed to have
complete control over her canine favorites, and to live with them and a
large macaw she had up stairs in her own room (we afterwards found it
perched there, when taken to see the upper floor of the bachelor
residence), as her familiars and sole associates,--like some enchanted
princess in a fairy-tale.
On entering the house from the terrace, we found ourselves in its
kitchen, which strongly resembled a cavern made habitable. It was hewn
out of the rock on which the dwelling stood; and it only required the
presence of the black man and the old woman who figure in Gil Blas's
story to give, to the life, the cooking-department of the robbers' cave
there. As we ascended a rude stone staircase that led from it, we heard
the lowing of cows; and, turning, we saw two of these animals
comfortably stalled in a side recess, not far from the rocky ledge on
which the culinary apparatus for dressing the food of the establishment
was deposited. Mounting into the parlor, we discovered a good-sized
apartment, its windows looking out through the foliage of the ilexes
over the sea, skirted by the extensive coast view. Behind was the
dining-room; on each side were the brothers' bedrooms; and leading from
a small entrance-hall at the back was a large billiard-room. This opened
on a small garden nook, in which were orange-trees and camellias, full
of bud and blossom,--from which some of the flowers were gathered for us
by the Italian brethren, on our taking leave and thanking them for the
unusual treat we had had in going over their curious abode.
The transient gleam of sunshine that had shone forth while we were
there was the only intermission vouchsafed by the rain, which afterwards
poured down with a steady vehemence and pertinacity seldom seen on the
Ligurian Riviera. The effects of this rare continuance of wet weather
were soon made impressively perceptible to the four as they emerged upon
the open road, after passing the Lighthouse of Genoa and the long
straggling suburbs of San Pier d'Arena, Pegli, and Voltri. The horses
splashed through channels of water which filled the spongy ruts,
smoking, and toiling, and plunging on; while the whoops and yells of the
postilion urging them forward, together with the loud smacks of his
whip, made a savage din. This was farther increased as we crashed along
a ledge road, cut in a cliff overhanging the sea;--the waves tearing up
from beneath with a whelming roar; the rocks jutting forth in points,
every one of which was a streaming water-spout; the rain pelting, the
wind rushing, the side-currents pouring and dashing. These latter,
ordinarily but small rills, carrying off the drainage of the land by
gentle course, were now swollen to rough cataracts, leaping with furious
rapidity from crag to crag in deluges of turbid water, discolored to a
dingy yellow-brown by the heaps of earth and stone which they dislodged
and brought down with them, and hurled hither and thither over the
precipitous projections, and occasionally flung athwart the highway. At
one spot, where a heap of such stones--large, flat slabs--had been
tossed upon the road, and a few of their companions were in the very act
of plunging down after them, our postilion drew up to guide his cattle
among those already fallen; and, raising his voice above the thunder of
the sea-waves, rain, wind, and waters, shouted out in broad Genoese to
the falling ones, "Halloo, you there, up above! Stop a bit, will you?
Wait a moment, you up there!" Then, driving on carefully till he had
steered by the largest of the fragments that lay prostrate, he turned
back his head, shook his whip at it, and apostrophised it with, "Ah, you
big pig! I've passed you, for this time!"
The first change of horses took place at a village close down on the
sea-shore, where some fishermen were busily employed hauling up the last
of a row of boats that lay upon the beach. Every available hand, not
occupied in aiding the conductor and postilion to unharness the
diligence horses and put to the fresh team, was enlisted in the service
of the boat-hauling. Young gentlemen out for an evening's amusement,
attired in sacks or tarpaulins thrown over their shoulders, while their
nether garments were rolled up tightly into a neat twist that encircled
the top of each thigh, were frisking about a line of men with
weather-beaten countenances and blown hair, who tugged bare-legged at
the sides of the fishing-boat, half in the water and half out.
Occasionally one of these young gentry, feeling perhaps that he had
aided sufficiently in the general work, betook himself to a doorway
near, dripping and shaking himself, and looking out through the sheeted
rain at his companions, who were still in the excitement of whisking
round the heaving and tugging fishermen, while the waves rose high, the
spray dashed up in mist over their grizzled heads and beards, and the
wind whistled sharply amid the deeper tumult of the sea and torrent
waters. To heighten the grim wildness of the scene, the shades of
evening were closing round, and by the time the four travellers were off
again and proceeding on their way, darkness was fast setting in.
Nightfall found them toiling up a steep ascent that diverges inland for
a few miles, winding round the estate of some inflexible proprietor,
upon whom nothing can prevail to permit the high-road to take its
passage through his land, there bordering the sea-side. Up the ascent we
labored, and down the descent we lunged, the wheels lodging in deep mire
at every moment, and threatening to abide in the deeper holes and
furrows which the water-courses (forced from their due channels by
overflowing and by obstructive fallen masses) had cut and dug into the
road as they strayed swiftly over it.
By the time the next stage was reached, the conductor consulted the four
on the advisability of stopping to sleep, instead of proceeding on such
a tempestuous night, the like of which, for perilous effects, he said he
had but once before encountered during the whole of the sixteen years he
had been in office on this road. The three _coupe_ passengers,
consisting of two ladies--sisters--and a ruddy-faced, cheerful gentleman
in a velvet travelling-cap, who made it a principle, like Falstaff, to
take things easily, and "not to sweat extraordinarily," warmly approved
the conductor's proposal as a sensible one; and even the alert gentleman
in the _banquette_ agreed that it would be more prudent to remain at the
first good inn the diligence came to. This, the conductor replied, was
at Savona, one stage farther, as the place they now were at was a mere
boat-building hamlet, that scarcely boasted an inn at all,--certainly
not "good beds." A group of eager, bronzed faces were visible by
lamp-light, assembled round the conductor, listening to him as he held
this conference with his coach-passengers; and at its close the
bronze-faced crowd broke into a rapid outburst of Genoese dialect, which
was interrupted by our conductor's making his way through them all, and
disappearing round the corner of the small _piazza_ wherein the
diligence stood to have its horses changed. After some moments'
pause,--not in the rain, or wind, or sea-waves, for they kept pouring
and rushing and roaring on,--but in the hurly-burly of rapid talk, which
ceased, owing to the talkers' hurrying off in pursuit of the vanished
conductor, he returned, saying, "Andiamo a Savona." It soon proved that
he had been to ascertain the feasibility of what the group of
bronze-faced men had proposed, namely, that they would undertake to
convey the diligence (without its horses, its "outsides," and its
"insides") bodily over a high, steep, slippery mule-bridge, which
crossed a torrent near at hand, now swollen to an unfordable depth and
swiftness. The four beheld this impassable stream, boiling and surging
and sweeping on to mingle itself with the madly leaping sea-waves out
there in the dim night-gloom to the left, as they descended from the
diligence and prepared to go on foot across something that looked like a
rudely-constructed imitation of the Rialto Bridge at Venice, seen
through a haze of darkness, slanting rain, faintly-beaming coach-lamps,
pushing and heaving men, panting led horses, passengers muffled up and
umbrellaed, conductor leading and directing. Then came the reharnessing
of the horses, the reassembling of the passengers, the remounting of the
"insides," the reclambering to his seat of the alert _banquette_
"outside" (after a hearty interchange of those few brief, smiling words
with his _coupe_ companions which, between English friends, say so much
in so little utterance at periods of mutual anxiety and interest), the
payment of the agreed-for sum by the conductor to the bronze-faced
pushers and heavers, amid a violent renewal of the storm of Genoese
jargon, terminated by an authoritative word from the payer as he swung
himself up into his place by a leathern strap dangling from the
coach-side, a smart crack of the postilion's whip, a forward plunge of
the struggling horses, an onward jerk of the diligence, and the final
procedure into the wet and dark and roar of the wild night.
The gas and stir of Savona came as welcome tokens of repose to the
toilsome journey; and the four alighted at one of the hotels there with
an inexpressible sense of relief. His fellow-travellers were warned,
however, by the alert gentleman, that they must hold themselves in
readiness to start before dawn next morning, as the conductor wished to
avail himself of the first peep of daylight in passing several torrents
on the road which lay beyond Savona. Velvet-cap assented with a grunt;
one of the sisters--all briskness at night, but fit for nothing of a
morning--proposed not to go to bed at all; while the other--quite used
up at night, but "up to everything" of a morning--undertook to call the
whole party in time for departure.
This she did,--ordering coffee, seeing that some was swallowed by the
sister who had been unwillingly roused from the sleep she had willingly
offered to forego overnight, collecting cloaks, baskets, and
travelling-rugs, and altogether looking so wakeful and ready that she
wellnigh drove her drowsy sister to desperation.
The preannounced torrents proved as swollen as were expected; so that
the passengers had to unpack themselves from the heaps of wrappings
stowed snugly round their feet and knees, and issue forth into the keen
morning air, armed with difficultly-put-up umbrellas, to traverse
certain wooden foot-bridges, in the midst of which they could not help
halting to watch the lightened diligence dragged splashingly through the
deep and rapid streams, expecting, at every lunge it made into the
water-dug gullies, to see it turn helplessly over on its side in the
very midst of them. Nevertheless, no such accident occurred; and the
four jogged on, along soaking, soppy, drenched roads, that seemed never
to have known dust or drought. At one saturated village, they saw a
dripping procession of people under crimson umbrellas, shouldering two
rude coffins of deal boards, which were borne to the door of a church
that stood by the wayside,--where the train waited in a kind of moist
dejection to be admitted, and to look dispiritedly after the passing
diligence. The alert gentleman heard from what the conductor gathered
from an old woman wrapped in a many-colored gaudy-patterned scarf of
chintz, which, wet through, covered her head and shoulders clingingly,
that this was the funeral of a poor peasant-man and his wife, who had
both died suddenly and both on the same day. The old woman held up her
brown, shrivelled hands, and gesticulated pityingly with them in the
pouring rain, as she mumbled her hurried tale of sorrow; while the
postilion involuntarily slackened pace, that her words might be heard
where he and the conductor sat.
The horses were suffered to creep on at their own snail pace, while the
influence of the funeral scene lasted; but soon the long lash was plied
vivaciously again, and we came to another torrent, more deep, more
rapid, more swollen than any previous one. Fortunately for us, a day or
two before there had been a postilion nearly drowned in attempting to
drive through this impassable ford; and still more fortunately for us,
this postilion chanced to have a relation who was a servant in the
household of Count Cavour, then prime-minister to King Victor Emanuel.
"Papa Camillo's" servant's kinsman's life being endangered, an order had
come from Turin only a few hours before our diligence arrived at the
bank of the dangerous stream,--now swollen into a swift, broad
river,--decreeing that the new road and bridge, lately in course of
construction on this spot, should be opened immediately for passage to
and fro. The road was more like a stone-quarry than a carriageable
public highway, so encumbered was it with granite fragments, heaped
ready for top-dressing and finishing; and the bridge led on to a raised
embankment, coming to a sudden fissure, where the old coach-road crossed
it. Still, our conductor, finding that some few carts and one diligence
had actually passed over the ground, set himself to the work of getting
ours also across. First, the insides and outsides were abstracted from
the coach,--which they had by this time come to regard as quite an
extraneous part of their travelling, not so much a "conveyance" as
something to be conveyed,--and the four took their way over the stones,
amused at this new and most unexpected obstacle to their progress.
Hastening across the fissure, they went and placed themselves (always
under umbrellas) beside a troop of little vagabond boys,--who had come
to see the fun, and had secured good front places on the opposite
bank,--to view the diligence brought down the sharp declivity of the
embankment to the old road below. The spectators beheld the jolting
vehicle come slowly and gratingly along, like a sturdy recusant, holding
back, until the straining horses had tugged it by main force to the
brink of the fissure. Here the animals stopped, snorted, eyed the sheer
descent with twitching ears and quivering skins, as though they said in
equine language, "We're surely not required to drag it down _this_!"
They were soon relieved from their doubt, by being taken out of the
traces, patted, and gently led down the embankment, leaving their
burdensome charge behind. There it stuck, helplessly alone,--even more
thoroughly belying its own name than diligences usually do,--perched on
the edge of a declivity of the height of a tall house, stock still,
top-heavy with piled luggage, deserted by its passengers, abandoned of
its friend in the velvet cap, a motionless and apparently objectless
coach. How it was to be dislodged and conveyed down the "vast abrupt"
became matter of conjecture to the four, when presently some men came to
the spot with a large coil of cable-cord, which they proceeded to pass
through the two hindmost side-windows of the diligence, threading it
like a bead on a string; and then they gradually lowered the lumbering
coach down the side of the descent, amid the _evvivas_ of the vagabond
boys, led by an enthusiastic "_Bravissimo!_" from Velvet-cap.
This incident occupied much time; and though the travellers made some
progress during the afternoon, the gray shades of twilight were
gathering over and deepening the gloom of the already gray sky and gray
landscape,--deadened to that color from their naturally brilliant hues
by the prevailing wet,--as the travellers stopped to change horses again
at the entrance of the town of Oneglia. Here, while the conductor ran
into a house to make purchase of a loaf about half a yard in length and
a corpulent bottle of wine, the four saw another funeral train
approaching. This time it was still more dreary, being attended by a
show of processional pomp, inexpressibly forlorn and squalid. The coffin
was palled with a square of rusty black velvet, whence all the pile had
long been worn, and which the soaking rain now helped age to embrown and
make flabby; a standard cross was borne by an ecclesiastical official,
who had on a quadrangular cap surmounted by a centre tuft; two priests
followed, sheltered by umbrellas, their sacerdotal garments dabbled and
draggled with mud, and showing thick-shod feet beneath the dingy serge
and lawn that flapped above them, as they came along at a smart pace,
suggestive of anything but solemnity. As little of that effect was there
in the burial-hymn which they bawled, rather than chanted, in a
careless, off-hand style, until they reached the end of the street and
of the town, when the bawlers suddenly ceased, took an abrupt leave of
the coffin and its bearers, fairly turned on their heels, accompanied by
the official holy standard-bearer, and went back at a brisk trot,
having, it seems, fulfilled the functions required of them. Obsequies
more heartless in their manner of performance, it was never the fate of
the four to behold. The impression left by this sight assorted well with
the deep and settled murkiness that dwelt like a thick veil on all
around. Even the cheery tones of Velvet-cap's voice lost their
elasticity, and the sprightliness of the sister's spirits, that
invariably rose with the coming on of night, failed under the depressing
influence of that rain-hastened funeral and that "set-in" rainy evening.
As for the sister whose spirits fell with the fall of day, she was fast
lapsing into a melancholy condition of silence and utter "giving-up."
Rattling over the pavement of the long, straggling town,--plashing
along a few miles of level road,--struggling up hill,--rattling through
another pavemented town,--striking into the country again,--we came to
another long ascent. As we toiled to the top, a postilion, having the
care of five return horses, joined company with ours, the two men
walking up hill together, while their beasts paced slowly on, with
drooping heads and smoking sides. Now and then, when the road was less
steep, and levelled into trotting-ground, the postilions climbed to
their seats,--ours on his rightful box-seat, the other on an impromptu
one, which he made for himself upon a sack of corn slung beneath the
front windows of the _coupe_,--and while our horses fell into an easy
jog, we could see the return ones go on before at a swagging run, with
their loosened harness tossing and hanging from them as they took their
own course, now on one side of the way, now on the other, according to
the promptings of their unreined fancy.
Suddenly, at a turn of the road, we came upon an undistinguishable
something, which, when our eyes could pierce through and beyond the
immediate light afforded by our diligence-lamp, we discovered to be
another diligence leaning heavily over a ditch, while its conductor and
postilion were at their horses' heads, endeavoring to make them
extricate it from its awkward position. This, however, was a feat beyond
the poor beasts' strength; and our conductor, after a few "Sacramentos"
at this new delay, got down and ran to see what could be done to help
them out of the scrape. It had been occasioned partly by the
carelessness of the conductor, who, unlike ours, (for the latter was a
man of good sense and judgment, self-possessed, and perfectly attentive
to the duties of his office,) had neglected to light the diligence-lamp,
and partly by the obstinacy of a drunken postilion, who insisted on
keeping too close to the ditch side of the road, while he instinctively
avoided the precipice side. Nearly two mortal hours was our diligence
detained, during which time our cattle were taken from their traces and
harnessed to those of the half-overturned coach, in various attempts to
dislodge it. The first resulted in a further locking of the wheel
against a projecting point of rock, and an additional bundling sideways
of the leaning diligence; the second was made by attaching the horses to
the back of it, while the men set their strength to the wheels,
endeavoring to push them round by main force in aid of the straining
team. The weight of the heavily-loaded coach resisted their efforts to
move it; and then the passengers were requested to descend. Out into the
rain and mud and darkness they came, warned by our conductor, in his
prompt, thoughtful way, to beware of stumbling over the precipitous
cliff, which dropped straight from the roadside there, hundreds of feet
down, into the sea. We could hear the dash of the waves far below, as
our conductor's voice sounded out clear and peremptory, uttering
the timely reminder; we could hear the words of two French
_commis-voyageurs_, coming from the ditch-sunk diligence, making some
facetious remark, one to the other, about their present adventure being
very much like some of Alexandre Dumas's _Impressions de Voyage_; we
could hear the cries and calls of the men refastening the horses, and
preparing to push anew at the wheels; we could distinguish a domestic
party dismounting from the back portion of the other diligence,
consisting of a father and mother with their baby and the _bonne_; we
could see the little white cap covered up carefully with a handkerchief
by the young mother, while the father held an umbrella over their heads,
and conducted them to the counterpart portion of our diligence, where
the family took refuge during the fresh attempts to drag theirs forth.
Then there came a tap against our _coupe_ window, and an unmistakably
British accent was heard to say: "Anglais? Anglais?" Tap--tap--tap. "Any
English here?"
Velvet-cap let the window down, and answered in his cheerfullest tone,
"Yes."
This reply seemed to rejoice the heart of the inquirer, who immediately
rejoined, "Oh!--Well, I really wished to know if there were any one here
who could understand me. These fellows don't comprehend one word that I
say; and I can't speak one word of their jabber. Just listen to them!
What a confounded row they keep up! Parcel of stupid brutes! If I could
only have made myself understood, I could have told them how to get it
out in a minute. Confounded thing this, ain't it? Kept last night, too,
by something of the same kind of accident; and I couldn't get those
stupid fellows to make out what I meant, and give me my carpet-bag."
Polite condolences from Velvet-cap.
"I say, are these your Italian skies? Is Nice no better than this? By
George, I didn't come here for this, though!"
Assurances of the unusually bad weather this season from Velvet-cap.
"No, but just hark! what a confounded row and jabber those fellows keep
up."
A simultaneous "Ee-ye-ho! ee-yuch-yuch!" came from the striving men at
this moment, and our British acquaintance, with a hasty "Good night!"
hurried off to see the result. It was this time a successful one; the
leaning diligence was plucked out, restored to an upright position, and
its passengers were reassembled. Once more on its way, our conductor
returned to his own coach; and, with the help of our postilion,
reharnessed our horses. But the difficulty now was to start them. Tired
with their unexpected task of having to tug at another and a stuck-fast
diligence,--made startlish with having to stand in the rain and chill
night air, in the open road, while the debates were going on as to the
best method of attaching them to the sunken vehicle,--when once put back
into their own traces, they took to rearing and kicking instead of
proceeding. It is by no means amusing to sit in a diligence behind five
plunging horses, on a cliff-road,--one edge of which overhangs the sea,
and the other consists of a deep ditch or water-way, beneath a sheer
upright rock,--"when rain and wind beat dark December"; and even after
whip and whoop had succeeded in prevailing on the rearers and kickers to
"take the road" again, that road proved so unprecedentedly bad as almost
to render futile the struggles of the poor beasts. They did their best;
they strained their haunches, they bent their heads forward, they
actually made leaps of motion, in trying to lug the clogged wheels on
through the sludge and clammy soil; but this was a _mauvais pas_, where
the _cantonniers'_ good offices in road-mending had been lately
neglected, and it seemed almost an impossibility to get through with our
tired cattle. However, the thing was achieved, and the town of San Remo
at length reached.
Here, with a change of horses, it was now our turn to have a drunken
postilion; whom our conductor, after seizing him by the collar with both
hands, permitted to mount to his high seat and gather up the reins,
there being no other driver to be had. Smacking his long whip with an
energy that made the night-echoes resound far and wide, galloping his
horses up hill at a rate that swayed the coach to and fro and threatened
speedy upsetting, screaming and raving like a wild Indian uttering his
battle-cry, our charioteer pursued his headlong course, until brought to
a stop by something that suddenly obstructed his career.