If a man's mind and purse were in such state that he didn't care where
he went, and was able to go there; if the weather was fine, and the
aforesaid man could eat, drink, and sleep rough, and really loved
picturesqueness in all his surroundings for its own sake--that man
should travel by _vettura_. Not one of the _vetture_ advertised by a
Roman 'to go to all parts of the world;' not one of those traveling
carriages with a seat for milady's maid and milord's man, with courier
beside the driver and a vettura dog on top of the baggage, at the very
sight of which, beggars spring from the ground as if by magic, and the
customhouse officers assume airs of state. No, no, NO! What is meant by
a _vettura_ is a broken-down carriage, seats inside for four English or
six Italians, a seat outside along with the driver for one American or
three Italians, and places to hold on to, for two or three more,
Italians. The harness of the horses consists of an originally leather
harness, with rope commentaries, string emendations, twine notes, and
ragged explanations of the primary work; in plain English, it's an
edition of harness with nearly all the original leather expurgated.
Well, you enter into agreement with the compeller of horses, alias
_vetturino_, to go to a certain town a certain distance from Rome. The
vehicle he drives is popularly reported to leave regularly for that
town; you know that regularly means regularly-uncertainly. You go and
see the _vetturino_, say in that classic spot, the piazza Pollajuólo;
you find him, after endless inquiries, in a short jacket, in a
wine-shop, smoking a throat-scorcher of a short pipe, and you arrange
with him as regards the fare, for he has different prices for different
people. Little children and soldiers pay half-price, as you will read on
your railroad ticket to Frascati, and priests pay what they please,
foreigners all that can be squeezed out of them, and Italians at fixed
price.
As for the horses that drag this _vettura_. _Ola!_ I hope the crows will
spare them one day longer. The long-suffering traveler pauses here,
reader, wipes the dust from his brow, and exclaims:
'Blessed be bull-fights; for they use up that class of horses which in
pious America drag oysters to their graves, and in papal Italy drag the
natives to their lairs outside of Rome!'
You will toil along the dusty plain--hot, weary, worn-out--but anon you
begin the ascent of the mountains; then, as you go up, the air grows
purer and cooler. You descend from the _vettura_, and on foot tramp up
the road, perhaps beside the driver, who is innately thankful to you for
saving his horses a heavy pull; and with him, or a fellow-traveler, joke
off the weary feeling you had in the low grounds. Again you are
ascending a still steeper part of the mountain. Now oxen are attached to
the old rumbling rattle-trap of a carriage, and it is _creak_, pull,
yell, and cheer, until you find yourself above the clouds--serene and
calm--away from dust, heat, turmoil, bustle, in an old _locanda_, in a
shaded room, a flask of cool red wine before you, the south wind
rustling the leaves in the lattice, the bell of the old Franciscan
convent sending its clear silver notes away over valley and mountain
from its sleepy old home under the chestnut trees, the crowing of cocks
away down the mountain, the hum of bees in the flower-garden under the
window--the blessed, holy calm of the country!
It is the end aimed at that makes _vettura_-traveling jolly, for it can
well be imagined, as an Englishman justly said of it: 'It is just as
good a vehicle to go to the gallows in, as any I've ever been in, I am
sure.' But it is equally certain that the quiet joys revealed to the man
who travels by it--always be it understood, the man who don't care where
he goes or when he gets there--are many. These quiet joys consist of
exquisite paintings, sketches, scenes, landscapes, or whatever else you
choose to call them, wherein shrines, _asterias_ or taverns, _locandas_
or inns; costumes; shadow of grand old trees; the old Roman stone
sarcophagus turned into a water-trough, into which falls the fountain,
and where the tired horses thrust their dusty muzzles, drawing up water
with a rattling noise, while the south wind plays through the trees, and
they switch the flies from their flanks with their tails; the old
priest, accosted by the three small boys--'they are asking his
blessing,' said Miss Hicks--'they are asking him for a pinch of snuff,'
said Caper--and when she saw him produce his snuff-box, she acquiesced;
the wine-carts instead of swill-carts; the Italian peasants instead of
Paddies; agriculture instead of commerce; churches and monasteries in
place of cotton-mills; Roman watch-towers instead of factory-chimneys;
trees instead of board-yards; vineyards and olive-groves in place of
blue-grass and persimmon trees; golden oranges in place of crab-apples
and choke-pears; _zigarri scelti_ instead of Cabañas--but this is the
reverse of the medal; let us stop before we ruin our first position.
It was warm in Rome. The English had fled. The Romans, pure blood, once
more wandered toward sunset--not after it--on the Pincian Hill, and trod
with solid step the gravel of _Il Pincio Liberato_. In the Spanish
square around the fountain called Barcaccia, the lemonaders are
encamped; a hint of lemon, a supposition of sugar, a certainty of
water--what more can one expect for a baioccho? From midday until three
o'clock in the afternoon, scarcely a place of business, store or shop,
is open in Rome. The inhabitants are sleeping, clad as Monsieur Dubufe
conceived the original Paradisians should be clad. At sunset, as you
turn down the Via Condotti, you see chairs and tables placed outside the
Café Greco for its frequenters. The interior rooms are too, too close.
Even that penetralia, the 'Omnibus,' can not compare with the unwalled
room outside, with its star-gemmed ceiling, and the cool breeze eddying
away the segar-smoke; so its usual occupants are all outside.
At one of these tables sat Caper, Rocjean, and their mutual friend,
Dexter--an animal painter--the three in council, discussing the
question: 'Where shall we go this summer?' Rocjean strongly advocated
the cause of a little town in the Volscian mountains, called Segni,
assuring his friends that two artists of the French Academy had
discovered it the summer before.
'And they told me,' he said, 'that they would have lived there until
this time if they had had it in their power. Not that the scenery around
there was any better, if so good, as at Subiaco, or even Gennezzano; but
the wine was very cheap, and the cost of boarding at the _locanda_ was
only forty baiocchi a day----'
'We will go, we will go!' chimed in Caper.
'There were festivals in some of the neighboring towns nearly every
week, and costumes----'
'Let us travel there,' said Caper, 'at once!'
'Horses were to be had for a song----'
'I am ready to sing,' remarked Dexter.
'There was good shooting; _beccafichi_, woodcock, and quails, also
red-legged partridges----'
'Say no more,' spoke Caper, 'but let us secure seats in the next stage
that starts for such game scenes--immediately!'
* * * * *
Matters were so well arranged by Rocjean, that three days after the
above conversation, the three artists, with passports properly viséed,
were waiting, toward sunset, in the Piazza Pollajuólo, for the time not
advertised, but spoken of, by the _vetturino_ Francesco as his hour for
starting for Segni.
Our trio entered from the piazza, (every house in the environs of it
being gayly decked outside with flying pennants, banners, standards,
flags, in the shape of long shirts, short shirts, sheets, and stockings,
hanging out to dry.) They entered the house, resembling a hen-house,
where the _vettura_ was reposing, and commenced a rigid examination of
the old vehicle, which looked guilty and treacherous enough to have
committed all kinds of break-downs and upsets in its day. While they
were thus engaged, the driver and an assistant mounted to the top and
made fast the baggage, covering it all with a rough reed matting, and
tying it carefully on with cords, except a large-sized basket, which
they let fall, striking Caper on one side of the head as it descended.
'_Accidente!_' yelled two voices from the top of the carriage. 'Santa
Maria! Madonna mia! it isn't any thing, merely a bread-basket!' cried
Francesco, who, delighted to find out he had not killed his passenger
and so lost a scudo, at once harnessed in three horses abreast to the
_vettura_, interspersing his performance with enough oaths and vulgarity
to have lasted a small family of economical _contadine_ for a week. One
of his team, a mare named Filomena, he seemed to be particularly down
on. She was evidently not of a sensitive disposition, or she might have
revenged sundry defamations of her character with her heels. As it was,
she only whinnied, and playfully took off the driver's cap with her
teeth, lifting a few hairs with it.
'_Signora diavola!_' said Francesco, addressing the mare, and grabbing
his cap from her teeth, 'this is an insult--an insult to ME! Recollect
that when you are going up the mountain!'
'Come, Francesco, come!' said Rocjean, 'it's time to be off.'
'_Ecco me qua_, Signore, have patience a little minute, (_piccolo
momento_,) and then, whew! but we'll fly!'
The trio were anxious to get off, for every now and then, from some
third or fourth-story window, down would come waste water thus emptied
into the street, and they were fearful that they might be deluged.
'Jump inside,' said Francesco, when he had the old _vettura_ fairly in
the street, 'then you may laugh at the cascades of Pollajuólo,
_seguro_!'
_Creak, bang! rumble, rattle_; off they went, and were fairly under way,
at last, for Segni. They passed out of Rome by the Porta San Giovanni,
where their passports received a _visto_; and this being finished, again
started, the _vettura_ soon reaching the Campagna. It looked a fair and
winning scene, as they saw far away its broad fields of ripe wheat
swayed by the wind, and nodding all golden in the setting sun; herds of
horses feeding on the bright green grass; the large grey oxen,
black-eyed and branching-horned, following the _mandarina_ or leading ox
with his tinkling bell; the ruined aqueducts and Roman tombs; the
distant mountains robed in purple mist; the blue-clothed contadini
returning homewards. Yet this was where the malaria raged. As the road,
after an hour's drive, gradually ascending, carried them into a purer
and clearer air, and they felt its freshness invigorating mind and body,
there broke out a merry spirit of fun with our trio, as, descending from
the carriage, they walked up the steepest part of the ascent, laughing
and joking, or stopping to note the glories of sunset over Rome, above
which hung the dome of St. Peter's, grand in the golden haze.
They reached Colonna while the West was still flaming away, and found
the red wine there cool, if nothing better, as they drank it by the
fountain under the old trees. Then they mounted the _vettura_ refreshed,
and pushed on in the shadow of evening, under a long avenue of trees,
and late into the night, until they reached Valmontone; and they knew,
by the tinkling of mule-bells, and the hoarse shouts of their drivers,
with the barking of dogs, and the bars of bright light shooting through
darkness from doors and windows, that the _Osteria e Locanda_ was near,
and supper not far off. The _vettura_ stopped.
Descending, they entered the large hall of the inn, with its whitewashed
walls and brick floor, its ceiling heavy with rough-hewn rafters, and
its long wooden tables and rough benches stained nearly black by use. By
the oil lights burning in the graceful long-stemmed Roman lamps, they
saw three or four countrymen eating eggs fried with olive-oil in little
earthenware pipkins--a highly popular dish in the country round Rome,
since, by proper management, a great deal of bread, which is not very
dear, can be consumed with a few eggs. One of the number was luxuriating
in _agradolce_--meat stewed with preserved prunes or cherries--a dish
which many travelers have laughed at in Germany, but have never observed
in 'classic Italy.'
'_E che volete, Signori?_' from the once white-aproned waiter, aroused
our artists to a sense of duty; and fried ham, eggs, bread, and wine,
with a salad, were ordered, slowly brought, and ham and eggs quickly
finished and again furnished, much to the astonishment of a family of
peasants who had entered while they were eating, and who watched the
plates of ham and eggs disappear as if it were a feat of jugglery. After
supper came coffee and segars, and the sight of one of the soldiers of
the patrol, who came in to have a glass of _sambuca_, his blue uniform
in good condition, his carbine brightly shining. After the horses were
well rested, the _vettura_ again started, as the first faint light of
day shone in the east. About two miles from Valmontone, they commenced
the ascent of the mountains, and shortly had two oxen attached to help
drag their vehicle upward. The road wound along a mountain side--a
ravine far below them--and from its base arose a high conical mountain
opposite to them, as they slowly toiled upward. Again and again they
pulled through heavy clouds of mist hanging around the mountain side,
emerging above them only again to enter others. Finally it cleared; and
over the mountains, beyond the valley yet white with the morning dews,
they saw the red sun rise clear and sparkling; while high above their
heads, perched on mountain top and side, loomed out the old, gray,
time-worn walls of Segni. The _vettura_ came to a halt under the shade
of some old mulberry trees, and our travelers descended to leave it
where it was, for the town was not built with a view to the entrance of
carriages.