ROME.

AS you roll into the big railway station, and hear the sonorous voice of

the railway porter pronounce _Roma_, there is an inward feeling of

reverence and pride that you have reached Rome–“The Eternal City.” It

was late in the evening when we arrived, and so we took up our quarters

at the Hotel Continental, a large and modern hotel, situated on a high

part of the town–one of the seven hills–and where malaria is not likely

to find its way.

There is a Mr. Forbes resident in Rome, who conducts and lectures to

parties on the spot, at points of interest; he takes a week to do the

city.

As we had only two or three days to stay we had a guide of our own. When

I bought a pair of easy boots for walking, my companion enquired what

commission he would get; this gave him great offence, he said he was a

gentleman, a rich man–proud men are these Romans. In driving through the

streets of Rome, there appears to be nothing of a very remarkable

character. You require to know its brilliant history, and the deeds of

its patriots and rulers You may lazily climb up the hill leading to the

Forum, but if you are interrupted and told that on this spot Cæsar was

murdered, or on that spot his friend Anthony delivered his oration, you

are impressed. You require to live a few days in Rome to get through the

preface of the story of its eventful history. This history should be

divided into three eras–Ancient Rome, the time of its supreme greatness;

Old Rome, or the middle ages and the supremacy of the Popes; and New

Rome, since the entry of Garibaldi. I intend to say little about this

wonderful place; I am unable to do so, as it is too classical, I will

only give just a rough and crude idea of what attracted my attention.

There is not a great deal of Ancient Rome left––the old buildings appear

to have been knocked down, levelled up, and new and mean streets built

over the top. In the dark ages they seem to have had no regard to the

grandeur of Ancient Rome, they buried up the massive columns and

statuary, and built up the present New Rome over them, so that many of

the places laid bare are ten or twelve feet below the present street

level, especially in the neighbourhood of the Forum of Trajan and the

Pantheon, and whenever they are re-building in this part of the city

they come across some old relic or other. We visited the Roman Forum,

the Triumphal Arch of Titus, the Arch of Constantine, the remains of the

great Colosseum that once seated 90,000 Romans, and the Temple of Castor

and Pollux. We crossed the Tiber by Adrian’s Bridge, built A.D. 136, to

the Castle of St. Angelo, now so called, but really the Tomb of Trajan.

The Tiber is a muddy, sleepy-looking river, with about the same volume

of water as the Dee, at Chester, or scarcely as much.

The Pantheon, once a Pagan temple but now a church, is the only ancient

building left in a state fit for use; its walls are of brick twenty feet

thick, with an opening in centre of dome, as the only means of lighting

the interior. It contains the tomb of the late King Victor Emmanuel, and

other memorials, including one to Canova, the sculptor, and is used also

as a chapel. All the other remains are in a dismantled, ruined state,

every thing that was costly has disappeared.

The Colosseum for centuries was used as a stone quarry. When foundation

and other stones were wanted for a new church they were there ready for

the builder; and in like manner the columns and slabs of marble that had

been brought from Greece and many parts of the earth, for the public

buildings, are now in St. Peter’s, St. Paul’s, St. John’s, and the other

churches in Rome. I cannot attempt to describe St. Peter’s, except that

it is considered the largest, grandest, and most costly building in the

world–taking twenty million francs to pay for it–and will hold 45,000

people. It took 300 years to complete, and although finished 300 years

ago, it looks as bright and clean as if it had been perpetually under a

glass shade and sponged down every morning. Every proportion about it is

gigantic–there is nothing small or paltry that would assist you in

realising its immensity. You see a figure inside the church, it looks

life size, but go up to it and you will find it twenty or thirty feet

high.

St. Peter’s contains no oil paintings, as in most churches. The

Ascension, by Raphael, and all the other pictures of like size are of

Mosaic, prepared and executed in the Vatican; each picture is made up of

thirteen millions of small fragments of tinted Mosaics, and it takes an

artist thirty years to complete one. The ashes of St. Peter are, or are

said to be, here, under a bronze canopy, beneath the centre of the great

dome–this canopy is 96 feet high, and is of solid bronze, taken from the

Pantheon 270 years ago–the Cross of Christ, from Calvary; the

handkerchief with the print of His face still visible; the spear the

Roman soldier pierced His side with. This soldier, we were told,

happened to have a blind eye, on which a drop of blood fell from the

point of the spear, and instantly restored that orb. He was made a

saint, and his effigy now stands fifty feet high under the great dome.

We listened with wonder and amazement and tried to believe. It was

Saturday, and the church was nearly empty, excepting a few hundreds of

priests, and a beggar-like looking woman with her shoeless, ragged

children; she dragged these children through this pile of grandeur with

open mouths and eyes, perhaps wondering if heaven could be grander than

this.

Rome is built on seven hills–the Pincian Quirinale, the Capitol, and

Mount Palatine. From the Pincian Hill–the Hill of Gardens–you get the

best view of the Old City, the Corsa, and the River. From Mount Palatine

you get the best view of the Ruins of Ancient Rome, the Forum, the

Colosseum, the different Temples and Arches, the Capitol, while, turning

your face, the view is very fine–the Campana stretching twenty miles

crossed by the Appian way, and the great aqueducts, now partially broken

down, that carried the waters from the distant mountains of Albany,

twenty-five miles away; across the plain are mounds of stone, very faint

traces of the days of Titus, when Rome is supposed to have had a

population of three-and-a-half millions, while a few hundred years later

it had scarcely twenty thousand. The fountains are, perhaps, one of the

wonders of the city. Hundreds of thousands gallons of water gush out in

the gardens of Mount Palatine, it comes out again at the Capitol, again

at the Quirinale, and again in a lower part of the city. There is

perhaps no city in the world with such an abundant water supply, so

beautifully dispersed by magnificent fountains. We saw King Humbert, on

his birthday, driving out in the Park of the Villa Borghese; we saw the

Via Nationale of New Rome, illuminated in Parisian style. We strolled

down the Corsa, with its well-stocked shops. In the Café de Roma you

will get a mid-day meal equal to any in Europe if you like Italian

cooking. The Corsa is a sort of Piccadilly and Regent Street mixed, and

it contains the best shops and mansions. The Piazza de Spragna is the

artists’ quarters–it is a sort of Bond Street. Shop after shop with

works of art, pictures, Mosaics, sculpture, photographs; here it is you

see the Roman living models flitting about–the good-looking woman with

her troop of roguish-looking children; the old man; the old woman; the

dark eyes of the young girl of Roman type of beauty, dressed in the

picturesque and highly-coloured garb of the surrounding country

districts, are all to be seen in this centre.

We had to leave Rome before we had seen a tenth of the pictures, and

statues, and bronzes. We began to like the place, and could have done

with a week here, but the steamer “Candia,” for Malta, sailed on

Tuesday, so we bid good bye to Rome, and passed another night in that

villainous Naples. Surely this is one of the wickedest places on earth.

We speak of England, its drunkenness, and the wretchedness caused by

drink, but go there and see the degradation; they don’t drink, but the

poor wretches will gamble with their last franc. The banco lotto you see

in a prominent part of every street, as you do in Rome, where the

offices are open for the sale of tickets, even on Sundays. The

Government realise fourteen millions per annum from these lotteries. The

obscenities and vice that meet you at every street corner are so

shocking that it would make an Englishman shudder with disgust.

One curiosity you see in Naples I was almost forgetting, that is the

money changers. These relics of antiquity are at the corners of the

streets, seated in a wooden box, with piles of copper and other coins,

plying their trade. Under the portico of the Theatre Carlo another

antique relic still exists. With skull cap and silver spectacles, the

letter writer with his table, pens, ink, and paper, is always there, and

appears to enjoy a good practice writing business as well as love

letters for his customers. We were told that not more than one-third of

the Italians can read or write.

I have said unkind words about Naples, and she deserves them, but being

once more in the bay she looked most enchanting. It was a fine clear

evening when we steamed out of the bay, and took our last view of

Vesuvius as we rounded the point into the open sea. Early next morning

we found Stromboli busy throwing up her dense smoke. We had two pleasant

days in the Straits of Messina, calling at Messina, in the Island of

Sicily, thence to Reggio, almost the extreme southerly point of Italy,

returning to Messina, thence to Catania and Syracuse. In driving through

the town of Catania we were struck with the peculiarity of its stuccoed

buildings, with Mount Etna standing boldly out as a good background,

sending forth its volumes of smoke and steam, yet capped with snow and

wreathed in clouds. Here we saw the fine monument erected to Bellini,

the composer, Catania being his birthplace; around the pedestal are four

life-sized figures in white marble, being principal characters from some

of his operas. The harness of the horses is very gay, being one mass of

coloured and gold or brass brocade, with a very peculiar collar covered

completely with polished brass and bells. The carts are mostly painted

yellow, the panels decorated with brilliant landscapes of the locality.

You see scores of these carts coming down to the harbour from Mount Etna

laden with the yellow sulphur of commerce, the whole presenting a scene

unique and pleasing. We drove through the principal streets to look at

the people and the place, and were stared and jabbered at, as we

supposed, as though we were barbarians. We visited the gardens which

were beautifully laid out and full of flowers, returning thence to our

steamer after the usual wrangle with the cabby, who, like his London

brother, asks for more than he is entitled to, but, thanks to the

offices of a Maltese gentleman who was with us, he did not get more than

he deserved, at least in hard cash if he did in hard words. Another

twenty-four hours brought us up to the Mole in the Bay of Valetta, in

Malta. Although 2,000 miles away from home, we felt as if we were in

England, especially when we first saw the familiar red coats with white

Indian helmets, and the fife and drum struck up “The Girl I left Behind

me.” I had almost forgotten this was not the first time we came across

the British uniform, for at Syracuse some enterprising outfitter had

purchased the scarlet shell jackets of the British cavalry, which were

now on the backs of the howling Syracusian boatmen, minus the buttons.

We stayed three days in Malta, made a tour of inspection round the

fortifications, had a chat with the British soldier, sounded him as to

his politics and the present Government, and found him right. We visited

the Dried Monks, at the Monastery of the Capuchins. We were taken down

into the basement, where, along the walls of the corridors, we saw rows

of monks, each in his particular niche. One had been there nearly 800

years, and did not seem to object, indeed, he had lost some of “his

cheek.” These monks, when a brother dies, bury him for twelve months

without a coffin, and then dis-inter him and bring him to his particular

stand-point before allotted, and label as brother Anselmo or whatever

name he bore when alive. Our guide pointed out the particular niche

reserved for himself. The draught blowing along the corridor, and not

being anxious to take into our open mouths of wonder any dried monk, we

retraced our footsteps and ascended to scenes brighter and more

salubrious.

The races by Arab horses mounted by British officers were very good.

Twenty-four horses started, and all came in neck and neck to the winning

post; they also rode what is called an omnibus race, two riders on one

horse; also the wardrobe race, each rider putting on his braces,

waistcoat, and jacket as he rode, before reaching the winning post. The

tent pegging and lemon slicing was quite new to us.

The P. and O. boats from Australia, calling at Malta, are the best

service, so we took our berths to Gibraltar, a passage of four days. The

“Indus” carried about one hundred cabin passengers, principally

colonists. We were never out of sight of land the whole distance, first

skirting the African Coast off Tunis, then Algiers, Fez, and Morocco,

all picturesque and interesting. A lady remarked they had been coasting

Africa for a fortnight, at 12½ knots, and yet had three days more to do,

which gives a very faint idea of what a Continent we were passing. We

passed a whale spouting in these seas. Before nearing Gibraltar the

course directed to the Spanish Coast, and during this portion of the

voyage we had the boldest coast we had ever seen.

Gibraltar is only a rock of about 1,200 feet, but it is more picturesque

than Malta. It is not very unlike the Great Ormes Head from some points

of view, but looks bolder. The base of the hill is studded with pretty

villas, these are occupied mostly by English Officers and their

families. The space for the town is very small; the markets and houses

are all within the fortifications. There are about 4,000 Spanish allowed

to live here on sufferance, but are liable to be ejected at a moment’s

notice.

The principal feature of Gibraltar is its natural fortifications. The

Rock is pierced with two tunnels, called the Upper and Lower Gallery.

From these tunnels cannon are fixed at all points of defence. A sergeant

told us that it would take all the powers of Europe combined to take

Gibraltar.

We stayed here two days, and then shipped on the Cunard S.S. “Morocco.”

We had a fair passage–about two nights and two-and-a-half days in the

Bay of Biscay, with a head wind N.E., doing five knots per hour. I had

often wished to see the rollers of the Bay, and I saw them. They were so

grand that they took away the appetite I should have had for my dinner.

It was on the Thursday morning preceding Good Friday that we rounded

Holyhead.

We had not had any English news for a fortnight, because it takes six

days to go to Gibraltar and six back. We cleared the Bar and steamed

into the Alexandra Dock, after being away for six weeks and three days,

and, as my companion had carefully calculated, covered over 5,000 miles.

[Illustration: ENDE.]

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