THERE is nothing in Italy, more beautiful to me, than the coast-road
between Genoa and Spezzia. On one side: sometimes far below, sometimes
nearly on a level with the road, and often skirted by broken rocks of
many shapes: there is the free blue sea, with here and there a
picturesque felucca gliding slowly on; on the other side are lofty hills,
ravines besprinkled with white cottages, patches of dark olive woods,
country churches with their light open towers, and country houses gaily
painted. On every bank and knoll by the wayside, the wild cactus and
aloe flourish in exuberant profusion; and the gardens of the bright
villages along the road, are seen, all blushing in the summer-time with
clusters of the Belladonna, and are fragrant in the autumn and winter
with golden oranges and lemons.
Some of the villages are inhabited, almost exclusively, by fishermen; and
it is pleasant to see their great boats hauled up on the beach, making
little patches of shade, where they lie asleep, or where the women and
children sit romping and looking out to sea, while they mend their nets
upon the shore. There is one town, Camoglia, with its little harbour on
the sea, hundreds of feet below the road; where families of mariners
live, who, time out of mind, have owned coasting-vessels in that place,
and have traded to Spain and elsewhere. Seen from the road above, it is
like a tiny model on the margin of the dimpled water, shining in the sun.
Descended into, by the winding mule-tracks, it is a perfect miniature of
a primitive seafaring town; the saltest, roughest, most piratical little
place that ever was seen. Great rusty iron rings and mooring-chains,
capstans, and fragments of old masts and spars, choke up the way; hardy
rough-weather boats, and seamen’s clothing, flutter in the little harbour
or are drawn out on the sunny stones to dry; on the parapet of the rude
pier, a few amphibious-looking fellows lie asleep, with their legs
dangling over the wall, as though earth or water were all one to them,
and if they slipped in, they would float away, dozing comfortably among
the fishes; the church is bright with trophies of the sea, and votive
offerings, in commemoration of escape from storm and shipwreck. The
dwellings not immediately abutting on the harbour are approached by blind
low archways, and by crooked steps, as if in darkness and in difficulty
of access they should be like holds of ships, or inconvenient cabins
under water; and everywhere, there is a smell of fish, and sea-weed, and
old rope.
The coast-road whence Camoglia is descried so far below, is famous, in
the warm season, especially in some parts near Genoa, for fire-flies.
Walking there on a dark night, I have seen it made one sparkling
firmament by these beautiful insects: so that the distant stars were pale
against the flash and glitter that spangled every olive wood and
hill-side, and pervaded the whole air.
It was not in such a season, however, that we traversed this road on our
way to Rome. The middle of January was only just past, and it was very
gloomy and dark weather; very wet besides. In crossing the fine pass of
Bracco, we encountered such a storm of mist and rain, that we travelled
in a cloud the whole way. There might have been no Mediterranean in the
world, for anything that we saw of it there, except when a sudden gust of
wind, clearing the mist before it, for a moment, showed the agitated sea
at a great depth below, lashing the distant rocks, and spouting up its
foam furiously. The rain was incessant; every brook and torrent was
greatly swollen; and such a deafening leaping, and roaring, and
thundering of water, I never heard the like of in my life.
Hence, when we came to Spezzia, we found that the Magra, an unbridged
river on the high-road to Pisa, was too high to be safely crossed in the
Ferry Boat, and were fain to wait until the afternoon of next day, when
it had, in some degree, subsided. Spezzia, however, is a good place to
tarry at; by reason, firstly, of its beautiful bay; secondly, of its
ghostly Inn; thirdly, of the head-dress of the women, who wear, on one
side of their head, a small doll’s straw hat, stuck on to the hair; which
is certainly the oddest and most roguish head-gear that ever was
invented.
The Magra safely crossed in the Ferry Boat—the passage is not by any
means agreeable, when the current is swollen and strong—we arrived at
Carrara, within a few hours. In good time next morning, we got some
ponies, and went out to see the marble quarries.
They are four or five great glens, running up into a range of lofty
hills, until they can run no longer, and are stopped by being abruptly
strangled by Nature. The quarries, ‘or caves,’ as they call them there,
are so many openings, high up in the hills, on either side of these
passes, where they blast and excavate for marble: which may turn out good
or bad: may make a man’s fortune very quickly, or ruin him by the great
expense of working what is worth nothing. Some of these caves were
opened by the ancient Romans, and remain as they left them to this hour.
Many others are being worked at this moment; others are to be begun
to-morrow, next week, next month; others are unbought, unthought of; and
marble enough for more ages than have passed since the place was resorted
to, lies hidden everywhere: patiently awaiting its time of discovery.
As you toil and clamber up one of these steep gorges (having left your
pony soddening his girths in water, a mile or two lower down) you hear,
every now and then, echoing among the hills, in a low tone, more silent
than the previous silence, a melancholy warning bugle,—a signal to the
miners to withdraw. Then, there is a thundering, and echoing from hill
to hill, and perhaps a splashing up of great fragments of rock into the
air; and on you toil again until some other bugle sounds, in a new
direction, and you stop directly, lest you should come within the range
of the new explosion.
There were numbers of men, working high up in these hills—on the
sides—clearing away, and sending down the broken masses of stone and
earth, to make way for the blocks of marble that had been discovered. As
these came rolling down from unseen hands into the narrow valley, I could
not help thinking of the deep glen (just the same sort of glen) where the
Roc left Sindbad the Sailor; and where the merchants from the heights
above, flung down great pieces of meat for the diamonds to stick to.
There were no eagles here, to darken the sun in their swoop, and pounce
upon them; but it was as wild and fierce as if there had been hundreds.
But the road, the road down which the marble comes, however immense the
blocks! The genius of the country, and the spirit of its institutions,
pave that road: repair it, watch it, keep it going! Conceive a channel
of water running over a rocky bed, beset with great heaps of stone of all
shapes and sizes, winding down the middle of this valley; and _that_
being the road—because it was the road five hundred years ago! Imagine
the clumsy carts of five hundred years ago, being used to this hour, and
drawn, as they used to be, five hundred years ago, by oxen, whose
ancestors were worn to death five hundred years ago, as their unhappy
descendants are now, in twelve months, by the suffering and agony of this
cruel work! Two pair, four pair, ten pair, twenty pair, to one block,
according to its size; down it must come, this way. In their struggling
from stone to stone, with their enormous loads behind them, they die
frequently upon the spot; and not they alone; for their passionate
drivers, sometimes tumbling down in their energy, are crushed to death
beneath the wheels. But it was good five hundred years ago, and it must
be good now: and a railroad down one of these steeps (the easiest thing
in the world) would be flat blasphemy.
When we stood aside, to see one of these cars drawn by only a pair of
oxen (for it had but one small block of marble on it), coming down, I
hailed, in my heart, the man who sat upon the heavy yoke, to keep it on
the neck of the poor beasts—and who faced backwards: not before him—as
the very Devil of true despotism. He had a great rod in his hand, with
an iron point; and when they could plough and force their way through the
loose bed of the torrent no longer, and came to a stop, he poked it into
their bodies, beat it on their heads, screwed it round and round in their
nostrils, got them on a yard or two, in the madness of intense pain;
repeated all these persuasions, with increased intensity of purpose, when
they stopped again; got them on, once more; forced and goaded them to an
abrupter point of the descent; and when their writhing and smarting, and
the weight behind them, bore them plunging down the precipice in a cloud
of scattered water, whirled his rod above his head, and gave a great
whoop and hallo, as if he had achieved something, and had no idea that
they might shake him off, and blindly mash his brains upon the road, in
the noontide of his triumph.
Standing in one of the many studii of Carrara, that afternoon—for it is a
great workshop, full of beautifully-finished copies in marble, of almost
every figure, group, and bust, we know—it seemed, at first, so strange to
me that those exquisite shapes, replete with grace, and thought, and
delicate repose, should grow out of all this toil, and sweat, and
torture! But I soon found a parallel to it, and an explanation of it, in
every virtue that springs up in miserable ground, and every good thing
that has its birth in sorrow and distress. And, looking out of the
sculptor’s great window, upon the marble mountains, all red and glowing
in the decline of day, but stern and solemn to the last, I thought, my
God! how many quarries of human hearts and souls, capable of far more
beautiful results, are left shut up and mouldering away: while
pleasure-travellers through life, avert their faces, as they pass, and
shudder at the gloom and ruggedness that conceal them!
The then reigning Duke of Modena, to whom this territory in part
belonged, claimed the proud distinction of being the only sovereign in
Europe who had not recognised Louis-Philippe as King of the French! He
was not a wag, but quite in earnest. He was also much opposed to
railroads; and if certain lines in contemplation by other potentates, on
either side of him, had been executed, would have probably enjoyed the
satisfaction of having an omnibus plying to and fro across his not very
vast dominions, to forward travellers from one terminus to another.
Carrara, shut in by great hills, is very picturesque and bold. Few
tourists stay there; and the people are nearly all connected, in one way
or other, with the working of marble. There are also villages among the
caves, where the workmen live. It contains a beautiful little Theatre,
newly built; and it is an interesting custom there, to form the chorus of
labourers in the marble quarries, who are self-taught and sing by ear. I
heard them in a comic opera, and in an act of ‘Norma;’ and they acquitted
themselves very well; unlike the common people of Italy generally, who
(with some exceptions among the Neapolitans) sing vilely out of tune, and
have very disagreeable singing voices.
From the summit of a lofty hill beyond Carrara, the first view of the
fertile plain in which the town of Pisa lies—with Leghorn, a purple spot
in the flat distance—is enchanting. Nor is it only distance that lends
enchantment to the view; for the fruitful country, and rich woods of
olive-trees through which the road subsequently passes, render it
delightful.
The moon was shining when we approached Pisa, and for a long time we
could see, behind the wall, the leaning Tower, all awry in the uncertain
light; the shadowy original of the old pictures in school-books, setting
forth ‘The Wonders of the World.’ Like most things connected in their
first associations with school-books and school-times, it was too small.
I felt it keenly. It was nothing like so high above the wall as I had
hoped. It was another of the many deceptions practised by Mr. Harris,
Bookseller, at the corner of St. Paul’s Churchyard, London. _His_ Tower
was a fiction, but this was a reality—and, by comparison, a short
reality. Still, it looked very well, and very strange, and was quite as
much out of the perpendicular as Harris had represented it to be. The
quiet air of Pisa too; the big guard-house at the gate, with only two
little soldiers in it; the streets with scarcely any show of people in
them; and the Arno, flowing quaintly through the centre of the town; were
excellent. So, I bore no malice in my heart against Mr. Harris
(remembering his good intentions), but forgave him before dinner, and
went out, full of confidence, to see the Tower next morning.
I might have known better; but, somehow, I had expected to see it,
casting its long shadow on a public street where people came and went all
day. It was a surprise to me to find it in a grave retired place, apart
from the general resort, and carpeted with smooth green turf. But, the
group of buildings, clustered on and about this verdant carpet:
comprising the Tower, the Baptistery, the Cathedral, and the Church of
the Campo Santo: is perhaps the most remarkable and beautiful in the
whole world; and from being clustered there, together, away from the
ordinary transactions and details of the town, they have a singularly
venerable and impressive character. It is the architectural essence of a
rich old city, with all its common life and common habitations pressed
out, and filtered away.
SIMOND compares the Tower to the usual pictorial representations in
children’s books of the Tower of Babel. It is a happy simile, and
conveys a better idea of the building than chapters of laboured
description. Nothing can exceed the grace and lightness of the
structure; nothing can be more remarkable than its general appearance.
In the course of the ascent to the top (which is by an easy staircase),
the inclination is not very apparent; but, at the summit, it becomes so,
and gives one the sensation of being in a ship that has heeled over,
through the action of an ebb-tide. The effect _upon the low side_, so to
speak—looking over from the gallery, and seeing the shaft recede to its
base—is very startling; and I saw a nervous traveller hold on to the
Tower involuntarily, after glancing down, as if he had some idea of
propping it up. The view within, from the ground—looking up, as through
a slanted tube—is also very curious. It certainly inclines as much as
the most sanguine tourist could desire. The natural impulse of
ninety-nine people out of a hundred, who were about to recline upon the
grass below it, to rest, and contemplate the adjacent buildings, would
probably be, not to take up their position under the leaning side; it is
so very much aslant.
The manifold beauties of the Cathedral and Baptistery need no
recapitulation from me; though in this case, as in a hundred others, I
find it difficult to separate my own delight in recalling them, from your
weariness in having them recalled. There is a picture of St. Agnes, by
Andrea del Sarto, in the former, and there are a variety of rich columns
in the latter, that tempt me strongly.
It is, I hope, no breach of my resolution not to be tempted into
elaborate descriptions, to remember the Campo Santo; where grass-grown
graves are dug in earth brought more than six hundred years ago, from the
Holy Land; and where there are, surrounding them, such cloisters, with
such playing lights and shadows falling through their delicate tracery on
the stone pavement, as surely the dullest memory could never forget. On
the walls of this solemn and lovely place, are ancient frescoes, very
much obliterated and decayed, but very curious. As usually happens in
almost any collection of paintings, of any sort, in Italy, where there
are many heads, there is, in one of them, a striking accidental likeness
of Napoleon. At one time, I used to please my fancy with the speculation
whether these old painters, at their work, had a foreboding knowledge of
the man who would one day arise to wreak such destruction upon art: whose
soldiers would make targets of great pictures, and stable their horses
among triumphs of architecture. But the same Corsican face is so
plentiful in some parts of Italy at this day, that a more commonplace
solution of the coincidence is unavoidable.
If Pisa be the seventh wonder of the world in right of its Tower, it may
claim to be, at least, the second or third in right of its beggars. They
waylay the unhappy visitor at every turn, escort him to every door he
enters at, and lie in wait for him, with strong reinforcements, at every
door by which they know he must come out. The grating of the portal on
its hinges is the signal for a general shout, and the moment he appears,
he is hemmed in, and fallen on, by heaps of rags and personal
distortions. The beggars seem to embody all the trade and enterprise of
Pisa. Nothing else is stirring, but warm air. Going through the
streets, the fronts of the sleepy houses look like backs. They are all
so still and quiet, and unlike houses with people in them, that the
greater part of the city has the appearance of a city at daybreak, or
during a general siesta of the population. Or it is yet more like those
backgrounds of houses in common prints, or old engravings, where windows
and doors are squarely indicated, and one figure (a beggar of course) is
seen walking off by itself into illimitable perspective.
Not so Leghorn (made illustrious by SMOLLETT’S grave), which is a
thriving, business-like, matter-of-fact place, where idleness is
shouldered out of the way by commerce. The regulations observed there,
in reference to trade and merchants, are very liberal and free; and the
town, of course, benefits by them. Leghorn had a bad name in connection
with stabbers, and with some justice it must be allowed; for, not many
years ago, there was an assassination club there, the members of which
bore no ill-will to anybody in particular, but stabbed people (quite
strangers to them) in the streets at night, for the pleasure and
excitement of the recreation. I think the president of this amiable
society was a shoemaker. He was taken, however, and the club was broken
up. It would, probably, have disappeared in the natural course of
events, before the railroad between Leghorn and Pisa, which is a good
one, and has already begun to astonish Italy with a precedent of
punctuality, order, plain dealing, and improvement—the most dangerous and
heretical astonisher of all. There must have been a slight sensation, as
of earthquake, surely, in the Vatican, when the first Italian railroad
was thrown open.
Returning to Pisa, and hiring a good-tempered Vetturíno, and his four
horses, to take us on to Rome, we travelled through pleasant Tuscan
villages and cheerful scenery all day. The roadside crosses in this part
of Italy are numerous and curious. There is seldom a figure on the
cross, though there is sometimes a face, but they are remarkable for
being garnished with little models in wood, of every possible object that
can be connected with the Saviour’s death. The cock that crowed when
Peter had denied his Master thrice, is usually perched on the tip-top;
and an ornithological phenomenon he generally is. Under him, is the
inscription. Then, hung on to the cross-beam, are the spear, the reed
with the sponge of vinegar and water at the end, the coat without seam
for which the soldiers cast lots, the dice-box with which they threw for
it, the hammer that drove in the nails, the pincers that pulled them out,
the ladder which was set against the cross, the crown of thorns, the
instrument of flagellation, the lanthorn with which Mary went to the tomb
(I suppose), and the sword with which Peter smote the servant of the high
priest,—a perfect toy-shop of little objects, repeated at every four or
five miles, all along the highway.
On the evening of the second day from Pisa, we reached the beautiful old
city of Siena. There was what they called a Carnival, in progress; but,
as its secret lay in a score or two of melancholy people walking up and
down the principal street in common toy-shop masks, and being more
melancholy, if possible, than the same sort of people in England, I say
no more of it. We went off, betimes next morning, to see the Cathedral,
which is wonderfully picturesque inside and out, especially the
latter—also the market-place, or great Piazza, which is a large square,
with a great broken-nosed fountain in it: some quaint Gothic houses: and
a high square brick tower; _outside_ the top of which—a curious feature
in such views in Italy—hangs an enormous bell. It is like a bit of
Venice, without the water. There are some curious old Palazzi in the
town, which is very ancient; and without having (for me) the interest of
Verona, or Genoa, it is very dreamy and fantastic, and most interesting.
We went on again, as soon as we had seen these things, and going over a
rather bleak country (there had been nothing but vines until now: mere
walking-sticks at that season of the year), stopped, as usual, between
one and two hours in the middle of the day, to rest the horses; that
being a part of every Vetturíno contract. We then went on again, through
a region gradually becoming bleaker and wilder, until it became as bare
and desolate as any Scottish moors. Soon after dark, we halted for the
night, at the osteria of La Scala: a perfectly lone house, where the
family were sitting round a great fire in the kitchen, raised on a stone
platform three or four feet high, and big enough for the roasting of an
ox. On the upper, and only other floor of this hotel, there was a great,
wild, rambling sála, with one very little window in a by-corner, and four
black doors opening into four black bedrooms in various directions. To
say nothing of another large black door, opening into another large black
sála, with the staircase coming abruptly through a kind of trap-door in
the floor, and the rafters of the roof looming above: a suspicious little
press skulking in one obscure corner: and all the knives in the house
lying about in various directions. The fireplace was of the purest
Italian architecture, so that it was perfectly impossible to see it for
the smoke. The waitress was like a dramatic brigand’s wife, and wore the
same style of dress upon her head. The dogs barked like mad; the echoes
returned the compliments bestowed upon them; there was not another house
within twelve miles; and things had a dreary, and rather a cut-throat,
appearance.
They were not improved by rumours of robbers having come out, strong and
boldly, within a few nights; and of their having stopped the mail very
near that place. They were known to have waylaid some travellers not
long before, on Mount Vesuvius itself, and were the talk at all the
roadside inns. As they were no business of ours, however (for we had
very little with us to lose), we made ourselves merry on the subject, and
were very soon as comfortable as need be. We had the usual dinner in
this solitary house; and a very good dinner it is, when you are used to
it. There is something with a vegetable or some rice in it which is a
sort of shorthand or arbitrary character for soup, and which tastes very
well, when you have flavoured it with plenty of grated cheese, lots of
salt, and abundance of pepper. There is the half fowl of which this soup
has been made. There is a stewed pigeon, with the gizzards and livers of
himself and other birds stuck all round him. There is a bit of roast
beef, the size of a small French roll. There are a scrap of Parmesan
cheese, and five little withered apples, all huddled together on a small
plate, and crowding one upon the other, as if each were trying to save
itself from the chance of being eaten. Then there is coffee; and then
there is bed. You don’t mind brick floors; you don’t mind yawning doors,
nor banging windows; you don’t mind your own horses being stabled under
the bed: and so close, that every time a horse coughs or sneezes, he
wakes you. If you are good-humoured to the people about you, and speak
pleasantly, and look cheerful, take my word for it you may be well
entertained in the very worst Italian Inn, and always in the most
obliging manner, and may go from one end of the country to the other
(despite all stories to the contrary) without any great trial of your
patience anywhere. Especially, when you get such wine in flasks, as the
Orvieto, and the Monte Pulciano.
It was a bad morning when we left this place; and we went, for twelve
miles, over a country as barren, as stony, and as wild, as Cornwall in
England, until we came to Radicofani, where there is a ghostly, goblin
inn: once a hunting-seat, belonging to the Dukes of Tuscany. It is full
of such rambling corridors, and gaunt rooms, that all the murdering and
phantom tales that ever were written might have originated in that one
house. There are some horrible old Palazzi in Genoa: one in particular,
not unlike it, outside: but there is a winding, creaking, wormy,
rustling, door-opening, foot-on-staircase-falling character about this
Radicofani Hotel, such as I never saw, anywhere else. The town, such as
it is, hangs on a hill-side above the house, and in front of it. The
inhabitants are all beggars; and as soon as they see a carriage coming,
they swoop down upon it, like so many birds of prey.
When we got on the mountain pass, which lies beyond this place, the wind
(as they had forewarned us at the inn) was so terrific, that we were
obliged to take my other half out of the carriage, lest she should be
blown over, carriage and all, and to hang to it, on the windy side (as
well as we could for laughing), to prevent its going, Heaven knows where.
For mere force of wind, this land-storm might have competed with an
Atlantic gale, and had a reasonable chance of coming off victorious. The
blast came sweeping down great gullies in a range of mountains on the
right: so that we looked with positive awe at a great morass on the left,
and saw that there was not a bush or twig to hold by. It seemed as if,
once blown from our feet, we must be swept out to sea, or away into
space. There was snow, and hail, and rain, and lightning, and thunder;
and there were rolling mists, travelling with incredible velocity. It
was dark, awful, and solitary to the last degree; there were mountains
above mountains, veiled in angry clouds; and there was such a wrathful,
rapid, violent, tumultuous hurry, everywhere, as rendered the scene
unspeakably exciting and grand.
It was a relief to get out of it, notwithstanding; and to cross even the
dismal, dirty Papal Frontier. After passing through two little towns; in
one of which, Acquapendente, there was also a ‘Carnival’ in progress:
consisting of one man dressed and masked as a woman, and one woman
dressed and masked as a man, walking ankle-deep, through the muddy
streets, in a very melancholy manner: we came, at dusk, within sight of
the Lake of Bolsena, on whose bank there is a little town of the same
name, much celebrated for malaria. With the exception of this poor
place, there is not a cottage on the banks of the lake, or near it (for
nobody dare sleep there); not a boat upon its waters; not a stick or
stake to break the dismal monotony of seven-and-twenty watery miles. We
were late in getting in, the roads being very bad from heavy rains; and,
after dark, the dulness of the scene was quite intolerable.
We entered on a very different, and a finer scene of desolation, next
night, at sunset. We had passed through Montefiaschone (famous for its
wine) and Viterbo (for its fountains): and after climbing up a long hill
of eight or ten miles’ extent, came suddenly upon the margin of a
solitary lake: in one part very beautiful, with a luxuriant wood; in
another, very barren, and shut in by bleak volcanic hills. Where this
lake flows, there stood, of old, a city. It was swallowed up one day;
and in its stead, this water rose. There are ancient traditions (common
to many parts of the world) of the ruined city having been seen below,
when the water was clear; but however that may be, from this spot of
earth it vanished. The ground came bubbling up above it; and the water
too; and here they stand, like ghosts on whom the other world closed
suddenly, and who have no means of getting back again. They seem to be
waiting the course of ages, for the next earthquake in that place; when
they will plunge below the ground, at its first yawning, and be seen no
more. The unhappy city below, is not more lost and dreary, than these
fire-charred hills and the stagnant water, above. The red sun looked
strangely on them, as with the knowledge that they were made for caverns
and darkness; and the melancholy water oozed and sucked the mud, and
crept quietly among the marshy grass and reeds, as if the overthrow of
all the ancient towers and housetops, and the death of all the ancient
people born and bred there, were yet heavy on its conscience.
A short ride from this lake, brought us to Ronciglione; a little town
like a large pig-sty, where we passed the night. Next morning at seven
o’clock, we started for Rome.
As soon as we were out of the pig-sty, we entered on the Campagna Romana;
an undulating flat (as you know), where few people can live; and where,
for miles and miles, there is nothing to relieve the terrible monotony
and gloom. Of all kinds of country that could, by possibility, lie
outside the gates of Rome, this is the aptest and fittest burial-ground
for the Dead City. So sad, so quiet, so sullen; so secret in its
covering up of great masses of ruin, and hiding them; so like the waste
places into which the men possessed with devils used to go and howl, and
rend themselves, in the old days of Jerusalem. We had to traverse thirty
miles of this Campagna; and for two-and-twenty we went on and on, seeing
nothing but now and then a lonely house, or a villainous-looking
shepherd: with matted hair all over his face, and himself wrapped to the
chin in a frowsy brown mantle, tending his sheep. At the end of that
distance, we stopped to refresh the horses, and to get some lunch, in a
common malaria-shaken, despondent little public-house, whose every inch
of wall and beam, inside, was (according to custom) painted and decorated
in a way so miserable that every room looked like the wrong side of
another room, and, with its wretched imitation of drapery, and lop-sided
little daubs of lyres, seemed to have been plundered from behind the
scenes of some travelling circus.
When we were fairly going off again, we began, in a perfect fever, to
strain our eyes for Rome; and when, after another mile or two, the
Eternal City appeared, at length, in the distance; it looked like—I am
half afraid to write the word—like LONDON!!! There it lay, under a thick
cloud, with innumerable towers, and steeples, and roofs of houses, rising
up into the sky, and high above them all, one Dome. I swear, that keenly
as I felt the seeming absurdity of the comparison, it was so like London,
at that distance, that if you could have shown it me, in a glass, I
should have taken it for nothing else.