In contrast with these cattle, what polished and courtly gentlemen
were the sailors and firemen! As for our captain, he would in any
company have won notice for his gentle and high-bred way; in his place
at the head of the table among these Frenchmen, he seemed to me the
finest gentleman I had ever seen. He had spent his whole life at sea,
and had voyaged in all parts of the world except Japan, where he meant
some day, he said, to go. He had been first a cabin-boy on a little
Genoese schooner, and he had gradually risen to the first place on
a sailing-vessel, and now he had been selected to fill a commander's
post on this line of steamers. (It is an admirable line of boats,
not belonging I believe to the Italian government, but much under its
control, leaving Genoa every day for Leghorn, Naples, Palermo, and
Ancona, on the Adriatic coast.) The captain had sailed a good deal in
American waters, but chiefly on the Pacific coast, trading from the
Spanish republican ports to those of California. He had been in that
State during its effervescent days, when every thing foul floated
to the top, and I am afraid he formed there but a bad opinion of our
people, though he was far too courteous to say outright any thing of
this sort.
He had very fine, shrewd blue eyes, a lean, weather-beaten, kindly
face, and a cautious way of saying things. I hardly expected him to
turn out so red-hot a Democrat as he did on better acquaintance, but
being a warm friend of man myself, I was not sorry. Garibaldi was
the beginning and ending of his political faith, as he is with every
enthusiastic Italian. The honest soul's conception of all concrete
evil was brought forth in two words, of odd enough application. In
Europe, and Italy more particularly, true men have suffered chiefly
from this form of evil, and the captain evidently could conceive of
no other cause of suffering anywhere. We were talking of the American
war, and when the captain had asked the usual question, "_Quando
finirà mai questa guerra_?" and I had responded as usual, "_Ah, ci
vuol pazienza_!" the captain gave a heavy sigh, and turning his head
pensively aside, plucked his grapes from the cluster a moment in
silence.
Then he said: "You Americans are in the habit of attributing this war
to slavery. The cause is not sufficient."
I ventured to demur and explain. "No," said the captain, "the cause is
not sufficient. We Italians know the only cause which could produce a
war like this."
I was naturally anxious to be instructed in the Italian theory, hoping
it might be profounder than the English notion that we were fighting
about tariffs.