In all other parts of Italy one hears constant talk among travellers
of the malaria at Rome, and having seen a case of Roman fever, I know
it is a thing not to be trifled with. But in Rome itself the malaria
is laughed at by the foreign residents,--who, nevertheless, go out of
the city in midsummer. The Romans, to the number of a hundred thousand
or so, remain there the whole year round, and I am bound to say I
never saw a healthier, robuster-looking population. The cheeks of the
French soldiers, too, whom we met at every turn, were red as their
trousers, and they seemed to flourish on the imputed unwholesomeness
of the atmosphere. All at Rome are united in declaring that the fever
exists at Naples, and that sometimes those who have taken it there
come and die in Rome, in order to give the city a bad name; and I
think this very likely.
Rome is certainly dirty, however, though there is a fountain in every
square, and you are never out of the sound of falling water. The Corso
and some of the principal streets do not so much impress you with
their filth as with their dullness; but that part of the city where
some of the most memorable relics of antiquity are to be found is
unimaginably vile. The least said of the state of the archways of the
Coliseum the soonest mended; and I have already spoken of the Forum.
The streets near the Theatre of Pompey are almost impassable, and the
so-called House of Rienzi is a stable, fortified against approach by
a _fossé_ of excrement. A noisome smell seems to be esteemed the most
appropriate offering to the memory of ancient Rome, and I am not sure
that the moderns are mistaken in this. In the rascal streets in the
neighborhood of the most august ruins, the people turn round to stare
at the stranger as he passes them; they are all dirty, and his decency
must be no less a surprise to them than the neatness of the French
soldiers amid all the filth is a puzzle to him. We wandered about a
long time in such places one day, looking for the Tarpeian Rock, less
for Tarpeia's sake than for the sake of Miriam and Donatello and the
Model. There are two Tarpeian rocks, between which the stranger takes
his choice; and we must have chosen the wrong one, for it seemed but
a shallow gulf compared to that in our fancy. We were somewhat
disappointed; but then Niagara disappoints one; and as for Mont
Blanc....