main part of the city. The people use carriages a great deal, for they
are so cheap; and also omnibuses. The usual means of traveling in the
city, aside from the cab, is the omnibus, which is double-decked,
carrying as many people on top as inside. This seems a trifle slow to
Americans, but it works all right in Paris. The ’buses make regular
processions up and down the principal streets, and as they are nearly
always filled inside and outside, they add immensely to the Parisian
picture. There is an underground railroad and there are dummy lines
in the suburbs, but I think the people of Paris like to travel where
they can see and be seen. The cabs are victorias. Automobiles are
everywhere, and if you go to Paris to live and want to cut any ice you
must get one.
[Illustration]
I saw a little scene which seemed to show up Parisian character. A cab
collided slightly with another. Immediately both drivers were off their
vehicles, gesticulating and talking about 300 words a minute. As they
shook their fists and grew red in the face with the words that came so
fast they interfered with each other, I thought somebody would surely
be killed. Nobody noticed them. No one paid any attention. And finally
the two exhausted men climbed back to their places and drove on. I
know they used French words to each other that in America would have
ensured a police court trial for disturbance of the peace. A French
friend to whom I mentioned the matter said it was the invariable way,
and he thought the French method of taking out their wrath in words was
better than the American way of fighting it out. Perhaps he was right,
but as I afterward saw the scene repeated in different forms it always
occurred to me that it was childish. And that reminds me to say that
the Frenchman is in the habit of playing with his children, taking part
in their games as excitedly as they do.
[Illustration]
The French people are industrious and they save their money. France
is really a rich nation. Most of the money is made in what seem small
ways to Americans. The French are what we call “thrifty.” No matter
how little they earn they save something, and the whole family
works,—men, women and children. When their day’s labor is ended the
whole family goes out for a good time—cheap, or within their means.
Their natural temperaments and the beautiful surroundings make it easy
for them to do this, and it is very seldom a Frenchman leaves his
native land. He doesn’t travel much, but he believes in other people
traveling and coming to France to spend their money. He is willing to
help in the good work of separating foreigners from their cash, but he
is gentlemanly about it. I like the French people even though I can’t
understand some of the ways their minds work.
RURAL FRANCE.
MARSEILLES, FRANCE, June 23, 1905.
Rural France is a picture. Seen from a car-window it is a succession of
fields and villages, at this time of year a continuous combination of
greens and white. French farms are small. I suppose twenty or thirty
acres is a big place, and many are much less than that. But the land
is fertilized, drained, irrigated and worked to the limit. The people
live in villages and not much on their own farms. Each village has a
common pasture. During the day the farmers go out onto their little
places and in the evening they return to town to spend the hours with
their neighbors and friends. The houses are all white stone with red
tiled roofs and the villages are numerous, one every two or three miles
in every direction. A farm of twenty acres is divided into strips
for various crops, so that the landscape is striped with the fields
of wheat, alfalfa, potatoes and grass, which seem to be the popular
products. Cattle are not so numerous, but sheep are plentiful, goats
abound and hogs (always white that I have seen) are on every place.
A strip of land a hundred yards wide in wheat will run across the
twenty acres, and the next strip will be some other crop, making the
hues of green vary. The most extensive crop besides grass is grapes,
and hillsides which in our country would be considered too steep and
too stony for cultivation are covered with vines. Nature is like the
French, artistic when she has a chance, and the combination produces a
beautiful effect. Coming from Paris to Marseilles through the valleys
of the Seine and the Rhone, it was 500 miles of continuous agriculture
and pretty towns. Do you wonder it looks like a picture, with the
villages of white houses and red tops, the fields and hills of green,
and the rivers like ribbons running here and there?
France is ahead of England and Ireland in this point: Nearly every
French farmer owns his own place, even if it is small. In Great Britain
the big landlords own the land and rent it to tenants. In France the
farmers, or peasants, as they are called, are landlords of their own if
it is small. The French nobility lost their possessions and they were
bought up by the people. A French farmer does not have the opportunity
to make himself a large land proprietor. He can work all his days and
only hope to accumulate a little place and enough to take care of him
in his last days. But he is able to do that, and it has been almost
impossible to do so in Great Britain.
The farms are separated from one another by high stone walls. In
driving along the highway these walls shut off the view of the fields
and you have to get up above the walls to see the picture. The stone
walls are the evidence that the place is the exclusive property of
the owner. The grass field is inclosed by these high fences, and the
gates are locked at night as if they were afraid somebody would steal
the land. It looks strange indeed to a tourist from the land of
quarter-sections and barb wires.
Every Frenchman has to serve in the army three years. This is not
militia service, but regular soldiery. It takes three of the best
years out of a young man’s life. Of course it gives some compensation
in the way of discipline, and in continental Europe every nation has
to keep its pockets full of rocks and its people ready for war with
the neighbors. A republic cannot neglect this matter any more than a
monarchy, and France loses a great deal by the withdrawal of its young
men from the producing class during a time when they could be very
useful.
[Illustration]
In the fields men and women work side by side. The women of France have
plenty of rights. They can plow or rake hay all day long, and then they
can indulge in the recreation of housework in the evening. This is
harvest-time, and on nearly every farm I saw the whole family at work,
not with reapers and mowers, but with good sickles and hand-rakes.
The women seem to age earlier than in America, but this fact is true
wherever I have been outside of the United States.
That reminds me of a mistaken notion I had before coming here. I
thought the women of the United States were more active in a business
way than the women of other countries, and had progressed in taking
hold of what is generally called “men’s work” more than the women of
Europe. That is a mistake. Proportionately women have more to do with
business in England and France than they do in America. Nearly all
the hotels in Great Britain are managed by women. Shops, stores and
offices are filled with women. The fact is, the combined labor of
husband and wife is necessary among “the great plain people,” to get
enough to support the family, and in Ireland, England and France this
is taken as a matter of course. Especially in France do I find women
managing business, and doing so with the skill and success which shows
that it is neither a new thing nor a side occupation. In America it is
generally accepted that a man who can do so will take the brunt of the
work and a woman will find her time fully occupied with housekeeping.
And there is also a widespread practice of raising the girls to sit in
the parlor while their mother washes the dishes. That is not the way
they do in France. A young woman is brought up to expect what she will
get—a young man whom she will have to help, or they will go hungry.
There are not many chances for a young man to get ahead fast. He has
no reason to believe that he will be better fixed than his father or
than his grandfather. In fact, in France a boy usually follows the
occupation of his father, so that a family for generations will be
farmers, shoemakers, shopkeepers, etc. In America a farmer usually
wants his son to study law, while a lawyer hopes his son will be a
business man, and a merchant sees the advantage of rural life. Our
people change around from generation to generation, and I doubt on that
account if we make as good workmen as the French do, who are brought up
in their occupation. Of course our people would be discontented with
the French way, but the Frenchmen seem to be satisfied and they get
a good many compensating advantages to offset the opportunities which
young Americans have, but of which young Frenchmen never dream.
[Illustration]
There are some disadvantages under which these Europeans labor which
they should remove. They never get any pie. Here in a land where the
cherries grow big and red and juicy, a Frenchman will grow to manhood
and old age without knowing the taste of cherry pie. It is a great
misfortune. Since landing in Europe I have never seen a piece of pie
of any description, from Queenstown to Marseilles. They have “tarts”
and “sweetmeats,” but these can’t approach pie any more than Cow creek
can be compared to the Mississippi river. Even in the best hotels and
restaurants of London there is no sign of pie on the bill of fare,
and the French cooks, who can make old hash taste like choice bits of
fresh meat or better, have not learned the science of constructing
pie, mince, apple, pumpkin, cherry or any kind of pie. I do not know
how they do it, but the railroad restaurants are run without pie. Even
the crowned heads go through life without knowing the taste of pumpkin
pie, and one of my ideas of royalty in my early days was that a king or
prince could have custard pie with flaky brown crust three times a day.
No wonder the rulers of Europe are afraid of revolution. If they would
see that their subjects had square meals and pie at least for dinner,
the heads that wear the crowns need not be so uneasy.
And the Europeans are trying to live without hot cakes for breakfast. I
suppose there is not a man or woman in Europe who would recognize by
experience the rich and regal buckwheat cake, or the corn cake, or the
pancake. I can’t understand why the reformers in this country do not
get to the point, and see that the people have flapjacks for breakfast
as well as pie for dinner, and then let the disbanding of the armies
proceed.
[Illustration]
Every American citizen who is sane and patriotic believes that he is
a fisherman, and tries to prove it whenever he gets near a creek or
river. Whether he actually catches any fish or not, he “goes fishing.”
I was somewhat worked up in Ireland and England because the streams
were nearly all private property and the ordinary citizen had no chance
to fish any more than he did to attend the wedding of the prince. I was
glad to know that it is different in France. Last Sunday in Paris we
walked along the banks of the Seine as it runs through the city between
the stone walls and under the stone bridges. The stream was lined with
fishermen. One of the privileges the citizens of Paris enjoy is to fish
in the Seine, and I was told that there were at least 10,000 Frenchmen
watching the corks on the river that afternoon. I waited for a long
time to see them catch a French fish. Occasionally one of the men or
women would pull up a line, but the bait was never missing. Finally I
asked a friend who has been in Paris some time if anybody ever caught
a fish. He said he had never really heard of anyone but there was a
tradition that along about the time of Napoleon III. somebody did
catch a fish in the Seine. He doubted the story, but said I could
believe it if I wanted to. And yet there are theologians and doctors
of divinity who say the French people are losing in faith, when these
thousands were demonstrating to the contrary and were heartily enjoying
the privilege the government gives and for which the Parisians would
doubtless fight, the right to fish in the river.
[Illustration]
This city of Marseilles, in which we are spending a couple of days, is
the principal seaport of France. It was established by the Phœnicians,
and was an important town when Julius Cæsar was setting up the
primaries in Rome. It is the port from which France does business with
southern Europe, Africa, Asia, and even America. Consequently the
harbor is full of all kinds of shipping, the streets are crowded with
Arabs, Greeks, Spaniards, Turks, Italians, and representatives of all
nations which use the sea, and the town has the largest collection of
odors and smells that I have met. As a strange fact I will add that
Marseilles is the first large city I have visited in Europe with a good
up-to-date electric railway system. Americans do not come here very
much. So far as I know, Mrs. Morgan and I are the only Americans in the
city, and there is not a soul at our hotel who can speak English. So
you see we are running up against a little real foreign experience.
ITALY.
GETTING INTO ITALY.
ROME, June 27, 1905.
One can hardly realize until he has had some experience how quick
and how decided is the transition from one country to another, and
especially the change in language. At 5 o’clock yesterday afternoon we
were in France, everybody around us and on the train talking French.
At 6 o’clock we were in Italy: everybody was talking Italian, and the
French language had disappeared as quickly as did the English when
we landed at Calais. You know when you are going from one country to
the next, also, because the custom-house is on the line and you have
to haul out all your dirty clothes and souvenirs for the officials to
examine to see if you are a smuggler. Let me tell how we came into
Italy.
[Illustration]
We boarded the train on the French railroad at Monte Carlo and had
an hour’s ride to the frontier. By this time I had picked up enough
French so I could get along reasonably well with the help of the
sign language and a little money. But neither of us knew a word of
Italian, and there was no one with us that day who could talk English.
At Vintimille, where we crossed the line, we had to change trains,
have our tickets signed and our baggage examined in forty minutes.
With a full realization that nobody could understand me and I could
understand no one, I tackled the job, putting my trust in Providence
and a pocketful of small Italian coins which I had secured at Monte
Carlo. When the train stopped in the Vintimille station a porter came
alongside and according to the custom of the country I handed the four
“bags” which constitute our baggage to him through the car-window. Then
we got out and I told him in English what I wanted. He reeled off a lot
of Italian and two or three bystanders chipped in, and a hotel runner
attempted to capture us. But I took out my through ticket, pointed
to it, jingled the coins in my pocket, and the porter understood. Of
course I did not know at first whether he did or not, but we followed
him and he led us into the custom-house and put our grips on a big
table. Up came an inspector and jabbered Italian and I jabbered back
in English. We both laughed, and of course neither understood what the
other wanted. He asked me several questions, to all of which I said,
“Can’t understand,” and then he gave me a final grin and said, “Tobac?”
To that I said “No,” and shook my head. Without looking into the grips
at all he chalked something on them which I suppose corresponds to our
“O. K.,” threw up his hands and said something to the porter which made
him and the surrounding onlookers burst forth in a loud guffaw. I felt
as I suppose a poor Dago does when he strikes America. I again showed
my ticket to the porter and pointed to the place where it must be
signed. He puzzled over that a while and then took it and went away for
a few minutes and came back with the work properly done. Then he took
us to the Italian train the other side of the station, put our bags in
the racks and we hoped we were on the right train—we were. I gave that
porter a lot of Italian money, aggregating about 20 cents American,
and he saluted me as if I were a duke or a saint. Mrs. Morgan says I
spoiled him with my extravagant tip. But I felt so grateful to him that
I didn’t care if I did make him proud with all that money at once. Let
him swell up inside and parade the avenue all the evening and take his
family out to dinner if he wants to. Let him take that 20 cents and
pose as an Italian Rockefeller.
Then we were in Italy and couldn’t even read the signs. It makes you
foolish to look over the door of your car and see the words which mean
“Smoking permitted,” or “Smoking forbidden” and not know which. We were
the only people in the compartment, and the conductor took a great deal
of interest in us. He tried to tell us something and I tried to tell
him something, but when we got through neither of us had added to our
stock of knowledge. After the train had been going for a while he came
to us and began to make signs and chatter. He held up both hands with
the fingers extended. Mrs. Morgan was quite sure he meant $10 fine for
smoking in that compartment, so I threw away my cigar, but he didn’t
stop. At last I realized that he was making the signs of a man eating
and drinking. I guessed he meant by both hands that the train would
stop ten minutes for lunch, or that we wouldn’t get anything to eat
until 10 o’clock. When the train stopped at the next station it turned
out that the first of these two was right.
The road from Vintimille to Genoa is a branch, and the ticket had to
be signed and trains changed again at Genoa, and we also wanted to get
a sleeping-car on to Rome. We had twenty-seven minutes at the station
in Genoa, which is bigger than the Union Depot at Kansas City. Again
I threw the grips out of the window and followed the porter. Then I
left Mrs. Morgan with the baggage while the porter led me a merry chase
around the block to the office where the ticket was to be signed or
“viséd.” It was 11 o’clock at night, and you can imagine how it felt
to be guided around among those Italians wondering all the while if
the porter knew what I wanted. But he did and I returned in safety,
and then I tried to find out about the sleeping-car. In French this
is called a “Litts-salon,” and in German a “Schlaf-wagen,” literally
a sleep-wagon. I tried English, French and German, but finally found
the sleeper by examining the train,—next to the engine, of course,
just where I wasn’t expecting it. We got on board safely, and after
distributing a lot more Italian coppers I found we had transacted the
business and had five minutes to spare,—as good time as I could have
made in America to do all those things. All I then had to do was to
hand out the required sleeper fare, $7.50 to Rome, 300 miles, three
times what Mr. Pullman would have charged. But I reserve my comments
on European sleeping-cars until I get a little more experience for a
letter on railroads in the Old World.
And this is an old world. When I was in Boston I looked with awe upon
the churches and monuments of 1776. In England these years seemed
recent, and it took a cathedral or a castle of Elizabeth’s time or back
to William the Conqueror. But here in Rome the very latest and newest
buildings that we look at are those of the early Christians, and to get
a real thrill they have to show me something B. C. It is really a good
deal like living back in those times. I can’t read the newspapers and
don’t know what has happened since I left Paris nearly a week ago. At
that time the Russians and Japs were either going to have a conference
or a fight, or both. Sometimes I wonder what has occurred, but
generally I am concerning myself with what Julius Cæsar did, standing
by the old forum and imagining Mark Antony denouncing the boss-busters,
or wondering if Cicero’s speech against Catiline was not a political
blunder which would make the old man trouble at the next city election.
The only difficulty is to make the modern Italians fit in with the old
Romans. Somehow or other it is hard to imagine the lazy gents who hold
out their hands for coppers as real Romans who ruled the world.
[Illustration]
The first real striking feature of Italy we noticed at Vintimille was
the policemen. They wear handsome full-dress uniforms with red braid
down the trousers, gilt lace and epaulets on the coats, tri-cornered
hat with an immense plume, and carry in sight a sword and revolver.
An Italian policeman walking his beat makes a gorgeous Knight Templar
uniform look cheap. You never see one policeman—there are always
two together. The police of the whole country are appointed by the
royal government, not by local officials, and are selected from the
army. They are good-looking fellows, and wear their tight, heavy coats
buttoned up in front regardless of the fact that it is Italy and
the climate is not better than Kansas the last of June. One of the
troubles with Italy is that it is really a second-class power, but it
tries to keep up an army and navy in rivalry with Germany, Russia,
and France. Every Italian must put in three years in active service.
Take a country about the size of Kansas, fill it up with an army of
300,000 men and you see soldiers in every direction. Immense cathedrals
and palaces filled with valuable gems and works of art, an army of
expensive uniforms, and a poverty-stricken people,—that is Italy.
The tourist hurries along and shuts his eyes to the distress as much
as he can, visits the galleries and the churches, the ruins and the
historic spots. He tries to see only the Italy of 2,000 years ago. He
is fortunate if he can keep himself worked up in an ecstasy over the
Cæsars and the old masters, so that the half-clothed children, the
broken-down women and the men working without hope, do not leave an
impression on his heart. I can’t shut my eyes tight enough to avoid
seeing those things and sympathizing with the poor Italian people who
have no show.
But here we are in Italy, not the Italy of to-day, but the Italy of
Cæsar and Cicero, Nero and Constantine, the Italy where Paul and
Peter planted the Christian religion and where they died the death
of martyrs; the Italy of temples and colosseums, cathedrals and
catacombs,—the Italy we read about, if you please, and not the Italy
now on the map.
ROME AND ROMANS.
ROME, June 29, 1905.
There is so much in the point of view. Here are things which I have
studied about, read about, wondered about. Some of them on close
inspection are impressive yet. Others are commonplace. And there are
even some which are ridiculous. On approaching Rome I had tried to take
an inventory of the things I most wanted to see first: The Forum, St.
Peter’s, the Appian Way, the Coliseum, the Sistine Chapel, the Tarpeian
Rock, the Vatican, and the list was as long as I could set down. But
really the words that kept haunting me and which were always in my mind
were “the yellow Tiber.” Like every other school-boy of my time, I had
learned and recited “Horatius at the Bridge,” and I wanted to see the
raging torrent which saved Rome when Horatius held back the foe until
the Romans had cut down the only bridge. I kept saying to myself:
“Then up spake brave Horatius,
The captain of the gate:
‘To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late;
And how can man die better
Than when facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods?’”
[Illustration: THE ITALIAN NOBLEMAN OF THE STAGE, AND THE REAL THING]
Accordingly the first observation I made in Rome was of the Tiber. It
is yellow, all right, and about as wide as the Cottonwood river.
It seemed impossible to associate that stream with the Tiber of
which historians had told and poets sung. But it was the Tiber, all
right—from another view-point.
[Illustration]