THE TIMAVO AND SAN GIOVANNI
O water whispering
Still through the dark into mine ears.
D. G. Rossetti.
I made two excursions to the Timavo and San Giovanni. The first was with
the "Fat Boy." It was a rainy sort of day, and there was nothing to be
done in the way of exercise but to go for a walk, so I beguiled the "Fat
Boy" into accompanying me. I like to take him for walks. I feel I am
doing good to suffering humanity--he may get rid of a little of his
superfluous flesh by the exertion. I cannot say that up to now he
has exhibited much thankfulness for my philanthropic efforts. We took
Pixner, the gamekeeper, and his two dogs with us. Pixner is much looked
up to in the village of Duino as a great traveller and linguist. He
spent one or two years in England as servant to "our host," and was
commonly known there as "Mr. Pig-nose"--his own name being found
difficult to pronounce.
San Giovanni is not far from Duino--only a walk of half an hour or so.
It is classic ground, for does not the world-famed Timavo make here its
appearance into the light of day?
Antenor potuit mediis elapsus Achivis
Illyricos penetrare sinus atque intima tutus
regna Liburnorum et fontem superare Timavi,
unde per ora novem vasto cum murmure montis
it mare proruptum et pelago premit arva sonanti.
Virgil's _Aeneid_, Book I. 242-246.
The "nine mouths" of Virgil have now sunk to three, however. It is a
most extraordinary thing, this river, all at once, seeming to come from
nowhere, there it is, not a little feeble, trickling streamlet, but a
wide, fast-flowing river. There is no doubt that the original springs
are somewhere underground, and that it runs for a considerable distance
in the bowels of the earth. Every now and then on the neighbouring
hill-side you come to a hole in the ground where you hear the rush of
the water, and the splash if you drop a stone down. The ground about
this neighbourhood is a perfect honeycomb.
[Illustration: SPRINGS OF THE TIMAVO]
Almost all the classic authors speak of the Timavo. I had carefully
compiled a list of these old gentlemen with a kind of history of the
river, but I will spare the reader, and merely say that they believed it
to be the entrance to the Infernal Regions, and that the Argonauts are
said to have come here after they had annexed the Golden Fleece.
After having gazed at the place where the Timavo first appears, we went
on to the little church of San Giovanni. This is very old, and is
built on the foundations of a temple erected by the Greeks in honour of
Diomed--either the Greek hero or the Thracian Diomed who was celebrated
for his horses. The latter gentleman seems to have had a stud in the
neighbourhood of San Giovanni. The horses from this part of the country
were very celebrated, and eagerly sought after for the Olympian games.
It is interesting to note that one of the great annual events here is
the horse-fair of Duino, which takes place in the month of June.
The Romans built a temple on the same site later on, the temple of
the "Speranza Augusta"; and there was another temple--that of the
Nymphs--somewhere near it. Villas and country houses were here in
abundance; it was then quite a fashionable watering-place on account of
the warm springs in the neighbourhood. There is still a miserable little
bathing-place at some distance from San Giovanni, a most abandoned
and dismal-looking house, though the waters have still their ancient
reputation for great healing power.
In Roman times the view from this now solitary spot must have been very
beautiful: the murmuring springs of the Timavo, the great lake (now a
marsh), with its banks bright with glistening white monuments and the
neighbouring boundless forests, which fable said were inhabited by the
most extraordinary creatures.
The wine of the country was very famous. It was the favourite beverage
of Julia (or Livia), the wife of Augustus, who died in Aquileia at the
age of eighty-three. She gave all the credit of her long life to the
wine! Pliny the younger is our informant on this point.
Battles were continually fought on the Timavo towards the end of the
Roman Empire and in the Middle Ages. Its banks were the scene of many
a fierce conflict between the Roman legions and the Barbarians, whilst,
later on, the German Emperors would generally choose this way to sweep
down from the north upon Italy. The Venetian and Imperial troops often
fought here, and the different lords of the land being always at war
with each other, the country round about was kept pretty lively.
The "pigeon-holes" among the rocks are very interesting. They are like
the shafts of extinct volcanoes, and descend to a great depth into
the earth. The pigeons, which are identically the same bird as the
old-fashioned English "Blue-rock," make their nests in the sides. There
is good shooting to be had at these holes in September by lying in wait
for the pigeons as they come home in the evening.
* * * * *
The second time we went by sea, in a diminutive cutter bearing the proud
name of _St. George_. I dislike yachting on the whole--there is always
either too much wind or none at all. In my case it is generally the
latter. It is enough for me to go out in a yacht for a cruise of an hour
or two, and you may be sure that yacht will become becalmed, and the
unhappy people on board will have to choose between a night "on the
ocean wave" and a row home in a small boat. I seem to be a sort of
Jonah, and live in expectation of being thrown overboard every time I
go on a yacht. A steamer does away with the fear of being becalmed, but
then there is the smell of the engines. Do not mistake me, it is not
that I fear sea-sickness,
For I can weather the roughest gale
That ever wind did blow.
In fact, I am an excellent sailor.
Once I did feel rather queer, but that was a dispensation of Providence
in fulfilment of the old adage "Pride goes before a fall." I was
crossing the Channel--Dover to Calais. We had a small steamer, a choppy
sea, and there was a young man with a Kodak on board. I abominate
amateur photographers. They are offensive. It is the fact that they
insist on photography being an art that makes them so objectionable.
Photography is _not_ an art. One merely requires a good apparatus and
a knowledge of how to work it, and there you are--a good photographer.
That is _my_ idea on the subject.
Well, this young man was _particularly_ offensive. He wore a
knickerbocker suit, and skipped about with his Kodak and took
"snap-shots" at everything. He did not "speak to the man at the wheel,"
but he "shot" him instead. He photographed the sea, the sky, the
sea-gulls, the passing steamers, his fellow-passengers; but then he
became sea-sick. His Kodak fell from his nerveless hand, and he looked
very ill. I revelled in his misery, I "chortled in my joy"; but the
Fates were on my track. Half an hour before we reached Calais I began
to feel very miserable. I thought I was dying. Somebody came to me,
a sailor, or a steward, or an admiral, or something of that sort, and
asked me if I felt ill. I said I did, that my last hour had come, that I
wanted to throw myself overboard and hasten the end. He would not let
me do this. I should feel all right when we landed, he said. I knew this
was impossible, it was merely uselessly lengthening my sufferings; but,
curiously enough, he was right. At the time I was unable to understand
my misery, but I see through it now. My wretchedness was intended to
teach me a lesson--the lesson of never laughing at people in adversity.
I learnt it, and since then have never suffered evil effects from being
on the sea.
This is a long digression, but I wish to explain the disgust I felt on
our going to San Giovanni by sea. We were not becalmed on this occasion,
but there was next to no wind, the sun was blazing hot, and as we were
constantly tacking, and the _St. George_ is a very small boat, my life
was in perpetual danger from the eccentricities of the boom. I was very
unhappy, and not in the mood to admire the beauties of nature that
were constantly pointed out to me. But Checco was a comfort. Checco
is captain, crew, and cabin-boy combined of the _St. George_, a
great character and a philosopher. A nice-looking man too, tall and
broad-shouldered, with a bronzed skin and snowy white hair (though, in
fact, he is not old) and extraordinarily bright blue eyes--they look as
if all the light and colour of the sea were reflected in them. He is
a proud man is Checco, and generally very silent. He only talks to
particular chums, but then he _does_ talk. The "Fat Boy" is the proud
possessor of his confidence, and to him Checco unfolds his theories; he
even puts the two learned men in the shade with regard to theories. On
this particular occasion he was explaining earthquakes. (There have been
some here lately.) This is what Checco said to the "Fat Boy": "People
are very much afraid of earthquakes, you know. I am not afraid, for
it is no use. What must be, must be. But I say, What is the reason for
them? I will tell you: it is the doing of those mad winds. When I was
young, things were quite different on the sea. The winds blew steadily.
Either it was Bora, or Levante, or Scirocco, or Libeccio, and you knew
how long it would blow in the same direction. It was a pleasure to sail
a boat _then_. But now the winds blow all ways at once, and are always
fighting against one another. The weaker winds _must_ give way, and what
becomes of _them_? They rush into the earth--you know all the holes and
grottoes there are everywhere--and so cause the earthquakes. Yes, you
can believe me, it is all the doing of those mad winds." Checco was
silent and gazed out over the blue sea, and the "Fat Boy" pondered over
his words. Then he began again, still looking at the distant horizon:
"Everything was different when I was a young man--the winds were not
mad, the girls _were_ pretty. When we came out of church on Sundays, and
the girls, as is the fashion, gave the red carnation they wore to the
man they liked best, none of the fellows got as many as I did. But now I
have white hair, you see.... Still none of my boys are as tall as I am,
and I have never tried my whole strength yet."
Then Checco relapsed into silence, and not even the "Fat Boy" could draw
another word from him.
[Illustration: CASTLE DUINO FROM THE ROMAN ROAD]
* * * * *
We sailed up the Timavo. The wind had freshened, and I must confess it
was really rather pleasant. Wild ducks rose from the reeds with a great
splashing and flapping of wings, and occasionally a snipe would dart
away with its peculiar twisting zigzag flight and harsh cry. At San
Giovanni we landed, and walked home. Our path, for part of the way, lay
along an old Roman road, and then we passed through a little wood
of stunted trees (the last remnant of the "boundless forests" of old
times), which in autumn is one pink carpet of heavily-scented cyclamens.
We skirted the deer park, where some twenty or thirty fallow deer lead a
cheerless existence and are fed on hay all the year round. The ground
in the park is covered with stones, not a blade of grass is to be seen,
only the hardy ilex seems able to flourish on the barren soil.
It has a curious appearance, this little tract of country round
Duino, with its dull gray rocks. A few bushes manage to extract enough
nourishment from somewhere to exist, but every cranny and crevice in the
stones is gay and bright with wild flowers.
Monotonous and almost melancholy is the scenery, and yet it has a charm
of its own; the sun shines so brightly, the sky is so blue; and then
there is always the sea, ever changeful and ever beautiful, and the old
gray castle in the distance, towering above all, and watching over the
silent land.
[Illustration]