Cities of the Dawn

CHAPTER I

A RUN ACROSS FRANCE

To leave London one day and to arrive in Marseilles the next would have been deemed impossible – the dream of a madman – in the age in which I was born, when steamships and railways were unknown. Yet it is a fact, to the truth of which I can testify. Half a century has elapsed since the fair fields, leafy woodlands, and breezy chalk downs of Kent were invaded by a band of navvies, who, under the skilful direction of the late Sir William Cubitt, built up the main line of the South-Eastern Railway. The next thing was to connect France and Europe, which was done by means of steamers running between Calais and Dover, and thence by rail to all the chief Continental cities and health resorts.

I leave London by the Continental express at eight in the morning one cold day in October; in eight hours I am in Paris, passing Calais and Abbeville, both of which places, especially the former, are, I believe, pretty well known in these days of universal restlessness and travel. It is little we see of Paris, the gay and beautiful. We have to dine – for man must dine, if possible, once a day – and to Paris we turn for its cooks and cookery. It is there that the art of dining is carried to perfection. ‘Unquiet meals make ill digestions.’ There is no fear of that as I sit down to my well-prepared repast at the handsome buffet attached to the French Northern Railway, and yet there my troubles begin. As a barbarous Englander, I ask why in Paris, the centre, as it deems itself, of civilization and refinement, I am compelled to help myself to salt by putting my knife into the saltcellar. Then, again, it seems curious to me, and what I am not accustomed to, to eat my fish without a fitting knife and fork. Surely one may expect to find in Paris the refinement one is accustomed to in one’s native land! As to being cheated with one’s eyes open, one does not complain – you expect it, and it is not worth while losing your temper merely for the sake of a few paltry centimes; and yet I felt that I had been done unfairly when, on asking a waiter for a cup of coffee noir, and giving him an English shilling, and particularly calling his attention to the value of the coin, he coolly treats it as a franc, and gives me change accordingly. That was rather a dear cup of coffee, I calculate; but, then, the fault was mine, and mine alone. I ought to have provided myself with French money before I started.

I am going on what Dr. Lunn calls an educational tour on the Continent. It seems to me I shall get a good deal of education of some kind or other before I return to my native land again. There are about 112 on board from London and the provinces. As we are bound for Jerusalem, we have, as was to be expected, a large proportion of the clerical element. Ladies are not so numerous as one would expect from what one knows of the curiosity and fondness for adventure of lovely woman. The worst part of the trip is the long, wearying ride from Paris to Marseilles, where we found peace and plenty on board the Midnight Sun. We saw but little of the country on leaving Paris; but when we reached Lyons, where we were refreshed with delicious coffee and bread-and-butter, and were provided with a handsome lunch, to be eaten in the course of our journey, consisting of a bottle of claret, beef and fowl, bread-and-butter, and cheese and fruit – a handsome meal, to which we all did justice – the day broke on us clear and fine.

But I pause to make another little grumble. In barbarous England the lunch would have been neatly packed away in a basket specially provided for the purpose, and a knife and fork would have been included. On the Lyons railway a brown paper bag was deemed all that was necessary, and instead of a knife and fork we had to use our fingers. As there was no convenience for washing – at any rate, as regards second-class passengers, quorum pars fui; I recommend the traveller to go first-class on such a long ride – you can imagine our disgusting state. It seems to me that the rule that they do things better in France is one to which there are several exceptions. But in some respects France beats us. It will be hard to find anywhere in England a prettier ride than that we enjoyed from Lyons to Marseilles. The white houses, with their green blinds and red tiles, nestling in and among the trees, always make a French landscape bright and gay. Their great industrial and manufacturing centres also always look cleaner and less forbidding in their dreariness than ours at home; and if the little narrow plots you see suggest peasant farming, rather than the high and costly farming patronized at home, you feel that the peasant of gay and sunny France – for such France undoubtedly is – has a happier lot than with us. But as you travel you have no time to think of such things. It is all one can do to watch the fairy panorama of rock and river, of waving woods and smiling plains, as you glide by. At all times the Loire is a grand river, but to-day it is flooded, and seems to be made up of lakes and seas, in which struggle haystacks, farmhouses, barns, the everlasting poplars, and, what is worse, the poor man’s garden, and I think, in one or two cases that met my pitying eye, his vinefields as well.

One word before I have done with the Midnight Sun. ‘In the new yachting,’ writes Sir Morell Mackenzie, ‘there is no unpleasantness as to the change of places to be visited, nor are carefully-arranged plans to be disarranged at the last moment by the thoughtlessness or unpunctuality of friends. You have the pleasure of companionship, without any of the responsibilities of a host or the obligations of a guest. You can enjoy the sea and the air charged with ozone, which is the champagne of the lungs, and free from any taint of animal or vegetable corruption, just as freely as if you were an Alexander Selkirk on a floating island; and you have many comforts which cannot be had even on the largest and best-appointed yachts.’ Such were the results of the great physician’s experience on board one of the fine excursion steamers of the Orient line. ‘I felt,’ he writes, ‘like Faust after his great transformation scene from age to youth.’

I am not on an Orient steamer, but I am on the Midnight Sun, and to that Sir Morell Mackenzie’s testimony is equally applicable. The Midnight Sun is a grand steamer of 3,178 tons, and she was especially fitted out for yachting purposes. She may be said to be the best of the class. For instance, take the sleeping cabins. They contain no upper sleeping berths – a boon most acceptable to passengers who have had to pass many nights, as I have done, in cabins overcrowded with passengers and luggage. An idea of the magnificent proportions of the Midnight Sun may be gathered from the fact that seven times round her deck is equal to one mile. The upper deck forms a promenade over the entire length of the ship, with uninterrupted views on either side. She has been engaged by Dr. Lunn for his co-operative educational cruises, which become more popular every year. I note especially the smoking-room on the upper deck, capable of accommodating nearly 100 persons. There is a crew of 110 on board for the purpose of ensuring our safety and supplying our comforts and wants. Truly, if one cannot enjoy himself on such a trip, and with such a company of gentlemen and ladies as Dr. Lunn succeeds in drawing around him, he must be hard to please. Dr. Lunn, who is not on board, is in himself a host, and so is his popular brother, who supplies his place. We are now approaching Corsica. I will spare you my feelings as I gaze on the land that gave birth to a Napoleon Bonaparte, and that sheltered Seneca in his dreary exile, but which in modern times Lady Burdett Coutts finds to be a very beneficial health resort. They are all that should inspire the virtuous emotions of a true-born Englishman.

CHAPTER II

OFF TO NAPLES

I left off my last letter opposite Corsica. Since then – and this is the charm of coming to Naples in the Midnight Sun– we have passed quite a cluster of isles more or less renowned in history – such as Caprera, the rocky home of the great Italian, Garibaldi – of which, alas! we see nothing. In old times Caprera derived its name from the wild goats, its original inhabitants. Later on it was colonized by monks. ‘The whole island,’ says a contemporary writer quoted by Gibbon, ‘is filled, or, rather, defiled by men, who fly from the light. They call themselves monks, or solitaries, because they choose to live alone, without any witnesses of their actions. They fear the gifts of fortune from the apprehension of losing them, and, lest they should be miserable, they embrace a life of voluntary wretchedness.’ Elba, however, is visible, which the wiseacres whom Providence, for mysterious reasons of its own, at one time permitted to rule over European affairs, fixed on as the residence of the Corsican adventurer, in the childish belief that he who had aimed almost at universal empire, and had in vain attempted to grapple with and overthrow the pride and power of England, would be content to remain on that puny isle, within a hop, step and jump of France, as it were, and almost within speaking distance of the legions whom he had led to glory. Then we sailed past Monte Cristo, the scene of Dumas’ celebrated romance of that name. Mostly, at a distance, the isles look bare of life and vegetation, rocks rising out of the blue waves; and yet we know it to be otherwise. At best, however, they must be poor places to live in, far from the great battle of life, and out of touch with human progress. We pass Sardinia, but see little of it. This is Sunday, and to-day the Church clergy, who are numerous, seem to have had a good innings. Unfortunately, I came into collision with one of them. As I entered the smoking-room after breakfast, I saw there had been held there an early Communion, and the implements utilized on such occasions were lying about. In a light and flippant tone I asked whether this was High Church or Low Church or Broad Church. A little oily parson, who was apparently guarding the vessels, angrily exclaimed, ‘Sir, it is the Church!’ ‘Thank you,’ I said; ‘I only wanted to know. To me it is a matter of indifference.’ ‘That was very naughty of you,’ said a mild, gentlemanly young man at my side. Let everyone worship God, or what he takes to be God, as best he may. I scorn not the savage who bows down to idols of wood and stone. To him they represent a Divine presence and power. I claim a similar liberty for the High Churchman, who sees sacred emblems in vessels of human device to be bought in the shops, or wrought by devout females; but let him give me the same freedom, and not denounce me as little better than one of the wicked, as void of Christian faith, because I turn from man’s devices to cry out of the aching heart to the living God, if haply I may find Him.

But I am digressing; for the fact is that I always see more of sacerdotalism afloat than I do on land. We are getting on pleasantly as regards social companionship. It was very cold in the train to Dover, and I felt inclined to take rather a gloomy view of the situation. It was worse on board the Dover and Calais packet, where the whole of the deck was set apart for first-class passengers, while we unfortunate second-class men were sent down below to see what we could out of the cabin windows. But once in the French second-class carriages, really much nicer than our own, reserve was broken, the tongue began to wag, and all went merry as a marriage-bell. I was much pleased with my neighbour – a Yorkshireman, I think, who had brought with him a bag of new farthings to be utilized for backsheesh. He offered me some, but I refused. At my time of life I should not like to be caught by a wild Arab of the desert to whom I had offered a new farthing for the familiar sovereign, the use of which is known from China to Peru. The pompous elderly first-class passenger amuses me. He has got his English paper, and he carries it with him everywhere, in spite of the fact that its news is some days old. One of my fellow-passengers had bought himself at Marseilles a small footstool to keep his feet dry – a needless precaution, as all the seats are built with a view to protect the passengers from the damp of the decks, always rather moist after the early morning scrub and scour. The daily bath is in much request. The young Englishman must have his morning bath – a favourable sign, if it be true that cleanliness is next to godliness. We are rather a miscellaneous lot – there are Scotchmen, whose sweet Doric I fail to understand, and Cockneys, who ignore the letter h; but some of the ladies are charming, and that is saying a good deal.

Long before we reach Naples the awnings are put up and we rejoice in all the warmth of an English summer; and never did the far-famed bay look more beautiful, and the towns and castles and convents that line the cliffs in every direction for miles look more bright. The usual babel of sounds reigned in the bay as singers and divers and dealers in fruit and other articles of Neapolitan production were clamorous to sell them. The worst feature of the Neapolitan petty dealer is that he is too anxious to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. I know of many English who stay in Rome merely because the people deal fairer with the stranger within its gates. It is quite otherwise in Naples. The native pays fourpence for his two pounds of bread; the Englishman always has to pay fivepence. It is in vain you go to another baker. For a week he will charge you fourpence, and then he raises his price. One peculiarity of the Naples tradesman is that men of the same trade always stick together; and he does not spread out his business like the English shopkeeper of to-day. For instance, if he is a baker he does not deal in pastry, and the pastrycook does not interfere with him. But away from the trading classes the poverty of the people is really awful. You see men very lightly dressed sleeping on the broad pavement at all hours; and yet they adore their King, and are now building him a grand new monument just in front of the Royal Palace. Naples still needs better drainage; and the substitution of current money in gold or silver for its copper coinage would be a great improvement. Personally, this time I had no reason to find fault with the people. I found an honest boatman who rowed me to the ship for half a franc.

The one redeeming point in Naples is the untiring efforts of the Protestant ministers of all denominations – Church, Baptist, Presbyterian, and Wesleyan, the latter especially active and doing a good work in the way of schools. I called in at the Sailors’ Rest, an awful climb to get to, but a real rest when you get there. The present missionary is Mr. Burrowes, and his wife, the latter a genuine Scotchwoman of the better sort. They deal in the institution and on board ships with other peoples, with other religions and political opinions, and the result is very satisfactory. The number of destitute persons who have been relieved is as large as ever. Seamen are relieved and weaned from drink. Almost every evening there is something going on bright and cheerful at the Rest. The Sunday evening services have been found especially useful. After the evening service of a Sunday a large number of men stop to sing their favourite hymns, and the number of interesting temperance and religious works circulated is very large. The English colporteur, Mr. Copley, has given away 1,000 copies of the New Testament during the year, and he is aided by a band of foreign colporteurs quite as active as himself. It is work that ought to be more liberally supported by Christians at home. The good it does is great; its needs are pressing. I hope I may not appeal for the Sailors’ Home of Rest at Naples in vain. During the year 1895, 176 persons stayed in the Home, including those sent there by the British and foreign consuls, passing travellers from ships. Many stayed only one night, such as seamen from warships. About 140 persons got free teas, not including the relief given to destitute people. It is a pity that such a real good work should languish for want of popular support amongst the wealthy English residents at Naples and at home.

CHAPTER III

NAPLES OF TO-DAY

Once more I am in Naples, with its houses rising one over another, in front of me, and Vesuvius looking down on me, and across the loveliest bay the world has yet seen. There is little to see in Naples beyond its museum, which no one should omit to visit, and Pompeii, to which you are conveyed by train, where you come face to face with ancient civilization and ancient life. For the traveller the city is rich in hotels, and at one of them – the Hôtel Vesuve, a magnificent structure with stately halls – I once spent a happy week. I had come with money enough to defray my two days’ expenses; but, to my horror, I had to stay longer than I intended, and you may judge of my delight when the manager, who knew me, at the end of the week refused a penny for my board and daily food. I wish I could speak as well of the shopkeepers, who fleece you as much as possible, and are prone to give you bad money for good.

The people are industrious, and mostly very poor; but they don’t drink, and content themselves with water and a slice of lemon – always on sale in the streets. They are devout Roman Catholics, but, nevertheless, an official said to me, ‘Morality is unknown here.’ I met with a man from Newcastle, an engineer, who employs a thousand people here, and gave them an excellent character. ‘Do you employ any English?’ I asked. ‘Not one,’ was his reply; ‘they drink too much and are too troublesome.’ Taxes are awful and Custom dues ditto. I landed here once with twenty-five cigars, a present from one of the gentlemanly captains of the Orient line. I could have put them in my pocket, and no one would have been any wiser. I thought, however, ‘Italy is a poor country, and I might as well contribute my mite towards its exhausted exchequer.’ My confidence was misplaced; for those cigars I had to pay a duty – incredible as it may seem – of three shillings and ninepence! Only fancy!

What I like best in Naples are its tram-cars, which are cheap, and the attendants are civil. Riding and driving seem to be the principal amusements of the people, especially on a Sunday, when the poor horses have to rattle along with tremendous loads, which makes one regret that in this part of the world there seems to be no society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. Pope Pius IX. did not think one required. Artistic manufactures seem to constitute the staple trade. In every hotel there are fine marble busts for sale. Vesuvius supplies abundant lava, which is utilized in a thousand forms. On many a housetop you may see the macaroni spread out to dry, and in many a street you may watch through the windows the tortoiseshell manufacturers at work. To the city there appears to be no end, as it stretches away to the right and left, and climbs up the hills on which it is built. It boasts two Gothic cathedrals, and numerous churches, and many public buildings of a handsome order. Little of female loveliness, however, is to be seen in the streets – not half so much as in Oxford Street at home any day in the week. Miss Cobbe writes: ‘Naples struck me on my first visit – as it has done again and again – as presenting the proof that the Beautiful is not by itself the root out of which the Good spontaneously grows.’ I quite agree with Miss Cobbe.

In the wide and sunny expanse of blue waters that surrounds Naples there is much to be seen. Rocky Capri lies just opposite – the home of artists and English residents. In the bay on our left are Baiæ and Puteoli, the latter the port at which St. Paul landed on his way as a prisoner to Rome to appeal to Cæsar. Baiæ was the Brighton of ancient Rome; the remains of its temples and baths are scattered freely among the fig-trees and olives of the peasant. Emperors dwelt there. There Cæsar sought retirement, and the warm springs on the side are yet called by his name. Behind, Virgil placed the entrance of Avernus, and not far off is his reputed tomb. Between Baiæ and Puteoli was the Lucrine Lake, over which coloured sails wafted the small yachts of fashionable visitors, and which contained the oyster-beds for the luxurious tables of Rome. Vitellius the beastly, as Gibbon calls him, seems to have been the greatest oyster-eater in the ancient world. He is said to have eaten oysters all day long and to have swallowed a thousand at a sitting. There are no oysters in the Lucrine Lake now, for the simple reason that an earthquake long ago destroyed the lake. All that now remains of that famous fishery is a small and shallow stream, which is separated from the sea by a narrow strip of sand. Further north is Misenum, where Æneas came to land; where the navy of old Rome rode secure; from whence Pliny sailed away to get a nearer view of the celebrated eruption of Vesuvius, and where he met with his death by the ashes discharged from the burning mountain. On the other side of the bay lie Sorrento and other charming spots. It was here the Greeks sent colonists. The Greeks were the colonizing people of antiquity, as much as the English are colonizing people of to-day. It is pleasant of a night to stand on the deck of the steamer to see the gas-lamps on the shore glittering like glow-worms or fireflies all along the romantic coast.

If possible, the tourist should find time to have a look at Pæstum. In his diary Rogers the poet thus describes his visit: ‘Country green and level. The temples in a plain shut in on three sides by the mountains, on the fourth open to the sea; and the sea itself half shut in them by the promontory of Sorrentum, within which are the Isles of the Sirens. A magnificent theatre, worthy of such objects: the columns almost bare – broken and of an iron-brown, like iron rust; the floor green with moss and herbage; the columns and cornices of the richest tints, and climbed by the green lizards that fly into a thousand chinks and crevices at your approach; fluted fragments of columns and moulded cornices among briars strew the middle space between the temple and the basilica.’ Let me add, the temples are all in the same Doric style. Poseidonia, as its inhabitants, the Greek colonists, called it, was founded in the seventh century b. c., and, as the name imports, was specially sacred to Poseidon, or Neptune. The principal temple, which was probably that of Neptune, was that of the sea god.

Let me remind my readers that in the English burial-place at Naples was laid one of the very greatest and best of Englishwomen – the late Mrs. Somerville – where a marble monument has been placed over her grave by her daughter. It represents her, heroic size, reclining on a classic chair, in somewhat the attitude of the statue of Agrippa in the Vatican. It is a shame that she was not buried in Westminster Abbey. When asked, Dean Stanley assented, as was to be expected, freely to the proposal. Mrs. Somerville’s nephew, Sir William Fraser, promised at once to defray all expenses. There was only one thing further needed, and that was the usual formal request from some public body or official persons to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster. Dean Stanley immediately wrote to the Astronomer Royal and the President of the Royal Society, as representative of the science with which Mrs. Somerville was immediately connected, to ask him to authorize the Dean proceeding in the matter. But that gentleman refused to do so on the ground that he had never read Mrs. Somerville’s books. ‘Whether he had read,’ writes Miss Cobbe, commenting indignantly on the above, ‘one in which she took the opposite side from his in the bitter Adam Le Verrier controversy, it is not for me to say.’ Any way, jealousy, either scientific or masculine, declined to admit Mrs. Somerville’s claim to a place in our national Walhalla, where so many men neither intellectually nor morally her equal have been received.

In one respect Naples has improved since I was here last. The drainage has been rendered better, and the fearful odours that met you at every turn have disappeared. The poor are indolent, dirty, thriftless, and ill-housed; but that does not much matter, as most of their lives are passed in the open air. The convents are suppressed, the schoolmaster is abroad, and they may grow better as the years roll by, and Italy, as a nation, once more becomes great and renowned. But a good deal has yet to be done. I heard of things to be seen in Naples of the most disgraceful and disgusting character. At the dawn of the Reformation Naples took the lead among the Italian cities in the adoption of its principles. Then came a bitter persecution, and the triumphs of the Pope and the Inquisition. As the result, Naples has been given up for years to the most abject superstition, and its people have become the most ignorant and demoralized in Europe. But the city is full of life – far more so than is to be found in any other Italian city. Such talking, shouting, and rushing to and fro can hardly be found anywhere else. Nowhere is there more life than is to be seen on the Toledo. One of the quaintest objects is that of the letter-writer, seated at his desk in the open air, with his clients waiting to have their letters written – some of business, some of love. The cab-driver is better than he looks, and it is not difficult to get along with him. But you must be on your guard with waiters. More than once one has come to me with a bad franc, which he pretended I had given him; but I turned a deaf ear to his complaint, and left him to do the best he could with his spurious coin.