Part 9

On my way to the railroad station, I passed the amphitheatre, that, in the gladiatorial days of Verona, held one hundred thousand persons in its arena, and where they saw the lion tear the man, and again where the man slew the lion. That same night I slept at Mantua, one of the most strongly fortified towns of Italy, and from here I went to Bologna and bought a sausage. This is a beautiful town so far as churches and graveyards add to the beauty of towns, and the latter is more extensive than the former. I informed the landlord of the hotel Europe that I needed a guide for at least a day. He went in search of one and returned with a schoolmaster, who had closed his school of fifty scholars, to wait on us at the enormous sum of one ducat per day. This was a little pert man with a body twice as long as his legs. "Gentlemen," said he, "let us be moving, there is a great deal to be seen before nightfall in Bologna." I informed him that I wanted to see one of the sausage manufactories, but he seemed to be ignorant that Bologna was celebrated in the sausage line. He asked some wayfaring man through those old lonesome streets to tell him where sausage was made. After seeing the manufactory and the lean donkeys, he took me to see a gymnasium, and here I saw the insignia of every organized people on the earth except my own, and looking for our eagle, stars and stripes, without finding them, I asked him how it was they could not be found. He said this institution was ten years old, to his certain knowledge, and as we were a new people and country, he supposed this was the reason. Bologna, like a candle, must soon be extinguished for want of fuel of such combustibles as will burn up the dark ignorant pile now hid from the bright light that ought to shine supreme from the temple of wisdom of the times.

Venice, with her sea bathed palaces, may survive it, as she is still in beauty the "pride of the sea," more so than Bologna is the pride of graveyards, churches and sausage. The "Two Young Men of Verona" is better known to the world to-day than Verona or Bologna.

FIRENZA DE BELLA CITA.

When we were within two hours drive of Florence, the Capitol of Tuscany and as it is also called the "Italian Capitol of fine arts," we stopped at a hotel to dine and feed horses. The landlord having ascertained that we might probably feel like paying something for what he called dinner, came into the sitting room with a live chicken by the neck and wished to know if I would order something to eat; I answered in the affirmative, when he gave his arm a twist and off went the chicken from his head, fluttering into nonentity. I informed mine host that the stage would hardly wait so long as was necessary to prepare the fowl, and he said he knew more about that than I did. A few moments after this he returned with the crawling flesh of the chicken, some wine and bread, as if he had done something really worth mentioning, and said, "now sir, here is some as fresh chicken as you ever eat, I am not like those town hotels that allow every thing to rot and stink before they sell it." A beautiful Italian girl that was a passenger in the dilligence with me, was waiting to get something, and she said to me "you sir, seem to be the lucky one." I thought it proper to give some one a small piece of the fresh chicken, but if she had not been so pretty she might have been the "unlucky one." Up over the door of this man's house was written, these German words, _Gasthof Zum New York_. It not taking as much time to dine in the Gosthof as in the stable, we took a walk to see the extraordinary phenomena of a muddy place that one can set a blazing with a match. Having arrived at Florence and hoteled myself I ascertained where the races were, and was told they would commence in thirty minutes and that my hotel window was as good a seat at the races as I could get. I looked out of the window and saw the streets clean as a floor of a log cabin, and written upon the corner "Course." That was the name of the street. A few minutes after the heralds proclaimed "that this course must be cleared" as round at the stand the horses were on the track. This street is circular, and the horses run round, till they come to where they start from, when the race is awarded to the first that comes. No riders are allowed, but the people which makes a paling round the track, hurry each horse on. The horses don't seem to know they are running a race, because the shouts of the populace at every window, corner and alley is so frightening they are trying all the time to get out of the track.

Before the races commence, a carriage with four greys is conveying an old man and wife up a street that comes to the course and branches off, and after the race, himself and lady is the first to ride on the street called "_la course_;" and after his carriage every other person has a right to enter the promenade of this man and wife, the Grand Duke, of Tuscany. In the next carriage to his was a tall lady with a beaux by her side, who, I learned, was the Princess, his daughter. Next to her carriage, was a Mr. Bullion from California, trying to pass himself off for a real American gentleman. These are the times when men who make money in the Eldorado, come home to the States to show off. He certainly had more money than brains. He had a liveried carriage. The smoke curled up in little clouds behind him, his feet were on the fore cushion of the open Calashe, and a profusion of beard adorned all the lower extremity of his face. His beard reminded me of Col. May's the captor of La Vega. The Duke halted a moment causing all in the train to halt also, when Mr. B. rose up in his carriage and looked round the Dukes carriage and told his driver to drive on. He was informed that he could not, and he looked up very wise as if he would like to know why. A few minutes after the train moved, and he said to his driver "wait a little, I don't want them to think I want to follow them." The driver stopped and got himself in trouble, for the vehicle behind him told him to drive on or get out of their way. Here the Police interfeared and ordered Mr. consequence Bullion Esq., of the El Dorado to get out of the way of gentlemen and ladies. He tried to pursuade the officers to bear in mind he was talking to an American citizen; but there was as much difference as space between the Torrid and Frigid Zone. The officer gave him to understand that he might be a Florentine, but he must get out of the way of other people. Mr. B. spit a mouthful of juice in the carriage, threw his feet on the front cushion and told the driver to go on. At first my national pride was somewhat lowered, but on second thought, I gloried in knowing that Americans are not responsible for every upstart that goes abroad and violates the rules and regulations of other communities because they were not made to suit his taste, for which no body ever cared but himself. The good people of Europe know full well that there is always thistles among roses and not all good among themselves.

American people are not as selfish as Italians. Italians will hate a man for ever for a Paul or Bioca. I got acquainted with an Italian at the work shop of Hiram Powers, and this young man volunteered to show me Florence, which would of course save me the expense of a lacquey; and my old lacquey told me he wished this man was dead, as he had deprived him of a Ducat. An English writer, tells a tale on Fontenelle thus: "He once ordered some asparagus cooked in oil for his dinner, for he was passionately fond of it; in five minutes afterwards, an abbey came to see him on some church politics, and as it is usual in France to ask ones friend how he wishes his dinner cooked and name what you have, Fontenelles told the old man what he had, and the old man said he would have half of the asparagus cooked in butter. Fontenelles thought it a great sacrafice, but said nothing. Thirty minutes afterward the abbey's valet came down in the parlor and exclaimed in great sorrow that while the abbey was washing he was taken with an apilepic fit and was dead. Fontenelles struck the youth on the shoulders and said, "run to the kitchen and tell the cook, to cook all the asparagus in oil."" Now this was indeed a selfish man. Sam Slick asked a country beaux "why it was that such a fine looking gentleman as himself was not married where so many pretty ladies were?" His answer was "when I offer my hand to a lady, she will be a lady!" This is another selfish man. An Irishman once drinking his neighbors wine was too selfish to testify his approbation of its merrits, by drinking a toast of such good wine to his neighbor. At last he was compelled to drink one, and he said, "here is to my wifes husband." The French is celebrated for eating, the Yankee for his pride, and Irishmen for their toddies.

"The lads and lasses blightly bent, To mind both soul and body, Set round the table weel content And steer about the toddy."

But I have never found even wit, to justify an Italian's selfishness, only sublimity of meanness is an Italian's selfishness.

BACK TO PARIS

On my departure from Florence, I luxuriated at Lucca, the bathing resort of the Tuscans. The city is old with stout walls around it. Three hours ride in a viturino will bring you to the baths. They are beautifully located, down in a valley with craggy and fertile mountains hanging over. It was quite a place in old times, and Counts, and Dukes and other nobles used to flock here to gamble, until so much murder was committed, Lucca broke up the resort of these monied men, and until very recently it was thought to be destroyed and dead, but the Austrians, who occupy all the important places in the government of this part of Italy, wishing to resurrect something that has already been in the Italians' mind as a pleasant dream, hotels have been built, and livery stables erected, for the accommodation of the gay portion of Florence, Pisa, Genoa, Leghorn, and even Milan. On my way from Florence to Lucca I stopped at Pisa. Pisa is well known to the world as holding up one of the seven wonders of the world, to the world's travelers and sight seers. I have reference to the "leaning tower." In describing the "leaning tower," I will merely say, that the first vast and solid layer of stone is heavy enough to hold all the others laid upon it. Each layer is fastened to the one under, and though it might protrude several feet on the layers protruding side, this few feet of reaching out stone can have no power over all the rest of that same layer around this immense tower. The next layer protrudes on the same perched side of the tower, and straight over the reaching edge of its under layer; as each layer is fastened with iron spikes to its under layer, there can be no chance of even the very top falling down on the side of the tower. It leans so much on each layer as to make the top of the tower reach away over the base on the leaning side, so much so that, were it to break loose, it would fall over to the earth without touching the base or foundation of the leaning side of the tower.

The City of Pisa is well known in Italian history, by the awful contentions that used to exist among next door neighbors. Men used to fight on the top of their own houses, and go on conquering, from house to house, until they would slay as many as twenty lords, whose property would be theirs as spoils of war. One hour and a quarter's ride from Pisa is Leghorn, a city full of hats and bonnets. The bay is dotted over with little white houses, and some miles out in the sea; and I see hundreds of small boats rowing towards bath houses. The strongest merchants here are English, who ship Leghorn hats and bonnets to foreign ports, as well as their own, but the city belongs to the Hapsburg sceptre, and thousands of Austrian soldiers stand in the by ways of public places.

Twelve hours travel through the sea from here, brought me to the "City of Palaces," Genoa. It is a city on the side of a hill, with eight story palaces looking down on the sea. Before the fifteenth century it had the inducement for traders that Lyons to-day has. Silk was manufactured here in a way that astonished that age of pride; but since the invention of steam, all those scientific arts that this trade called for is but as nothing, and Italians look at our steam power machines, and then at all their scientific arts, and like the proud fowl that gazed downward, their feathers fall.

I must now pass over many places and their accomplishments, and hasten back to France, to prepare myself for the roughest voyage yet--Egypt, Arabia and Palestine. Here is the Pyramids, Memphis, (now Cairo) Thebes, the Nile, the Red sea, the desert of Sahara, Mount Sinai, the tomb of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, at Hebron, the city of David; and to Jerusalem, down to Jericho where the Jordan's muddy waters slip under the briny and sulphurous liquid of the grave God dug for Sodom and Gomorrah; and to Olives, Carmel, Tabor and Calvary; and to Damascus, the Cedars of Lebanon, Nazareth, Bethel, and the temple of Balbec or Baal.

Prussia, Bavaria, Sardinia and Saxony I will pass through without comment, more than to say that I found them separate nations of one people, save in language. However, I will say, that of all the German kingdoms the most despotic is Austria; but she hates slavery more than the "freest government in the world." Austria tyrannizes over man, but she cannot tyrannize, chattelize, and prostrate their rights with impunity, any more than Washington, Jefferson, or Henry could.

EGYPT AND THE NILE.

Five months of Paris life is again spent, and with it winter has gone by. Winter takes away and deadens the energies of a gay man, but the spring time comes, and with it the awakening of man from his lethargy, and like old Sol from the bed of the sea, in his majesty he shakes himself in all his rising glory, and puts a fiery garb between himself and all the rest of creation, to scorch the temptation that would impede his bright and manly career. Did you ever stand by the shore of a bed of water, reader, and see old Sol, like a mighty giant, rise up from his wet pillow, and seem to shake his shaggy locks, as they loosened from the abode of Neptune for more etherial spheres, and when at his journey's end, fall again on his pillow of the watery down? If you have, see me alike pulling away from the festal abode of Paris' comfort, and loosening the tie of familiar smiles, for a hard journey over a rough sea, dead lands, and a treacherous people. Will I not be willing, as old Sol when he fell on the western sea, to rest my mortal part on the flinty base of great Pompey's pillar, ere the work be "did and done?" I think I will! I have passed Marseilles, Malta in the sea, and here I am in sight of land. Well, Mr. Captain, what are you looking after in the distance with as much anxiety as the passengers, have you not been here before? "Yes sir, but every body wants to see Pompey's pillar." "That's a fact, Captain, is that his pillar?" At this stage of the enquiry, the Captain of the great steamer Ripon, laid his telescope down, and took hold of the ladies and gentlemen by the arm and shoulders, and requested that they would not be so partial to only one side of the boat, as it might dry one side of her boiler, endangering his life, as well as theirs. "Now," said the Captain, "do you all see that tall, monumental pillar, reaching upwards to the right of those barracks," when answered in the affirmative, he said, "That is Pompey's Pillar, to the left is the Pacha's palace." This was indeed the great city of Alexandria. Here it was Diogenes built the great temple of Diana; and over it suspended her in the air, by attractive and non-attractive metals, such as loadstone and others. We are coming near, and the camel boys and donkey drivers are more numerous than any other class. Having gone a quarter of a mile through mud, I am at the hotel, but I would as soon be any where else, for the accommodation is sickening. A man and camel is standing at the door, with a bullock skin full of butter for the landlord. The landlord requested him to uncamel it, and bring it in, after which he plated some of it for dinner. I enquired where this butter was made, and the Bedouin told me it was made in the desert, and in recommending it, he said it was good because he made it himself. But the most disgusting information I got of the origin of this butter, was, that it was made from camel's milk, and this very camel was one of the milch camels. The landlord came to know how we liked our dinner, and the Rev. Levi Tucker, of Boston, Mass., enquired about this butter, and mine host stuck his finger in the butter, and tasted thereof. I was eating a piece of roast beef at the time, but I could not refrain from turning it over to ask myself, "might it not be camel's meat," though I could get no answer. After dinner, four of us Americans, headed by the Rev. Levi Tucker, called to see his most serene highness, the Pacha of Egypt. We stood before his palace in the court, about an hour, after which the dragoman returned from the interior of the palace and inquired of us if we were the President, I told him not quite. He then told us that his serene highness had no complaint to make of us for calling on him, and furthermore, that he had no objection to our looking over the gardens, and at the walls of the palace, and the stable doors. Mr. Fellowes, of New Orleans, lit a cigar, Mr. Elliot, of South Carolina, threw a quid of tobacco among the flowers, and I plucked a rose, and the Rev. Levi Tucker, so far descended from his gravity, to joke by saying, "you will all be fined, look sharp!"

This city was built by Alexander the Great, more than three hundred years before Christ. It is on the Nile where it flows into the Mediterranean sea, but hardly any of its ancient splendor remains to point its site, save Pompey's Pillar, which is an immense stone column. Some parts of its walls are traced, and a few gates of granite marble are left to mark its spaciousness. Here used to pass the treasures of the Indies, but since the discovery of the route, via the Cape of Good Hope, only the mails traverse the Red sea, the Desert, and the Nile. Alexandria is the sea-port of Egypt, and Egypt is a province of Turkey. The Pacha pays the Sultan millions of treasure to rule this land himself, and also binds himself to furnish so many men in time of war, and is bound to lead them on the field if required. The present Pacha is said to be a foreign Prince, who fought his way to the throne. He lives here one part of the year, and the other at Cairo, the Capitol of Egypt. Cairo is about 275 miles from Alexandria, and as the English mail from the Indies comes there from towards the Red Sea to this place, they are now building railroads here, to facilitate conveying it to and from England and India.

EGYPTIAN KINGS OF OLDEN TIMES.

Alexander the Great, after having extended his conquest to the Indies, returned to Babylon and there died in the thirty-third year of his age. Byron, who died at this age, pronounces it fatal to genius. We will not class our Savior with men of genius, as it would not be a just comparison to his superior talent or grace, but, if what Byron says about the turn of genius be true, there can be little argument against him when these specimens can be taken into consideration. After this great man's death at Babylon, his empire was divided among the next great men of the earth, and the Egyptian division fell to the Ptolemies. They were a great family of the upper part of the Nile, perhaps the Thebiad, and are known to us as Ptolemy 1st, 2d and 3d, &c. These kings were very learned, for they possessed the library of Alexandria, and which Caliph Omar burned containing 700,000 volumes of manuscript. For six months they burnt books instead of wood to heat the water they bathed in. The word Ptolemy means a class of kings. The emperors of Rome were known successively as Cæsars. The Persians as Darius, just as the Louises of France were under the designation of one, two, and three. These titles of the throne originated with the great and kingly family of Pharaohs. Pharaoh Hophra is the famous Pharaoh that we are acquainted with in the scriptures. Pharaoh Necko is another celebrated Pharaoh. The present Cairo of Egypt, was then the Capitol of the greatest kings of the the earth, the Pharaohs. It is still a magnificent city for its age. Its population is variously estimated to be from 175 to 300,000. Some as fine edifices are found here as in any part of the East. It was the Memphis of old. Here it was that Pharaoh dwelt when he marched in pursuit of Moses, when the cloud stood between them; here it is he is, to day, a mummy, if he was not embalmed in the Red Sea, but distinguished not; here it is the famine raged furiously and men sold themselves for food to Joseph; here it was that Moses had the power to turn ashes into dust, that flew over the land with the rapidity of a lightning flash, and infested the body of man with boils, and still the king loved the spot too well to give up one single foot of his powerful sway. Here it was that Greece and Italy were schooled in all that they excelled; here it was that Moses obtained his fundamental rules of governing nations of people, for he was "learned in all the learning of the Egyptians," and where was more? and here it is some one thing is found that all the Savans' talent cannot conjecture the design of its structure, I mean the Pyramids. I was there to day, and gazed upward 470 odd feet in the air at its top. I say it because it is only necessary to see one to be confounded and awe struck. It is a spacious mass of solid layers of stone, one upon the other, and each from 25 to 32 feet in length.