Chapter 9

When I was in Rome I happened to be domiciled in a bedroom that had a connecting door with another room of the same size. This door was of course locked, the other room being occupied by an Italian. We had to make a flying start for Naples at 5 A.M., and I got up at 4, in order to shave, dress and breakfast in time to catch the train. I opened the proceedings by starting to strop my razor on a big leather strop; the door being quite flimsy, my Italian neighbor heard me distinctly, and as he was trying to fall asleep he became very angry, jumped out of bed and protested in loud and profane language. I paid no attention to his protest and then he rang his bell long and violently. As I wanted to make a respectable appearance at breakfast, I kept on stropping diligently. This added to his indignation, and when the chambermaid entered his den in response to the bell, he ordered her to go into my room and stop the noise. She rushed toward me and intimated that the gentleman was at the point of death--that he might die at any moment from heart disease, unless he were permitted to sleep. I felt that a guest had a right to shave in his own room, therefore I did not desist. My irate neighbor then jumped out of bed and in his _pajamas_ ran downstairs and brought up the manager, the cashier, the porter and a hall-boy. When I opened my door the deputation implored me to cease stropping and start shaving at once, and thus restore peace to the strained situation. I explained that I was hurrying to the train and that this would be the last of me; at which the Count rushed forward and grasping my hand, exclaimed:

"Pardon, signor! shave all you like and do it now, but don't, for heaven's sake, miss the train on any account, for if you commence that horrible slapping again I shall make my way to the nearest mad house!"

When the cause of the disturbance had ceased, he soon fell asleep, and when I began to lather my face he was artistically playing a "_fluto_" obligate with his nose. At this I began to knock on the door, and he at once called out:

"What now? What you want?"

"I want you to stop snoring or I'll alarm the house and have you expelled."

"Ah, you get even with me, you do! I catch the leetle joke. What will you haf to drink, signor? the wine is on me."

We left Rome and went by train to--

POMPEII

On a former visit to Pompeii I thought it a grand place, but after all, when the traveller has seen the best, it is ordinary and commonplace. It was a town of only about 30,000 people and almost all of them escaped, so no particular distinction belongs to it in any respect.

We continued on to Naples, and on the following morning took a local steamer for Sorrento. We had a look at Vesuvius, which was quiet and somewhat depressed--as it had lost six hundred feet of its cone at the last eruption.

SORRENTO

Landing at Sorrento we took a thirty-mile carriage drive along the precipitous coast, resting and lunching in a convent at Amalfi, perched high up on the hillside whither we had to climb. Then another drive to the train, which landed us back in Naples in the early hours of the morning.

MONTE CARLO

Again we embarked on the _Cork_, and landed at Villefranche. Next day we drove through Nice and on to Monte Carlo, where we witnessed the motor boat races. After dining at the _Hotel de l'Hermitage_, we visited the temple of chance with its twenty-five tables, devoted to a variety of games. It was all a distinct disappointment. The much vaunted decorations on the walls of the rooms were polychromatic but uninteresting--attempts at classic decoration such as an Italian sign-painter could easily equal when working for his board. The building itself was overdone in elaboration, and represented French architecture in the era when it had "broken loose." The grounds, however, were fine and the flower display the finest to be found anywhere. The players, men and women, were a debased crowd, of all nationalities. Sordid greed had eaten into their faces and there was no delight for them in anything except in grabbing the gold the turn of the wheel gave them--and it didn't give them much in return for what they staked. The games are "square." There is no cheating other than the well understood "percentage" in favor of the bank, but they are played so quickly that the player's capital is turned over thousands of times in a week, and as each turn means on the average a loss to him of the "percentage," the money does not last long. Some gamblers plunge for large sums for a short time, and are lucky enough to "break the bank at Monte Carlo;" but they return and give it all back to the prince with interest. All he asks of them is that they shall keep on playing at his game. The visitor wonders most at the dexterity with which the money of all varieties is raked, tossed and flung about the board by the croupiers, with apparently the utmost recklessness and without mistakes. They have spent their lives at it and know it the way Paderewski knows his keyboard. Three men are employed at each table to follow all the betting, and they watch like hawks every one playing. So perfectly is the whole thing done that never a word is spoken; it's all action--simply the placing of the coin on the spot. Most of the players have systems they follow, and prick their cards at each play. Hundreds of others who have no money follow their systems, just to see whether they would have won if they had had anything to risk.

We had a charming, moonlight drive back to Villefranche along the shores of the Mediterranean, where the _Cork_ lay awaiting us, and when all were aboard we steamed out through the Straits of Gibraltar to Liverpool.

LIVERPOOL

It was a general holiday at the time in that city, and I lounged about the streets, looking at the crowds of people. The "Pembroke Social Reform League" was holding a mass meeting at the foot of Wellington's monument in St. George's Square to protest against the Government's building eight _Dreadnaughts_ at a cost of 14,000,000 pounds. The crowd was all composed of working men and was most orderly; the speakers were clever and moderate in their attitude. I became interested, and edged up to the foot of the steps in order to hear what was said. The meeting had lasted about an hour, when one speaker in finishing, remarked:

"I see an American here: will not the gentleman step up and tell us how America feels about these things?"

I was immediately threatened with heart disease and protested, but before I knew what I was about a couple of them had pulled me up on the steps and I was really "up against it," so I had to say something or beat an ignominious retreat. I have always been in full sympathy with disarmament and the reduction of naval fleets, so I told them I had just returned from Spain, Italy and Turkey, and had there seen the armies drilling and the idle navies anchored in the ports, for the most part at the expense of the poor people, many of whom had neither food nor decent clothing. At this point a young man called out:

"We are Englishmen--we want no Yankees here!"

I replied:

"Young man, you have made a bad start: I was born less than three hundred miles from where I stand, and I visited this square many times before you were born."

This statement was received with applause and I was allowed to finish what little I had to say in peace. The meeting adjourned after unanimously passing a resolution protesting against the _Dreadnaughts_. Meetings of this character were held continuously all day.

Then we took a new steamer to New York, and the cruise of the _Cork_ was a thing of the past.

Retrospectively I might add that we suffered from a kind of artistic and historical dyspepsia, brought about by our inability to digest the immensity of the things we had seen and their variety. After leaving Madeira the stopping places came so fast that our sightseeing was indeed hard work, each new place blotting out the one that had preceded it. Undoubtedly we would after a while remember the scenes and places visited, and we would surely do so if we read the standard writers on these subjects.

Of the management it may be said that it had a Herculean task to perform, and its work was well done. If the amount of detail it had to face and arrange had been placed in less skilful hands or neglected, it would have been fatal to our comfort and progress.

My companions were on the whole a bright, alert and sympathetic company. Here and there, of course, there was some friction; human nature, under the strain put upon it by the length of the cruise and the number of people, could not be expected by the most exacting critic to behave better. The unimportant differences of opinion and misunderstandings that arose under trying circumstances will fade with the years as they fly by, and leave only bright, pleasant, interesting memories of all the wonderful things it was our privilege to see on this remarkable trip.

I offer a humble apology for the slang I have used in these pages, but it has seemed almost impossible to describe the scenes in connection with Jerusalem and Cairo without it--in fact, I couldn't help it!

I regret exceedingly that the anonymous character of this little effort will not permit me to mention the names of many men and women who, by their good-fellowship, sincerity and helpfulness, assisted one another to pass the time and make things "go," when sometimes the going was far from good.

If in any of these lines I have given offence I hope to be pardoned, as none is intended. Every one knows that a succession of compliments and eulogies makes uninteresting reading, therefore I feel sure of being thoroughly understood; and further, I should like to add that I believe the formula, "I move we adjourn," will be appreciated by the patient and, I hope, forgiving reader. At this stage of the proceedings the aeroplane must be lowered to kiss the dew and so glide into its hangar, regrets being current that we had not the pleasure of Messrs. Cook and Peary's company as passengers.

THE AUTHOR.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel, by S. G. Bayne