Part 47

The village of Idria, of four thousand population, lies in a valley of a round bowl form, with an abundance of water power. The ascent of the mountain is by zigzag roads, with at intervals a peasant’s cottage, bleak and dreary; the summit once reached, we can scarcely realize that a smiling village, with gardens and fruit trees, exists in the low grounds. There are seven hundred men employed in these works. A ticket of admission is granted, a miner’s suit is provided, and a guide, with lights, procured, all to be paid for in turn. The descent commences through narrow arches and long galleries, of a man’s height, of stone work; then by flights of steps cut in the rock, from seventy to one hundred and forty in number, leading from one gallery to another. They are more fatiguing than the salt mines at Hallein. Some two thousand steps are here made to the fourth gallery, whose perpendicular depth is seven hundred and fifty feet. At a depth of three hundred feet I noticed that the timbers employed in the passages were charred, and learned that only a few years since fire had occurred by accident, which cost the lives of many miners, whose bodies were drawn out after suffocation. A portion of the pits have also been flooded with water; the steam and water pumps were exhausting it. The heat at this great depth is apparent, and the miners who are on duty with picks and axes, and blasting the rocks, have a warm berth of it. The poor fellows, in shirt and trowsers, with the dull light of the lamps in the close murky atmosphere, sweating at their toil, look certainly haggard, and excite one’s sympathy when he learns that the recompense is only sixteen kreuzers (or fourteen cents) per day. The government furnishes flour and fuel at fixed rates, which are less than current prices. The ore in some cases will average sixty parts, and the liquid quicksilver is seen in the pores of the stone formation. They turn out annually from two and a half to three million centners, of one hundred pounds each. The price is now low, being about fifty cents per pound.

The ascent is by steam or water power. From the bottom, seven hundred and fifty feet, a perpendicular square shaft communicates with all the galleries, for hoisting the ore. One puts himself in a square box, of solid wood construction, with a board seat, supported by four chains from the corners, attached to a rope cable, and trusts to its strength and the movement of the water wheel to see daylight once again. The reflection is anything but agreeable; for should an accident occur, not a vestige of frail humanity would remain. The ascent on foot is too fatiguing, although many persons prefer it.

The smelting furnaces here are on a large scale, as also the manufacture of red vermilion from quicksilver and sulphur combined, under the action of great heat. It is a singular fact that those employed in these works not only lose their teeth early in life, through the salivation of the mercury, but the atmosphere being impregnated, young people of twenty-five years of age show the same signs of decay. They had recently four shocks of earthquakes, and a house near the pits was considerably cracked, but the miners said the vibrations were only slightly felt below.

A singular idea prevails, not only in this country, but in other parts of Europe, among certain classes, which reminds me of the days of Miller. It is the prophecy of the destruction of the world on the thirteenth of June, by a comet. I have seen several newspaper articles confirming the probability. I tell the people they must emigrate to America, where the vicinity of icebergs will keep them thawed out.

A seven hours’ ride brought me to the cave of Adelsberg, recently visited by the Emperor, Empress, and suite, on their return from Italy. Some three hundred laborers were employed for several months, carrying in sand for the purpose of making dry walks, repairing the bridge over the rushing waterfall, which loses itself here and appears again some miles distant, and in the preparation of the twenty thousand lights, along all the passages, and the grand illumination of the Dome of Neptune chapel, whose death-bell music is produced by beating sticks upon the suspended stalactites, and the riding school, organ, altars, and the ascent to Mount Calvary, with its twelve stations. The roof from the base of this enormous cave at this point is scarcely visible, but from the summit of Calvary, it is strikingly grand. The immense dancing hall is used once a year, for the people’s festivals. The distance walked over is probably four miles. I cannot describe the beauties of this nature’s wonder. Thousands of columns are formed and are forming, from the dripping, and one can see the most exquisite imitation of curtains, and drapery like lace of various colors, and the imagination conjures up a thousand forms of animals, antiquities, Hindoo and Egyptian deities. The amount expended for the Imperial reception was twenty thousand guldens, or ten thousand dollars. I happened along at a favorable time, as the decorations and evergreens were not removed, and the cave was perfectly dry; and I fortunately found two Austrian officers who were willing to join in employing twelve guides and torch-bearers, for lighting up, with one hundred and forty wax candles, in order to examine the old, as well as the newly discovered grotto, and see all to advantage.

Another six hours by mail coach, and we were on the summit of the mountain, descending to Trieste, with the beautiful placid waters of the Adriatic before us, the blue sky and an Italian sunset above us, the almond trees in bloom, and the city lying at our feet, with its hundred thousand inhabitants, and the flags from the ships, of all nations, waving in the mild and gentle breeze. The sight of the sea is refreshing after so long an absence, and on this occasion the elements conspired to make it particularly striking. The growth of the city has been rapid, and great changes have been made since I was last here; the new part is most substantially built; the streets are wide, and paved with flat slabs. The costumes are various, from all parts of the Levant and Archipelago. It is a perfect Babel for languages.

CXXIV.

VENICE, ITALY, _May 15, 1857_.

A seven hours’ passage by steamer brings me across the head-waters of the Adriatic from Trieste to this city. The contrast between the rumbling noises of rolling wagons and carriages over the broad, well-paved streets of the trading city, in addition to the heat and oppression from clouds of dust from the calcareous mountain roads, to the clean, quiet quays and landing-place of the steamer at Venice, strikes the stranger upon his first visit, away from noise and dust, and breathing a pure salt atmosphere. We left Trieste with the beginning of a howling _Bora_, or north wind, which, being after us, had no other effect than to quiet most of our passengers, giving them a taste of the horrors of sea-sickness. Both cities are free ports, and notwithstanding they are under Austrian rule, the dissimilarity is very remarkable in every particular. The dialect is different; the currency is metallic, the Lombardian states never having accepted the paper medium of the Empire, being the only exception in all the Austrian provinces; their weights and measures are not the same; the habits and customs of the people are quite unlike. In Trieste commerce predominates, and early hours are observed; here it is the reverse, the habits of the people are late, the dining hour being five P.M.; the theatres commence at nine and are out at twelve or half-past twelve; many places of refreshment are open at midnight, and others never close; during the heat of summer, the bright moonlight nights are almost wholly passed in the open air, or in excursions in gondolas, and the quietude and tranquillity of the city induces repose by daylight.

It is now nearly a year since I wrote you from Venice, and this being my fourth visit, I will not reiterate the remarkable sights of this remarkable city. Sunday evening I was standing upon the Rialto Bridge, which crosses the grand canal, admiring by moonlight the marble palaces with their quaint architecture of Byzantine, Gothic, and other styles, when I noticed the steeple of St. Apostoli, illuminated in the distance; and on inquiry, I learned that it was a festival in honor of the admission of a priest to full privileges. How many lanes or passages, called _calle_, from four to twelve feet in width, in this labyrinth of a city, I travelled, I know not; but prosecuting my tortuous way through the multitude, I came at last to the Campiello, or little square of the church, whose neighboring houses were gleaming with lighted torches. Bengal lights and rockets were exploding in the air; the cafés were filled; the masses, mostly the working classes, were out, the brunettes without bonnets; the booths of the Fritolero, with their bright copper kettles of boiling oil, preparing pastry, were quite surrounded; dark-eyed damsels were overhanging the balconies, listening to the sound of a guitar, or the merry song of a gondolier, whose tiny bark lay in the canal underneath. I had so often witnessed similar spectacles, that I should have been almost unconscious of the novelty, but for the presence of an American friend on his first visit, whom I was desirous of gratifying; his expressions of surprise awoke me to a sense of the peculiarities of the scene. As gondolas are used by strangers generally, who are unacquainted with the intricate passages which require long experience, much of interest is lost. One steps in his bark from the hotel door, and is rowed from church to church, from palace to palace, as well as to the theatre, by means of these intersecting canals, without the necessity of dodging in and out, and around corners, and over bridges; when time and experience permit, however, the land-route is of great interest, for one learns thereby the characteristics of the people; one may walk for miles, and find always something new and interesting.

Isolated as is Venice, every comfort and luxury can be procured here, and one naturally seeks out the sources of supply. The flower girls trip along in the morning under the porticos of San Marco, presenting strangers with early-plucked roses. Fresh butter and milk are found at the cafés. The water carriers, mostly country village girls, in funny costume, wearing boys’ fur hats of peculiar form, with feathers, are trotting bare-footed along with a pair of small copper kettles suspended from flat elastic rods over their shoulders; the markets are well supplied with shell and other fish; the landing-place for vegetables is filled with boats delivering their cargoes; the water barges are moving up the lateral canals; the wood market furnishes its quota; foreign vessels contribute the colonial supplies; oranges, cherries, strawberries, green peas, asparagus, are seen in all parts exposed for sale, and the stranger looks in vain for any signs of vegetation, or the bubbling of a fountain. The _gardino publico_, the work of Napoleon, at the extreme end of the city, where, within a given circuit, horse exercise may be taken, is resorted to more by foreigners than by natives. Eight of these strange quadrupeds are kept in hire for the purpose. They are now regarded less as a curiosity than formerly.

Italy is the school for music, and the nursery of the arts; but dramatic artists must not expect to acquire fortunes in it. The operas and theatres are frequented for the purposes of coquetry, and the exchange of salutations replaces visiting to a certain extent. Shakspeare’s Othello, or the Moor of Venice, translated in Italian, has had several repetitions lately here; it loses in the translation, but the scene being laid here, the costume of the Doges, the canals and bridges in the decorations, give it additional attractions. It is curious to see the cushioned and richly furnished gondolas by the light of a full moon, driving up like cabs to the front door steps of the theatre, taking in the well-clad aristocracy, or such as live remote, and do not wish to thread the narrow streets on their way home.

CXXV.

LUZERNE, SWITZERLAND, _June 12, 1857_.

In order to vary my plan in proceeding north into Switzerland, I was obliged to again take Verona, Vicenza, Brescia, and Milan, en route. It is not a year since I described to you my visit to these cities, and my excursions upon the Lago di Como, Guarda, and Lugano. I now wished to accomplish the last of the five great passes of the Alps, the St. Gothard, and include Lago Maggiore once again in the circuit, having last year crossed the Splugen, and on former occasions Mount Cenis, the Simplon, and the great St. Bernard.

From Milan, I took the poste to Sesto Calende, on the Lake Maggiore, where our passports were visé, as we were leaving Austrian territory. The next landing place on the opposite side, in Sardinia, is Arona, near which stands the bronze monument of San Carlo Boromeo, sixty-six feet high, upon a pedestal forty-four feet in height, to the head of which I had once ascended by an inner staircase. The remains of the saint are in a crystal and gold coffin, in the crypt of the Domo of Milan. We soon reached the islands called Isola Madre, Isola Bella, Isola Pescatore, belonging to the same family, and noted for their beauty. The two first are perfect gems. Isola Bella, with its palace, picture galleries, terraced gardens, fountains, tropical vegetation, gold fish, guinea fowls, &c., gives it the air of a little paradise. The length of the lake may be made in five hours, to Mogidorro, where an omnibus conveys you to Bellinzona, from which point the road strikes off over the Splugen Pass to the right, which I took last year from Como. I now passed in to the left, by diligence at the foot of the mountain, to Airolo, where I passed the night. Leaving in the morning, our horses climbed steadily up the zigzag walled roads, until at mid-day we reached the Hospice, a height of six thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight feet above the level of the sea, where we partook of refreshments, and commenced the descent. The height is, you will perceive, seven hundred and sixty-two feet less than that of the location of the convent on the great St. Bernard, the highest habitable point in Europe, once described to you, and which is one thousand feet above the growth of timber. The mountains were snow-capped, the weather was fine, and we suffered but little from cold. The snow banks did not affect the passage. During eight months in the year sleighs are used. Some of the passes, which are subject to avalanches, are protected by long galleries, over which the huge masses slide into the gorges and ravines below. One of these galleries is one hundred and eighty feet long, and twelve feet wide. The melting snow produced beautiful cataracts, and the foaming and rumbling of the waters were at times deafening, particularly near the Teufel’s Brücke, or Devil’s Bridge, over the torrent Reuss, ninety-five feet in height, about four thousand feet above the level of the sea. The dangerous passes, on the verge of precipices hundreds of feet perpendicular, are protected by parapet walls. In two instances, from the encroachment of the snow upon the border of the deep chasms, our wheels were blocked with loaded wagons going in contrary directions, which obliged us to dismount, and caused some delay. The scattered stone houses of the peasantry in the valley, from the lofty eminences, looked like bird-cages, and the cultivated patches in the green fields I could only compare to brown rugs which had been washed and were lying out to bleach upon the grass. The descent in the valley, the wild, romantic scenery of the mountains, the deep greens foliage of the pines and cedars, the neat and airy Swiss villages, the herdsmen, with flocks of goats, the peculiar costumes of the peasants, the roaring of the torrents, and the splashing of cascades, were well calculated to keep up a lively interest, even in one who had traversed most of the mountains of Europe. The village where William Tell was born, and the spot where he is represented as having shot the apple from his son’s head, lent an historical interest to the route.

At Fuelen, the head of the lake, a small steamer was in readiness to conduct us, in two hours and a half, to Luzerne, one of the prettiest positions for a town in Switzerland. I had made the tour of the lake some years since, and was then, as now, struck with its majestic and magnificent scenery. The hotels here are excellent.

At the period alluded to, my health did not permit the ascent of Mount Riga; I have now accomplished it. An hour’s sail, by steamer, takes one to Waggis, where horses and guides are procured, and where the ascent to Riga begins. The mountain lies free on all sides, and stands on one of the most interesting points, in reference to its beautiful views, also its near approach to the great chain of the Alps, and the neighborhood of so many lakes and valleys; I counted eleven of the former. Its height is five thousand five hundred feet. Its extensive view, not only over north, east, and west Switzerland, but also over a part of Germany, well repays the tourist, if he be fortunate enough to have clear weather, in which one is often disappointed. The road or path is good, but it is laborious on foot, and places for rest and refreshment are found. The better way is, for ladies and gentlemen not accustomed to climbing, to take horses; in three hours the ascent is made. A cold water cure establishment is found half way up. The Stafelwirthshaus is about a mile from the summit, and on the extreme top is the hotel called Riga Kulm, where we passed the night. We were favored with a fine sunset, after which the horn sounded for dinner, which our party enjoyed under the bracing atmosphere. The sky was serene, and the moon in the full. We retired early, and the echo of the morning horn saluted us a half hour before the sun rose on this grand and imposing spectacle, whose beauties cannot be described with the pen. Cloaks and overcoats were in requisition, a warm breakfast enjoyable, and we descended by another route to the village of Kussnacht, where a vehicle was chartered to convey us to Luzerne. My next may be from north Switzerland, or from the banks of the Rhine.

CXXVI.

BATHS OF EMS, DUCHY OF NASSAU, _July 14, 1857_.

About the time I left Luzerne, in Switzerland, the sympathies and anxieties of the public were highly excited by the report of fire and explosion in the railroad tunnel, which is to intersect that city with Basle. Twelve persons, who had volunteered in the rescue of upwards of forty workmen who were thus suddenly cut off, had perished in the attempt. When our passengers took the diligence to cross the mountain, in the depths of which the accident occurred, three of our number took a short cut across, hoping to obtain some information of the sufferers. It was melancholy to reflect that so many human beings were probably suffering the agonies of death under our very feet, without our being able to relieve them. I learned subsequently that thirty-three corpses had been taken out and interred. A horse was found slaughtered, but not eaten.

The Swiss cars are constructed after our American model; passengers see the scenery of the country better from them than from the coach cars generally in use in Europe.

A railway ride of three and a half hours, by express train from Basle, brings one to Baden-Baden, upon the west slope of the Black Forest, in one of the most beautiful valleys of Germany.

A few days’ sojourn, and I proceeded to Homburg, which is much frequented; but neither that place nor Baden-Baden was as full as I found them last year.

At Wiesbaden, however, I found larger multitudes than I had ever met there on my former visits. This I attribute in part to the facilities for play, newly granted by the Bank.

Having detailed to you, on former occasions, the baths, qualities and uses of the waters, amusements and excursions, it will be needless to go into repetition.

In addition to the plebeian movement, it would seem that royalty has turned out in every direction. The King of Bavaria and ex-Empress of Russia were at Baden-Baden; the Emperor and Empress of Russia are at Kissengen; the Grand Duchess Constantine and her suite live opposite to me, occupying the entire building called the Panorama, belonging to the Ducal Kurhaus, where I am lodging. Having seen all these imperial and royal personages in their own territories, my curiosity is not excited; but it is a curious spectacle for an American to witness the sycophancy and idolatry of the masses for crowned heads; and one naturally asks himself, “Are such people capable of enjoying any other institutions than those they have been educated to adore?”

Those who remain at Ems, do so ostensibly for health; and no waters in Europe are so valuable for bronchial diseases, incipient pulmonary disease, nervous complaints, and many other difficulties; the fair sex predominate.

The Russians have the privilege of travelling since the treaty of peace; the presence of the wife of the Grand Admiral Constantine has brought large numbers here. The other evening, on the occasion of her birthday, the Duke of Nassau gave a grand celebration. In the middle of the little river Lahn, which flows through the valley, opposite the quarters of the Grand Duchess of Constantine was an illuminated barge, with thirty musicians. The Swiss Cottage Restaurant, upon the hill-side, was brilliantly lighted; and on the opposite mountain-ridge was a display of Bengal lights, and other fireworks, which produced a pretty effect, much to the edification of visitors and the peasantry, who seemed to enjoy it highly. Last night a ball was given by this lady in the honor of the Russians.

One is elbowed on all sides by Dukes, Duchesses, Counts, Countesses, Barons, and Baronesses, and the whole aristocratic race.

The German aristocracy are easy and approachable. You find that you have made the acquaintance of your neighbor; cards are exchanged; you see, perhaps, the arms and title of a Count, Baron, or some high functionary or dignitary, in return for which you give him a plain American address, without a handle to the name.

The demoralizing and destructive practice of open gambling is only tolerated in the German duchies, and is a source of great revenue to their rulers. In France it is prohibited: Prussia has withheld the grant at her watering places: in Belgium it only exists at Spa: Sardinia has stopped it at Aix les Bains. But all the efforts of the great princes have not yet succeeded in destroying the system established at Baden-Baden, Homburg, Wiesbaden, and Ems.

Next month I go to Paris, and expect to be in the United States in September.

1858.

CXXVII.

MARSEILLES, FRANCE, _Jan. 15, 1858_.

I must apologize to many of my friends and acquaintances whom I could not have the pleasure of seeing during my last short sojourn at home, and also for my sudden departure, which was the result of cold and indisposition.

From the time I left New York, on the 25th of last month, I experienced no cold weather until recently in Paris, where the prevalence of the _grippe_, or influenza, induced me to take flight for a more congenial climate. Our passage by the steamer Fulton was one of the shortest and most comfortable winter passages I ever made. Christmas and New Year’s festivals were passed in Paris. The great city, as usual at this joyous season, was extremely gay.