Part 3

How we watched, how we strained our eyes and wearied our arms with poising the telescope to pry into the beauteous recesses of those approaching shores! But now the night had fallen, and a dark and spangled curtain threw its veil over the beauties we were gazing at, and when we came to an anchor it was too profoundly dark for even the imagination to take hints from surrounding forms. So we went to bed and wished for day--for a day without clouds.

The next morning our dreams were realised. Vesuvius stood close before us, solemnly breathing upwards his pillar of smoke.

Woods, with young plantations and viny hillocks, spread widely round him. To the right a fair town stood on the brink of the sea, while immediately behind it the steep mountains pushed their wooded peaks into the sky. Far to the left, and out of sight, or indistinctly discerned, lay Naples.

Soon a great number of Neapolitan boats came to the fleet to sell such things as they who have been cooped up at sea buy greedily--bread, fruit, game, and fish. Perhaps the parley thus obtained with these interesting foreigners, and the opportunity to take small flights in our grammar Italian, and to observe their dress, language, and grotesque extravagance of sound and gesticulation, were more acceptable to our curiosity than those dainties to our animal appetites.

We saw distinctly some parts of the great road to Naples, and it was quite a natural pantomime to witness a conversation between parties on the shore, perhaps discussing the object of our appearance and the probability of our movements--far too distant to overhear any sound, or see any minor hints of countenance or gesture. English folks, so seen at a distance, might have hardly been distinguished from statues or from trees. But the Italian’s body is a telegraph to the distant observer while his tongue and countenance are reasoning with his neighbour; now the orator, approaching his friend closely, with face and hands concentering towards his breast, seizes his collar or buttons, and shakes his arguments into his ears and mind with a gentle tremulation, as one coaxes gooseberries into a bottle, and again, all of a sudden, retrogrades from him, with head and hands and arms thrown back to mark the irreconcilable extremity of his contradiction.

The day following, one of my brother officers repaired to our chief’s ship, and they went on shore together.

On his return in the evening he excited our utmost envy, wonder, and curiosity by giving us an account of his adventures.

In exploring the country they had come to a vine-clad hill, whose farthest side ended in a precipitous bank scarped away by the hand of labour; and spread out below, proceeding out of the bowels of the hill on which they stood, they discovered an ancient Roman town in all its unruined dimensions of streets and squares, theatres and barracks, not gray with the hoar of antiquity, but with all its plastering and painting fresh from the hands of the workmen. The painted borders of the dwelling-rooms, the appropriate pictures of the ladies’ bath, the soldiers’ names engraven rudely on the walls of their barracks, the ruts worn by the Roman wheels, were all fresh despatched to us from former ages.

Of this inestimable present Pliny had described the packing up, by an eruption of Vesuvius, to which he was witness. It was only now half unpacked, and we might yet be at the unpacking of the remainder.

I was ready to jump out of the ship to see with my own eyes these incredible wonders, and when I could go, when I stood in these streets and called, without knocking, upon one ancient Roman after another (though it seemed hardly delicate to explore unbidden the private chambers, whose painting and fresh preservation seemed to infer an occupancy so recent) anticipation was beggared by the trance which that reality imposed.

They show one such things in the Museum of Portici, that the idea of imposture steals involuntarily upon the mind, but yet imposture is out of the question. The king is the showman, and asks nothing for his pains, nor is there any temptation to fabricate the commonest articles of every-day use into the semblance of antiquity in the midst of such a crowd of self-evident realities. Else, when I was shown an egg with a part of the yolk oozing from the crack, looking exactly as if boiled and cracked yesterday, a loaf of bread burnt to a cinder, and a quantity of grain in the same condition, and was told that these things had been baked by the hot ashes of Vesuvius and buried under them for 1700 years, my belief, I must confess, was a little shy. Yet I know not that it is more wonderful with respect to an egg, a loaf, and a heap of corn than with respect to the innumerable rolls of burnt manuscript which we found Mr. Hayter so busy in unrolling with infinite patience and ingenuity, the characters upon the charred papyrus being still perfectly legible.

With respect to other things, vast quantities of tools and kitchen utensils of every description, fit enough for modern use, also very well wrought golden ornaments and elegant glass vessels of all shapes--in these the interest was equally great, and the belief more easy.

To me Herculaneum, the Museum of Portici, and above all Pompeii, were objects of renewed visitation and inexhaustible interest; but far beyond all these artificial curiosities my mind was absorbed by that unutterable wonder of Nature whose irresistible devastations covered and formed the country all around. Indeed the recent destructive torrent yet bore upon its surface the shells of houses and habitations whose inhabitants had been expelled or destroyed.

It seems strange that after all the ruin which this terrible mountain has wrought with subterraneous thunder and ejected fire, the monuments of which endure through ages to tell the people what he has done, yet that all should be insufficient to frighten them away from his foot, while with smoke and fire and inward groans he threatens them daily with still further destruction. Nevertheless they hew the black vomit of his entrails into building stones, and over the spot where the house and its master were buried in a grave of fire do they build another dwelling for another inhabitant.

A curiosity, partaking of religious awe, led me to its summit. I had expected a peep into the mouth of the Inferno, a visible shaft, plumb down into the fiery bowels of the earth, but no mysterious, unfathomable gulf or chimney of the infernal foundry was to be seen. Cracks, indeed, red and white with fire, burnt a good pair of Hoby’s boots off my feet, as they crossed the region of the crater in every direction, and with their sulphurous vapour nearly stifled us all.

_November 20._--At this time there was in the environs of Naples a corps of Russians, understood to be 18,000 strong, but what the allies might have hoped to achieve by uniting an Anglo-Russian force of 25,000 or 30,000 men with the native Neapolitan forces, which altogether might pass perhaps in round numbers for an army of 50,000 or 60,000, it is no part of my present object to retrace. The rapid progress of French victory on the Continent would naturally make the hopes under which the expedition left England perfectly inapplicable to the present period. We had intended to assume grand operations in upper Italy in conjunction with the main armies of Austria and Russia. But now it seemed to be the general opinion that if the Anglo-Russian corps could enable the Neapolitan army to protect the frontier of its Sovereign’s dimensions, more could not be expected.

On the 30th November (and let it be remembered that this was two days only before the overwhelming blow of the battle of Austerlitz) His Neapolitan Majesty reviewed the British forces on a plain between Castel-à-Mare and Naples. Many Russian officers were also on the ground. The King, the Hereditary Prince, and Prince Leopold (then about ten years old) arrived on horseback, the Queen in her carriage, bringing with her old Cardinal Ruffo, who, presently descending, showed us his red stockings. Old Ferdinand appeared in great glee, dressed in a white uniform, with a large cocked hat, and his hair tied in a thick queue. “Avançons, avançons, mon Général,” he said to Sir John Stuart, who was leading him down the line. “Your troops are magnificent! your Army is as fine as your Navy! Body of Bacchus, what an imposing front!” cried the old monarch as he rode up to the Queen.

That elegant ruin, standing up in her carriage and addressing Sir John Stuart, cried, “C’est superbe! magnifique! mon Général. Ce sont des soldats dignes des Anglais, dignes de nos dieux tutélaires.”

She was now old and hazed, but her figure was erect and her mien princely and graceful. Her form had not yet lost all its original brightness, nor appeared less than a queen in ruins.

The line now broke into column, and passed the King and Queen in reviewing order. All on the ground, even the Russian officers, were loud in praise of the appearance of our troops, and certainly 3000 soldiers never formed a more complete and warlike line. I was much amused with the juvenile Prince Leopold, who, dressed like a little field-marshal, and mounted on a superb little charger, richly caparisoned, as often as the officers saluted his Royal parent, lifted the cocked hat from his flaxen head (displaying a queue thicker than his father’s) with a grace the most measured and majestic. Before the Royal party left the ground the wintry sun approached the western wave and blazed upon the brass plates and steely muskets of the soldiers, which Coleridge, who dined with us afterwards, called “a beautiful accident,” and clothed in poetic phrase.

We were a good deal struck with the Royal equipage. It was an old shabby carriage drawn by six miserable horses, tied together with ropes, very ill representing, to our English eyes, the eight proud cream-coloured Hanoverians and the gilded trappings which attach them to the splendid vehicle of our own Sovereign.

_December 10._--Early in December the restriction which kept us from visiting the capital was removed. Whether the motive had been to prevent our collision with our Russian confederates quartered in its environs, or whether French employees were still to be temporised with, I neither knew nor inquired. The army began its march to the frontier, and we who had duties still to perform in the neighbourhood of Naples freely satisfied our curiosity by frequent excursions to that interesting place.

Many paternal admonitions did we younger ones receive from the well-versed poet Coleridge to beware of the temptations of Naples, to beware the

Nods and becks and wreathed smiles, Quips and pranks and wanton wiles,

which would beckon us in every street, and chiefly to beware of the duchesses and princesses, for, said he, “The higher the rank the greater the danger.” But I think a youth who has learned to pass unharmed through the streets of London may be trusted in any town in Europe, for all the world is honest to the honest.

One day I went to the Theatre of St. Carlos, and while yet in the lobby my ears were imprisoned by a strain that seemed vocal indeed, but like no human voice which I had ever heard, too potent for woman, too clear and silvery for man.

On coming in sight of the stage the appearance of the divine songster corresponded to the perplexity of his voice--most fair and graceful to behold, but yet neither manly nor effeminate. This was that very Velluti, amongst the triumphs of whose unequalled talents it is not the least that they have prevailed upon the rugged Londoners to acknowledge the wondrous beauty of his celestial melody.

Before leaving Naples I saw there a great many of the things which ought to be seen, and can say truly that _I saw them_, and to be able to say this, is, I believe, the commonest reason for going to see them.

_December 22._--We were now on the march to Sepia, whither the army had gone to assume a defensive position. I had procured a handsome and excellent horse at Naples, whose round and well-fed back exactly fitted my English caparisons, and which soon acquired the name of Napolitanno; never man had a gentler or a better steed, and it redoubled the animation with which I looked to be immediately committed in actual service with the enemy to find myself mounted on so comely and spirited an animal.

Active service, however, for the present was not to be our lot, for before our duties near Naples permitted us to reach the army on march to the frontier, our commanding officer[2] rejoined us in haste, and set all hands at work to delineate the position of Castel-à-Mare, and to produce so exact a military plan of that bold promontory as would enable him to show fully to the Commander-in-Chief in what way it might be best occupied to cover the embarkation of the troops in presence of an enemy.

As one of the first objects of Napoleon after the battle of Austerlitz was the extinction of the Bourbon Crown of Naples and the occupation of the kingdom, no doubt it was become necessary for a British commander, committed upon the soil of that kingdom, to secure a position behind him, under cover of which he might in any event command his embarkation.

Sir James Craig, however, subsequently resolved (and indeed the well-known state of the Continent left him no alternative) not to wait till his little army came in contact with the overwhelming legions of France, but to embark without delay.

The Royal family also resolved not to trust themselves too near to an irritated foe, but to transfer the Court of Ferdinand to Palermo.

The great and ready skill therefore with which the wild and noble features of Castel-à-Mare had been applied to the purposes of military defence, and the zealous and unwearied pains with which we had portrayed and mapped out the fastnesses of these rugged mountains, were of no avail beyond that of scientific practice, as the Anglo-Russian army, long before the proximity of the enemy could communicate any hurry to its operations, quietly embarked where it had landed, and sailed for Sicily.

_December 30._--A great many horses which had been purchased for the field equipage of the army were left at Castel-à-Mare for want of means of transport, and for lack of some better arrangement they were successively turned loose into a large enclosure belonging to the dockyard. A scene took place among them very painful to witness, but yet highly picturesque. They were of both sexes, and consequently the most fierce and disastrous contests began amongst the males, whilst their iron heels armed them against each other with more than natural power, and soon these noble animals were disfigured by painful wounds, disabled limbs, and blood.

To have shot them as was done at Corunna would have been much more humane.

_December 31._--It was evening at the very close of the year 1805 when we set sail, and night when we beheld the volcanic blaze of Stromboli flash across the dark sea and disclose by fits the isles of Lipari.

Morning unveiled to us the features of those neighbouring shores, now narrowing more and more the gulf into which we were sailing, until they form that narrow and rapid sea that parts Calabria from the Trinacrian coast.

The view of Sicily apparent at this time, though not without beauty, is kept in complete subjection to the rich and lofty magnificence of the Italian shore, whose mountains, topped with cliff and clothed with wood and vine, come steep from sky to sea, with nought between but a border of golden sand, interrupted here and there by peaks and masses of rock for ever washed by the sapphire sea.

On one of these sandy bays, and quite at the foot of these rich and lofty mountains, lies the little town of Scylla and its boat-covered beach, then the main promontory flings a longer slope towards the sea, terminating the beach of Scylla and suddenly forming itself into the abrupt, naked, and primeval rock on which the castle of Scylla is erected.

This is the Scylla on which ships might run that would too anxiously avoid the whirlpool of Charybdis.

After passing the Faro of Messina, whereof Scylla forms one of the confines, the Sicilian shore assumes a bolder and richer form, till at length the romantic seat of Messina itself rivals the grandeur of the opposite scenery, and grafts upon the beauties of Nature somewhat of the proud aspect of metropolitan magnificence. I say this while surveying Messina from the azure bosom of her river-like sea, for her real magnificence has passed away, and her streets of palaces stand in ruins to this hour. But for the painter’s object no harm is done. The rich façades of elaborate architecture are standing entire, and their want of substance on the other side is concealed by the dense town behind, and the castle-crowned heights above, tier above tier of church or convent, each showing its firm footing upon the natural and luxuriant earth; the whole background is finished and filled up by mountains richly clothed with the verdure of dwarf wood and perennial flowers, the heavenly atmosphere ever glistening above and over all things. Nothing on this earth, I should say, can exceed the outward beauty of Messina.

1806.--It must have been about the middle of January when we entered the harbour, an immense round basin, enclosed by a curved tongue of level land jutting out from the line of coast like the blade of a sickle, from which it is said the town derives its name; the point of the sickle, terminating when at a short distance from the main shore, leaves only a narrow entrance into the harbour, which is defended by a fort established on the sickle point.

From every wind and every sea this harbour is perfectly sheltered and secure, but as the narrowness of its entrance makes it sometimes operose for vessels to go in and out, the ships of war and those which expect to be soon for sea anchor in the road outside.

The transports were moored close to each other, the ships of war anchored in the roadstead. The troops were kept on board, but the officers after a time were allowed to go on shore and look about them.

A few days afterwards the troops were disembarked, and we were soon established in the Convent of St. Francisco di Paolo.

The legend which conveys the tradition of this convent’s foundation is in various situations rudely represented on the walls, and consists of a man sailing across a narrow sea, with no other vessel, sail, or mast than such as his capôte and walking-staff would furnish. This was St. Francisco di Paolo, who in that miraculous manner is said to have passed over from Scylla to the spot whereon this convent was erected. Our accommodations here were not splendid, but such as we could enjoy after the confinement of shipboard. The monks were civil and obliging though poor, and the abbot presented us with some rich Calabrian wine that might have passed for cherry brandy.

It was now immediately the business of our Commandant[3] to place the city of Messina in a respectable state of defence, for as it was certain that the other side of the Straits would soon be occupied by the legions of Napoleon, Messina, which was to be the grand depot and headquarters of the British army, must be placed beyond the apprehension of surprise.

The military position of Messina is by nature extremely defective, and though the existing defences were not in all points the most judicious that could have been devised, yet were they of sufficient importance to incline our Chief to adopt the principle of improving what already existed, rather than that of substituting new ones. These works at Messina, extending to forts occupying the heights adjacent to the town, and overlooking the eddies of Charybdis and the castle and rock of Scylla, tended to bring me again and again, and for hours and hours, in contact with the lovely environs of Messina, whose charms are more indelibly imprinted on my memory than those of any other place in the world. We soon moved from the convent into the town, where we occupied a good house opposite to the quarters of the Commander-in-Chief.

_March._--This change of quarters gave me a commodious opportunity of seeing the reception of old King Ferdinand by his Messinese subjects. He had come from Palermo to Melazzo by sea, and from Melazzo (by advice of his Minister) had made his progress on horseback, so that he arrived at Messina miserably fatigued and covered with the dust and soil of travel. Yet the reception he met with from these loyal Sicilians was enough to revive him. In the mid-tide of the dense flood of bareheaded people, he and his horse were borne along down the principal street; on one side was Sir James Craig bowing in his balcony, and under the windows the vast crowd concentered their faces towards the King, so that in front of him they moved backwards and behind him they moved forwards, facing him on either side. And never in all my life of twenty years did I behold so touching an exhibition of the passion of loyalty.

The good-natured and kindly-mannered but wearied and worn old man, in the midst of his thanks and nods and brief salutations, was begging in some degree for quarter as they thronged about him, and while anxious to gratify their desire of touching him by extending his hands and suffering their pressure on his legs and knees, kept begging they would let him move on, that he might come to a place of rest.

Meantime they rent the air with their “Vivas,” and ever as he passed, a new concourse of knees was seen to bend, and picturesque and eager heads were bowed around him, pressing devout and reverent kisses on his legs or hands, the skirts of his coat, or the housings of his charger.

Never shall I forget the scene. In vain they might have talked to me of the weakness and tyranny of his reign, or of his misrule and neglect of these very subjects. He was their old and lawful king, now seen for the first time in the pressure of misfortune and in the weariness of that journey he had made to inquire of their disposition towards him. And this was their beautiful answer. They received him with embraces, with loud benedictions, with kisses and genuflexions, which plainly told him they remembered nothing but the sacred bond between him and them, endeared to them the more by his age and evil fortune and his struggle for independence.

At length, though to all appearance (and as I was afterwards credibly informed) deeply touched by this perhaps unexpected scene, he was glad enough to be got into his quarters, opposite to which a magnificent façade of a triumphal temple had been erected for the scaffolding of fireworks to be displayed before him.

At night forth he came bareheaded into the balcony which fronted the street, and after saluting the immense concourse of his shouting subjects, he discharged a rocket, which was guided by a wire-conductor into the centre of that gorgeous temple, and immediately it was living all about with quivering fire. No description can paint the succession of glorious shapes which, amid the clear darkness of an Italian night, animated that palace of fire, and at length, like the finale of grand concerts, every part became such a volcano of fiery gems, and fountains of burning spray, and whirlpools of dazzling stars, that I could not refrain from joining in the shouts of ecstasy.

In honour also of the King’s arrival, the most celebrated and costly of all their religious processions was anticipated. This was the procession of the Anima (or soul, as I understood) of the Virgin Mary; but as I know nothing of its origin and but little of its symbolical intention, I will not attempt any description.