This day I have devoted to famous private galleries of Paintings and Sculpture, having been again disappointed in attempting to gain a sight of the Apollo Belvedere and Picture Gallery of the Vatican. The time for opening these treasures to the public has lately been changed from 10 A. M. to noon, and they are only open regularly on Mondays; so that I was there a little before noon to be ready; but after waiting (with many others) a full hour, in front of an inexorable gate, without being able to learn why we were shut out or when the embargo would cease, I grew weary of the uncertainty and waste of time, and left. A little past 1 (I now understand), the gate was opened, but too late for me, as I did not return, and leave Rome for Florence to-morrow. Had the simplest notice been given that such a delay would take place, or had the officers at the gates been able to give any information, I should have had different luck. "They manage these things better in France."



XXVI.

THE ROMANS OF TO-DAY.

ROME, Monday, June 30, 1851.

The common people of Rome generally seem to me an intelligent, vivacious race, and I can readily credit the assurance of well-informed friends that they are mentally superior to most other Italians. It may be deemed strange that any other result should be thought possible, since the very earth around them, with all it bears, is so vivified with the spirit of Heroism, of Genius, and of whatever is most memorable in History. But the legitimate influences of Nature, of Art, and of Ancestry, are often overborne by those of Institutions and Laws, as is now witnessed on all the eastern and southern coasts of the Mediterranean, and I was rather disappointed in finding the present Romans a race of fully average capacities, intellectual and physical. A face indicating mental imbecility, or even low mediocrity, is very rarely met in those streets where the greater portion of the Romans seem to work and live. The women are brown, plain, bare-headed, and rather careless of personal appearance, but ready at repartee, self-possessed, energetic, with flashing eyes and countenances often indicating a depth of emotion and character. I do not think such pictures as abound in Rome could have been painted where the women were common-place and unideal.

But all with whom I can converse, and who are qualified to speak by residence in the country, give unfavorable accounts of the moral qualities of the Romans especially, and in these qualities I include Patriotism and all the civic virtues. That Italians, and those of Rome especially, are quite commonly sensual, selfish, indolent, fickle, dishonest, vicious, is the general report of the foreigners residing among them. Zealous Protestants will readily account for it by their Catholicism. My own prepossessions naturally lead me to the conclusion that much of the religious machinery in operation here is unfavorable to the development of high moral character. Whatever the enlightened and good may mean by these observances, it does seem to me that the ignorant and vulgar understand that the evil consequences of pleasant sins may be cheaply avoided by a liberal use of holy water, by bowings before the altar and reverent conformity to rituals and ceremonies.—This is certainly the great danger (in my sight) of the Catholic system, that it may lead its votaries to esteem conformity to outward and ceremonial requirements as essentially meritorious, and in some sense an offset for violations of the moral law. Not that this error is by any means confined to Catholics, for Christendom is full of Protestants who, though ready enough to proclaim that kissing the toe of St. Peter's statue is a poor atonement for violating the Commandments, and Adoration of the Virgin a very bad substitute for Chastity, do yet themselves prefer bad Christians to good Infidels, and would hail with joy the conversion of India or China to their creed, though it should involve no improvement of character or life. I know every one believes that such conversion would inevitably result in amendment of heart and morals, but how many desire it mainly for that reason? How large a proportion of Protestants esteem it the great end of Religion to make its votaries better husbands, brothers, children, neighbors, kindred, citizens? To my Protestant eyes, it seems that the general error on this point is more prevalent and more vital at Rome than elsewhere; and I have been trying to recollect, among all the immensity of Paintings, Mosaic and Statuary I have seen here, representing St. Peter in Prison, St. Peter on the Sea of Galilee, St. Peter healing the Cripple, St. Peter raising the Dead, St. Peter receiving the Keys, St. Peter suffering Martyrdom, &c. &c. (some of them many times over), I have any where met with a representation of that most remarkable and beneficent vision whereby the Apostle was instructed from Heaven that "Of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him." I presume such a representation must exist in a city where there are so many hundreds if not thousands of pictures of St. Peter doing, receiving or suffering; but this certainly is not a favorite subject here, or I should have seen it many times depicted. Who knows a Protestant city in which the aforesaid lesson given to Peter has been adequately dwelt on and heeded?

That the prevalence of Catholicism is not inconsistent with general uprightness and purity of morals is demonstrated in Ireland, in Switzerland, in Belgium, in the Tyrol, and elsewhere. The testimony of the great body of travelers and other observers with regard to the countries just named, affirms the general prevalence therein of those virtues which are the basis of the Family and the Church. And yet, the acknowledged state of things here is a grave fact which challenges inquiry and demands explanation. In the very metropolis of Catholic Christendom, where nearly all believe, and a great majority are at least ceremonially devout—where many of the best intellects in the Catholic communion have flourished and borne sway for more than fifteen centuries, and with scarcely a divided empire for the last thousand years—where Churches and Priests have long been more abundant than on any other spot of earth, and where Divine worship and Christian ordinances are scarcely intermitted for an hour, but are free and welcome to all, and are very generally attended—what is the reason that corruption and degeneracy should be so fearfully prevalent? If only the enemies of Rome's faith affirmed this degeneracy, we might fairly suppose it invented or exaggerated; but even the immediate Priesthood of this people, who may be presumed most unwilling and unlikely to deny their virtues or magnify their vices, declare them unfit to be trusted with power over their own political destinies, and indeed incapable of self-government. Such is the fundamental basis and essential justification of the rule now maintained in Rome, under the protection of foreign bayonets. This is a conquered city, virtually if not nominally in a state of siege, without assignable period. The Pope's guards are partly Swiss and partly native, that is, chosen from the families of the Nobility; but the "power behind the throne" is maintained by the thousands of French soldiers who garrison the city, and the tens of thousands of Austrian, Spanish and Neapolitan soldiers who would be pushed here upon the first serious attempt of the Romans to assert their right of self-government. Thus, "Order reigns in Warsaw," while Democracy bites its lip and bides its time.

Has Human Nature degenerated under Christian ministrations? There surely was a Roman people, some twenty-odd centuries ago, who were capable of self-government, and who maintained it long and creditably. Why should it be otherwise with the Romans of to-day? I do not believe it is. They have great vices I admit, for all testimony affirms it; that they might somewhat abuse Freedom I fear, for the blessed sunshine is painful and perilous to eyes long used to the gloom of the dungeon. But the experience of Freedom must tend to dispel the ignorance and correct the errors of its votaries, while Slavery only leads from bad to worse. If ten centuries of such rule as now prevails here have nowise qualified this people for Self-Government, what rational hope is there that ten more such would do it? If a reform is ever to be effected, it cannot be commenced too soon.

As to the actual government of Rome and her dependencies, it could not well be worse. The rulers fully understand that they are under no obligation to the people for the power they exercise, nor for the submission which it commands. The despotism which prevails is unmodified even by the hereditary despot's natural desire to secure the throne to his descendants by cultivating the good will of his people. The Pope is nominally sovereign, and all regard him as personally a pure and good man; but he exerts no actual power in the State, his time and thoughts being wholly devoted to the various and complicated cares of his vast Spiritual empire. Meantime, the Reaectionist influences so omnipotent with his predecessor, but which were repressed for a time after the present Pontiff's accession, have unchecked sway in the political administration. The way the present rulers of Rome read History is this—"Pius IX. came into power a Liberal and a Reformer, and did all he could for the promotion of Republican and Progressive ideas; for all which his recompense was the assassination of his Prime Minister, and his own personal expulsion from his throne and territories—which is quite enough of Liberalism for one generation; we, at least, will have no more of it." And they certainly live up to their resolution. It is currently reported that there are now Seventeen Thousand political prisoners confined here, but nobody who would tell can know how many there are, and I presume this statement is a gross exaggeration, significant only as an index of the popular feeling. The essential fact is that there might be Seventeen or Seventy Thousand thus imprisoned without publicity, known accusation or trial, save at the convenience of those ordering their arrest; and with no recognized right of the arrested to Habeas Corpus or any kindred process. Many of the best Romans of the age are in exile for Liberty's sake. I was reliably informed at Turin that there are at this time Three Hundred Thousand Political Refugees in the Kingdom of Sardinia, nearly all, of course, from the despotism of Lower Italy. Thus Europe is kept tranquil by a system of terror, which is efficient while the spell holds; but let it break at any point, and all will go together.

The Cardinals are the actual directors of State affairs here, and are popularly held responsible for all that is disliked in the Government. They would be likely to fare roughly in case of another revolution. They are privately accused of flagrant immoralities, as men so powerful and so unpopular would naturally be, whether with or without cause. I know no facts that sustain the accusation.

A single newspaper is now published in Rome, but I have heard it inquired for or mentioned but once since I came here, and then by a Scotchman studying Italian. It is ultra-despotic in its spirit, and would not be tolerated if it were not. It is a small, coarsely printed sheet, in good part devoted to Church news, giving great prominence to the progress of conversion from the English to the Romish communion. There are very few foreign journals taken or read in the Roman States. Lynn or Poughkeepsie probably, Newark or New-Haven certainly, buys and reads more newspapers than the entire Three Millions of People who inhabit the Papal States. I could not learn to relish such a state of things. I have just paid $3.70 (more than half of it to our American Consul) for the privilege of leaving the dominions of His Holiness, and shall speedily profit by the gracious permission.



XXVII.

CENTRAL ITALY—FLORENCE.

BOLOGNA, July 6, 1851.

"See Naples and die!" says the proverb: but I am in no hurry to "shuffle off this mortal coil," and rather weary of seeing. I think I should have found a few choice friends in Naples, but my time is limited, and the traveling through Southern Italy neither pleasant nor expeditious. Of Vesuvius in its milder moods I never had a high opinion; and, though I should have liked to tread the unburied streets of Pompeii, yet Rome has nearly surfeited me with ruins. So I shortened my tour in Italy by cutting off the farther end of it, and turned my face obliquely homeward from the Eternal City. What has the world to show of by-gone glory and grandeur which she cannot at least equal?

Let no one be sanguine as to his good resolutions. I as firmly resolved, when I first shook from my feet the dust of Civita Vecchia, that I never again would enter its gates, as I ever did to do or forbear any act whatever. But, after a tedious and ineffectual attempt to make up a party of Americans to come through from Rome to Florence direct, I was at last obliged to knock under. All the seats by Diligence or Mail on that route were taken ahead for a longer time than I could afford to wait; and offers to fill an extra coach if the proprietors would send one were utterly unavailing. Such a thing as Enterprise is utterly unknown south of Genoa, and the idea of any obligation on the part of proprietors of stage-lines to make extra efforts to accommodate an extra number of passengers is so queer that I doubt whether Italian could be found to express it. So some dozen or more who would gladly have gone through by land to Florence were driven back upon Civita Vecchia and Leghorn—I among the number.

Three of us left Rome in a private carriage at noon on Tuesday the 1st, and reached Civita Vecchia at 10 minutes past 9 P. M.—the inner gate having been closed at 9. One of my companions was known and responsibly connected at the port, and so was enabled to negotiate our admission, though the process was a tedious one, and our carriage had to be left in the outer court, or between the two walls. Here I left it at 10; it may have been got in afterward. We found all the rooms taken at the best Hotel (Orlandi), and were driven to accept such as there were left. The boat (Languedoc) was advertised to start for Leghorn at 7 next morning, by which time I succeeded in getting my Passport cleared (for no steamboat in these waters will give you a permit to embark until you have handed in your Passport, duly cleared, at its office, as well as paid for your passage); but the boat was coolly taking in water long after its advertised hour, and did not start until half past eight.

We had an unusually large number of passengers, about one hundred and fifty, representing nearly every European nation, with a goodly number of Americans; the day was cloudy and cool; the wind light and propitious; the sea calm and smooth; so that I doubt if there was ever a more favorable passage. I was sick myself, a result of the night-air of the Campagna, bad lodging and inability to obtain a salt-water bath in the morning, by reason of the Passport nuisance, but for which I should have been well and hearty. We made Leghorn (120 miles) in about eleven hours, which is very good time for the Mediterranean. But reaching the harbor of Leghorn was one thing, getting ashore quite another; an hour or more elapsed before any of us had permission to land. I was one of the two first who got off, through the preconcerted interposition of a powerful Leghorn friend who had procured a special permit from the Police, and at whose hospitable mansion we passed the night. I was unwell throughout; but an early bath in the Mediterranean was the medicine I required, and from the moment of taking it I began to recover. By seasonable effort, I recovered my Passport from the Police office, duly vised, at 10 A. M. and left by Railroad for Florence at 10 1/2, reaching the capital of Tuscany (60 miles) about 1 o'clock, P. M.

Florence (Italian Firenze) is pleasantly situated on both sides of the Arno, some forty miles in a direct line from its mouth. The river is here about the size of the Hudson at Sandy Hill or the Mohawk at Canajoharie, but subject to rapid swellings from rains in the Apennines above. One such occurred the night I was there, though very little rain fell at Florence. I was awakened in the night by the rushing and roaring of its waters, my window having only a street between it and the river, which subsided the next day, without having done any material damage.

That day was the 4th of July, and I spent most of it, under the guidance of friends resident at Florence, in looking through the galleries devoted to Paintings and Statuary in the two famous palaces of the reigning family and in the Academy. Although the collections embrace the Venus de Medicis and many admirable Paintings, I cannot say that my expectations were fully realized. Ill health may in part account for this; my recent acquaintance with the immense and multiform treasures of Art at Rome may also help explain my obtuseness at Florence. And yet I saw nothing in Rome with greater pleasure or profit than I derived from the hour I spent in the studio of our countryman POWERS, whose fame is already world-wide, and who I trust is now rapidly acquiring that generous competence which will enable him to spend the evening of his days in ease and comfort in his native land. The abundance of orders constantly pouring in upon him at his own prices does not induce him to abandon nor postpone his efforts in the ideal and more exalted sphere of his art, but rather to redouble those efforts; and it will yet be felt that his "Greek Slave" and "Fisher Boy," so widely admired, are not his loftiest achievements. I defy Antiquity to surpass—I doubt its ability to rival—his "Proserpine" and his "Psyche" with any models of the female head that have come down to us; and while I do not see how they could be excelled in their own sphere, I feel that Powers, unlike Alexander, has still realms to conquer, and will fulfill his destiny. If for those who talk of America quitting her proper sphere and seeking to be Europe when she wanders into the domain of Art, we had no other answer than POWERS, that name would be conclusive.

GREENOUGH is now absent from Florence. I met him at Turin, on his way to America, on account (I casually heard) of sickness in his family. But I obtained admission to his studio in Florence, and saw there the unfinished group on which he is employed by order of Congress, to adorn one of the yet empty niches in the Capitol. His execution is not yet sufficiently advanced to be judged, but the design is happy and most expressive.

I saw something of three younger American Sculptors now studying and working at Florence—HART of Kentucky, GALT of Virginia, and ROGERS of New-York. (IVES is absent—at Rome, I believe, though I did not meet him there.) I believe all are preparing to do credit to their country. HART has been hindered by a loss of models at sea from proceeding with the Statue of HENRY CLAY which he is commissioned by the Ladies of Virginia to fashion and construct; but he is wisely devoting much of his time to careful study and to the modeling of the Ideal before proceeding to commit himself irrevocably by the great work which must fix his position among Sculptors and make or mar his destiny. I have great confidence that what he has already carefully and excellently done is but a foretaste of what he is yet to achieve, and that his seeming hesitation will prove the surest and truest efficiency.

I think there are but few American painters in Florence. I met none but PAGE, who is fully employed and expects to spend some time in Italy. His health is better than during his last year in New-York.

* * * * *

The strong necessity of moving on compelled me to tear myself away from a pleasant party of Americans assembled at dinner in Florence last evening to celebrate the 76th Anniversary of American Independence, and take the Diligence at 8 o'clock for this place on the road to Venice, though no other American nor even an Englishman came along. I have found by experience that I cannot await the motions of others, nor can I find a party ready to take post-horses and so travel at rational hours. The Diligence or stage-coach traveling in Italy appears to be organized on purpose to afford the least possible accommodation at the most exorbitant cost. This city, for example, is 63 miles from Florence on the way to Padua and Venice, and the Diligence leaves Florence for Bologna at no other hour than 8 P. M. arriving here at 1 1/2 o'clock next day; fare 40 to 45 Tuscan pauls or $4.45 to $5. But when you reach Bologna at midday, after an all-night ride, you find no conveyance for any point beyond this until ten o'clock next morning, so that you must wait here twenty-one hours; and the Diligence might far better, so far as the travelers' convenience and comfort is concerned, have remained in Florence till an early hour in the morning, making the passage over the Apennines by day and saving their nights' rest. Three or four travelers may break over this absurd tyranny by taking post-horses; a single one has no choice but to submit. And, having reached Bologna, I tried to gain time, or at least avoid another night-ride, by taking a private carriage (vetturino) this afternoon for Ferrara, thirty miles further on, sleep there to-night, and catch a Diligence or Mail-Coach to-morrow morning, so as to reach Padua in the evening: but no—there is no coach out of Padua Venice-ward till 4 to-morrow afternoon, and I should gain nothing but extra fatigue and expense by taking a carriage to Ferrara, so I give it up. I must make most of the journey from Ferrara to Padua by night, and yet take as much time as though I traveled only by day,—for I am in Italy.

The valley of the Arno, especially for some miles on either side of Florence, is among the most fertile portions of this prolific land, and is laboriously though not efficiently cultivated. All the Grains grow luxuriantly throughout Italy, though Indian Corn is so thickly planted and so viciously cultivated that it has no chance to ear or fill well. There is enough labor performed on the average to insure sixty bushels of shelled grain to the acre, but the actual yield will hardly exceed twenty-five. And I have not had the first morsel of food prepared from this grain offered me since I reached the shores of Europe. Wheat is the favorite grain here, and, requiring less depth of soil than Indian corn, and having been much longer cultivated here, yields very fairly. Barley and Oats are grown, but to a limited extent; of Rye, still less. The Potato is planted very sparingly south of Piedmont, and not so commonly there as in Savoy. The Vine is a universal favorite, and rarely out of view; while it often seems to cover half the ground in sight. But it is not grown here in close hills as in France and around Cincinnati, but usually in rows some twenty or thirty feet apart, and trained on trees kept down to a hight of eight to twelve feet. Around Rome, a species of Cane is grown wherewith to support the vines after the manner of bean-poles, which, after serving a year or two in this capacity, is used for fuel, and new stalks of cane replace those which have been enfeebled by exposure and decay. The plan of training the vines on dwarfed trees (which seems to me by far the most natural) prevails here as well as on the other side of the Apennines; so that the vine-stalks are large and may be hundreds of years old, instead of being (apparently) fresh from the ground every year or two. The space between the vine-rows is usually sown with Wheat, but sometimes planted with Corn or laid down to Grass, and a moderate crop realized.

Crossing the Apennines mainly in the night, they seemed a little higher than the Green Mountains of Vermont, but lacking the thrifty forests of which I apprehend the proximity of Railroads is about to despoil that noble range. But the Apennines, though cultivated wherever they can be, are far more precipitous and sterile than their American counterpart, and seem to be in good degree composed of a whitish clay or marl which every rain is washing away, rendering the Arno after a storm one of the muddiest streams I ever saw. I presume, therefore, that the Apennines are, as a whole, less lofty and difficult now than they were in the days of Romulus, of Hannibal, or even of Constantine.

We crossed the summit about daylight, and began rapidly to descend, following down the course of one of the streams which find the Adriatic together near the mouth of the Po. At 5 A. M. we passed the boundary of Tuscany and entered the Papal territory, so that our baggage had to be all taken down and searched, and our Passports re-scrutinized—two processes to which I am becoming more accustomed than any live eel ever was to being skinned. The time consumed was but an hour and the pecuniary swindle trifling. But though the hour was early and there were few habitations in sight, there soon gathered around us a swarm of most importunate beggars—brown, withered old women spinning on distaffs held in the hand (a process I fancied the world had outgrown), and stopping every moment to hold out a dirty claw, with a most disgusting grimace and whine—"For the love of God, Signor"—with ditto old men, and children of various sizes, the youngest who could walk seeming as apt at beggary as their grandames who have followed it, "off and on," for seventy or eighty years. If the ancient Romans had equaled their living progeny in begging, they need not have dared and suffered so much to achieve the mastery of the world—they might have begged it, and saved an infinity of needless slaughter. These people have no proper pride, no manly shame, because they have no hope. Untaught, unskilled in industry, owning nothing, their government an absolute despotism, their labor only required at certain seasons, and deemed amply rewarded with a York shilling or eighteen pence per day, and themselves the virtual serfs of great landholders who live in Rome or Bologna and whom they rarely or never see—is it a wonder that they stoop to plead and whine for coppers around every carriage that traverses their country? That they fare miserably, their scanty rags and pinched faces sufficiently attest; that they are indolent and improvident I can very well believe: for when were uneducated, unskilled, hopeless vassals anything else? Italy, beautiful, bounteous land! is everywhere haggard with want and wretchedness, but these seem nowhere so general and chronic as in the Papal territories. Every political division of Italy but this has at least some section of Railroad in operation; Rome, though in the heart of all and the great focus of attraction for travelers, has not the first mile and no prospect of any, though it would seem a good speculation to build one if it were to be used only in transporting hither the Foreign troops absolutely essential here to keep the people quiet in their chains. "And this, too, shall pass away!"



XXVIII.

EASTERN ITALY—THE PO.

VENICE, Tuesday, July 8.

I never saw and cannot hope to see hereafter a region more blessed by Nature than the great plain of Upper Italy, whereof the Po is the life-blood. It is very fertile and beautiful where I first traversed it near its head, from the foot of Mount Cenis by Turin to Alessandria and Novi, on my way down to Genoa; yet it is richer and lovelier still where I have just recrossed it from the foot of the Apennines by Bologna, Ferrara, Rovigo and Padua on my way from Florence to Venice. Irrigation, which might easily be almost universal in Piedmont, seems there but an occasional expedient, while here it is the breath of life. From Bologna to Rovigo (and I presume on to Padua, though there night and drowsiness prevented my observing clearly), the whole country seems completely intersected by Canals constructed in the palmier days of Italy on purpose to distribute the fertilizing waters of the Po and the Adige over the entire face of the country and dispense them to every field and meadow. The great highway generally runs along the bank of one of these Canals, which are filled from the rivers when they have just been raised by rains and are thus surcharged with fertilizing matter, and drawn off from day to day thereafter to refresh and enrich the remarkably level plain they traverse. Thus not only the plain and the glades lying nearer the sources of the rivers, but the sterile, rugged crests of the Alps and Apennines which enclose this great basin are made to contribute evermore to the fruitfulness of its soil, so that Despotism, Ignorance, Stolidity, Indolence and Unthrift of all kinds vainly strive to render it other than the Garden of Europe. The banks of the Canals and the sides of the highways are generally lined with trees, rows of which also traverse many if not most of the fields, so that from certain points the whole country seems one vast, low forest or "timbered opening" of Poplar, Willow, Mulberry, Locust, &c. There are a few Oaks, more Elms, and some species I did not recognize, and the Vine through all this region is trained on dwarfed or shortened trees, sometimes along the roadside, but oftener in rows through one-fourth of the fields, while in a few instances it is allowed thus to obtain an altitude of thirty or forty feet. Of Fruit, I have seen only the Apricot and the Cherry in abundance, but there are some Pears, while the Orange and Lemon are very plentiful in the towns, though I think they are generally brought from Naples and the Mediterranean coast. But finer crops of Wheat, Grass, Hemp, &c., can grow nowhere than throughout this country, while the Indian Corn which is abundantly planted, would yield as amply if the people knew how to cultivate it. Ohio has no better soil nor climate for this grain. Of Potatoes or other edible roots I have seen very little. Hemp is extensively cultivated, and grows most luxuriantly. Man is the only product of this prolific land which seems stunted and shriveled. Were Italy once more a Nation, under one wise and liberal government, with a single tariff, coinage, mail-post, &c., a thorough system of common school education, a small navy, but no passports, and a public policy which looked to the fostering and diversifying of her industry, she might easily sustain and enrich a population of sixty millions. As it is, one-half of her twenty-five millions are in rags, and are pinched by hunger, while inhabiting the best wheat country in Europe, from which food is constantly and largely exported. There are at least one hundred millions of dollars locked up in useless decorations of churches, and not one common school-house from Savoy to Sicily. A little education, after a fashion, is fitfully dispensed by certain religious and charitable foundations, so that the child lucky enough to be an orphan or illegitimate has a chance to be taught to read and write; but any such thing as a practical recognition of the right to education, or as a public and general provision for imparting it, is utterly unknown here. Grand and beautiful structures are crowded in every city, and are crumbling to dust on every side; a single township dotted at proper intervals with eight or ten school-houses would be worth them all. With infinite water power, cheaper labor, and cheaper food than almost any other country in the civilized world, and millions of children at once naked and idle because no one will employ them at even six-pence a day, she has not one cotton or woolen factory that I have yet seen, and can hardly have one at all, though her mountains afford vast and excellent sheep-walks, and Naples can grow cotton if she will. England and Germany manufacture nearly all the few fabrics of cotton or wool worn here, because those who should lead, instruct, and employ this people, are blind to their duty or recreant to its obligations. Italy, once the light of the world, is dying of aristocratic torpor and popular ignorance, whence come indolence, superstition, and wide-spread demoralization and misery.

Bologna is a walled city of Seventy Thousand inhabitants, with about as much trade and business of all kinds as an American village of ten to twenty thousand people. I doubt that thirty persons per day are carried into or brought out of it by all public conveyances whatever. It is well built on narrow streets, like nearly all Italian cities, and manifests considerable activity in the way of watching gates and viseing Passports. Though in the Papal territory, it is under Austrian guardianship; an Austrian sentinel constantly paced the court-yard of the "Hotel Brun" where I stopped. Though the second town in the Pope's temporal dominions, strongly walled, it has no Military strength, being commanded by a hill a short mile south of it—the last hill I remember having seen till I reached Venice and looked across over the lagoons to the Euganian hills on the main land to south-west. The most notable thing I saw in Bologna was an awning of sheeting or calico spread over the centre of the main street on a level with the roofs of the houses for a distance of half a mile or so. I should distrust its standing a strong gust, but if it would, the idea is worth borrowing.

After a night-ride over the Apennines from Florence, and a detention of twenty-one hours at Bologna, I did hope that our next start would be "for good"—that there would be no more halt till we reached Padua. But I did not yet adequately appreciate Italian management. A Yankee stage-coach running but once a day between two such cities as Bologna and Ferrara would start at daylight and so connect at the latter place as to set down its passengers beside the Railroad in Padua (86 to 90 miles of the best possible staging from Bologna) in the evening of the same day. We left Bologna at 10 A. M., drove to Ferrara, arrived there a little past 2; and then came a halt of four hours—till six P. M. when the stage started for a night-trip to Padua—none running during the day. But a Yankee stage would have one man for manager, driver, &c., who would very likely be the owner also of the horses and a partner in the line; we started from a grand office with two book-keepers and a platoon of lackeys and baggage-smashers, with a "guard" on the box, and two "postillions" riding respectively the nigh horses of the two teams, there being always three horses at the pole and sometimes three on the lead also, at others only two. We had half a dozen passengers to Ferrara; for the rest of the way, I had this extensive traveling establishment to myself. I do not think the average number of passengers on a corresponding route in our country could be so few as twenty. Such are some of the points of difference between America and Italy.

We crossed the Po an hour after leaving Ferrara, and here passed out of the Papal into the unequivocally Austrian territory—the Kingdom of Venice and Lombardy. There were of course soldiers on each side (though all of a piece), police officers, a Passport scrutiny and a fresh look into my carpet-bags, mainly (I understand) for Tobacco! When any tide-waiter finds more of that about me than the chronic ill breeding of traveling smokers compels me to carry in my clothes, he is welcome to confiscate all I possess. But they found nothing here to cavil at, and I passed on.

There is no town where we crossed the Po, only a small village on either side, and we followed down the left bank in a north-easterly direction for several miles without seeing any considerable place. The river has here, as through nearly its whole course, a strong, rapid current, and was swollen and rendered turbid by recent rains. I judge that its surface was decidedly above the level of the adjacent country, which is protected from inundation (like the region of the Lower Mississippi) by strong embankments or levees, at first natural doubtless—the product of the successive overflows of centuries but subsequently strengthened and perfected by human labor. The force of the current being strongest in the center of the river, there is either stillness or an eddy near the banks, so that the sediment with which the current is charged tends constantly to deposition on or against the banks. When the river rises so as to overflow those banks, the downward current is entirely unfelt there and the deposition becomes still more rapid, the proportion of earthy matter to that of water being much greater then than at other times. Thus great, rapid rivers running through vast plains like these gradually form levees in the course of many centuries, their channels being defined and narrowed by their own deposits until the surface of their waters, at least in times of flood, is raised above the level of the surrounding country, often several feet. When the great swamps of Louisiana shall have been drained and cultivated for ages, they too will doubtless be fertilized and irrigated by canals, as the great plain traversed by the Po now is. And here too, though the acres are generally well cared for, I saw tracts of considerable extent which, from original defect or unskillful management, stand below the water level of the country, and so are given over to flags, bogs and miasma, when only a foot or two of elevation is needed to render them salubrious and most productive.

There are many more good dwellings on this plain than in the rural portion of Lower Italy. These are generally built of brick, covered with stucco or cement and white-washed, and, being nearly square in form, two stories high, and without the long, sloping roofs common with us, are rather symmetrical and graceful, in appearance. Their roofs are tiled with a long, cylindrical brick, of which a first course is laid with the hollow upward, and another over the joints of this with the hollow down, conducting the water into the troughs made by the former and so off the house. The peasants' cottages are thatched with flags or straw, and often built of the latter material. Of barns there are relatively few, most of the wheat being stacked when harvested, and trodden out by oxen on floors under the open sky. I have not seen a good harness nor a respectable ox-yoke in Italy, most of the oxen having yokes which a Berkshire hog of any pretensions to good breeding would disdain to look through. These yokes merely hold the meek animals together, having no adaptation to draft, which is obtained by a cobbling filigree of ropes around the head, bringing the heaviest of the work upon the horns! The gear is a little better than this—as little as you please—while for Carts and Waggons there are few school-boys of twelve to fifteen in America who would not beat the average of all I have seen in Italy. Their clumsiness and stupidity are so atrocious that the owners do well in employing asses to draw them: no man of feeling or spirit could endure the horse-laughs they must extort from any animal of tolerable sagacity. To see a stout, two-handed man coming home with his donkey-load of fuel from a distant shrubbery, half a day of the two having been spent in getting as much as would make one good kitchen-fire, is enough to try the patience of Job.

Although the Po must be navigable and has been navigated by steamboats for many miles above this point, until obstructed by rapids, yet nothing like a steamboat was visible. The only craft I saw attempting to stem its current was a rude sort of ark, like a wider canal-boat, drawn by three horses traveling on a wide, irregular tow-path along the levee or bank. I presume this path does not extend many miles without meeting impediments. Quite a number of ruinous old rookeries were anchored in the river at intervals, usually three to six abreast, which I found to be grist-mills, propelled by the strong current, and receiving their grain from the shore and returning the flour by means of small boats. Our ferry-boat was impelled by what is termed (I think) a "rope ferry"—a series of ropes and boats made fast to some anchorage in the stream above, and moving it vigorously and expeditiously from one bank to the other by the mere force of the current. It is quite evident that modern Italy did not originate this contrivance, nor even the idea that a rapid river could be induced to move a large boat obliquely up its stream as well as down it. I should say the Po is here rather more than half a mile wide.

Three hours later, we crossed in like manner at Rovigo the Adige, a much smaller but still a large river, about the size of the Connecticut at Hartford. It has its source exclusively in the Tyrolean Alps, but for the last hundred miles of its course runs parallel with the Po, through the same plain, at a medium distance of about twenty miles, and has the same general characteristics. It was quite high and muddy when we crossed it.

As midnight drew on, I grew weary of gazing at the same endless diversity of grain-fields, vineyards, rows of trees, &c., though the bright moon was now shining, and, shutting out the chill night-air, I disposed myself on my old great-coat and softest carpet-bag for a drowse, having ample room at my command if I could but have brought it into a straight line. But the road was hard, the coach a little the uneasiest I ever hardened my bones upon, and my slumber was of a disturbed and dubious character, a dim sense of physical discomfort shaping and coloring my incoherent and fitful visions. For a time I fancied myself held down on my back while some malevolent wretch drenched the floor (and me) with filthy water: then I was in a rude scuffle and came out third or fourth best, with my clothes badly torn; anon I had lost my hat in a strange place and could not begin to find it; and at last my clothes were full of grasshoppers and spiders who were beguiling their leisure by biting and stinging me. The misery at last became unbearable and I awoke.—But where? I was plainly in a tight, dark box, that needed more air: I soon recollected that it was a stage-coach, wherein I had been making my way from Ferrara to Padua. I threw open the door and looked out. Horses, postillions and guard were all gone: the moon, the fields, the road were gone: I was in a close court-yard, alone with Night and Silence: but where? A church clock struck three; but it was only promised that we should reach Padua by four, and I, making the usual discount on such promises, had set down five as the probable hour of our arrival. I got out to take a more deliberate survey, and the tall form and bright bayonet of an Austrian sentinel, standing guard over the egress of the court-yard, were before me. To talk German was beyond the sweep of my dizziest ambition, but an Italian runner or porter instantly presented himself. From him I made out that I was in Padua of ancient and learned renown (Italian Padova), and that the first train for Venice would not start for three hours yet. I followed him into a convenient Cafe, which was all open and well lighted, where I ordered a cup of chocolate and proceeded leisurely to discuss it. When I had finished, the other guests had all gone out, but daylight was coming in, and I began to feel more at home. The Cafe tender was asleep in his chair; the porter had gone off; the sentinel alone kept awake on his post. Soon the welcome face of the coach-guard, whom I had borne company from Bologna, appeared; I hailed him, obtained my baggage, hired a porter, and, having nothing more to wait for, started at a little past four for the Railroad station, nearly a mile distant; taking observations as I went. Arrived at the depot, I discharged my porter, sat down and waited for the place to open, with ample leisure for reflection. At six o'clock I felt once more the welcome motion of a Railroad car, and at eight was in Venice.



XXIX.

VENICE.

MILAN, Wednesday, July 9, 1851.

Venice! Queen of the Adriatic! "City of the Heart!" how can I ever forget thee? Brief, too brief was my halt amid thy glorious structures, but such eras are measured not by hours, but by sensations, and my first day in Venice must ever hold its place among the most cherished recollections of my life.

Venice lies so absolutely and wholly on the water's bosom that the landward approach to her is not imposing and scarcely impressive. The view from the sea-side may be somewhat better, but not much—not comparable to that of Genoa from the Mediterranean. No part of the islets upon and around which Venice was built having been ever ten feet above the surface of the Adriatic, while the adjacent mainland for miles is also just above the water level, you do not see the city from any point of observation outside of it—only the distant outline of a low mass of buildings perhaps two miles long, but which may not be three blocks wide, for aught you can see. Formerly two miles of shallow lagoon separated the city from the land; but this has been overcome by the heavy piling and filling required for the Railroad which now connects Venice with Verona, via Vicenza, and is to reach this city via Brescia whenever the Austrian Government shall be able to complete it. At present a noble enterprise, through one of the richest, most populous and most productive Agricultural regions of the earth, and connecting the Political with the Commercial metropolis of Austrian Italy, is arrested when half-finished, entailing a heavy annual charge on the Treasury for the interest of the sum already expended, yet yielding little or no net revenue in return, because of its imperfect condition. The wisdom of this would be just equal to that of our ten years' halt with the Erie Canal Enlargement, except for the fact that the Austrians would borrow and complete if they could, while New York has had no such excuse for her slothful blunder.

The approach to Venice across the Lagoon is like that of Boston across the Charles River marshes from the West, though of course on a much grander scale. The embankment or road-bed was commenced by gigantic piling, and is very broad and substantial. You reach the station just in the edge of the city, run the Passport gauntlet, and are let out on the brink of a wide canal, where dozens of gondoliers are soliciting your custom. I engaged one, and directed him (at a venture) to row me to the Hotel l'Europe. This proved (like nearly or quite all the other great Hotels) to be located on the same line or water-front with the Ducal Palace, Church of St. Mark, and most of the notabilities of modern Venice, with the inner harbor and shipping just on the left and the Adriatic in plain sight before us, only two or three little islets covered with buildings partially intervening. Of course, my first row was a long one, quite through the city from west to east, including innumerable turnings and windings. After this, whomsoever may assert that the streets of Venice are dusty or not well watered, I shall be able to contradict from personal observation.

After outward renovation and breakfast, I hired a boat for the day, and went in search of American friends—a pursuit in which I was ultimately successful. With these I visited the various council-rooms and galleries in the Ducal Palace, saw the "Lion's Mouth," descended into the ancient dungeons, now tenantless, and crossed the "Bridge of Sighs." These last are not open to the public, but a silver key gives access to them. Thence we visited the famous picture-gallery of the Manfrini Palace, and after that the Academy, thus consuming the better part of the day.

The works of Art in the Grand Palace did not, as a whole, impress me strongly. Most of the larger ones are historical illustrations of the glories of Venice; the battle of Lepanto; the taking of Zara; the Pope and Venice uniting against or triumphing over the Emperor, &c., &c. Some of the most honorable achievements of Venice, including her long and memorable defense of Candia (or Crete) against the desperate and finally successful attacks of the Turks, are not even hinted at. But these galleries are palpably in a state of dilapidation and decay, which implies that the Austrian masters of Venice, though they cannot stoop to the meanness of demolishing or mutilating the memorials of her ancient glories, will be glad to see them silently and gradually perish. The whole Palace has a dreary and by-gone aspect, seeming conscious that either itself or the Austrian soldiers drilling in front of it must be an anachronism—that both cannot belong to the same place and time.

"The traitor clock forsakes the hours, And points to times, O far away!"

The paintings in the Manfrini Palace seem to me by no means equal to those in the Orsini, Doria, and some other private collections of Rome; even of those extravagantly praised by Lord Byron, I failed to perceive the admirable qualities apparent to his more cultivated taste. The collection in the Academy I thought much better, but still far enough behind similar galleries in Rome. The fact is, modern Italy is poverty-stricken in Art and Genius as well as in Industry, and lives upon the trophies and the memory of her past greatness. I have not heard in all this land the name of one living Italian mentioned as likely to attain eminence in Painting, nor even in Sculpture.

Toward evening, my friend and I ascended the Campanile or Bell-Tower of St. Mark's, some 330 feet high, and had thence a glorious view of the city and its neighborhood. From this tower, the houses might almost be counted, though of the Canals which separate them only a few of the largest are discerned. But the port, the shipping outside, the gardens (naturally few and contracted), the adjacent main-land, the Railroad embankment across the Lagoon, the blue Euganian hills in the distance, &c., &c., are all as palpable as Boston Harbor from Bunker Hill Monument. Immediately beneath is the Place of St. Mark, the Wall-street of Venice; just beside you is the old Palace and the famous Cathedral Church of St. Mark; to the north is the Armory, one of the largest and most interesting in Europe; while the dome of every Church in Venice and all the windings of the Grand Canal are distinctly visible. An Austrian steamship in the harbor and an Austrian regiment marching from the north end of the city into the grand square to take post there, completed the panorama. The sun setting in mild radiance after a most lovely summer day, and the full moon shining forth in all her luster, gave it a wondrous richness and beauty of light and shadow. I was loth indeed to tear myself away from its contemplation and commence the tedious descent of the now darkened circular way up and down the inside of the tower.

In the evening, we improved our gondoliers' time in rowing leisurely from one point of interest to another. Together we stood on the true Rialto—a magnificent (and the only) bridge over the Grand Canal, in good part covered with shops of one kind or another. Here a boy was industriously and vociferously trying to sell a lot of cucumbers, which he had arranged in piles of three or four each, and was crying "any pile for" some piece of money, which I was informed was about half a Yankee cent. Vegetables, and indeed provisions of all kinds, are very cheap in Venice. I said this bridge is a grand one, as it is; but Venice is full of bridges across its innumerable canals, and nearly all are of the best construction. Arches more graceful in form, or better fitted to defy the assaults of time, I have never seen.

We passed from the true to Shakspeare's Rialto—the ancient Exchange of Venice, where its large Commercial and Moneyed transactions took place prior to the last three centuries. Here is seen the ancient Bank of Venice—the first, I believe, established in the world; here also the "stone of shame"—an elevated post which each bankrupt was compelled to take and hold for a certain time, exposed to the derision of the confronting thousands. (Now-a-days it is the bankrupt who flouts, and his too confiding creditors who are jeered and laughed at.) This ancient focus of the world's commerce is now abandoned to the sellers of market vegetables, who were busily arranging their cabbages, &c., for the next morning's trade when we visited it.

Venice is full of deserted Palaces, which, though of spacious dimensions and of the finest marble, may be bought for less than the cost of an average brick house in the upper part of New-York. The Duchess de Berri, mother of the Bourbon Pretender to the throne of France, has bought one of these and generally inhabits it; the Rothschilds own another; the dancer Taglioni, it is said, owns four, and so on. Cheap as they are, they are a poorer speculation than even corner lots in a lithographic city of Nebraska or Oregon.

That evening in the gondola, with one old and two newer friends, is marked with a white stone in my recollection. To bones aching with rough riding in Diligences by night as well as day, the soft cushions and gliding motion of the boat were soothing and grateful as "spicy gales from Araby the blest." The breeze from the Adriatic was strong and refreshing after the fervid but not excessive heat of the day, and the clear, mild moon seemed to invest the mossy and crumbling palaces with a softened radiance and spiritual beauty. Boats were passing on every side, some with gay parties of three to six, others with but two passengers, who did not seem to need the presence of more, nor indeed to be conscious that any others existed. The hum of earnest or glad voices here contrasted strongly with silence and meditation there. Venice is a City of the Past, and wears her faded yet queenly robes more gracefully by night than by day.

Yes, the Venice of to-day is only a reminiscence of glories that were, but shall be never again. Wealth, Luxury, Aristocracy ate out her soul; then Bonaparte, perfidious despot that he ever was, robbed her of her independence; finally the Holy Alliance of conquerors of Bonaparte made his wrong the pretext for another, and wholly gave her to her ancient enemy Austria, who greedily snatched at the prey, though it was her assistance rendered or proffered to Austria in 1798-9 which gave Napoleon his pretext for crushing her. Her recent struggle for independence, though fruitless, was respectable, and protracted beyond the verge of Hope; and not even Royalist mendacity has yet pretended that her revolt from Austria, or her prolonged defence under bombardment and severe privation was the work of foreigners. But the Croat again lords it in her halls; Trieste is stealing away her remnant of trade; and the Railroads which should regain or replace it are postponed from year to year, and may never be completed, or at least not until it is utterly too late. Weeds gather around the marble steps of her palaces; her towers are all swerving from their original uprightness, and there is neither energy nor means to arrest their fall. Nobody builds a new edifice within her precincts, and the old ones, though of the most enduring materials and construction, cannot eternally resist the relentless tooth of Time. Full of interest as is everything in Venice, I do not remember to have detected there the effectual working of a single idea of the last century, save in the Railroad, which barely touches without enlivening her, the solitary steamboat belonging to Trieste, and two or three larger gondolas marked "Omnibus" this or that, which appeared to be conveying good loads of passengers from one end of the city to the other for one-sixth or eighth of the price which the same journey solus cost me. The Omnibus typifies ASSOCIATION—the simple but grandly fruitful idea which is destined to renovate the world of Industry and Production, substituting Abundance and Comfort for Penury and Misery. For Man, I trust, this quickening word is yet seasonable; for Venice it is too late. It is far easier to found two new cities than to restore one dead one. Fallen Queen of the Adriatic! a long and mournful Adieu!



XXX.

LOMBARDY.

MILAN, Thursday, July 10, 1851.

Lombardy is of course the richest and most productive portion of Italy. Piedmont alone vies with her, and is improving far more rapidly, but Lombardy has great natural capacities peculiarly her own. Her soil, fertile and easily tilled from the first, was long ago improved by a system of irrigation which, probably from small and casual beginnings, gradually overspread the whole table land, embracing, beside that of the Adige, the broad valley of the Po and the narrower intervals of its many tributaries, which, rushing down from the gorges of the Alps on the west and the north, are skillfully conducted so as to refresh and fertilize the whole plain, and, finding their way ultimately to the Po, are thence drawn again by new canals to render like beneficence to the lower, flatter intervals of Venezia and the Northern Papal States. Nowhere can be found a region capable of supporting a larger population to the square mile than Lombardy.

American Agriculture has just two arts to learn from Lombardy—IRRIGATION and TREE-PLANTING. Nearly all our great intervales might be irrigated immensely to the profit of their cultivators. Even where the vicinity of mountains or other high grounds did not afford the facility here taken advantage of, I am confident that many plains as well as valleys might be profitably irrigated by lifting water to the requisite height and thence distributing it through little canals or ditches as here. Where a head of water may be obtained to supply the requisite power, the cost need not be considerable after the first outlay; but, even though steam-power should be requisite, in connection with the admirable Pumping machinery of our day, Irrigation would pay liberally in thousands of cases. Such easily parched levels as those of New-Jersey and Long Island would yield at least double their present product if thoroughly irrigated from the turbid streams and marshy ponds in their vicinity. Water itself is of course essential to the growth of every plant, but the benefits of Irrigation reach far beyond this. Of the fertilizing substances so laboriously and necessarily applied to cultivating lands, at least three times as great a proportion is carried off in running water as is absorbed and exhausted by the crops grown by their aid; so that if Irrigation simply returned to the land as much fertility as the rains carry off, it would, with decent husbandry, increase in productiveness from year to year. The valley of the Nile is one example among many of what Irrigation, especially from rivers at their highest stage, will do for the soil, in defiance of the most ignorant, improvident and unskillful cultivation. Such streams as the Raritan, the Passaic and most of the New Jersey rivers, annually squander upon the ocean an amount of fertilizing matter adequate to the comfortable subsistence of thousands. By calculation, association, science, labor, most of this may be saved. One hundred thousand of the poor immigrants annually arriving on our shores ought to be employed for years, in New-Jersey alone, in the construction of dams, canals, &c., adequate to the complete irrigation of all the level or moderately sloping lands in that State. Farms are cheaper there to-day than in Iowa for purchasers who can pay for and know how to use them. Long Island can be rendered eminently fertile and productive by systematic and thorough Irrigation; otherwise I doubt that it ever will be.

Much of Lombardy slopes very considerably toward the Po, so that the water in the larger or distributing canals is often used to run mills and supply other mechanical power. It might be used also for Manufacturing if Manufactures existed here, and nearly every farmer might have a horse-power or so at command for domestic uses if he chose. We passed yesterday the completely dry beds of what seemed to be small rivers, their water having been entirely drawn away into the irrigating canals on either side, while on either hand there were grist-mills busily at work, and had been for hundreds of years, grinding by water-power where no stream naturally existed. If I mistake not, there are many such in this city, and in nearly all the cities and villages of Lombardy. If our farmers would only investigate this matter of Irrigation as thoroughly as its importance deserves, they would find that they have neglected mines of wealth all around them more extensive and far more reliable than those of California. One man alone may not always be able to irrigate his farm except at too great a cost; but let the subject be commended to general attention, and the expense would be vastly diminished. Ten thousand farms together, embracing a whole valley, may often be irrigated for less than the cost of supplying a hundred of them separately. I trust our Agricultural papers will agitate this improvement.

As to Tree-Planting, there can be no excuse for neglecting it, for no man needs his neighbor's cooeperation to render it economical or effective. We in America have been recklessly destroying trees quite long enough; it is high time that we began systematically to reproduce them. There is scarcely a farm of fifty acres or over in any but the very newest States that might not be increased in value $1,000 by $100 judiciously expended in Tree-Planting, and a little care to protect the young trees from premature destruction. All road-sides, steep hill-sides, ravines and rocky places should be planted with Oak, Hickory, Chestnut, Pine, Locust, &c., at once, and many a farm would, after a few years, yield $100 worth of Timber annually, without subtracting $10 from the crops otherwise depended on. By planting Locust, or some other fast-growing tree, alternately with Oak, Hickory, &c., the former would be ready for use or sale by the time the latter needed the whole ground. Utility, beauty, comfort, profit, all combine to urge immediate and extensive Tree-Planting; shall it not be commenced?

Here in Lombardy there is absolutely no farm, however small, without its rows of Mulberry, Poplar, Walnut, Cherry, &c., overshadowing its canals, brooks, roads, &c., and traversing its fields in all directions. The Vine is very generally trained on a low tree, like one of our Plum or small Cherry trees, so that, viewed at a distance or a point near the ground, the country would seem one vast forest, with an undergrowth mainly of Wheat and Indian Corn. Potatoes, Barley, Rye, &c., are grown, but none of them extensively, nor is much of the soil devoted to Grass. There are no forests, properly so called, but a few rocky hill-sides, which occur at intervals, mainly about half way from Venice to Milan, are covered with shrubbery which would probably grow to trees if permitted. Wheat and all Summer Grains are very good; so is the Grass; so the Indian Corn will be where it is not prevented by the vicious crowding of the plants and sugar-loaf hoeing of which I have frequently spoken. I judge that Italy altogether, with an enormous area planted, will realize less than half the yield she would have from the same acres with judicious cultivation. With Potatoes, nearly the same mistake is made, but the area planted with these is not one-tenth that of Corn and the blunder far less vital.

This ought to be the richest country in the world, yet its people and their dwellings do not look as if it were so. I have seen a greater number of Soldiers and Beggars in passing through it than of men at work; and nearly all work out-doors here who work at all. The dwellings are generally shabby, while Barns are scarce, and Cattle are treading out the newly harvested wheat under the blue sky. New houses and other signs of improvement are rare, and the people dispirited. And this is the garden of sunny, delicious Italy!

THE ITALIANS.

I leave Italy with a less sanguine hope of her speedy liberation than I brought into it. The day of her regeneration must come, but the obstacles are many and formidable. Most palpable among these is an insane spirit of local jealousy and rivalry only paralleled by the "Corkonian" and "Far-down" feud among the Irish. Genoa is jealous of Turin; Turin of Milan; Florence of Leghorn; and so on. If Italy were a Free Republic to-day, there would be a fierce quarrel, and I fear a division, on the question of locating its metropolis. Rome would consider herself the natural and prescriptive capital; Naples would urge her accessible position, unrivaled beauty and ascendency in population; Florence her central and healthful location; Genoa her extensive commerce and unshaken devotion to Republican Freedom, &c., &c. And I should hardly be surprised to see some of these, chagrined by an adverse decision, leaguing with foreign despots to restore the sway of the stronger by way of avenging their fancied wrongs!

And it is too true that ages of subjugation have demoralized, to a fearful extent, the Italian People. Those who would rather beg, or extort, or pander to others' vices, than honestly work for a living, will never do anything for Freedom; and such are deplorably abundant in Italy. Then, like most nations debased by ages of Slavery, these people have little faith in each other. The proverb that "No Italian has two friends" is of Italian origin. Every one fears that his confederate may prove a traitor, and if one is heard openly cursing the Government as oppressive and intolerable in a cafe or other public resort, though the sentiment is heartily responded to, the utterer is suspected and avoided as a Police stool-pigeon and spy. Such mutual distrust necessarily creates or accompanies a lack of moral courage. There are brave and noble Italians, but the majority are neither brave nor noble. There were gallant spirits who joyfully poured out their blood for Freedom in 1848-9, but nine-tenths of those who wished well to the Liberal cause took precious good care to keep their carcases out of the reach of Austrian or French bullets. Even in Rome, where, next to Venice, the most creditable resistance was made to Despotism, the greater part of the actual fighting was done by Italians indeed, but refugees from Lombardy, Tuscany and other parts of Italy. Had the Romans who heartily desired the maintenance of the Republic shown their faith by their works, Naples would have been promptly revolutionized and the French driven back to their ships. On this point, I have the testimony of eye-witnesses of diverse sentiments and of unimpeachable character. Rome is heartily Republican to-day; but I doubt whether three effective regiments could be raised from her large native population to fight a single fair battle which was to decide the fate of Italy. So with the whole country except Piedmont, and perhaps Genoa and Venice. I wish the fact were otherwise; but there can be no use in disguising or mis-stating it. Italy is not merely enslaved but debased, and not till after years of Freedom will the mass of her people evince consistently the spirit or the bearing of Freemen. She must be freed through the progress of Liberal ideas in France and Germany—not by her own inherent energies. Not till her masses have learned to look more coolly down the throats of loaded and hostile cannon in fair daylight and be a little less handy with their knives in the dark, can they be relied on to do anything for the general cause of Freedom.

THE AUSTRIANS.

I have not been able to dislike the Austrians personally. Their simple presence in Italy is a grievous wrong and mischief, since, so long as they hold the Italians in subjection, the latter can hardly begin the education which is to fit them for Freedom. Yet it is none the less true that the portion of Italy unequivocally Austrian is better governed and enjoys, not more Liberty, for there is none in either, but a milder form of Slavery, than that which prevails in Naples, Rome, Tuscany, and the paltrier native despotisms. I can now understand, though I by no means concur in, the wish of a quasi Liberal friend who prays that Austria may just take possession of the whole Peninsula, and abolish the dozen diverse Tariffs, Coinages, Mails, Armies, Courts, &c. &c., which now scourge this natural Paradise. He thinks that such an absorption only can prepare Italy for Liberty and true Unity; I, on the contrary, fear that it would fix her in a more hopeless Slavery. Yet it certainly would render the country more agreeable to strangers, whether sojourners or mere travelers.

The Austrian soldiers, regarded as mere fighting machines, are certainly well got up. They are palpably the superiors, moral and physical, of the French who garrison Rome, and they are less heartily detested by the People whom they are here to hold in subjection. Their discipline is admirable, but their natural disposition is likewise quiet and inoffensive. I have not heard of a case of any one being personally insulted by an Austrian since I have been in Italy.—Knowing themselves to be intensely disliked in Italy and yet its uncontrolled masters, it would seem but natural that they should evince something of bravado and haughtiness, but I have observed or heard of nothing of the kind. In fact, the bearing of the Austrians, whether officers or soldiers, has seemed to evince a quiet consciousness of strength, and to say, in the least offensive manner possible—"We are masters here by virtue of our good swords—if you dispute the right, look well that you have a sharper weapon and a vigorous arm to wield it!" To a rule which thus answers all remonstrances against its existence by a quiet telling off of its ranks and a faultless marching of its determined columns, what further argument can be opposed but that of bayonet to bayonet? I really cannot see how the despot-governed, Press-shackled, uneducated Nations are ever to be liberated under the guidance of Peace Societies and their World's Conventions; and, horrible as all War is and ever must be, I deem a few battles a lesser evil than the perpetuity of such mental and physical bondage as is now endured by Twenty Millions of Italians. When the Peace Society shall have persuaded the Emperor Nicholas or Francis-Joseph to disband his armies and rely for the support of his government on its intrinsic justice and inherent moral force, I shall be ready to enter its ranks; but while Despotism, Fraud and Wrong are triumphantly upheld by Force, I do not see how Freedom, Justice and Progress can safely disclaim and repudiate the only weapons that tyrants fear—the only arguments they regard.

LEAVING ITALY.

I have not been long in Italy, yet I have gone over a good share of its surface, and seen nearly all that I much desired to see, except Naples and its vicinity, with the Papal territory on the Perugia route from Rome to Florence. I should have liked more time in Genoa, Rome, Florence and Venice; but sight-seeing was never a passion with me, and I soon tire of wandering from ruin to ruin, church to church, and gallery to gallery. Yet when I stop gazing the next impulse is to move on; for if I have time to rest anywhere, why not at home? Hotel life among total strangers was never agreeable to me—(was it to any one?)—and I do not like that of Italy so well as I at first thought I should. The attendance is well enough, and as to food, I make a point of never quarreling with that I have; though meals far simpler than those served at the regular hotel dinners here would suit me much better. The charges in general are quite reasonable, though I have paid one or two absurd bills. It was at first right pleasant to lodge in what was once a palace, and I still deem a large, high, airy sleeping-room, such as we seldom have in American hotels, but are common here, a genuine luxury. But when with such rooms you have doors that don't shut so as to stay, windows that won't open, locks that won't hold, bolts that won't slide and fleas that won't—ah! won't they bite!—the case is somewhat altered. I should not like to end my days in Italy.

As to the People, if I shall seem to have spoken of them disparagingly, it has not been unkindly. I cherish an earnest desire for their well-being. They do not need flattery, and do not, as a body, deserve praise. Of what are sometimes called the "better classes" (though I believe they are here no better), I have seen little, and have not spoken specially. Of the great majority who, here, as everywhere, must exert themselves to live, whether by working, or begging, or petty swindling, I have seen something, and of these certain leading characteristics are quite unmistakable. An Italian Picture-Gallery seems to me a pretty fair type of the Italian mind and character. The habitual commingling of the awful with the paltry—the sacred and the sensual—Madonna and Circe—Christ on the Cross and Venus in the Bath—which is exhibited in all the Italian galleries, seems an expression of the National genius. Am I wrong in the feeling that the perpetual (and often execrable) representation of such awful scenes as the Crucifixion is calculated first to shock but ultimately to weaken the religious sentiment? Of the hundreds of pictures of the infant Jesus I have seen in Italy, there are not five which did not strike me as utterly unworthy of the subject, allowing that it ought to be represented at all. "Men of Athens!" said the straight-forward Paul, "I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious." I think the Italians, quite apart from what is essential to their creed, have this very failing, and that it exerts a debilitating influence on their National character. They need to be cured of it, as well as of the vices I have already indicated, in order that their magnificent country may resume its proper place among great and powerful Nations. I trust I am not warring on the faith of their Church, when I urge that "To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice"—that no man can be truly devout who is not strictly upright and manly—and that one living purpose of diffusive, practical well-doing, is more precious in the sight of Heaven, than the bones of all the dead Saints in Christendom.

Farewell, trampled, soul-crushed Italy!



XXXI.

SWITZERLAND.

LUCERNE, July 12, 1851.

I left Milan at 5 o'clock, on the morning of the 10th, via Railroad to Como, at the foot of the Lake of like name, which we reached in an hour and a half, thence taking the Swiss Government Diligence for this place, via the pass of St. Gothard. Even before reaching Como (only some twenty miles from Milan), the spurs of the Alps had begun to gather around us, and the little Lake itself is completely embosomed by them. Barely skirting its southern border, we crossed the Swiss frontier and bade adieu to the Passport swindle for a season, crossed a ridge into the valley of Lake Lugano, which we skirted for two-thirds its length, crossing it by a fine stone bridge near its center. (All the Swiss lakes I have seen are very narrow for a good part of their length, of a greenish blue color, derived from the mountain snows, very irregular in their form, being shut in, narrowed and distorted by the bold cliffs which crowd them on one side or on both, often reducing them to a crooked strait, resembling the passage of the Highlands by the Hudson.) Threading the narrow streets of the pleasant village of Lugano, we struck boldly up the hill to the east, and over it into the valley of the little river Ticino, which we reached at Bellinzona, a smart town of some five to ten thousand inhabitants, and followed the river thence to its source in the eternal snows of Mount St. Gothard. All this is, I believe, in the Canton of Ticino, in which Italian is the common language, and of which Bellinzona is the chief town.

Although in Switzerland, shut in by steep mountains, often snow-crowned, which leave it an average width of less than half a mile, this valley is Italian in many of its natural characteristics. For two-thirds of its length, Wheat, Indian Corn and the Vine are the chief objects of attention, and every little patch of level ground, save the rocky bed of the impetuous mountain torrent, is laboriously, carefully cultivated. Such mere scraps of earth do not admit of efficient husbandry, but are made to produce liberally by dint of patient effort. I should judge that a peck of corn is about the average product of a day's work through all this region. There is some pasturage, mainly on the less abrupt declivities far up the mountains, but not one acre in fifty of the Canton yields aught but it may be a little fuel for the sustenance of man. Nature is here a rugged mother, exacting incessant toil of her children as the price of the most frugal subsistence; but under such skies, in the presence of so much magnificence, and in a land of equality and freedom, mere life is worth working for, and the condition is accepted with a hearty alacrity. Men and women work together, and almost equally, in the fields; and here, where the necessity is so palpably of Nature's creation, not Man's, the spectacle is far less revolting than on the fertile plains of Piedmont or Lombardy. The little patch of Wheat is so carefully reaped that scarcely a grain is left, and children bear the sheaves on their backs to the allotted shelter, while mothers and maidens are digging up the soil with the spade, and often pulling up the stubble with their hands, preparatory to another crop. Switzerland could not afford to be a Kingdom,—the expense of a Court and Royal Family would famish half her people. Yet everywhere are the signs of frugal thrift and homely content. I met only two beggars in that long day's ride through sterile Switzerland, while in a similar ride through the fertile plains of Italy I should have encountered hundreds, though there each day's labor produces as much as three days' do here. If the Swiss only could live at home, by the utmost industry and economy, I think they would very seldom be found elsewhere; but in truth the land has long been peopled to the extent of its capacity for subsisting, and the steady increase which their pure morals and simple habits ensure must drive off thousands in search of the bread of honest toil. Hence their presence elsewhere, in spite of their passionate attachment to their free native hills.

Most of the dwellings through all this region are built of stone—those of the poor very rudely, of the roughest boulders, commonly laid up with little or no mortar. The roofs are often of split stone. The houses of the more fortunate class are generally of hewn or at least tolerably square-edged stone, laid up in mortar, often plastered and whitened on the outside, so as to present a very neat appearance. Barns are few, and generally of stone also. The Vine is quite extensively cultivated, and often trained on a rude frame-work of stakes and poles, so as completely to cover the ground and forbid all other cultivation. Elsewhere it is trained to stakes—rarely to dwarf trees as in Italy. The Mulberry holds its ground for two-thirds of the way up the valley, giving out a little after the Vine and before Indian Corn does so. Wheat gives place to Rye about the same time, and the Potato, at first comparatively rare, becomes universal. As the Mulberry gives out the Chestnut comes in, and flourishes nobly for some ten or twenty miles about midway from Bellinzona to Airolo. I suspect, from the evident care taken of it, that its product is considerably relied on for food. Finally, as we gradually ascend, this also disappears, leaving Rye and the Potato to struggle a while longer, until at Airolo, at the foot of St. Gothard, where we stopped at 10 o'clock for the night, though the valley forks and is consequently of some width, there remain only a few slender potato-stalks, in shivering expectation of untimely frost, a patch or two of headless oats, with grass on the slopes, still tender and green from the lately sheltering snows, and a dwarfish hemlock clinging to the steep acclivities and hiding from the fierce winds in the deep ravines which run up the mountains. Snow is in sight on every side, and seems but a mile or so distant. Yet here are two petty villages and thirty or forty scattered dwellings, whose inhabitants keep as many small cows and goats as they can find grass for, and for the rest must live mainly by serving in the hotels, or as postillions, road-makers, &c. Yet no hand was held out to me in beggary at or around Airolo.

ST. GOTHARD.

We did not start till after 9 next morning, and meantime some more Diligences had come up, so that we formed a procession of one large and heavy, followed by three smaller and more fit carriages, when we moved out of the little village, and, leaving the larger branch of our creek, now a scanty mill-stream at best, to bend away to the left, we followed the smaller and charged boldly up the mountain. The ascent is of course made by zig-zags, no other mode being practicable for carriages, so that, when we had traveled three toilsome miles, Airolo still lay in sight, hardly a mile below us. I judge the whole ascent, which with a light carriage and three hard-driven horses occupied two hours and a half, was about eight miles, though a straight line might have taken us to the summit in three miles. The rise in this distance must have been near five thousand feet.

For a time, the Hemlocks held on, but at length they gave up, before we reached any snow, and only a little weak young Grass,—nourished rather by the perpetual mists or rains than by the cold, sour earth which clung to the less precipitous rocks,—remained to keep us company. Soon the snow began to appear beside us, at first timidly, on the north side of cliffs, and in deep chasms, where it was doubtless drifted to the depth of thirty feet during the Winter, and has been gradually thawing out since May. At length it stood forth unabashed beside our road, often a solid mass six or seven feet thick, on either side of the narrow pass which had been cut and worn through it for and by the passage of travelers. Meantime, the drizzling rain, which had commenced soon after we started, had changed to a spitting, watery sleet, and at length to snow, a little before we reached the summit of the pass, where we found a young Nova Zembla. An extensive cloud-manufactory was in full blast all around us, shutting out from view even the nearest cliffs, while the snow and wind—I being on the outside and somewhat wet already—made our short halt there anything but comfortable. The ground was covered with snow to an average depth of two or three feet; the brooks ran over beds of ice and under large heaps of drifted and frozen snow, and all was sullen and cheerless. Here were the sources (in part) of the Po and of the Rhine, but I was rather in haste to bid the former good-bye.

We reduced our three-horse establishment to two, and began to descend the Rhineward zig-zags at a rattling pace, our driver (and all the drivers) hurrying all the way. We reached the first village (where there was considerable Grass again, and some Hemlock, but scarcely any attempts at cultivation), in fifty minutes, and I think the distance was nearly five miles. "Jehu, the son of Nimshi," could not have done the distance in five minutes less.

We changed horses and drivers at this village, but proceeded at a similar pace down through the most hideous chasm for the next two or three miles that I ever saw. I doubt whether a night-mare ever beat it. The descent of the stream must have been fully 1,500 feet to the mile for a good part of this distance, while the mountains rose naked and almost perpendicular on each side from its very bed to hights of one to two thousand feet, without a shrub, and hardly a resting-place even for snow. Down this chasm our road wound, first on one side of the rivulet, then on the other, crossing by narrow stone bridges, often at the sharpest angle with the road, making zig-zags wherever space could be found or made for them, now passing through a tunnel cut through the solid rock, and then under a long archway built over it to protect it from avalanches at the crossing of a raving cataract down the mountain side. And still the staving pace at which we started was kept up by those on the lead, and imitated by the boy driving our carriage, which was hindmost of all. I was just thinking that, though every one should know his own business best, yet if I were to drive down a steep mountain in that way I should expect to break my neck, and suspect I deserved it, when, as we turned a sharp zig-zag on a steep grade at a stiff trot, our carriage tilted, and over she went in a twinkling.