Part 10 (1/2)
We stopped in Folkestone until Tuesday, and then Richard and I got into a sleigh, which took us over the snow from the hotel to the boat. We had a very cold crossing, but not a rough one; and as we neared Boulogne we even saw a square inch or so of pale blue sky, a sight which, after London, made us rejoice.
The old port at Boulogne stretched out its two long lean arms to our c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l steamer, as though anxious to embrace it. I thought, as we came into the harbour, how much of this quaint old town had been bound up with my life. I could never see it without recalling the two years which I had spent in Boulogne years ago, and going over again in my mind the time when I first saw Richard--the day of my life which will always be marked with a great white stone. He was a young lieutenant then on furlough from India, who had seen nothing of life but one hurried London season.
We stayed at Boulogne two days, and wandered about all over the place together, calling back to our memory the scenes of our bygone youth.
We walked on the old Ramparts where we first made acquaintance, where Richard used to follow my sister Blanche and myself when we were sent out to learn our lessons _al fresco_. We even saw the wall where he chalked up, ”May I speak to you?” and I chalked back, ”No; mother will be angry.” I hunted out my little brother's grave too, and planted it with fresh rose trees; and I visited my old friend Carolina, the Queen of the Poissardes. She was still a beautiful creature, magnificent in her costume. She reminded me of a promise I had made her in the old days, that if ever I went to Jerusalem I would bring her a rosary. I little dreamt then that I should marry Richard Burton, or that he would be Consul at Damascus, or that I should go to Jerusalem. Yet all these things had come to pa.s.s. And so I was able to fulfil my promise, to her great delight.
From Boulogne we went to Paris, which I found terribly changed since the Franco-German War. The marks of the terrible Siege were still burnt upon its face; and this applied not only to the city itself, but to the people. The radical changes of the last five years, and the war and the Commune, had made a new world of Paris. The light, joyous character of the French was no doubt still below the surface, but the upper crust was then (at least so it struck me) one of sulkiness, silence, and economy run mad, a rage for lucre, and a l.u.s.t _pour la revanche_. Even the women seemed to have given up their pretty dresses, though of course there were some to be seen. Yet things were very different now to what they had been under the splendours of the Second Empire, that Empire which went ”like a dream of the night.” The women seemed to have become careless, an unusual thing in Parisiennes: they even painted badly; and it is a sin to paint--badly. I am afraid that I am one of the very few women who do not like Paris. I never liked it, even in its palmy days; and now at this time I liked it less than ever. I was so glad to leave at the end of the week, and to move out of the raw, white fog sunwards. We had a most comfortable journey from Paris to Modane, and the officials at the Customs seemed to delight in irritating and insulting one. When I was pa.s.sing into the custom-pen, I was gruffly addressed, ”On ne pa.s.se pas!” I said, ”On ne pa.s.se pas? Comment on ne pa.s.se pas?” The only thing wanting, it seemed, was a visiting-card; but the opportunity of being safely insolent was too tempting to the Jack-in-office for him to pa.s.s it over. I could not help feeling glad these braves had never reached Berlin; they would have made Europe uninhabitable. France was charming as an empire or as a monarchy, but as a brand-new republic it was simply detestable.
We went on to Turin, where we stayed for a day or two; and while here I sent a copy of my _Inner Life of Syria_ to the Princess Margherita of Savoy, now Queen of Italy, who was pleased to receive the same very graciously. From Turin we went to Milan, where we lapsed into the regular routine of Italian society, so remarkable for the exquisite amenity of its old civilization (as far as manners are concerned), and for the stiffness and mediaeval semi-barbarism of its surroundings.
As an instance of this we had occasion to call on a personage to whom we had letters of introduction. We sent in our letters with a visiting- card by the porter, asking when we should call. The reply was, ”Va bene,” which was pleasant, but vague. We took heart of grace, and asked at the door, ”Is the Signor Conte visible?” The janitor replied, ”His Excellency receives at 8 o'clock p.m.” We replied, ”At that time we shall be on the railway.” The domestic, with leisurely movement, left us in the hall, and dawdled upstairs to report the remarkable case of the importunate English. By-and-by he returned, and showed us into the saloon, a huge, bare, fireless room, with a few grotesque photographs and French prints on the walls, and a stiff green sofa and chairs.
The Signor Conte kept us waiting twenty minutes, whilst he shaved and exchanged his dressing-gown for the suit of sables which is the correct raiment of the Latin race. Nothing could be more polished than his manners. He received us with a cordiality which at once won our hearts.
But we were introduced to him by a bosom friend; our pursuits and tastes were the same. Why then could not he ask us up to his cosy study to give us coffee and a cigarette? ”Sarebbe proprio indecente” (”It would really be too rude”), was the reply, although both he and we would have liked it extremely. So for want of time to crack this hard nutsh.e.l.l we never got at the kernel.
From Milan we went to Venice, which we found enveloped in a white fog, with a network of lagoons meandering through streets of the foulest mud.
Venice is pre-eminently a hot-weather city. In winter, with her cold ca.n.a.ls and wet alleys, deep rains and dense mists, her huge, unwarmed palaces, and her bare, draughty hotels, she is a veritable wet place of punishment. We stayed in Venice for some days, and made several pleasant acquaintances. I had with me a German maid, who had never seen Venice.
She went in a gondola for the first time, and was at the highest pitch of excitement at finding that all was water. She marvelled at the absence of cabs and dust, and exclaimed perpetually, ”Nothing but water, water everywhere”; which we naturally capped with, ”But not a drop to drink,”
until I believe she fancied that drink was the only thing we English ever thought of.
On December 23 we went across to Trieste by the midnight boat, and next morning I was at Trieste again, my much-loved home of four years and a half. I found it all to a hair as I had left it just a year ago, for I had been absent twelve months in England. Christmas Night, however, was a little sad. We had accepted an invitation for a Christmas dinner, and had given the servants leave to go out to see their friends; but Richard was unfortunately taken ill, and could not dine out, and he went to bed.
Of course I stayed with him; but we had n.o.body to cook for us, nor anything to eat in the house except bread and olives. I went to the pantry and foraged, and with this simple fare ate my Christmas dinner by his bedside.
We stopped in Trieste eight days, just to pack up and complete arrangements for our tour; and on the last day of the old year we left for Jeddah. We were aware that we were starting for India two or three months too late, and would have to encounter the heat and fatal season to accomplish it; but as Richard said, ”Consuls, like beggars, can't be choosers,” and we were only too glad to be able to go at all. Everybody was most kind to us, and a lot of friends came to a parting midday dinner, and accompanied us to our s.h.i.+p to see us off. The Government boat, containing the _Capitaine du Port_ and the sailors, in uniform, took us to our s.h.i.+p, an honour seldom accorded to any but high Austrian officials; and the Duke of Wurtemberg, Command-in-chief at Trieste, and several others came to wish us ”G.o.d-speed.” I shall never forget their kindness, for I appreciated the honour which they did to Richard. It is strange how much more willing those in authority abroad were to do him justice than the Government at home.
The run from Trieste to Port Said occupied six days and six nights. Our s.h.i.+p was the Calypso (Austrian Lloyd's), a good old tub, originally built for a cattleboat. We were the only pa.s.sengers, and, with the captain and his officers, we made a family party, and I was never more comfortable on board s.h.i.+p in my life. The voyage to Port Said has been so often described that I need not dwell upon it again. We had fair weather for the first five days, and then there was a decided storm, which, however, did not last long. One gets so knocked about in a steamer that baths are impossible; one can only make a hasty toilet at the most, being obliged to hold on to something, or be knocked the while from one end of the cabin to the other; one dines, so to speak, on the balance, with the food ever sliding into one's lap. Our boat danced about throughout the voyage in a most extraordinary manner, which made me think that she had but little cargo. I spent most of the time on deck, ”between blue sea and azure air,” and I did a good deal of reading. I read Moore's _Veiled Prophet of Khora.s.san_ and other books, including _Lalla Rookh_ and _The Light of the Harim_; also Smollet's _Memoirs of a Lady of Quality, which_ I found coa.r.s.e, but interesting. Some one told me that a course of Smollett was more or less necessary to form one for novel-writing, so I took that and _The Adventures of Roderick Random_ on board to study, in case I should ever write a novel. I felt rather displeased when Smollett's Lady of Quality married her second husband, and quite _bouleversee_ long before I arrived at her fifteenth lover.
Port Said shows itself upon the southern horizon in two dark lines, like long piles or logs of wood lying upon the sea, one large and one small.
These are the white town and the black town, apparently broken by an inlet of sea, and based upon a strip of yellow sand. The sea is most unwholesome and stagnant. The houses of Port Said looked like painted wooden toys. The streets were broad, but the shops were full of nothing but rubbish, and were surround by dogs and half-naked, dark-brown gutter-boys. There is a circular garden in the centre of the European part, with faded flowers, and a kiosk for the band to play in. The most picturesque and the dirtiest part is the Arab town, with its tumble-down houses and bazar. The people wear gaudy prints and dirty mantles bespangled with gold. There were a great many low-cla.s.s music-halls and gambling- and dancing-saloons. Port Said is in fact a sort of Egyptian Wapping, and I am told the less one knows about its morals the better.
While we were strolling about the Arab part, my German maid, who was in an Eastern place for the first time, came upon a man filling a goat-skin with water. She saw a pipe and the skin distending, and heard the sound.
She often heard me say how cruel the Easterns were to animals; and knowing my tenderness on that point, she ran after me in a great state of excitement, and pulled my arm, crying out, ”_O Euer Gnaden_! The black man is filling the poor sow with gas! Do come back and stop him!”
The next morning early we began to steam slowly up the long ditch called the Ca.n.a.l, and at last to the far east we caught a gladdening glimpse of the desert--the wild, waterless Wilderness of Sur, with its waves and pyramids of sand catching the morning rays, with it shadows of mauve, rose pink, and lightest blue, with its plains and rain-sinks, bearing brown dots, which were tamarisks (manna trees). The sky was heavenly blue, the water a deep band of the clearest green, the air balmy and fresh. The golden sands stretched far away; an occasional troop of Bedawin with their camels and goats pa.s.sed, and reminded me of those dear, dead days at Damascus. It all came back to me with a rush. Once more I was in the East. I had not enjoyed myself so much with Nature for four years and a half. With the smell of the desert air in our nostrils, with Eastern pictures before our eyes, we were even grateful for the slowness of the pace at which we travelled. They were the pleasantest two days imaginable, like a river picnic. We reached Suez, with its air of faded glory, at length; and there we s.h.i.+pped a pious pilot, who said his prayers regularly, and carefully avoided touching my dog. Of course he was from Mecca; but, unhappily for his reputation, the first night spent at Jeddah gave him a broken nose, the result of a scrimmage in some low coffee-house.
At last we neared Jeddah, the port of Mecca. The approach was extraordinary. For twenty miles it is protected by Nature's breakwaters, lines of low, flat reefs, barely covered, and not visible until you are close upon them. There was no mark or lighthouse save two little white posts, which might easily be mistaken for a couple of gulls. In and out of these reefs the s.h.i.+p went like a serpent. There was barely pa.s.sage for it between them; but of course no pilot would attempt it save in broad daylight. At length we reached the inner reef. We found the open roadstead full of s.h.i.+ps, with hardly room to swing, and a strong north- west wind, so that we could not get a place. We ran right into the first at anchor, the _Standard_, a trading-s.h.i.+p of s.h.i.+elds, built of iron. Richard and I were standing on the bridge, and he touched my arm and said:
”By Jove! We're going right into that s.h.i.+p.”
”Oh no,” I answered; ”with the captain and the pilot on the bridge, and all the crew in the forecastle, it can only be a beautiful bit of steering. We shall just shave her.”
The words were scarcely out of my mouth when smash went our bulwarks like brown paper, and our yardarms crumpled like umbrellas. I had jokingly threatened with the ”thirteenth” the day before, but they had laughed at me.
”Il tredici!” shouted the second officer, as he flew by us.
The crews of both s.h.i.+ps behaved splendidly, and the cry on board our s.h.i.+p was, ”Where is the English captain? I do not see him.”
”No,” we answered, ”you do not see him, but we can hear him.” And sure enough there he was all right, and swearing quite like himself. There is nothing like an Englishman for a good decisive order; and who can blame him if he adds at such times a little powder to drive the shot home?
We were about three hours disentangling ourselves.