Part 6 (1/2)

CHAPTER V

TRAVELS AND MARRIAGE

Mr. Gladstone spent the winter of 1838-9 in Rome. The physicians had recommended travel in the south of Europe for his health and particularly for his eyes, the sight of which had become impaired by hard reading in the preparation of his book. He had given up lamps and read entirely by candle-light with injurious results. He was joined at Rome by his friend, Henry Manning, afterwards Cardinal, and in company they visited Monsignor, afterwards Cardinal, Wiseman, at the English College, on the feast of St. Thomas of Canterbury. They attended solemn ma.s.s in honor of that Saint, and the places in the missal were found for them by a young student of the college, named Grant, who afterwards became Bishop of Southwark.

Besides visiting Italy he explored Sicily, and kept a journal of his tour. Sicily is a beautiful and fertile island in the Mediterranean Sea, and is the granary of Rome. His recorded observations show the keenness of his perceptions and the intensity with which he enjoyed the beautiful and wonderful in nature.

Mount Etna, the greatest volcano of Europe, and which rises 10,000 feet above the sea, stirred his soul greatly, and he made an ascent of the mountain at the beginning of the great eruption of 1838. Etna has many points of interest for all cla.s.ses of scientific men, and not least for the student of arboriculture. It bears at the height of 4000 feet above the level of the sea a wonderful growth--a very large tree--which is claimed by some to be the oldest tree in the world. It is a venerable chestnut, and known as ”the father of the forest.” It is certainly one of the most remarkable as well as celebrated of trees. It consists not of one vast trunk, but of a cl.u.s.ter of smaller decayed trees or portions of trees growing in a circle, each with a hollow trunk of great antiquity, covered with ferns or ivy, and stretching out a few gnarled branches with scanty foliage. That it is one tree seems to be evident from the growth of the bark only on the outside. It is said that excavations about the roots of the tree showed these various stems to be united at a very small depth below the surface of the ground. It still bears rich foliage and much small fruit, though the heart of the trunk is decayed, and a public road leads through it wide enough for two coaches to drive abreast. Travelers have differed in their measurements of this stupendous growth. Admiral Smyth, who takes the lowest estimate, giving 163 feet, and Brydone giving, as the highest, 204 feet. In the middle of the cavity a hut is built, for the accommodation of those who collect and preserve the chestnuts. One of the Queens of Arragon is reported to have taken shelter in this tree, with her mounted suite of one hundred persons; but, ”we may, perhaps, gather from this that mythology is not confined to the lower lat.i.tudes.”

Further up the mountain is another venerable chestnut, which, with more reason, probably, may be described without fear of contradiction as the largest chestnut tree in the world. It rises from one solid stem to a remarkable height before it branches. At an elevation of two feet from the earth its circ.u.mference was found by Brydone to be seventy-six feet.

These trees are reputed to have flourished for much more than a thousand years. Their luxuriant growth is attributed in part to the humid atmosphere of the Bosco, elevated above the scorching, arid region of the coast, and in part to the great richness of the soil. The luxuriance of the vegetation on the slopes of Etna attracts the attention of every traveler; and Mr. Gladstone remarked upon this point: ”It seems as though the finest of all soils were produced from the most agonizing throes of nature, as the hardiest characters are often reared amidst the severest circ.u.mstances. The aspect of this side of Sicily is infinitely more active and the country is cultivated as well as most parts of Italy.”

He and his party started on the 30th of October, and found the path nearly uniform from Catania, but the country bore a volcanic aspect at every step. At Nicolosi their rest was disturbed by the distant booming of the mountain. From this point to the Bosco the scenery is described as a dreary region, but the tract of the wood showed some beautiful places resembling an English park, with old oaks and abundant fern.

”Here we found flocks browsing; they are much exposed to sheep-stealers, who do not touch travelers, calculating with justice that men do not carry much money to the summit of Etna.” The party pa.s.sed the Casa degli Inglesi, which registered a temperature of 31, and then continued the ascent on foot for the crater. A magnificent view of sunrise was here obtained.

”Just before we reached the lip of the crater the guide exultingly pointed out what he declared to be ordinarily the greatest sight of the mountain, namely, the shadow of the cone of Etna, drawn with the utmost delicacy by the newly-risen sun, but of gigantic extent; its point at this moment rested on the mountains of Palermo, probably one hundred miles off, and the entire figure was visible, the atmosphere over the mountains having become and continuing perfectly and beautifully transparent, although in the hundreds of valleys which were beneath us, from the east to the west of Sicily, and from the mountains of Messina down to Cape Pa.s.saro, there were still abundant vapors waiting for a higher sun to disperse them; but we enjoyed in its perfection this view of the earliest and finest work of the greater light of heaven, in the pa.s.sage of his beams over this portion of the earth's surface. During the hour we spent on the summit, the vision of the shadow was speedily contracting, and taught us how rapid is the real rise of the sun in the heavens, although its effect is diminished to the eye by a kind of foreshortening.”

The writer next describes in vivid and powerful language the scene presented to the view at the very mouth of the crater. A large s.p.a.ce, one mile in circ.u.mference, which a few days before had been one fathomless pit, from which issued ma.s.ses of smoke, was now absolutely filled up to within a few feet of the brim all round. A great ma.s.s of lava, a portion of the contents of this immense pit, was seen to detach itself by degrees from one behind. ”It opened like an orange, and we saw the red-hot fibres stretch in a broader and still broader vein, until the ma.s.s had found a support on the new ground it occupied in front; as we came back on our way down this had grown black.” A stick put to it took fire immediately. Within a few yards of this lava bed were found pieces of ice, formed on the outside of the stones by Frost, ”which here disputes every inch of ground with his fierce rival Fire.”

Mr. Gladstone and his fellow-travelers were the first spectators of the great volcanic action of this year. From the highest peak attainable the company gazed upon the splendid prospect to the east spread out before them, embracing the Messina Mountains and the fine kindred outline of the Calabrian coast, described by Virgil in the third book of the Aeneid. Mr. Gladstone graphically describes the eruption which took place and of which he was the enraptured witness. Lava ma.s.ses of 150 to 200 pounds weight were thrown to a distance of probably a mile and a half; smaller ones to a distance even more remote. The showers were abundant and continuous, and the writer was impressed by the closeness of the descriptions in Virgil with the actual reality of the eruption witnessed by himself. On this point he observes:

”Now how faithfully has Virgil (Ae. iii, 571, et seq.) comprised these particulars, doubtless without exaggeration, in his fine description!

First, the thunder-clap, or crack--

'Horrificis juxta tonat Aetna ruinis.'

Secondly, the vibration of the ground to the report--

'Et, fessum quoties mutet latus, intremere omnem Murmure Trinacriam.'

Thirdly, the sheet of flame--

'Attolitque globos flarmmarum, et sidera lambit.'

Fourthly, the smoke--

'Et coelum subtexere fumo.'

Fifthly, the fire shower--

'Scopulos avulsaque viscera montis Erigit erucatans, liquefactaque saxa sub auras c.u.m gemitu glomerat, fundoque exae tuat imo.'

Sixthly the column of ash--

'Atram prorumpit ad aethera nubem Turbine fumantem piceo et candente favilla.'

And this is within the limits of twelve lines. Modern poetry has its own merits, but the conveyance of information is not, generally speaking, one of them. What would Virgil have thought of authors publis.h.i.+ng poems with explanatory notes (to ill.u.s.trate is a different matter), as if they were so many books of conundrums? Indeed this vice is of very late years.”

The entire description, of which this is but an extract, is very effective and animated, and gives with great vividness the first impressions of a mind susceptible to the grand and imposing aspects of nature.

”After Etna,” says Mr. Gladstone in his diary, ”the temples are certainly the great charm and attraction of Sicily. I do not know whether there is any one among them which, taken alone, exceeds in beauty that of Neptune, at Paestum; but they have the advantage of number and variety, as well as of highly interesting positions. At Segesta the temple is enthroned in a perfect mountain solitude, and it is like a beautiful tomb of its religion, so stately, so entire; while around, but for one solitary house of the keeper, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, to disturb the apparent reign of Silence and of Death.... The temples enshrine a most pure and salutary principle of art, that which connects grandeur of effect with simplicity of detail; and, retaining their beauty and their dignity in their decay, they represent the great man when fallen, as types of that almost highest of human qualities--silent yet not sullen, endurance.”