Part 12 (1/2)

I entered Avignon after a delicious hour on the Rhone, quite in the mood to do poetical homage to its a.s.sociations. My dreams of Petrarch and Vaucluse were interrupted by a scene between my friend the captain, and a stout boatman, who had brought his baggage from the batteau. The result was an appeal to the mayor, who took the captain aside after the matter was argued, and told him in his ear that he must compromise the matter, for he _dared not give a judgment in his favor_! The man had demanded _twelve_ francs where the regulations allowed him but _one_, and palpable as the imposition was, the magistrate refused to interfere. The captain curled his mustache and walked the room in a terrible pa.s.sion, and the boatman, an herculean fellow, eyed him with a look of a.s.surance which quite astonished me.

After the case was settled, I asked an explanation of the mayor. He told me frankly, that the fellow belonged to a powerful cla.s.s of men of the lowest description, who, having declared first for the present government, were and would be supported by it in almost any question where favor could be shown--that all the other cla.s.ses of inhabitants were malcontents, and that, between positive strength and royal favor, the boatmen and their party had become too powerful even for the ordinary enforcement of the law.

The following day was so sultry and warm, that I gave up all idea of a visit to Vaucluse. We spent the morning under the trees which stand before the door of the _cafe_ in the village square, and at noon we took the steamboat upon the Rhone for _Arles_. An hour or two brought us to this ancient town, where we were compelled to wait till the next day, the larger boat which goes hence by the mouths of the Rhone to Ma.r.s.eilles, being out of order.

We left our baggage in the boat, and I walked up with the captain to see the town. An officer whom we addressed for information on the quay politely offered to be our guide, and we pa.s.sed three or four hours rambling about, with great pleasure. Our first object was the Roman ruins, for which the town is celebrated. We traversed several streets, so narrow, that the old time-worn houses on either side seemed to touch at the top, and in the midst of a desolate and poverty-stricken neighborhood, we came suddenly upon a n.o.ble Roman amphitheatre of gigantic dimensions, and sufficiently preserved to be a picturesque ruin. It was built on the terrace of a hill, overlooking the Rhone.

From the towers of the gateway, the view across the river into the lovely province of Languedoc, is very extensive. The arena is an excavation of perhaps thirty feet in depth, and the rows of seats, all built of vast blocks of stone, stretch round it in retreating and rising platforms to the surface of the hill. The lower story is surrounded with dens; and the upper terrace is enclosed with a circle of small apartments, like boxes in a theatre, opening by handsome arches upon the scene. It is the ruin of a n.o.ble structure, and, even without the help of the imagination, exceedingly impressive. It seems to be at present turned into a play-ground. The dens and cavities were full of black-eyed and happy creatures, hiding and hallooing with all the delightful spirit and gayety of French children. Probably it was never appropriated to a better use.

We entered the cathedral in returning. It is an antique, and considered a very fine one. The twilight was just falling; and the candles burning upon the altar, had a faint, dull glare, making the dimness of the air more perceptible. I walked up the long aisle to the side chapel, without observing that my companions had left me, and, quite tired with my walk, seated myself against one of the Gothic pillars, enjoying the quiet of the place, and the momentary relief from exciting objects. It struck me presently that there was a dead silence in the church, and, as much to hear the sound of English as for any better motive, I approached the priest's missal, which lay open on a stand near me, and commenced translating a familiar psalm aloud. My voice echoed through the building with a fullness which startled me, and looking over my shoulder, I saw that a simple, poor old woman was kneeling in the centre of the church, praying alone. She had looked up at my interruption of the silence of the place, but her beads still slipped slowly through her fingers, and, feeling that I was intruding possibly between a sincere wors.h.i.+pper and her Maker, I withdrew to the side aisle, and made my way softly out of the cathedral.

Arles appears to have modernized less than any town I have seen in France. The streets and the inhabitants look as if they had not changed for a century. The dress of the women is very peculiar; the waist of the gown coming up to a point behind, between the shoulder blades, and consequently very short in front, and the high cap bound to the head with broad velvet ribands, suffering nothing but the jet black curls to escape over the forehead. As a cla.s.s, they are the handsomest women I have seen. Nothing could be prettier than the small-featured lively brunettes we saw sitting on the stone benches at every door.

We ran down the next morning, in a few hours to Ma.r.s.eilles. It was a cloudy, misty day, and I did not enjoy, as I expected, the first view of the Mediterranean from the mouths of the Rhone. We put quite out into the swell of the sea, and the pa.s.sengers were all strewn on the deck in the various gradations of sickness. My friend the captain, and myself, had the only constant stomachs on board. I was very happy to distinguish Ma.r.s.eilles through the mist, and as we approached nearer, the rocky harbor and the islands of _Chateau d'If_ and _Pomegue_, with the fortress at the mouth of the harbor, came out gradually from the mist, and the view opened to a n.o.ble amphitheatre of rocky mountains, in whose bosom lies Ma.r.s.eilles at the edge of the sea. We ran into the narrow cove which forms the inner harbor, pa.s.sing an American s.h.i.+p, the ”William Penn,” just arrived from Philadelphia, and lying in quarantine. My blood started at the sight of the starred flag; and as we pa.s.sed closer and I read the name upon her stern, a thousand recollections of that delightful city sprang to my heart, and I leaned over to her from the boat's side, with a feeling of interest and pleasure to which the foreign tongue that called me to bid adieu to newer friends, seemed an unwelcome interruption.

I parted from my pleasant Parisian friend and his family, however, with real regret. They were polite and refined, and had given me their intimacy voluntarily and without reserve. I shook hands with them on the quay, and wished the pale and quiet invalid better health, with more of feeling than is common with acquaintances of a day. I believe them kind and sincere, and I have not found these qualities growing so thickly in the world that I can thrust aside anything that resembles them, with a willing mistrust.

The quay of Ma.r.s.eilles is one of the most varied scenes to be met with in Europe. Vessels of all nations come trading to its port, and nearly every costume in the world may be seen in its busy crowds. I was surprised at the number of Greeks. Their picturesque dresses and dark fine faces meet you at every step, and it would be difficult, if it were not for the shrinking eye, to believe them capable of an ign.o.ble thought. The mould of the race is one for heroes, but if all that is said of them be true, the blood has become impure. Of the two or three hundred I must have seen at Ma.r.s.eilles, I scarce remember one whose countenance would not have been thought remarkable.

I have remained six days in Ma.r.s.eilles by the advice of the Sardinian consul, who a.s.sured me that so long a residence in the south of France, is necessary to escape quarantine for the cholera, at the ports or on the frontiers of Italy. I have obtained his certificate to-day, and depart to-morrow for Nice. My forced _sejour_ here has been far from an amusing or a willing one. The ”_mistral_” has blown chilly and with suffocating dryness, so that I have scarce breathed freely since I entered the town, and the streets, though handsomely laid out and built, are intolerable from the dust. The sun scorches your skin to a blister, and the wind chills your blood to the bone.

There are beautiful public walks, which, at the more moist seasons, must be delightful, but at present the leaves on the trees are all white, and you cannot keep your eyes open long enough to see from one end of the promenade to the other. Within doors, it is true, I have found everything which could compensate for such evils; and I shall carry away pleasant recollections of the hospitality of the Messrs.

Fitch, and others of my countrymen, living here--gentlemen whose courtesies are well-remembered by every American traveller through the south of France.

I sank into the corner of the _coupe_ of the diligence for Toulon, at nine o'clock in the evening, and awoke with the gray of the dawn at the entrance of the pa.s.s of _Ollioules_, one of the wildest defiles I ever saw. The gorge is the bed of a winter torrent, and you travel three miles or more between two mountains seemingly cleft asunder, on a road cut out a little above the stream, with naked rock to the height of two or three hundred feet almost perpendicularly above you.

Nothing could be more bare and desolate than the whole pa.s.s, and nothing could be richer or more delightfully cultivated than the low valleys upon which it opens. It is some four or five miles hence to Toulon, and we traversed the road by sunrise, the soft, gray light creeping through the olive and orange trees with which the fields are laden, and the peasants just coming out to their early labor. You see no brute animal here except the mule; and every countryman you meet is accompanied by one of these serviceable little creatures, often quite hidden from sight by the enormous load he carries, or pacing patiently along with a master on his back, who is by far the larger of the two.

The vineyards begin to look delightfully; for the thick black stump which was visible over the fields I have hitherto pa.s.sed, is in these warm valleys covered already with ma.s.ses of luxuriant vine leaves, and the hill sides are lovely with the light and tender verdure. I saw here for the first time, the olive and date trees in perfection. They grow in vast orchards planted regularly, and the olive resembles closely the willow, and reaches about the same height and shape. The leaves are as slender but not quite so long, and the color is more dusky, like the bloom upon a grape. Indeed, at a short distance, the whole tree looks like a ma.s.s of untouched fruit.

I was agreeably disappointed in Toulon. It is a rural town with a harbor--not the dirty seaport one naturally expects to find it. The streets are the cleanest I have seen in France, some of them lined with trees, and the fountains all over it freshen the eye delightfully. We had an hour to spare, and with Mr. Doyle, an Irish gentleman, who had been my travelling companion, since I parted with my friend the Swiss, I made the circuit of the quays. They were covered with French naval officers and soldiers, promenading and conversing in the lively manner of this gayest of nations. A handsome child, of perhaps six years, was selling roses at one of the corners, and for a _sous_, all she demanded, I bought six of the most superb damask buds just breaking into flower. They were the first I had seen from the open air since I left America, and I have not often purchased so much pleasure with a copper coin.

Toulon was interesting to me as the place where Napoleon's career began. The fortifications are very imposing. We pa.s.sed out of the town over the draw-bridge, and were again in the midst of a lovely landscape, with an air of bland and exhilarating softness, and everything that could delight the eye. The road runs along the sh.o.r.e of the Mediterranean, and the fields are green to the water edge.

We arrived at Antibes to-day at noon, within fifteen miles of the frontier of Sardinia. We have run through most of the south of France, and have found it all like a garden. The thing most like it in our country is the neighborhood of Boston, particularly the undulated country about Brookline and Dorchester. Remove all the stone fences from that sweet country, put here and there an old chateau on an eminence, and change the pretty white mock cottages of gentlemen, for the real stone cottages of peasantry, and you have a fair picture of the scenery of this celebrated sh.o.r.e. The Mediterranean should be added as a distance, with its exquisite blue, equalled by nothing but an American sky in a July noon--its crowds of sail, of every shape and nation, and the Alps in the horizon crested with snow, like clouds half touched by the sun. It is really a delicious climate. Out of the scorching sun the air is bracing and cool; and though my ears have been blistered in walking up the hills in a travelling cap, I have scarcely experienced an uncomfortable sensation of heat, and this in my winter dress, with flannels and a surtout, as I have worn them for the six months past in Paris. The air could not be tempered more accurately for enjoyment. I regret to go in doors. I regret to sleep it away.

_Antibes_ was fortified by the celebrated _Vauban_, and it looks impregnable enough to my unscientific eye. If the portcullises were drawn up, I would not undertake to get into the town with the full consent of the inhabitants. We walked around the ramparts which are washed by the Mediterranean, and got an appet.i.te in the sea-breeze, which we would willingly have dispensed with. I dislike to abuse people, but I must say that the _cuisine_ of Madame Agarra, at the ”Gold Eagle,” is rather the worst I have fallen upon in my travels.

Her price, as is usual in France, was proportionably exorbitant. My Irish friend, who is one of the most religious gentlemen of his country I ever met, came as near getting into a pa.s.sion with his supper and bill, as was possible for a temper so well disciplined. For myself, having acquired only polite French, I can but ”look daggers”

when I am abused. We depart presently for _Nice_, in a ricketty barouche, with post-horses, the _courier_, or post-coach, going no farther. It is a roomy old affair, that has had pretensions to style some time since Henri Quatre, but the arms on its panels are illegible now, and the ambitious driving-box is occupied by the humble materials to remedy a probable break-down by the way. The postillion is cracking his whip impatiently, my friend has called me twice, and I must put up my pencil.

_Antibes_ again! We have returned here after an unsuccessful attempt to enter the Sardinian dominions. We were on the road by ten in the morning, and drove slowly along the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean, enjoying to the utmost the heavenly weather and the glorious scenery about us. The driver pointed out to us a few miles from Antibes, the very spot on which Napoleon landed on his return from Elba, and the tree, a fine old olive, under which he slept three hours, before commencing his march. We arrived at the _Pont de Var_ about one, and crossed the river, but here we were met by a guard of Sardinian soldiers, and our pa.s.sports were demanded. The commissary came from the guard-house with a long pair of tongs, and receiving them open, read them at the longest possible distance. They were then handed back to us in the same manner, and we were told we could not pa.s.s. We then handed him our certificates of quarantine at Ma.r.s.eilles; but were told it availed nothing, a new order having arrived from Turin that very morning, to admit no travellers from infected or suspected places across the frontier. We asked if there were no means by which we could pa.s.s; but the commissary only shook his head, ordered us not to dismount on the Sardinian side of the river, and shut his door. We turned about and recrossed the bridge in some perplexity. The French commissary at St. Laurent, the opposite village, received us with a suppressed smile, and informed us that several parties of travellers, among others an English gentleman and his wife and sister, were at the _auberge_, waiting for an answer from the Prefect of Nice, having been turned back in the same manner since morning. We drove up, and they advised us to send our pa.s.sports by the postillion, with a letter to the consuls of our respective nations, requesting information, which we did immediately.

Nice is three miles from St. Laurent, and as we could not expect an answer for several hours, we amused ourselves with a stroll along the banks of the Var to the Mediterranean. The Sardinian side is bold, and wooded to the tops of the hills very richly. We kept along a mile or more through the vineyards, and returned in time to receive a letter from the American consul, confirming the orders of the commissary, but advising us to return to Antibes, and sail thence for Villa Franca, a lazaretto in the neighborhood of Nice, whence we could enter Italy, after _seven days quarantine_! By this time several travelling-carriages had collected, and all, profiting by our experience, turned back together. We are now at the ”Gold Eagle,”

deliberating. Some have determined to give up their object altogether, but the rest of us sail to-morrow morning in a fis.h.i.+ng-boat for the lazaretto.