the sea. I think it was at Nice that Johnnie distinguished himself by trying to catch the dust in the sunas it was on the road to Nice that poor little Mary immortalised her simplicity by bestowing her halffranc, her whole worldly store, upon a little beggar-boy who besieged the diligence. Talk of invalids! those children, who are not at all given that way, expanded like flowers in the delicious May weather which we found waiting for us there. People come to be epicures in climate as in other things. It was the fashion in Nice at that moment to shiver and complain of cold with that dear English look of discontent which seems to upbraid Providence with leaving something short of perfection wherever our delightful country people go. If I could only have taken a phial out of my pocket, and produced for their benefit an hour of that day on which we left London, or a whistle full of that wind which cut us into little pieces on the heights of Fourvières! But certainly it is our national privilege--the safety-valve of the savage insular nature. Grumble then, oh excellent exiles, and carry your grey parasols, and dangle in your hands those fresh oranges with stalks and green leaves to them, and forget that it is January. It is very easy to do so where you are. Nice, like all the other towns of the Mediterranean, occupies a bay, the high headlands of which, stretching out like protecting arms half round that semicircle of blue water, aid the darker hills behind in preserving from storms and chills the bright little town upon its beach. It is divided by a river, or rather by the bed of a river, a wide dry channel duly bridged over, and of an imposing breadth, through which there straggles a little rivulet of clear water, quite inadequate to the task of moistening a quarter part of the gravel bed which calls itself the Paglione. Great square houses, painted either white or in light tints akin thereto, with row upon row of green shutters to make them gay, have begun to stray in little detachments out of the town towards the hills; and vast hotels seem to the eye of a stranger to form half the bulk of the VOL. LXXXV.-NO. DXXII. The town itself, which has no features of nationality whatever, but is like every other place subjected to a yearly invasion of visitors. table-d'hôte is full and gay, filled up by habitués, as one can easily perceive, who know what they are about, and the best way of making themselves comfortable. There is even a public breakfast at half-past ten o'clock, where one begins the day with cutlets and fried potatoes, and where weak-minded English strangers interject their little pots of coffee and boiled milk, their orthodox bread and butter, into the midst of the winebottles and stronger fare of their neighbours. At this same tabled'hôte we were a little startled to hear an Englishman declare his intention of remaining "till the war began!" The war-what war? Then we, who had been shut up from newspapers for a week or two, heard for the first time those newyear's compliments of the French Emperor, which seem to have stirred all England into the delightful excitement of gossips over an impending quarrel. "There cannot be a doubt about it," said our informant, loftily. I do not know what this gentleman meant to do with himself when the war began," but for us, who were bound for Italy, and meant to remain there, this suggestion was rather exciting. "If one could only see a Times!" cried Alice, who had unbounded faith in the Thunderer; but instead of a Times, we could but lay our heads together over a Galignani, which respectable old lady was in a high state of fuss and nervous excitement. However, we had no further information of this supposititious war in leisurely Nice, where everybody took everything very quietly. We, too, enjoyed the sunshine and the rest with all our hearts, and climbed the rock on which perches a little old castle, to look over a widened horizon of sea and sun upon one side, and on the other to look down upon breaks of garden among the houses, where the foliage suggested nothing so strongly as a bush of gorse in full bloom, so full were the oranges among their leaves. The hills beyond were heavy with olives, a grey and misty cloud of vegetation upon the slopes, which rose dark and sombre in the light, though scattered everywhere with white houses, rising at different elevations almost to the summits of those hills. Let us turn down to the beach; it is entirely occupied, but not by young ladies in pretty hats, or groups of children. That sea, which knows no tide, ripples with a soft regularity upon its ridge of pebbles, but does not send its music, thus near at hand, into the faces of any of those seekers of health or pleasure who keep upon the terrace yonder, out of reach of this tender foamy spray. No, for the beach has homelier tenants. Here comes a fresh-water brook, briskly rattling into the sea, and in possession of a host of washerwomen, who kneel on each side as close as so many flies, animated by the liveliest industry, and beating their linen with an energy which, in this calm country, it is pleasant to hear; and yonder stray their mistresses or assistants, in careful superintendence of the long lines stretched from pole to pole along the beach, where the said linen hangs to bleach or dry in the sun. How these poor women manage it, day after day and all day long, to work upon their knees, half dropping into the water, with that fervid sun beating on their heads, I cannot tell. The labour in such a constrained position must be prodigious; but the scene is extremely cheerful, and odd, and amusing. I wonder who wears all those clothes? I wonder if it is true that the Italians are not very remarkable for their love of clean linen. Oddly enough, these picturesque public washings only exist among people who are reported, falsely or truly, to be a little indifferent in this respect. I never saw a more cheerful sight than I saw one day upon the Green at Glasgow, where the little wild savages of girls sat under the sun, watching the clothes laid to bleach upon the grass, while their mothers washed hard by within reach of the Clyde; yet one understands that Glasgow is not a model of cleanliness. However, I have homely tastes. I like to see the linen swept through that pure running water, and dried among those breezes. But I suppose that is why the genteel people in Nice-the visitors and promenaders-keep up upon the dusty terrace, and never spread themselves in groups upon the shingle, as we do at home. From Nice we started early in the morning for Genoa, another twentyfour hours' journey, which we arranged to break by stopping for the night half-way, and being taken up next morning by the night diligence. This road is like a road in fairy-land, or in one's dreams. Up spur and straight over fold after fold, and slope after slope, of those continuous hills, dashing round sharp curves of road which follow the line of those deep and narrow ravines which divide them, finding out at every turn another and another bay lying calm within the shelter of those vast projecting and protecting arms, each with its little town smiling like a princess from the beach, calmly ripening her oranges, cultivating her palms, and tending her vineyards with such care as Eve bestowed on her flowers in Milton's Eden, where every plant and blossom brightened to her presence. Pines green with the green of spring; great olive-trees, grey and rich; rows of little aloes hanging over in miniature hedges from the garden walls; orange-trees, low and green, and golden with showers of fruit; pale little lemons hiding among their leaves,-interpose between us and the sea, as we come dashing down from the heights almost at a gallop towards the Mentone or San Remo of the moment-when amidst all this wealth of nature our momentary stoppage collects a crowd of importunate beggars not to be repulsed. Then up again, as the morning brightens towards noon, labouring up the hills, sweeping once more through the sharp double of the road which rounds those ravines-ravines terraced step by step from the deep bottom yonder, where a mountain stream has scarcely room to flow, up to the verge of this lofty road, sometimes higher, to the very hilltops, and terraced in a dainty and sumptuous fashion unknown to less favoured and luxuriant lands. One could fancy, in the absence of the vines, that these smooth green terraces were so many grassy benches 1859.] A Winter Journey. which some benevolent giant had amused himself with making, out of a tenderly contemptuous kindness for the feeble little pigmies who surrounded him. Here is one of these ravines, not a valley, but a cleft between two hills, with a narrow stony watercourse marking its centre, pressed into very slender bounds by the grass and the young trees which almost meet over its rugged line, and rising in a succession of lines not so regular as the seats of an amphitheatre, but adapted to the inequalities of the soil. Here delightful little corners, where two people could sit together looking down upon the Mediterranean through its fringe of trees. Here prolonged is a lordly bench which could hold a score of spectators, all living green, as velvety (in the distance) as an English lawn, solitary, without even a cottage within sight to mark where some one watched over those sunny gardens sheltered on either side so deeply and warmly that wind can never reach them, save that soft wind which whispers over the herbage, the hush of the calm sea. Ah, troubled human people, sweeping past, glad of the momentary level of the road, and with no leisure to linger, or to see how nature smiles out of her superior happiness at you and your walletful of cares! I wonder why it is that Nature does look happiest in those solitary places, and in the early mornings, and the summer midnights, when there is no human eye about to spy upon the secret of her joy. These valleys are not always vineyards, but sometimes orange-gardens; and though there is not a creature visible, nor apparently the least need of any common vulgar appliances of husbandry where everything is so perfect, yet the labour bestowed upon them must be immense. Notwithstanding, when we come to the next in succession of those picturesque towns which dot the whole road, here is again the same crowd of beggars, pathetic, and not to be denied. Such richness of country, such poverty of people. I do not understand how it is accounted for; for certainly there is no appearance of indolence in the dainty and extreme cultivation of those clefts among the hills. When there is a little pause from the perpetual ascent and descent of the road, and the country spreads into a plain, where here and there a tall black cypress shoots straight up into the sky, looking like an attenuated spire, the aspect is said (vide Murray) to be Oriental-chiefly, I presume, because here they cultivate the date- palm, which, like other things which ought to be imposing, does not strike one half so much as an orthodox imagination desires it should. I humbly conceive that Oriental means dull, and long for the hills and the hollows which reveal in glimpses, like visions of enchantment, the further course of the coast-line, which is too costly a pleasure to be enjoyed all at once, and which one prefers to have hoarded up among the mountains, and dispensed bit by bit as the occasion offers. But, alas, this darkness! in which one has only the gratification of knowing that one is ever so many hundred feet above the sea; that below the descent is straight into the rocks which edge the Mediterranean; that this jar of the wheel was against the bit of wall which is our sole protection; and that this mad diligence gallops, sans drag, sans caution, down a slope which an English coachman would take with the most serious precautions, and would not like even then. But fortunately no accident befalls us, and everybody has fallen into an uncomfortable doze, when we dash along the stony street of Alassio, where we are to stop for the night. Oh night of chill and misery! There are two babies, four bags, a dozen shawls, a Murray, a basket, and a French novel to be produced in the dark out of the dust of the diligence; every article is handed out separately to the applause of the group of idlers, who stand by, and who are all prepared to escort us to our hotel, where we are safely delivered. Then the hotel itself, where there are some five or six rooms, all opening out of each other, and into somewhere else, with one solitary fireplace in the last one, with tiled floors, and ceilings half as high as St Paul's, and a bit of carpet the size of a small tablecloth spread in the centre of each; and landlady, with a coloured chief tied over her head, who speaks a great deal of French, and will not understand that we speak very little, and are tired enough and stupid enough to have forgotten that. How we all nursed the fire in that one fireplace the fire which was not disposed to burn!-and meekly swallowed our coffee, and crept under the quilted coverlids with a dire anticipation of the diligence which was to pick us up at six o'clock next morning. Then the bill, which came in at dawn, our first true Italian bill, at sight of which the British lion stirred within the bosom of my brother. Let us not think of these agonies of travel; but, dearest traveller! fight like a true Briton over every bill they produce to you at an Italian inn. We resumed our journey next day in a vehicle still less comfortable and still more daring than that which had brought us to Alassio, when we had for our travelling companion a merry Genevese, on commerce and on politics intent, hastening to Genoa full of expectation, and with a story on his lips which roused in all our minds once more the slumbering terror of the war. The Austrian flag had been burnt by the crowd the Austrian consul, roughly treated, had left the city. Telegraphic information, sent immediately to Turin, had been answered by the despatch of five vessels bearing troops from Nice, said our informant, who, noways discouraged by his news, proved himself a famous playfellow for the children during the day's journey. Of course, this story being true, and the Genoese mob having thus the support of the authorities, war was all but declared. Thus we went dashing on towards Genoa by just such a road as we had traversed yesterday, but under a light less favourable, the day being dark, wet, and cloudy, with at least one blast of snow, and our minds being somewhat roused by the possibility of finding ourselves actually in the presence of war, or at least of war impending. Coloured by our own fancies, we found excitement in the aspect even of the languid marketplace crowd of the coast towns through which we passed, and discovered a quickened pace and a more important mien among the sturdy little grey soldiers, looking so clean and comfortable, whom one sees in the Sardinian states. Even the Mediterranean partook the sentiment, and, though there was no storm, undulated in a strong swell and current, such as one would rather look at than feel, and threw a heavy angry surf upon the rocky beach. As we drew towards the end of our journey too-for even admiration and the love of beauty have their limits-I rather think we began to be more interested in the progress we made, and more pleased by the speed of our conveyance than by the loveliness of the landscape. Rattling down the hills, turning sharp corners with a jerk, dashing and crunching through the broad gravelly course as wide as a Thames, through which meanders a pitcherful of fair water bearing a big name, and calling itself a river - we hurried on to the famous old republic, the superb Genoa. Fine as this road and country are at all times, it must be still finer during the brief period when these Pagliones and Polceveras, of which we have crossed so many, are really rivers, and not mere beds of gravel. But there seems rain enough in these clouds to fill them up. Farewell, summer country, sleeping mid-world on the tideless beach of that bright sea! We are going south, it is true, but we are going back to winter-back to winter, back to war, back to tumults, cares, and labours back to the world. I conclude that the world stopped somewhere on the other side of Nice, and begins again here as we draw near the gate of Genoa. Farewell, beautiful Riviera! We think of you no more as yonder crescent of a city piles upward to the sky before our eyes, and throws her arms into the sea-nor of the splendour of that noble bay, nor of "the Doria's pale palace," nor of any beauty here-but look up with a shudder, half of excitement, half of terror, at the fortifications, and regard with an unusual interest the brisk little soldiers, and think of the flag burned, and the consul fled, and big Austria bristling her bayonets and setting her mustache; and brave little Sardinia blowing her trumpet from the hills, and rousing one cannot tell what echoes from the rich Lombard plains, the canals of Venice, and the streets of Milan. We saw excitement in every face we passed in the lamplight, as we threaded our way through the streets of Genoa, and thought of nothing less than Italy in arms. But alas for English credulity and human weakness, that we should have to tell it! Though the evening gun that night startled us all to the windows with a sudden thrill, half fearing, half hoping the commencement of hostilities-alas, it was all a canard! The Black Eagles had suffered no violence from the mob of Genoa the Austrian consul remained in the calmest security. I do not remember at this moment how the five ships carrying troops were accounted for whether they too were inventions like the mob, or whether it was merely a common military transfer from one place to another. I think the latter was the truth. But we were "regularly sold," according to Harry's vulgar exclamation. Of course we were much relieved, and, if the truth must be told, just a little disappointed, to find everything pacific, and the warlike rumour just as vague here as in other places. However, there was an indisputable excitement in Genoamore than once, during that first evening, a distant echo of the Marseillaise, that common Continental language of political passion, ascended to our high windows; and even the common operation of changing guard was certainly performed with an importance and aflatus which whispered of something in men's minds deeper than sentry - boxes. The streets were full of groups in eager discussion-the cafés crowded and still, ever and anon, came dropping from this colonnade or yonder piazza that ominous echo of the Marseillaise. Genoa, as seen from these aforesaid high windows of ours, consisted, in the first place, of a high terrace balustraded with marble, which ran in a curve, not sufficiently bold to be called a semicircle, round the middle of the harbour, and beyond which appeared the masts-of which there certainly did not seem to be "a forest" of vessels lying in the port. Round these ships, only partially visible, ran on either side a long arm of solid masonry with a light at each end, shutting in to the dimensions of a doorway this great calm basin, so well enclosed and sheltered that a storm without could hardly send a hint of its presence to the refugees who harboured here. Beyond the line of the terrace, straight up from the water's edge, in lines of building rising over each other so that the foundation of one is little more than level with the roof of the other, the town piles upward on either side, continuing, in a wider crescent than the harbour, the grand and irregular natural line of the coast. This bay or gulf of Genoa is the complete work for which all these lovely little bays, these Villefranches and Monacos and Mentones on the road, were the studies; for the divine Artist does not scorn that principle of repetition full of infinite gradations of contrast which human art has groped its way to, as one of its laws. This deepest crescent is the centre and climax whether you come from one side or the other-from Rome or from France of a coast which doubles into innumerable recesses, and of a sea which luxuriates in bay after bay; and is well worthy to gather together and perfect with the superb seal of all its clustered palaces the two wonderful lines of sea and of mountain which have their common issue here. But as for the city of palaces, or anything which warrants that name, we can see nothing of it from these same high windows-high, not because they are shabby, for look at those walls, where Eneas, with legs which would have carried a dozen fathers, bears off old- was it Anchises? on his sturdy shoulders. I humbly hope I am correct in supposing it to be Eneas, though there is a lady in pink (also with legs) beside him, whom I do not remember in the tale, and one dreadful hero killing another in the foreground of the piece, towards whom the principal personages show the most profound indifference. However, never mind the story; the room is magnificent, and the frescoes are by Piola a local greatness. Dearest Reader! when you go to |