"Jan. 11, 1861.—We have been climbing up to Grimaldi, whose broad sunny terrace is as Italian a scene as any on the Riviera, for it is crossed by a dark archway, and lined on one side with bright houses, upon whose walls yellow gourds hang in the sun, with a little church, painted pink and yellow, while the other side is overshadowed by old olive-trees, beneath which is seen the broad expanse of sea, here deep blue, there gleaming silver white in the hot sunshine. Children in bright handkerchiefs and aprons were playing about, and singing 'Tanta di gioja, tanto di contento,' while we were drawing.
"Beyond Grimaldi the path becomes intensely steep, but we were repaid for going on when we reached to the top of the hills, as the scenery there is almost Alpine in its bold rocky foregrounds, beneath which yawns the deep black chasm of St. Louis, with a huge cliff towering above. On the scorched rock is Ciotti Superiore, a quaint cluster of houses, while the church, quite separated from the village, stands farther off, on the highest ridge of the mountain. Behind the church, the sea view is magnificent, embracing the coast, with its numerous bays, as far as the Estrelles, which turn golden and pink in the sunset; the grand mountain barriers, with all the orange-clad valleys running up into them; and S. Agnese rising out of the blue mist on its perpendicular cliff.... And, even in this high situation, lovely narcissus and pink carnations were blooming in January.
"People here are unconventional. When it began to rain on Tuesday, as we were going to a picnic, the coachman said 'Ah! le bon Dieu a oublié que c'est un jour de fêtes.'"
It was a great delight during our winter at Mentone that Lady Mary Wood and her family were spending the winter at Nice with old Lady Grey, so that my friend Charlie and I often met, and became greater friends than ever, entirely sympathising in all we did and saw. I went to Nice to spend some days with the Woods, and they came to Mentone for Easter, when we saw the Mentonais assemble to "grind Judas's bones," and many other of their strange ceremonies.
"Good Friday, 1861.—When Charlie and I went to S. Michele at eight o'clock in the evening, we found the church crowded from end to end with people chanting the Miserere, and radiant with a thousand waxlights. In the choir, under a canopy, upon a raised bier surrounded by a treble row of tall tapers, lay the body of Christ, for which the whole service was a funeral celebration. Soon after we arrived, a sudden hush in the crowd showed that something important was going to happen, and a huge friar's lanthorn carried in by a boy preceded the celebrated 'Pilgrim Preacher of the Riviera,' a Capuchin monk with a long white beard, who exercises his wonderful gift of preaching all along the Riviera during Lent. His sermon was short, but very graphic and striking. He began by describing a dreadful murder which people had committed upon the person of their kindest friend, with the horror it excited; and then, pointing to the white corpse which lay before him amid the blazing candles, he declared that those around him were themselves the perpetrators of the crime, and that the object of it was no other than their Saviour, whose image they saw there pale and bleeding before their eyes. Then, snatching the crucifix from the support by his side, he held it aloft to urge repentance by the sufferings there portrayed. As he concluded, soldiers filed into the church, and, amid rolling of drums and blowing of trumpets which intermingled with the chanting, the body was taken up and carried three times round the church by the Black Penitents, Mentonais nobles supporting a canopy over the bier."
With Charlie Wood, also, I went to Dolceacqua, which will always come back to me as one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, with its forest-clad mountains, its tall bridge, its blue river Nervia, and the palatial castle of the Dorias on a cliff, with sunlight streaming through its long lines of glassless windows. Almost equally picturesque were Peglia and Peglione, the latter on the top of a conical rock, with tremendous precipices and extraordinary mountain forms all around.
In the spring we went for a few days to S. Remo, accompanied by several friends. With them, when my mother returned to Mentone, I travelled farther along the Riviera, an excursion which was most amusing, as we bargained for a little carriage from place to place, giving ridiculously small sums, and living entirely like Italians. We went on to many-towered Albenga, to Savona, and eventually to Genoa, making all the excursions belonging to each place. From Genoa we joined Mr. and Mrs. Strettel in an excursion to Porto Fino. When we returned, it was too late to reach Mentone before Sunday, and my companions refused to travel on that day, so we employed the interval in going to Piacenza, Parma, and Modena! Thence we were obliged to telegraph to Mr. Strettel (then chaplain at Genoa) to send us some money to get home with, which we did in a series of little carriages as we had come, but travelling all day and night, driving in the moonlight along the Riviera roads, or often walking for miles at night upon the sands by the sea.