"Pisa, Dec. 1.—We left Nice on the 21st, and slept at Mentone, quite spoilt by building and by cutting down trees. I saw many friends, especially the Comtesse d'Adhemar, who flung her arms round me and kissed me on both cheeks. We spent the middle of the next day at S. Remo and slept at Oneglia. The precipices are truly appalling. I have visions still of the early morning drive from Oneglia along dewy hillsides and amongst hoary olives, and through the narrow gaily painted streets of the little fishing-towns, where the arches meet overhead and the wares set out before the shop-doors brush the carriage as it passes by.
"The second day, at Loiano, I was left behind. I went just outside the hotel to draw, begging my mother and Lea to pick me up as they went by. The carriage passed close by me and they did not see me. At first I did not hurry myself, thinking, when they did not find me, that they would stop for me a little farther on; but seeing the carriage go on and on, I ran after it as hard as I could, shouting at the pitch of my voice; but it never stopped, and I quite lost sight of it in the narrow streets of one of the fishing-villages before reaching Finale. At Finale I was in absolute despair at their not stopping, which seemed inexplicable, and I pursued mile after mile, footsore and weary, through the grand mountain coves in that part of the Riviera and along the desolate shore to Noli, where, just as night closed in, I was taken up by some people driving in a little carriage, on the box of which, in a bitter cold wind, I was carried to Savona, where I arrived just as our heavy carriage with its inmates was driving into the hotel. It was one of the odd instances of my dear mother's insouciance, of her 'happy-go-lucky' nature: 'they had not seen me, they had not looked back; no, they supposed I should get on somehow; they knew I always fell on my legs.' And I was perfectly conscious that if I had not appeared for days, my mother would have said just the same. We spent a pleasant Sunday at Savona, the views most beautiful of the wonderfully picturesque tower, calm bay of sapphire water, and delicate mountain distance.
"The landlord of the Croce di Malta at Genoa engaged a vetturino to take us to La Spezia. The first day, it was late when we left Sta. Margherita, where we stayed for luncheon. The driver lighted his lamps at Chiavari. Soon both my companions fell asleep. I sat up watching the foam of the sea at the bottom of the deep black precipices without parapets as long as I could see it through the gloom: then it became quite dark. Suddenly there was a frightful bolt of the horses, scream after scream from the driver, an awful crash, and we were hurled violently over and over into the black darkness. A succession of shrieks from Lea showed me that she was alive, but I thought at first my mother must be killed, for there was no sound from her. Soon the great troop of navvies came up, whose sudden appearance from the mouth of a tunnel, each with a long iron torch in his hand, had made the horses bolt. One of them let down his torch into the mired and broken carriage as it lay bottom upwards. 'Povera, poveretta,' he exclaimed, as he saw Lea sitting pouring with blood amongst the broken glass of the five great windows of the carriage. Then Mother's voice from the depth of the hood assured us that she was not hurt, only buried under the cushions and bags, and she had courage to remain perfectly motionless, while sheet after sheet of broken glass was taken from off her (she would have been cut to pieces if she had moved) and thrown out at the top of the carriage. Then there was a great consultation as to how we were to be got out, which ended in the carriage being bodily lifted and part of the top taken off, making an opening through which first Lea was dragged and afterwards the Mother. Then my mother, who had not walked at all for many weeks, was compelled to walk more than a mile to Sestri, in pitch darkness and pouring rain, dragged by a navvy on one side and me on the other. Another navvy supported Lea, who was in a fainting state, and others carried torches. We excited much pity when we arrived at the little inn at Sestri, and the people were most hospitable and kind. I had always especially wished to draw a particular view of a gaily painted church tower and some grand aloes on the road near Sestri, and it was curious to be enabled to do so the next day by our forcible detention there for want of a carriage.
"On the 29th we crossed once more the grand pass of Bracco, with its glorious scenery of billowy mountains ending in the delicate peaks of Carrara; and we baited at a wretched village where Mother was able to walk in the sunny road. Yesterday we came here by the exquisite railway under Massa Ducale, and were rapturously welcomed by Victoire[358] and her daughter."
"Palazzo Parisani, Rome, Dec. 10.—We had a wearisome journey here on the 3rd, the train not attempting to keep any particular time, and stopping more than an hour at Orbetello for the 'discorso' of the guard and engine-driver,[359] and at other stations in proportion. However, Mother quite revived when the great masses of the aqueducts began to show in the moonlight. They had given up expecting us in the Palazzo, where my sister has lent us her apartments, and it was long before we could get any one to open the door.
"It has been bitterly cold ever since we arrived and the air filled with snow. The first acquaintance I saw was the Pope! He was at the Trinità de' Monte, and I waited to see him come down the steps and receive his blessing on our first Roman morning. He looked dreadfully weak, and Monsignor Talbot seemed to be holding him tight up lest he should fall. The Neapolitan royal family I have already seen, always in their deep mourning.[360]
"The Pincio is still surrounded with earthworks, and the barricades remain outside the gates: a great open moat yawns in front of the door of the English Church. The barrack near St. Peter's is a hideous ruin. The accounts of the battle of Mentana are awful: when the Pontificals had expended all their ammunition, they rushed upon the Garibaldians and tore them with their teeth.
"Terrible misery has been left by the cholera, and the streets are far more full of beggars than ever. The number of deaths has been frightful—Princess Colonna and her daughters; old Marchese Serlupi; Müller the painter and his child; Mrs. Foljambe's old maid of thirty years; Mrs. Ramsay's donna and the man who made tea at her parties, are amongst those we have known. The first day we were out, Lea and I saw a woman in deep mourning, who was evidently begging, look wistfully at us, and had some difficulty in recognising Angela, our donna of 1863. Her husband, handsome Antonio the fisherman, turned black of the cholera in the Pescheria, and died in a few hours, and her three children have been ill ever since.