At half-past nine the great doors opened, and the procession began, in slow and stately moving fashion, to enter. One saw a throng of ecclesiastics in robes and ermine; the white plumes of the Guard Noble; the pages and chamberlains in scarlet; other pages, or what not, in black short-clothes, short swords, gold chains, cloak hanging from the shoulder, and stiff white ruffs; thirty-six cardinals in violet robes, with high miter-shaped white silk hats, that looked not unlike the pasteboard “trainer-caps” that boys wear when they play soldier; crucifixes, and a blazoned banner here and there; and, at last, the pope, in his red chair, borne on the shoulders of red lackeys, heaving along in a sea-sicky motion, clad in scarlet and gold, with a silver miter on his head, feebly making the papal benediction with two upraised fingers, and moving his lips in blessing. As the pope came in, a supplementary choir of men and soprano hybrids, stationed near the door, set up a high, welcoming song, or chant, which echoed rather finely through the building. All the music of the day is vocal.
The procession having reached its destination, and disappeared behind the altar of the dome, the pope dismounted, and took his seat on his throne. The blessing of the palms began, the cardinals first approaching, and afterwards the members of the diplomatic corps, the archbishops and bishops, the heads of the religious orders, and such private persons as have had permission to do so. I had previously seen the palms carried in by servants in great baskets. It is, perhaps, not necessary to say that they are not the poetical green waving palms, but stiff sort of wands, woven out of dry, yellow, split palm-leaves, sometimes four or five feet in length, braided into the semblance of a crown on top,—a kind of rough basket-work. The palms having been blessed, a procession was again formed down the nave and out the door, all in it “carrying palms in their hands,” the yellow color of which added a new element of picturesqueness to the splendid pageant. The pope was carried as before, and bore in his hand a short braided palm, with gold woven in, flowers added, and the monogram “I. H. S.” worked in the top. It is the pope's custom to give this away when the ceremony is over. Last year he presented it to an American lady, whose devotion attracted him; this year I saw it go away in a gilded coach in the hands of an ecclesiastic. The procession disappeared through the great portal into the vestibule, and the door closed. In a moment somebody knocked three times on the door: it opened, and the procession returned, and moved again to the rear of the altar, the singers marching with it and chanting. The cardinals then changed their violet for scarlet robes; and high mass, for an hour, was celebrated by a cardinal priest: and I was told that it was the pope's voice that we heard, high and clear, singing the passion. The choir made the responses, and performed at intervals. The singing was not without a certain power; indeed, it was marvelous how some of the voices really filled the vast spaces of the edifice, and the choruses rolled in solemn waves of sound through the arches. The singing, with the male sopranos, is not to my taste; but it cannot be denied that it had a wild and strange effect.
While this was going on behind the altar, the people outside were wandering about, looking at each other, and on the watch not to miss any of the shows of the day. People were talking, chattering, and greeting each other as they might do in the street. Here and there somebody was kneeling on the pavement, unheeding the passing throng. At several of the chapels, services were being conducted; and there was a large congregation, an ordinary church full, about each of them. But the most of those present seemed to regard it as a spectacle only; and as a display of dress, costumes, and nationalities it was almost unsurpassed. There are few more wonderful sights in this world than an Englishwoman in what she considers full dress. An English dandy is also a pleasing object. For my part, as I have hinted, I like almost as well as anything the big footmen,—those in scarlet breeches and blue gold-embroidered coats. I stood in front of one of the fine creations for some time, and contemplated him as one does the Farnese Hercules. One likes to see to what a splendor his species can come, even if the brains have all run down into the calves of the legs. There were also the pages, the officers of the pope's household, in costumes of the Middle Ages; the pope's Swiss guard in the showy harlequin uniform designed by Michael Angelo; the foot-soldiers in white short-clothes, which threatened to burst, and let them fly into pieces; there were fine ladies and gentlemen, loafers and loungers, from every civilized country, jabbering in all the languages; there were beggars in rags, and boors in coats so patched that there was probably none of the original material left; there were groups of peasants from the Campagna, the men in short jackets and sheepskin breeches with the wool side out, the women with gay-colored folded cloths on their heads, and coarse woolen gowns; a squad of wild-looking Spanish gypsies, burning-eyed, olive-skinned, hair long, black, crinkled, and greasy, as wild in raiment as in face; priests and friars, Zouaves in jaunty light gray and scarlet; rags and velvets, silks and serge cloths,—a cosmopolitan gathering poured into the world's great place of meeting,—a fine religious Vanity Fair on Sunday.
There came an impressive moment in all this confusion, a point of august solemnity. Up to that instant, what with chanting and singing the many services, and the noise of talking and walking, there was a wild babel. But at the stroke of the bell and the elevation of the Host, down went the muskets of the guard with one clang on the marble; the soldiers kneeled; the multitude in the nave, in the aisles, at all the chapels, kneeled; and for a minute in that vast edifice there was perfect stillness: if the whole great concourse had been swept from the earth, the spot where it lately was could not have been more silent. And then the military order went down the line, the soldiers rose, the crowd rose, and the mass and the hum went on.
It was all over before one; and the pope was borne out again, and the vast crowd began to discharge itself. But it was a long time before the carriages were all filled and rolled off. I stood for a half hour watching the stream go by,—the pompous soldiers, the peasants and citizens, the dazzling equipages, and jaded, exhausted women in black, who had sat or stood half a day under the dome, and could get no carriage; and the great state coaches of the cardinals, swinging high in the air, painted and gilded, with three noble footmen hanging on behind each, and a cardinal's broad face in the window.
VESUVIUS
CLIMBING A VOLCANO
Everybody who comes to Naples,—that is, everybody except the lady who fell from her horse the other day at Resina and injured her shoulder, as she was mounting for the ascent,—everybody, I say, goes up Vesuvius, and nearly every one writes impressions and descriptions of the performance. If you believe the tales of travelers, it is an undertaking of great hazard, an experience of frightful emotions. How unsafe it is, especially for ladies, I heard twenty times in Naples before I had been there a day. Why, there was a lady thrown from her horse and nearly killed, only a week ago; and she still lay ill at the next hotel, a witness of the truth of the story. I imagined her plunged down a precipice of lava, or pitched over the lip of the crater, and only rescued by the devotion of a gallant guide, who threatened to let go of her if she didn't pay him twenty francs instantly. This story, which will live and grow for years in this region, a waxing and never-waning peril of the volcano, I found, subsequently, had the foundation I have mentioned above. The lady did go to Resina in order to make the ascent of Vesuvius, mounted a horse there, fell off, being utterly unhorsewomanly, and hurt herself; but her injury had no more to do with Vesuvius than it had with the entrance of Victor Emanuel into Naples, which took place a couple of weeks after. Well, as I was saying, it is the fashion to write descriptions of Vesuvius; and you might as well have mine, which I shall give to you in rough outline.
There came a day when the Tramontane ceased to blow down on us the cold air of the snowy Apennines, and the white cap of Vesuvius, which is, by the way, worn generally like the caps of the Neapolitans, drifted inland instead of toward the sea. Warmer weather had come to make the bright sunshine no longer a mockery. For some days I had been getting the gauge of the mountain. With its white plume it is a constant quantity in the landscape: one sees it from every point of view; and we had been scarcely anywhere that volcanic remains, or signs of such action,—a thin crust shaking under our feet, as at Solfatara, where blasts of sulphurous steam drove in our faces,—did not remind us that the whole ground is uncertain, and undermined by the subterranean fires that have Vesuvius for a chimney. All the coast of the bay, within recent historic periods, in different spots at different times, has risen and sunk and risen again, in simple obedience to the pulsations of the great fiery monster below. It puffs up or sinks, like the crust of a baking apple-pie. This region is evidently not done; and I think it not unlikely it may have to be turned over again before it is. We had seen where Herculaneum lies under the lava and under the town of Resina; we had walked those clean and narrow streets of Pompeii, and seen the workmen picking away at the imbedded gravel, sand, and ashes which still cover nearly two thirds of the nice little, tight little Roman city; we had looked at the black gashes on the mountain-sides, where the lava streams had gushed and rolled and twisted over vineyards and villas and villages; and we decided to take a nearer look at the immediate cause of all this abnormal state of things.