On our way to the Three Taverns we pass the tomb of Seneca, the tombs of the Horatii and the Curatii, and the circular tomb of Cecilia Metella, on which Paul himself must have looked. We drive under the Arch of Drusus, which spanned the road in the apostle’s day, and so came to the Three Taverns, where the brethren met Paul, “whom, when he saw, he thanked God and took courage.” Crimson-tipped daisies were blossoming on the site of this famous meeting-place; the afternoon sun was shining on the Sabine hills and Alban Mount, and a happy lark, thinking the spring had come in this soft air, warbled to us his divine melody as our thought took flight across the centuries to that day when the apostle to the Gentiles paused here on his way to imperial Rome, where he lost his earthly life, but the message that he brought conquered Cæsar, and will yet conquer the world.
The festival of All Saints Day came while we were in Rome, and we found shops and museums more generally closed than on the Christian Sabbath. Driving to the Capitoline Museum, with Merivale and Suetonius to read in presence of the portrait busts of the Roman emperors, we found the doors closed on account of the festa, and when we reached St. Luke’s Academy there was no admission; so we concluded to go with the crowd, and in the dark, dull and dismal November afternoon we drove to the Campo Verano, one of the largest cemeteries of Rome. This is the day that the rich and poor visit their dead, carrying flowers to decorate the graves. For a mile or more the road was lined with young men and maidens, old men and children of the middle and poorer classes, who were walking to the cemetery, carrying wreaths, while the occupants of elegant private carriages were almost invisible under heaps of choice flowers. We made slow progress, as the street was blocked with vehicles and pedestrians, all moving in one direction, while vociferous beggars, halt, lame, and blind, stretched out their hands, crying lustily for charity. The walls along the way were covered with wreaths of natural and artificial flowers, with bead wreaths and wreaths of immortelles for sale to those who had failed to supply themselves at the outset of their journey. Leaving our cab at the cemetery gates, we walked through the covered Campo Santo, in which were many elaborate monuments, and on most of these there was some likeness of the deceased, either a portrait in oil, or a bust, or bas-relief in marble. A life-size sitting figure of a young mother holding her little son in her arms, who was reaching up to kiss her, was the work of a distinguished Milanese sculptor in memory of his lost wife and child, and these were both portraits. Another very touching representation was of a lovely young woman lying dead on a funeral bier, while her little child was standing at one side on tip-toe, pulling the drapery of the couch, as if trying to wake the sleeper. The graves of the poor were simply marked by a black cross, on which was a number, instead of a name, but even over these graves a burning lamp was suspended. In the funeral chapel we heard the distant chanting of invisible monks.
Excursions to Tivoli and to the Alban Mount; sunny afternoons in the ornamental gardens and park-like enclosures of the villas Borghese and Albani; drives to the Pincian, where there is music and a gay moving throng of vehicles and pedestrians; study of ancient art at the Capitoline Museum and the Vatican; repeated visits to the Sistine Chapel, where one comes under the spell of Michael Angelo’s mighty genius; a day’s wandering over the ruined palaces of the Cæsars on Palatine Hill; a search for the masterpieces of art in churches and palaces; diligent reading during the evenings of Merivale and Suetonius, Grimm’s “Michael Angelo” and Hare’s “Walks,” a re-reading of Hawthorne’s “Marble Faun,” and a dozen lessons in Italian—such were the absorbing and delightful occupations of the Chautauquans during their stay in Rome. And now it was time to start for Naples, in order to catch the next steamer to Alexandria. The statues on St. John Lateran stood out against the blue sky as we moved out of Rome. The desolate Campagna; the long, solemn stretch of aqueduct arches; the tombs on the Appian Way; the sun sinking as a ball of fire; the dome of St. Peter’s, visible long after the city had been blotted out—these were our last views of the Eternal City. We arrive in Naples at 11 o’clock, but there is delay about luggage, and it is midnight when we reach the Hotel Royal des Etrangers, after a long rattling drive from the railway station. Stepping out on the balcony, under the clear star-lit heavens, we see the matchless curve of the Bay of Naples, and Vesuvius sending its dull, red glare into the holy night. The next morning we take an early train to Pompeii, and on the journey read Pliny’s description of the three days of horror in the year 79, when the great eruption of Vesuvius destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii. It is a short walk from the station to the gates of the ruined town, and after escaping from the importunate beggars, the desolation of these deserted streets is all the more impressive. Everything seems on a diminutive scale here—the streets narrow, houses small, and the sleeping apartments no larger than those on an ocean steamer. The people spent most of their time in the open courts, which were surrounded by covered arcades and were a necessary part of every dwelling. Comparatively few of the adornments of these Pompeiian homes remain in situ, the choicest specimens of art found here have been carried off to the museums. A fountain in the court, a mutilated statue, a broken pillar, a bit of mosaic pavement, a partially obliterated fresco-painting are all that remain to tell of the beauty of the city so suddenly buried, with 2,000 of its inhabitants, under twenty feet of ashes and lava. One of the most interesting spots was where the Roman soldier was discovered, grasping his spear and remaining faithful to his post, although he might well have supposed that the last great day had come. In the museum at Pompeii the most striking and interesting objects are casts of eight human corpses, and one of the body of a dog, fearfully twisted and contorted in the final death agony. The casts were obtained in 1863, by an ingenious experiment made by Signor Fiorelli, the present director of the excavations. While the soft parts of the bodies had decayed, their forms frequently remained imprinted on the ashes, which afterward hardened. The bones of a body thus imbedded were carefully removed and the cavity filled with plaster, and thus the figures and attitudes of the poor creatures in the death struggle have been preserved.
On the third day after our arrival in Naples we set sail for Alexandria. The soft, bright skies of Southern Italy smile on us as we stand on the rear deck of the French steamer “Mendoza,” looking back at Naples as we slowly move down the bay, Vesuvius every now and then sending out a solemn, thunderous boom. We read with delight and amazement Richter’s marvelous word paintings in “Titan” of places which he never saw but with the mind’s eye. We sail out of the two encircling arms which are thrust into the blue waters, Ischia and Pozzuoli, the modern name for Puteoli, on the one side, Castellamare and Sorrento on the other. The rocky island of Capri is passed; we peer along the shore of the Gulf of Salerno hoping to get a glimpse of Pæstum and its famous temple, and on we go, the white gulls following us into the open sea.
As a preparation for Alexandria we read Ebers’s “Egyptian Princess,” and like true Chautauquans re-read Charles Kingsley’s “Hypatia.” We are so unfortunate as to arrive at the end of our voyage just after dusk, and although the lights of the city are in view, we are forced to cast anchor and remain on shipboard another night. As the twilight falls upon us, the great spirits of the past begin to loom up in the sky—the Cæsars and Ptolemies; Pompey and Antony’s fascinator, Cleopatra; Euclid and Theocritus; Cyril and Apollos; the early Christian Church struggling with Greek learning and Jewish prejudice. Such is the atmosphere of the early ages of this ancient city. Under the Ptolemies and the Cæsars, Alexandria was a world-renowned city of 500,000 souls, adorned with the arts of Greece and the wealth of Egypt, while its schools of learning far outshone all those of the more ancient cities. At the beginning of the third century it began to wane and from the time it was taken by Omar in A. D. 641, its commerce and importance sunk rapidly. The discovery of the route to India by the Cape of Good Hope completed its ruin.
Anchoring outside the quay we were quickly surrounded by a crowd of row-boats, with black-faced sailors in a picturesque costume of white full trowsers, with red jackets and sashes, and red and white turbans. These boats brought to our ship several visitors, who came to meet their friends, and it was amusing to see the Oriental salutations and effusiveness. In our drive of two hours, strange sights met us at every turn, and the street scenes were most curious and interesting. The veiled women, with their black, flashing, restless eyes; their flowing robes of black or blue or white, and their stately gait, made one long to see their entire countenance and to know what is their manner of life. There is every variety of color here, from the intense black of the Nubian to the delicate yellow tinge of the Octoroon. Some of the children’s faces were attractive, but most of the old faces were so haggard and evil that it was painful to catch a glimpse of them. Groves of the date palm, the luscious, freshly-picked fruit of which seemed to us far more tempting than the leeks and onions after which the children of Israel lusted; donkeys, carrying their riders far back on their haunches, and pursued by runners who give the poor animal a shove when he slackens speed; camels, with their slow gait and quizzical expression, as much as to say, “Don’t you think I’m handsome? Isn’t life a great joke?”; merchants, sitting calmly in their booths, smoking their nargilehs with the utmost unconcern as to custom—these were a few of a multitude of objects new and striking that attracted our attention.
Pompey’s Pillar is a solid shaft of polished red syenite, which resembles Scotch granite, and placed on an eminence lifts itself grandly against the deep blue of the sky. But it was erected in Diocletian’s time, and that seems quite modern here. The Pasha’s palace and harem are of stucco, and far from being impressive or elegant. We drove through the grounds, which have a fountain in the center, a few sickly looking plants, and a fine view of the sea.
Shepheard’s hotel in Cairo has been for many years the favorite stopping place of English travelers, and one finds here a degree of comfort and cleanliness not often to be met in this part of the world. Here the English language is spoken by all the servants, and, although our method of summoning a waiter is unknown, the Oriental fashion of clapping the hands is quite as effective. Mounted on donkeys we rode to the museum at Boulak, where are to be found the best specimens of Egyptian ancient art. Massive and grand are some of these sitting figures of kings who reigned thousands of years ago. One, with the body of a sphinx, is said to represent the Pharaoh under whom Joseph attained power and position in Egypt. Exquisitely wrought and polished are these black granite statues, but there is no soul in the stone. The royal mummies recently found near Thebes are here, and we saw these hoar monarchs as they lay in their varnished and hieroglyph-inscribed coffins of sycamore wood, wrapped in the shrouds of fine linen in which their embalmers had enswathed them, wearing on their faces their sharp-cut and life-like effigies, encircled with the flowers and garlands which had been placed there by the hands of mourners over three thousand years ago. Rameses II., the Pharaoh of the Bondage lay, holding in his right hand, appropriately and significantly, a scourge of four cords. He was the only one of the royal group who bore this emblem. Here, too, is Thothmes III., that Pharaoh who ordered the construction of the obelisks, one of which stands on the Thames embankment, and the other in our own New York. In another case lies the second king of the nineteenth dynasty, who occupied the throne during the grandest era of Egyptian history. He was the builder of the “Hall of Columns,” at Karnac, the most magnificent temple in all Egypt, and one of the ten or twelve architectural wonders of the world. It is a significant fact that Menephtâh, the son and successor of the Pharaoh of the Bondage, is not in the group. The question which naturally rises to the Biblical student is, “Are we to seek for him in the Red Sea?”
Starting one bright morning at 7 o’clock in an open barouche, with Jūseph Hakè as dragoman, a tall stately Egyptian as coachman, with the imperial buttons on his coat, for he was formerly in the service of Ismail Pasha, and an Arab runner to clear the passage through the narrow and crowded Cairo streets, we drove in the fresh morning air over the arched stone bridges of the Nile, with their bronze lions, the gift of France, and on smooth, straight avenues lined with lebeck trees, until we had accomplished the ten miles which lie between Cairo and the Pyramids. Barricades of corn-husks enclosing heaps of yellow corn, and the busy, dark-skinned huskers were a noticeable feature by the roadside. We could not look at a child without his little hand was extended with the call for backsheesh, and sometimes our carriage was followed by half a dozen girls and boys whose cries, when they got short of breath in running, would be simply “’sheesh, ’sheesh.” Our first view of the Pyramids of Gheezeh was over the lebeck trees and corn-husks, and they seemed close at hand, although then five miles away. Among the three pyramids of Gheezeh the pyramid of Cheops, or the “Great Pyramid,” is by far the most important. It is the pyramid as the mysterious Sphinx at its base is the sphinx. It is probably the oldest, and certainly the largest building in the world. Egyptologists differ widely in their chronology. Mariette puts the building of Cheops’s pyramid back to B. C. 4235, Brugsch to B. C. 3733, while Piazzi Smyth places it in the age of Abraham and Melchisedek, B. C. 2170.
As soon as we left our carriage we were approached by the sheik of the village and a dozen swarthy Arabs, who, with their usual vociferous volubility, tried to prove that we, each of us, needed three men to help us up the pyramid. One took hold of each hand, and the other pushed and lifted us on the highest stones of this rough staircase. Pausing frequently for breath, we consumed three-quarters of an hour in the ascent, but the summit reached, one speedily forgets the physical effort required in the grand, solemn, far-reaching prospect over green plain and sandy desert—the living and the dead. Far away on the horizon line of the desert appear the sharp outlines of ten or twelve pyramids. Near us is a pyramid almost as large as the one on which we stand, the smooth casing still remaining on the top, and making that portion of it inaccessible. Clearly defined is the line of verdure which marks the overflow of the river. From June to October this broad plain is inundated to the depth of from ten to fifteen feet. This remarkable rise of the Nile waters is occasioned by the tropical rains, and the melting of the snows on the high mountain ranges at the equator. The rise and the retreat are equally rapid. In May the volume of its waters is only one-twentieth of that in October. The eternal youth of Nature, “as fresh as on creation’s morn,” and the hoary past contrast here most vividly. Where are they who planned and reared these mighty monuments? Gone and forgotten as we too shall be. The Arabs sat by themselves and chattered in low tones when they saw we wanted to be alone, but now and then they would gather around us like children, asking in very good English all sorts of questions, some in regard to America, its extent, climate, the cost of getting there, and prices paid to a laboring man.