"We expect to start the 1st of February, and my direction will be, E. Bartholimeu, 108 Via Margaretta."

CHAPTER XIII
OLD SCENES REVISITED, 1856.

En Route to Rome.—Trials of Travel.—A Midnight Arrival and an Inhospitable Reception.—Glories of the Eternal City.—Naples and Vesuvius.—Venice.—Holy Week in Rome.—Return to England.—Letter from Harriet Martineau on "Dred."—A Word from Mr. Prescott on "Dred."—Farewell to Lady Byron.

After leaving Paris Mrs. Stowe and her sister, Mrs. Perkins, traveled leisurely through the South of France toward Italy, stopping at Amiens, Lyons, and Marseilles. At this place they took steamer for Genoa, Leghorn, and Civita Vecchia. During their last night on shipboard they met with an accident, of which, and their subsequent trials in reaching Rome, Mrs. Stowe writes as follows:—

About eleven o'clock, as I had just tranquilly laid down in my berth, I was roused by a grating crash, accompanied by a shock that shook the whole ship, and followed by the sound of a general rush on deck, trampling, scuffling, and cries. I rushed to the door and saw all the gentlemen hurrying on their clothes and getting confusedly towards the stairway. I went back to Mary, and we put on our things in silence, and, as soon as we could, got into the upper saloon. It was an hour before we could learn anything certainly, except that we had run into another vessel. The fate of the Arctic came to us both, but we did not mention it to each other; indeed, a quieter, more silent company you would not often see. Had I had any confidence in the administration of the boat, it would have been better, but as I had not, I sat in momentary uncertainty. Had we then known, as we have since, the fate of a boat recently sunk in the Mediterranean by a similar carelessness, it would have increased our fears. By a singular chance an officer, whose wife and children were lost on board that boat, was on board ours, and happened to be on the forward part of the boat when the accident occurred. The captain and mate were both below; there was nobody looking out, and had not this officer himself called out to stop the boat, we should have struck her with such force as to have sunk us. As it was, we turned aside and the shock came on a paddle-wheel, which was broken by it, for when, after two hours' delay, we tried to start and had gone a little way, there was another crash and the paddle-wheel fell down. You may be sure we did little sleeping that night. It was an inexpressible desolation to think that we might never again see those we loved. No one knows how much one thinks, and how rapidly, in such hours.

In the Naples boat that was sunk a short time ago, the women perished in a dreadful way. The shock threw the chimney directly across the egress from below, so that they could not get on deck, and they were all drowned in the cabin.

We went limping along with one broken limb till the next day about eleven, when we reached Civita Vecchia, where there were two hours more of delay about passports. Then we, that is, Mary and I, and a Dr. Edison from Philadelphia, with his son Alfred, took a carriage to Rome, but they gave us a miserable thing that looked as if it had been made soon after the deluge. About eight o'clock at night, on a lonely stretch of road, the wheel came off. We got out, and our postilions stood silently regarding matters. None of us could speak Italian, they could not speak French; but the driver at last conveyed the idea that for five francs he could get a man to come and mend the wheel. The five francs were promised, and he untackled a horse and rode off. Mary and I walked up and down the dark, desolate road, occasionally reminding each other that we were on classic ground, and laughing at the oddity of our lonely, starlight promenade. After a while our driver came back, Tag, Rag, and Bobtail at his heels. I don't think I can do greater justice to Italian costumes than by this respectable form of words.

Then there was another consultation. They put a bit of rotten timber under to pry the carriage up. Fortunately, it did not break, as we all expected it would, till after the wheel was on. Then a new train of thought was suggested. How was it to be kept on? Evidently they had not thought far in that direction, for they had brought neither hammer nor nail, nor tool of any kind, and therefore they looked first at the wheel, then at each other, and then at us. The doctor now produced a little gimlet, with the help of which the broken fragments of the former linchpin were pushed out, and the way was cleared for a new one. Then they began knocking a fence to pieces to get out nails, but none could be found to fit. At last another ambassador was sent back for nails. While we were thus waiting, the diligence, in which many of our ship's company were jogging on to Rome, came up. They had plenty of room inside, and one of the party, seeing our distress, tried hard to make the driver stop, but he doggedly persisted in going on, and declared if anybody got down to help us he would leave him behind.

An interesting little episode here occurred. It was raining, and Mary and I proposed, as the wheel was now on, to take our seats. We had no sooner done so than the horses were taken with a sudden fit of animation and ran off with us in the most vivacious manner, Tag, Rag, and Co. shouting in the rear. Some heaps of stone a little in advance presented an interesting prospect by way of a terminus. However, the horses were lucidly captured before the wheel was off again; and our ambassador being now returned, we were set right and again proceeded.

I must not forget to remark that at every post where we changed horses and drivers, we had a pitched battle with the driver for more money than we had been told was the regular rate, and the carriage was surrounded with a perfect mob of ragged, shock-headed, black-eyed people, whose words all ended in "ino," and who raved and ranted at us till finally we paid much more than we ought, to get rid of them.

At the gates of Rome the official, after looking at our passports, coolly told the doctor that if he had a mind to pay him five francs he could go in without further disturbance, but if not he would keep the baggage till morning. This form of statement had the recommendation of such precision and neatness of expression that we paid him forthwith, and into Rome we dashed at two o'clock in the morning of the 9th of February, 1857, in a drizzling rain.

We drove to the Hotel d'Angleterre,—it was full,—and ditto to four or five others, and in the last effort our refractory wheel came off again, and we all got out into the street. About a dozen lean, ragged "corbies," who are called porters and who are always lying in wait for travelers, pounced upon us. They took down our baggage in a twinkling, and putting it all into the street surrounded it, and chattered over it, while M. and I stood in the rain and received first lessons in Italian. How we did try to say something! but they couldn't talk anything but in "ino" as aforesaid. The doctor finally found a man who could speak a word or two of French, and leaving Mary, Alfred, and me to keep watch over our pile of trunks, he went off with him to apply for lodgings. I have heard many flowery accounts of first impressions of Rome. I must say ours was somewhat sombre.

A young man came by and addressed us in English. How cheering! We almost flew upon him. We begged him, at least, to lend us his Italian to call another carriage, and he did so. A carriage which was passing was luckily secured, and Mary and I, with all our store of boxes and little parcels, were placed in it out of the rain, at least. Here we sat while the doctor from time to time returned from his wanderings to tell us he could find no place. "Can it be," said I, "that we are to be obliged to spend a night in the streets?" What made it seem more odd was the knowledge that, could we only find them, we had friends enough in Rome who would be glad to entertain us. We began to speculate on lodgings. Who knows what we may get entrapped into? Alfred suggested stories he had read of beds placed on trap-doors,—of testers which screwed down on people and smothered them; and so, when at last the doctor announced lodgings found, we followed in rather an uncertain frame of mind.

We alighted at a dirty stone passage, smelling of cats and onions, damp, cold, and earthy, we went up stone stairways, and at last were ushered into two very decent chambers, where we might lay our heads. The "corbies" all followed us,—black-haired, black-browed, ragged, and clamorous as ever. They insisted that we should pay the pretty little sum of twenty francs, or four dollars, for bringing our trunks about twenty steps. The doctor modestly but firmly declined to be thus imposed upon, and then ensued a general "chatteration;" one and all fell into attitudes, and the "inos" and "issimos" rolled freely. "For pity's sake get them off," we said; so we made a truce for ten francs, but still they clamored, forced their way even into our bedroom, and were only repulsed by a loud and combined volley of "No, no, noes!" which we all set up at once, upon which they retreated.

Our hostess was a little French woman, and that reassured us. I examined the room, and seeing no trace of treacherous testers, or trap-doors, resolved to avail myself without fear of the invitation of a very clean, white bed, where I slept till morning without dreaming.

The next day we sent our cards to M. Bartholimeu, and before we had finished breakfast he was on the spot. We then learned that he had been watching the diligence office for over a week, and that he had the pleasant set of apartments we are now occupying all ready and waiting for us.

March 1.

My dear Husband,—Every day is opening to me a new world of wonders here in Italy. I have been in the Catacombs, where I was shown many memorials of the primitive Christians, and to-day we are going to the Vatican. The weather is sunny and beautiful beyond measure, and flowers are springing in the fields on every side. Oh, my dear, how I do long to have you here to enjoy what you are so much better fitted to appreciate than I,—this wonderful combination of the past and the present, of what has been and what is!

Think of strolling leisurely through the Forum, of seeing the very stones that were laid in the time of the Republic, of rambling over the ruined Palace of the Cæsars, of walking under the Arch of Titus, of seeing the Dying Gladiator, and whole ranges of rooms filled with wonders of art, all in one morning! All this I did on Saturday, and only wanted you. You know so much more and could appreciate so much better. At the Palace of the Cæsars, where the very dust is a mélange of exquisite marbles, I saw for the first time an acanthus growing, and picked my first leaf.

Our little ménage moves on prosperously; the doctor takes excellent care of us and we of him. One sees everybody here at Rome, John Bright, Mrs. Hemans' son, Mrs. Gaskell, etc., etc. Over five thousand English travelers are said to be here. Jacob Abbot and wife are coming. Rome is a world! Rome is an astonishment! Papal Rome is an enchantress! Old as she is, she is like Niñon d'Enclos,—the young fall in love with her.

You will hear next from us at Naples.

Affectionately yours,
H. B. S.

From Rome the travelers went to Naples, and after visiting Pompeii and Herculaneum made the ascent of Vesuvius, a graphic account of which is contained in a letter written at this time by Mrs. Stowe to her daughters in Paris. After describing the preparations and start, she says:—

"Gradually the ascent became steeper and steeper, till at length it was all our horses could do to pull us up. The treatment of horses in Naples is a thing that takes away much from the pleasure and comfort of such travelers as have the least feeling for animals. The people seem absolutely to have no consideration for them. You often see vehicles drawn by one horse carrying fourteen or fifteen great, stout men and women. This is the worse as the streets are paved with flat stones which are exceedingly slippery. On going up hill the drivers invariably race their horses, urging them on with a constant storm of blows.