On the 31st we returned to Rome. During my stay there I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Porter, our minister to Rome. He was hardly yet installed in his duties, as the king had been absent, but returned from Germany the day I arrived. Porter and I had been in Congress together, and boarded at the same house. He was not only a man of ability, but of pleasing address and manners.
Everybody I saw in Rome was talking about the heat and moving out of town. On June 1, I went to Florence. There we spent four days very pleasantly. The hotel was good, the weather all we could desire, and the people we met, looked contented and comfortable. They were in striking contrast with their countrymen in Naples. There was an air about the place that indicated prosperity. Florence is an art gallery. Several of our countrymen, famous as artists, of whom I can recall Powers, Meade and Turner, were not only pursuing, but learning, their art. I was told that a considerable part of the population were engaged in painting and sculpture. No doubt their wages were small but food and clothing were also low.
We would gladly have remained longer in Florence if my plan of travel would have allowed it. Not only was the city and all the treasures of art interesting, but the country around was picturesque and highly cultivated. We could ride in any direction over admirable roads and almost every place had an historical interest. I witnessed there a review of several thousand troops, but was especially interested in a body of small men well drilled for rapid movements. The parade was on Sunday and the ladies objected to a parade on that day. I observed that in the Latin states I visited, Sunday was generally selected for such displays. I purchased two works of art from American artists. I commend the wisdom of their choice of location, for in Florence the love of art, especially of sculpture, is more highly appreciated than in any other city of Europe that I have visited.
Our next stopping place was Venice. The chief attraction of this city is that it is unlike any other city in the world in its location, its architecture, its history and in the habits and occupation of its people. It is literally located in the sea; its streets are canals; its carriages are gondolas and they are peculiar and unlike any other vessel afloat. Magnificent stone palaces rise from the waters, and the traveler wonders how, upon such foundations, these buildings could rest for centuries. Its strange history has been the basis of novels, romances, dramas and poetry, by writers in every country and clime. Its form of government was, in the days of the Doges, a republic governed by an aristocracy, and its wealth was the product of commerce conducted by great merchants whose enterprise extended to every part of the known habitable globe.
We visited St. Mark's cathedral, the palace of the Doges, and the numerous places noted in history or tradition. We chartered a gondola and rode by moonlight through the Grand Canal and followed the traditional course of visitors. The glory of Venice is gone forever. We saw nothing of the pomp and panoply of the ancient city. The people were poor and the palaces were reduced to tenement houses. Venice may entice strangers by its peculiar situation and past history, but in the eye of an American traveler it is but a great ruin. The wages paid for labor were not sufficient to supply absolute necessities.
The construction of the railroad to Vienna is a remarkable feat of engineering. The route over the Semmerling pass presents difficulties far greater than any encountered in the United States. We spent four days in and about Vienna. Its location on the River Danube was a good one for a great city. The surrounding country was interesting and well cultivated. The comparison between the people of Vienna and Venice was very much in favor of Vienna. The city was clean, well built, with many signs of growth and prosperity. The people were comfortably clad, and the crowds that gathered in the parks and gardens to hear the music of the military bands were orderly and polite. Among the European cities I have visited, I recall none that made a more favorable impression on my mind than Vienna. I found no difficulty in making my English understood, and it was said of the people of that city that they generally knew enough of the English and French languages, in addition to their native German, to sustain a conversation in either. We visited Colonel Fred. Grant, then our minister to Austria, at Vosben, about twenty miles by rail from Vienna. I did not seek to make acquaintances in Vienna, as my time would not allow it, but, from a superficial view, I believed that the people of that city were intelligent, social and friendly, with more of the habits of Frenchmen than of the Germans of Berlin, or of the English of London.
From Vienna we followed the line of railroad through Salzburg, Innsbruck, to Zurich, stopping at each place for a day. This a very interesting country, generally picturesque, and in some places mountainous. Here we see the southern German in his native hills. A vein of superstition colors their creed as good Catholics. They are, as a rule, loyal to their emperor, and content with their condition. The passage from the Tyrol into Switzerland is not marked by national boundaries, such as rivers or mountains, nor does the population vary much until one reaches Zurich. In our progress thus far, from Nice through Italy and Austria, our party had been traveling over, to us, a new and strange land. At Zurich we entered within a region visited by Mrs. Sherman and myself in 1859. The cities and mountains of Switzerland seemed familiar to us. Great changes, however, had occurred in modes of travel in this short period in these old countries. Railroads traversed the valleys and crossed the mountains, where we had traveled in the stage coach. At Lucerne I went up a tramway to the top of Mt. Pilatus, at a grade of from 25 to 35 degrees. I did not feel this in ascending, but in descending I confess to experiencing real fear. The jog-jog of the cogwheels, the possibility of their breaking, and the sure destruction that would follow, made me very nervous. I would have been less so but for a lady unknown to me, sitting by my side, who became frightened and turned deathly pale. I was glad indeed when we reached the lake.
From Lucerne Mrs. Sherman went to Neuchâtel to meet my niece, Mrs. Huggins, then sick at that place. The remainder of the party went to Interlaken and the valley in which it is situated. I have no room for the description of mountain scenery, and no language can properly convey a sense of its grandeur. I have mentally contrasted Mt. St. Bernard and the Simplon with Pike's Peak and Mt. Washburn, and feel quite sure that in grandeur and in extent of view the American mountains are superior to those named in Europe, but the larger population in easy reach of the mountains of Switzerland will give them the preference for a generation or more. Then Mt. Shasta will take its place as the most beautiful isolated mountain in the world, and the Rocky Mountain range will furnish a series of mountains surpassing the mountains of Switzerland; but both South America and Asia contain mountains thousands of feet higher than either or any of the mountains of Europe or North America.
Without going into details of travels over familiar ground all our party arrived safely at Paris on the 2nd of July, 1889. Unfortunately, Mrs. Sherman was called back to Neuchâtel on the 4th of July, on account of the continued serious illness of Mrs. Huggins, the balance of the party remaining in Paris. We were in that city two weeks and attended the international exposition many times. The French people know better than any other how to conduct such a show. The great building in which it was held was so arranged that similar articles were grouped together, and yet all productions of a country were in convenient proximity. The French are artists in almost every branch of human industry. They are cheerful, gay and agreeable. They are polite and therefore sensitive of any slight, neglect or rudeness and promptly resent it.
While in Paris we formed some agreeable acquaintances. Whitelaw Reid, our minister to France, entertained elegantly his countrymen and his associates in the diplomatic corps. From him our little party, especially the two young ladies, received many courtesies, and through him we had invitations from the President of the French Republic and officers of the exposition. The reception at the palace of the president was in striking and pleasing contrast with that given by the emperor in 1867, already referred to. The later reception was simple in form, something like a reception by the President of the United States, but where it differed it was an improvement upon our custom. The invitation was quite general and extended to the diplomatic corps, to all persons representing any article in the exposition, and to many citizens and visitors in Paris, who were named by the diplomatic corps or by the officers of the French government. I think that fully as many persons were present as usually attend the receptions of our President. Each invited guest, as he entered the reception room, gave his name, and, if escorting others, gave their names to the officer in charge. The name was announced to the president, who stood a few paces in the rear, the guests and the president bowed but did not shake hands and the guests passed on through a suite of rooms or into the garden. Miss Hoyt, my daughter and I attended the reception with Mr. and Mrs. Reid. As Mr. Reid entered the room his name and office were announced, and the president and he advanced towards each other, shook hands, and I and my party were introduced and we shook hands. This occupied but a moment and the reception of others went on, only occasionally interrupted by the president when he chose to recognize some one by handshaking. When we were received, as stated, we were introduced by Mr. Reid to several persons on attendance on the president, and then retired with the passing company. In this way the president and his wife escaped the extreme fatigue of shaking hands with thousands of people in rapid succession, often producing soreness and swelling of hands and arms. I hope some President of the United States will be bold enough to adopt, as he can, this simple measure of relief practiced by the President of the French Republic. The French government also furnishes a house ample enough for a large reception, which the United States does not do, but I trust will.