With the excellent example of the Grand Canal du Midi before them, the French have allowed half a century to pass before they even realized the fact that their rivers give them most admirable opportunities for inland navigation, and that by energy in spending money they could have a water line leading up from Manches to Paris, and down from Paris to the Mediterranean. In these days of piercing isthmuses, they seem hardly to have thought of a canal that would save the time and expense of running round Spain and Portugal, when it would be so easy to cut the neck that connects their country with the Peninsula. The rest of the journey was eventless as usual. The family took the steamer at Marseille, steamed down to Leghorn, and drove up to Pisa. There they found a house on the south side of the Lung' Arno, belonging to a widow of the name of Pini. It was a dull and melancholy place enough, but it had the advantage of a large garden that grew chiefly cabbages. It was something like a return home; a number of old acquaintances were met, and few new ones were made.
The studies were kept up with unremitting attention. I kept up drawing, painting, and classics, and it was lucky for me that I did. I have been able to make my own drawings, and to illustrate my own books. It is only in this way that a correct idea of unfamiliar scenes can be given. Travellers who bring home a few scrawls and put them into the hands of a professional illustrator, have the pleasure of seeing the illustrated paper style applied to the scenery and the people of Central Africa and Central Asia and Europe. Even when the drawings are carefully done by the traveller-artist, it is hard to persuade the professional to preserve their peculiarities. For instance, a sketch from Hyderabad, the inland capital of Sind, showed a number of mast-like poles which induced the English artist to write out and ask if there ought not to be yards and sails. In sending a sketch home of a pilgrim in his proper costume, the portable Korán worn under the left arm narrowly escaped becoming a revolver. On the chocolate-coloured cover of a book on Zanzibar, stands a negro in gold, straddling like the Colossus of Rhodes. He was propped crane-like upon one leg, supporting himself with his spear, and applying, African fashion, the sole of the other foot to the perpendicular calf.
But music did not get on so well. We all three had good speaking voices, but we sang with a "voce di gola," a throaty tone which was terrible to hear. It is only in England that people sing without voices. This may do very well when chirping a comic song, or half-speaking a ballad, but in nothing higher. I longed to sing, began singing with all my might at Pau in the Pyrenees, and I kept it up at Pisa, where Signor Romani (Mario's old master) rather encouraged me, instead of peremptorily or pathetically bidding me to hold my tongue. I wasted time and money, and presently found out my mistake and threw up music altogether. At stray times I took up the flageolet, and other simple instruments, as though I had a kind of instinctive feeling how useful music would be to me in later life. And I never ceased to regret that I had not practised sufficiently, to be able to write down music at hearing. Had I been able to do so, I might have collected some two thousand motives from Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, and have produced a musical note-book which would have been useful to a Bellini, or Donizetti, or a Boito.
We had now put away childish things; that is to say, we no longer broke the windows across the river with slings, or engaged in free fights with our coevals. But the climate of Italy is precocious, so, as the Vicar of Wakefield has it, "we cocked our hats and loved the ladies." And our poor father was once appalled by strange heads being put out of the windows, in an unaccustomed street, and with the words, "Oh! S'or Riccardo, Oh! S'or Edoardo."
Madame P——, the landlady, had three children. Sandro, the son, was a tall, gawky youth, who wore a cacciatore or Italian shooting-jacket of cotton-leather, not unlike the English one made loose, with the tails cut off. The two daughters were extremely handsome girls, in very different styles. Signorina Caterina, the elder, was tall, slim, and dark, with the palest possible complexion and regular features. Signorina Antonia, the younger, could not boast of the same classical lines, but the light brown hair, and the pink and white complexion, made one forgive and forget every irregularity. Consequently I fell in love with the elder, and Edward with the latter. Proposals of marriage were made and accepted. The girls had heard that, in her younger days, mamma had had half a dozen strings to her bow at the same time, and they were perfectly ready to follow parental example. But a serious obstacle occurred in the difficulty of getting the ceremony performed. As in England there was a popular but mistaken idea that a man could put a rope round his wife's neck, take her to market, and sell her like a quadruped, so there was, and perhaps there is still, in Italy, a legend that any affianced couple standing up together in front of the congregation during the elevation of the Host, and declaring themselves man and wife, are very much married. Many inquiries were made about this procedure, and at one time it was seriously intended. But the result of questioning was, that promessi sposi so acting, are at once imprisoned and punished by being kept in separate cells, and therefore it became evident, that the game was not worth the candle. This is like a Scotch marriage, however—with the Italian would be binding in religion, and the Scotch in law.
Edward and I made acquaintance with a lot of Italian medical students, compared with whom, English men of the same category were as babes, and they did us no particular good. At last the winter at Pisa ended, badly—very badly. The hard studies of the classics during the day, occasionally concluded with a revel at night. On one hopeless occasion a bottle of Jamaica gin happened to fall into the wrong hands. The revellers rose at midnight, boiled water, procured sugar and lemons, and sat down to a steaming soup tureen full of punch. Possibly it was followed by a second, but the result was that they sallied out into the streets, determined upon what is called a "spree." Knockers did not exist, and Charleys did not confine themselves to their sentry-boxes, and it was vain to ring at bells, when every one was sound asleep. Evidently the choice of amusements was limited, and mostly confined to hustling inoffensive passers-by. But as one of these feats had been performed, and cries for assistance had been uttered, up came the watch at the double, and the revellers had nothing to do but to make tracks. My legs were the longest, and I escaped; Edward was seized and led off, despite his fists and heels, ignobly to the local violon, or guard-house. One may imagine my father's disgust next morning, when he was courteously informed by the prison authorities that a giovinotto bearing his name, had been lodged during the night at the public expense. The father went off in a state of the stoniest severity to the guard-house, and found the graceless one treating his companions in misfortune, thieves and ruffians of every kind, to the contents of a pocket-flask with which he had provided himself in case of need. This was the last straw; our father determined to transfer his head-quarters to the Baths of Lucca, and then to prepare for breaking up the family. The adieux of Caterina and Antonia were heartrending, and it was agreed to correspond every week. The journey occupied a short time, and a house was soon found in the upper village of Lucca.
In those days, the Lucchese baths were the only place in Italy that could boast of a tolerably cool summer climate, and a few of the comforts of life. Sorrento, Montenero, near Leghorn, and the hills about Rome, were frequented by very few; they came under the category of "cheap and nasty." Hence the Bagni collected what was considered to be the distinguished society. It had its parson from Pisa, even in the days before the travelling continental clergyman was known, and this one migrated every year to the hills, like the flight of swallows, and the beggars who desert the hot plains and the stifling climate of the lowlands. There was generally at least one English doctor who practised by the kindly sufferance of the then Italian Government. The Duke of Lucca at times attended the balls; he was married, but his gallant presence and knightly manner committed terrible ravages in the hearts of susceptible English girls.