It was a curious thing that poor Charley Drake, at the age of twenty-eight, died in Jerusalem on the very day Richard was operated upon. He had caught a severe fever in the malarious valley of the Jordan, living under canvas, in heavy rains. He was only ill three weeks, and had no idea of dying until seven hours before his death. For the first two hours he wept bitterly, and, resigning himself, he constantly said, "Tell my mother I die in the love of Jesus." He talked quite as agnostically as Richard did; but he was a good Protestant at heart, and died a holy death. During the time he was delirious he frequently said to Richard's servant, who remained with him, "Habíb, pitch the tents on Mount Sion; there is such a beautiful place." It was where we had often sat, we three together, and he had said how he should like to be buried there. Richard unfortunately got hold of the letter before I did, and he fell back in a faint with the wound reopened. We had lost a true friend, perhaps a better than we should ever see again, and we felt it bitterly. It was just a year since he left us at Venice.
Richard began (though he progressed favourably) to get exceedingly nervous; he thought he could never live to leave his room, and to fancy that he could not swallow. I proposed to take him away, and the doctors told me they would be only too glad if it were possible to move him. It was the end of July, so I went up to the rural inn, Opçina, before mentioned, took a ground-floor suite of rooms, ordered a carriage with a bed in it, and an invalid chair for carrying up and down stairs; so when he told me that he thought he should never get away, I told him that he certainly would, for that I meant him to go on the morrow. He said it was impossible, that he never could be conveyed below. However, next morning the men came with the chair, the carriage was at the door, and he said smiling, "Do you know, I am absolutely sweating with funk." Fancy how ill that man of iron must have been, who could travel where and as he had travelled, and yet dreaded going down the stairs for an hour's journey in a carriage; but it was the seventy-ninth day of endurance. I made the men put him gently in the chair, and gave him a glass of port wine. We had a hundred and twenty steps to go down, and I made them pause on every landing while I gave him a stimulant, and then we put him gently in the carriage in a recumbent position on a bed, and telling the man to walk his horses, I sat by him and held his hand. After about a quarter of an hour he said, "I am all right; tell him to drive on." We then drove on, and in an hour reached the inn, where I had men waiting to lift him gently into bed. He said, "I feel as if I had made a journey into Central Africa; but I shall get well now."
In a couple of days he was breakfasting and basking out in the garden, and in twelve days I took him on to Padua, where there was a celebrated old doctor (Pinalli), whom I called in. He stayed an hour and a half, and overhauled Richard thoroughly. He said he should go for five days to Battaglia, and that nature and bicarbonate of soda would do the rest. Then he looked round at me, who had been on duty night and day two months and a half. He said, "As for you, you've got gastric fever, and you will go to Recoaro for four weeks; and you will drink the waters, which are purgative and iron, take the baths, and have complete rest." We drove to Battaglia, which is about seven and a half miles away; our traces broke, and we spent some time mending them with bits of string; but I got him there and conveyed him to bed, and here he bathed and took the waters, which are especially for gout.
We used to drive out every day to Monselice, which is a charming place, or to Arqua, to stay by Petrarch's tomb and see his house. One wonders how he left Rome and Venice to settle in such a wretched little place. He died in a very stuck-up wooden chair, in a little hole about the size of a cupboard. It is frescoed everywhere. The good priest (as his tomb was being repaired) gave me a nail out of his coffin, and a bit of its wood, to keep as a treasure. The priest at Monselice has an amateur collection of curios of every sort; a brave, gentlemanly old man, and very much taken with Richard. From here we went to Mont' Ortoni and to Abano, other baths of the same nature. Thence to Monte Rua to see a monastery of Benedictines, where there is an exquisite view of the Italian plains; and one can see Padua, Vicenza, Venice, and the sea in the distance.
We always drove, and where we could not drive I had Richard carried on a chair on two poles everywhere, and I remember so well his saying, "I have always been afraid of being paralyzed, but I do not care in the least now, because I see that I could go about just the same." We returned to Battaglia, and went to a theatre in the evening that was just like a hole in some stables, and everything was to match. It was done, and well done, by the dilettanti of Padua (Torquato Tasso). We then went on to Vicenza. The hotel was rather like Noah's Ark, but it was not uncomfortable. It was now much cooler weather. We arrived at Palezetta, Montecchio, Cornedo with its four churches, and then we drove up a mountain ascent to Recoaro.
The cure here is chiefly a sitz-bath of Fonte Reggia water once a day, from one to three litres of Acqua Amára (bitter water) to drink per diem, a douche for the eyes twice, a douche for the back once, and cold compress at night. We had a charming drive to Valdagno; there are caves, mines, and petroleum there. Other excursions are Monte Guiliane, Fonte Vegri, Fonte Aqua di Capitello, Forano, Rovegliano, where there is a miraculous Virgin, Val d'Agno, Castagnara, Peserico, Spaccata, L'Aura, and Nogara; but the grandest of all is to the peak called the Spitz. We went all these excursions in country carts or on donkeys, for Richard was getting quite strong, and the country is exceedingly beautiful and mountainous. From the Spitz there is a magnificent view of the whole country, but we were eleven hours out.
For those who want to go to Recoaro from the main line between Milan and Venice, Tavernelle is the proper place. It is three hours' drive from Tavernelle to Recoaro. On our return to Vicenza we went to see Monte Berice. At Verona we stayed to see the amphitheatre, the church of Zanone, the tombs of the Scaligers, the gardens of the Conte Giusti, the Duomo, the tomb of Romeo and Juliet, the museum, Roland the Brave's statue, the Palazzo dei Consiglii, the Arco dei Borsari. We began early to explore Vicenza, the Palazzo della Ragione by Pallagio, the great architect of Vicenza, the Palazzo Prefettizio, the Cathedral, and the church of the Corona (where is the best Baptism in Jordan I have ever seen), by Giovanni Bellini. There are two styles of architecture—Venetian semi-Gothic, the Pallagio school, classical. We visited the house of Pigafetta, as well as the house of Pallagio; this gem, which has been most beautiful, is now neglected and forgotten. He was a great navigator, and was one of the companions of Magellan. So much for posthumous fame. The Theatre Olimpico is one of the oldest and most interesting specimens of Pallagio. Here the Academicians used to act the old Greek and Latin plays about 1580. We stopped at Padua to see the doctor again, who found us both perfectly well; got on to Venice and back to Trieste in a shocking bad steamer.