We have had two new arrivals this morning—a boat from Antibes, with a company of players bound for the theatre at Milan; and two French deserters from the regiment at Toulon, who escaped in a leaky boat, and have made this voyage along the coast to get into Italy. They knew nothing of the quarantine, and were very much surprised at their arrest. They will, probably, be delivered up to the French consul. The new comers are all put together in the large chamber next us, and we have been talking with them through the grate. His majesty of Sardinia is not spared in their voluble denunciations.
Our imprisonment is getting to be a little tedious. We lengthen our breakfasts and dinners, go to sleep early and get up late, but a lazaretto is a dull place after all. We have no books except dictionaries and grammars, and I am on my last sheet of paper. What I shall do, the two remaining days, I cannot divine. Our meals were amusing for a while. We have but three knives and four glasses; and the Belgian, having cut his plate in two on the first day, has eaten since from the wash-bowl. The salt is in a brown paper, the vinegar in a shell; and the meats, to be kept warm during their passage by water, are brought in the black utensils in which they are cooked. Our tablecloth appeared to-day of all the colors of the rainbow. We sat down to breakfast with a general cry of horror. Still, with youth and good spirits, we manage to be more contented than one would expect; and our lively discussions of the spot on the quay where the table shall be laid, and the noise of our dinners en plein air, would convince the spectator that we were a very merry and sufficiently happy company.
I like my companions, on the whole, very much. The surgeon has been in Canada and the west of New York, and we have travelled the same routes, and made in several instances, the same acquaintances. He has been in almost every part of the world also, and his descriptions are very graphic and sensible. The Belgian talks of his new king Leopold, the Sicilians of the German universities; and when I have exhausted all they can tell me, I turn to our Parisians, whom I find I have met all last winter without noticing them, at the parties; and we discuss the belles, and the different members of the beau monde, with all the touching air and tone of exiles from paradise. In a case of desperate ennui, wearied with studying and talking, the sea wall is a delightful lounge, and the blue Mediterranean plays the witch to the indolent fancy, and beguiles it well. I have never seen such a beautiful sheet of water. The color is peculiarly rich and clear, like an intensely blue sky, heaving into waves. I do not find the often-repeated description of its loveliness exaggerated.
Our seven days expire to-morrow, and we are preparing to eat our last dinner in the lazaretto with great glee. A temporary table is already laid upon the quay, and two strips of board raised upon some ingenious contrivance, I can not well say what, and covered with all the private and public napkins that retained any portion of their maiden whiteness. Our knives are reduced to two, one having disappeared unaccountably; but the deficiency is partially remedied. The surgeon has "whittled" a pine knot, which floated in upon the tide, into a distant imitation; and one of the company has produced a delicate dagger, that looks very like a keepsake from a lady; and, by the reluctant manner in which it was put to service, the profanation cost his sentiment an effort. Its white handle and silver sheath lie across a plate, abridged of its proportions by a very formidable segment. There was no disguising the poverty of the brown paper that contained the salt. It was too necessary to be made an "aside," and lies plump in the middle of the table. I fear there has been more fun in the preparation than we shall feel in eating the dinner when it arrives. The Belgian stands on the wall, watching all the boats from town; but they pass off down the harbor, one after another, and we are destined to keep our appetites to a late hour. Their detestable cookery needs the "sauce of hunger."
The Belgian's hat waves in the air, and the commissary's boat must be in sight. As we get off at six o'clock to-morrow morning, my portfolio shuts till I find another resting place, probably Genoa.
LETTER XXVI.
SHORE OF THE MEDITERRANEAN—NICE—FUNERAL SERVICES OF MARIA THERESA, ARCHDUCHESS OF AUSTRIA—PRINCIPALITY OF MONACO—ROAD TO GENOA—SARDINIA—PRISON OF THE POPE—HOUSE OF COLUMBUS—GENOA.
The health-magistrate arrived at an early hour, on the morning of our departure from the lazaretto of Villa Franca. He was accompanied by a physician, who was to direct the fumigation. The iron pot was placed in the centre of the chamber, our clothes were spread out upon the beds, and the windows shut. The chlorin soon filled the room, and its detestable odor became so intolerable that we forced the door, and rushed past the sentinel into the open air, nearly suffocated. This farce over, we were permitted to embark, and, rounding the point, put into Nice.
The Mediterranean curves gracefully into the crescented shore of this lovely bay, and the high hills lean away from the skirts of the town in one unbroken slope of cultivation to the top. Large, handsome buildings face you on the long quay, as you approach; and white chimneys, and half-concealed parts of country-houses and suburban villas, appear through the olive and orange trees with which the whole amphitheatre is covered. We landed amid a crowd of half-naked idlers, and were soon at a hotel, where we ordered the best breakfast the town would afford, and sat down once more to clean cloths and unrepulsive food.
As we rose from the table, a note, edged with black, and sealed and enveloped with considerable circumstance, was put into my hand by the master of the hotel. It was an invitation from the governor to attend a funeral service, to be performed in the cathedral that day, at ten o'clock, for the "late Queen-mother, Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria." Wondering not a little how I came by the honor, I joined the crowd flocking from all parts of the town to see the ceremony. The central door was guarded by a file of Sardinian soldiers; and, presenting my invitation to the officer on duty, I was handed over to the master of ceremonies, and shown to an excellent seat in the centre of the church. The windows were darkened, and the candles of the altar not yet lit; and, by the indistinct light that came in through the door, I could distinguish nothing clearly. A little silver bell tinkled presently from one of the side-chapels, and boys dressed in white appeared, with long tapers, and the house was soon splendidly illuminated. I found myself in the midst of a crowd of four or five hundred ladies, all in deep mourning. The church was hung from the floor to the roof in black cloth, ornamented gorgeously with silver; and, under the large dome, which occupied half the ceiling, was raised a pyramidal altar, with tripods supporting chalices for incense at the four corners, a walk round the lower base for the priests, and something in the centre, surrounded with a blaze of light, representing figures weeping over a tomb. The organ commenced pealing, there was a single beat on the drum, and a procession entered. It was composed of the nobility of Nice, and the military and civil officers, all in uniform and court dresses. The gold and silver flashing in the light, the tall plumes of the Sardinian soldiery below, the solemn music, and the moving of the censers from the four corners of the altar, produced a very impressive effect. As soon as the procession had quite entered, the fire was kindled in the four chalices; and, as the white smoke rolled up to the roof, an anthem commenced with the full power of the organ. The singing was admirable, and there was one female voice in the choir, of singular power and sweetness.