It is difficult to conceive the gay costumes and handsome features of the Albanese existing in these barren mountains that bind the Adriatic. It has been but a continued undulation of rock and sand, for three days past; and the closer we hug to the shore, the more we look at the broad canvass above us, and pray for wind. We make Capo d’Istria now, a small town nestled in a curve of the sea, and an hour or two more will bring us to Trieste, where we drop anchor, we hope for many an hour of novelty and pleasure.
Trieste lies sixty or eighty miles from Venice, across the head of the gulf. The shore between is piled up to the sky with the “blue Friuli mountains;” and from the town of Trieste, the low coast of Istria breaks away at a right angle to the south, forming the eastern bound of the Adriatic. As we ran into the harbour on our last tack, we passed close under the garden walls of the villa of the ex-queen of Naples, a lovely spot just in the suburbs. The palace of Jerome Bonaparte was also pointed out to us by the pilot, on the hill just above. They have both removed since to Florence, and their palaces are occupied by English. We dropped anchor within a half mile of the pier, and the flags of a dozen American vessels were soon distinguishable among the various colours of the shipping in the port.
I accompanied Commodore Patterson to-day on a visit of ceremony to the Austrian authorities of the province. We made our way with difficulty through the people, crowding in hundreds to the water-side, and following us with the rude freedom of a showman’s audience. The vice-governor, a polite but Frenchified German count, received us with every profession of kindness. His Parisian gesture sat ill enough upon his national high cheekbones, lank hair, and heavy shoulders. We left him to call upon the military commandant, an Irishman, who occupies part of the palace of the ex-king of Westphalia. Our reception by him was gentlemanly, cordial, and dignified. I think the Irish are, after all, the best-mannered people in the world. They are found in every country, as adventurers for honour, and they change neither in character nor manner. They follow foreign fashions, and acquire a foreign language; but in the first they retain their heart, and in the latter their brogue. They are Irishmen always. Count Nugent is high in the favour of the Emperor, has the commission of a field-marshal, and is married to a Neapolitan princess, who is a most accomplished and lovely woman, and related to most of the royal houses of Europe. His reputation as a soldier is well known, and he seems to me to have no drawback to the enviableness of his life, except its expatriation.
Trieste is a busy, populous place, resembling extremely our new towns in America. We took a stroll through the principal streets after our visits were over, and I was surprised at the splendour of the shops, and the elegance of the costumes and equipages. It is said to contain thirty thousand inhabitants.
Vienna.—The frigates were to lie three or four weeks at Trieste. One half of the officers had taken the steamboat for Venice on the second evening of our arrival, and the other half waited impatiently their turn of absence. Vienna was but some four hundred miles distant, and I might never be so near it again. On a rainy evening, at nine o’clock, I left Trieste in the eil-wagon, with a German courier, and commenced the ascent of the spur of the Friuli mountains that overhangs the bay.
My companions inside were a merchant from Gratz, a fantastical and poor Hungarian count, a Corfu shop-keeper, and an Italian ex-militaire and present apothecary, going to Vienna to marry a lady whom he had never seen. After a little bandying of compliments in German, of which I understood nothing except that they were apologies for the incessant smoking of three disgusting pipes, the conversation, fortunately for me, settled into Italian. The mountain was steep and very high, and my friends soon grew conversable. The novelty of two American frigates in the harbour naturally decided the first topic. Our Gratz merchant was surprised at the light colour of the officers he had seen, and doubted if they were not Englishmen in the American service. He had always heard Americans were black. “They are so,” said the soldier-apothecary; “I saw the real Americans yesterday in a boat, quite black.” (One of the cutters of the “Constellation” has a negro crew, which he had probably seen at the pier.) The assertion seemed to satisfy the doubts of all parties. They had wondered how such beautiful ships could come from a savage country. It was now explained. “They were bought from the English, and officered by Englishmen.” I was too much amused by their speculations to undeceive them; and with my head thrust half out of the window to avoid choking with the smoke of their pipes, I gazed back at the glittering lights of the town below, and indulged the never-palling sensation of a first entrance into a new country. The lantern at the peak of the “United States” was the last thing I saw as we rose the brow of the mountain, and started off on a rapid trot towards Vienna.
I awoke at daylight with the sudden stop of the carriage. We were at the low door of a German tavern, and a clear, rosy, good-humoured looking girl bade us good morning, as we alighted one by one. The phrase was so like English, that I asked for a basin of water in my mother tongue. The similarity served me again. She brought it without hesitation; but the question she asked me as she set it down was like nothing that had ever before entered my ears. The count smiled at my embarrassment, and explained that she wished to know if I wanted soap.