CHAPTER V
TRAVELS AND MARRIAGE
Mr. Gladstone spent the winter of 1838-9 in Rome. The physicians had recommended travel in the south of Europe for his health and particularly for his eyes, the sight of which had become impaired by hard reading in the preparation of his book. He had given up lamps and read entirely by candle-light with injurious results. He was joined at Rome by his friend, Henry Manning, afterwards Cardinal, and in company they visited Monsignor, afterwards Cardinal, Wiseman, at the English College, on the feast of St. Thomas of Canterbury. They attended solemn mass in honor of that Saint, and the places in the missal were found for them by a young student of the college, named Grant, who afterwards became Bishop of Southwark.
Besides visiting Italy he explored Sicily, and kept a journal of his tour. Sicily is a beautiful and fertile island in the Mediterranean Sea, and is the granary of Rome. His recorded observations show the keenness of his perceptions and the intensity with which he enjoyed the beautiful and wonderful in nature.
Mount Etna, the greatest volcano of Europe, and which rises 10,000 feet above the sea, stirred his soul greatly, and he made an ascent of the mountain at the beginning of the great eruption of 1838. Etna has many points of interest for all classes of scientific men, and not least for the student of arboriculture. It bears at the height of 4000 feet above the level of the sea a wonderful growth—a very large tree—which is claimed by some to be the oldest tree in the world. It is a venerable chestnut, and known as "the father of the forest." It is certainly one of the most remarkable as well as celebrated of trees. It consists not of one vast trunk, but of a cluster of smaller decayed trees or portions of trees growing in a circle, each with a hollow trunk of great antiquity, covered with ferns or ivy, and stretching out a few gnarled branches with scanty foliage. That it is one tree seems to be evident from the growth of the bark only on the outside. It is said that excavations about the roots of the tree showed these various stems to be united at a very small depth below the surface of the ground. It still bears rich foliage and much small fruit, though the heart of the trunk is decayed, and a public road leads through it wide enough for two coaches to drive abreast. Travelers have differed in their measurements of this stupendous growth. Admiral Smyth, who takes the lowest estimate, giving 163 feet, and Brydone giving, as the highest, 204 feet. In the middle of the cavity a hut is built, for the accommodation of those who collect and preserve the chestnuts. One of the Queens of Arragon is reported to have taken shelter in this tree, with her mounted suite of one hundred persons; but, "we may, perhaps, gather from this that mythology is not confined to the lower latitudes."
Further up the mountain is another venerable chestnut, which, with more reason, probably, may be described without fear of contradiction as the largest chestnut tree in the world. It rises from one solid stem to a remarkable height before it branches. At an elevation of two feet from the earth its circumference was found by Brydone to be seventy-six feet. These trees are reputed to have flourished for much more than a thousand years. Their luxuriant growth is attributed in part to the humid atmosphere of the Bosco, elevated above the scorching, arid region of the coast, and in part to the great richness of the soil. The luxuriance of the vegetation on the slopes of Etna attracts the attention of every traveler; and Mr. Gladstone remarked upon this point: "It seems as though the finest of all soils were produced from the most agonizing throes of nature, as the hardiest characters are often reared amidst the severest circumstances. The aspect of this side of Sicily is infinitely more active and the country is cultivated as well as most parts of Italy."