That was not all. The dawdling of the tailor not only made me lose the mid-day train, but delayed my arrival in Nice for twenty-four hours. I took the night train to Pisa, where I purposed catching the express from Rome. But the express came slouching along in a hands-in-the-pocket sort of way, and was over half-an-hour late, and would not bestir itself to pick up the misspent, lost moments between Pisa and Genoa, the consequence of which was that the train for Nice had gone on without waiting, and accordingly those who desired to prosecute their journey in that direction were obliged to loiter about in the small hours of the morning between a restaurant, half asleep, and a waiting-room where the electric light had gone out, till the hour of seven.
Before leaving Italy, I may mention an industry which I found cultivated there, original, and I believe unique. When I procured postage stamps at the post-offices, I was surprised, if I took them home with me, to find that their adhesive power had failed. I also received indignant letters from correspondents in England remonstrating with me for posting my communications to them unstamped. This surprised me, and at Rome, where I had been accustomed to purchase franco-bolli at the head office, I took them home and regummed them. But the remarkable phenomenon was, that such stamps as were purchased at tobacconists' shops had gum on them—only those acquired at the post-offices were without. I learned that the same peculiarity existed at Florence, and indeed elsewhere in Italy, and finally the explanation was vouchsafed to me. The functionary at the post-office passes a wet sponge over the back of the sheets of franco-bolli supplied to him, thus removing the adhesive matter. When he sells stamps at the window, he hopes that those who purchase will proceed at once to apply them to their letters, without perceiving their deficiencies. As soon as the stamp becomes dry it falls off, and quite a collection of stamps of sundry values can thus be gathered at every clearing of the box, and the postal clerk reaps thence a daily harvest that goes a long way towards the eking out the small pittance paid him by Government. It is interesting to see the directions taken by human enterprise.
Whilst I was in Rome, Buffalo Bill was in Naples exhibiting his troupe of horses and gang of Indians. The Italian papers informed the public of a remarkable exploit achieved by the Neapolitans. They had done Buffalo Bill out of two thousand francs. It had been effected in this wise. His reserved seats were charged five francs. Four hundred forged five-franc notes were passed at the door of his show by well-dressed Neapolitans, indeed, the élite of Neapolitan society; and the trick played on him was not discovered till too late. Now consider what this implies. It implies that some hundreds of the best people, princes, counts, marquesses at Naples lent themselves to see Buffalo Bill's exhibition by a fraud. They wanted to see and be seen there, but not to pay five francs for a seat. There must have been combination, and that among the members of the aristocracy of Naples. The Italian papers did not mention this in a tone of disgust, but rather in one of surprise that Italians should have been able to overreach a Yankee. But I do not believe such a fraud would have been perpetrated at Rome, Florence, or Milan. It was considered quite in its place at Naples.
A lady of my acquaintance was staying in a pension at Naples. There resided at the time, in the same pension, a prince—Neapolitan, be it understood. One day, just before she left, she brought in a packet of kid gloves she had purchased, among them one pair, straw-coloured. She laid them on the table, went out for two minutes, leaving the prince in the room with the gloves. On her return, the prince and the straw-coloured gloves were gone. She made inquiries of the landlady, who, when told that the prince had been in the room, laughed and said: "But of course he has them. You should never leave anything in the room unguarded where there is a prince." Two days after the departure of this lady, the straw-coloured gloves were produced by his highness and presented by him to a young lady whom he admired, then in the same pension.
No evil comes without a counterbalancing good. The day I was detained in Florence by that tailor, and the loss of the night train at Genoa were not immense evils. A furious gale broke over the coast, and when at seven in the morning we steamed out of Genoa, the Mediterranean was sullen, the rain poured down, and the mountains were enveloped in vapour. But as we proceeded along the coast the weather improved, and before long every cloud was gone, the sky became blue as a gentian, and the oranges flamed in the sunshine as we swept between the orchards. Had I gone by the noon train from Florence I should have travelled this road by night, had I caught the 3.27 A.M. train I should have seen nothing for storm and cloud. And—what a glorious, what an unrivalled road that is! It was like passing through a gallery hung with Rénaissance tapestry, all in freshness of colour. The sea deep blue and green like a peacock's neck, the mountains pale yellow, as shown in tapestry, with blue shadows; the silvery-grey olives, the glossy orange trees with their fruit—exactly as in tapestry. Surely the old weavers of those wondrous webs studied this coast and copied it in their looms.
I have said that the sea was like a peacock's neck; but it had a brilliancy above even that. As I have mentioned tapestry I may say that it resembled a sort of tapestry that is very rare and costly, of which I have seen a sample in a private collection at Frankfort, and another in the Palazzo Bardini at Florence. It consists of the threads being drawn over plates of gold and silver. In the piece at Florence the effect of the sun shining through a tree is thus produced by gold leaf under the broidery of tree-leaves. Silver leaf is employed for water, with blue silk drawn in lines over it. So with the sea. There seemed to be silver burnished to its greatest polish below, over which the water was drawn as a blue lacquer.
And Nice. What shall I say of that bright and laughing city—with its shops of flowers, its avenues of trees through which run the streets, its gardens, its pines and cactus and aloe walks? Only one blemish can I pick out in Nice, and that is a hideous modern Gothic church, Notre Dame, filled with detestable garish glass, so utterly faulty in design, so full of blemish of every sort, that the best wish one could make for the good people of Nice is that the next earthquake that visits the Riviera may shake this wretched structure to pieces, so as to give them an opportunity of erecting another in its place which is not a monstrosity.
The Avenue de la Gare is planted with the eucalyptus, that has attained a considerable size. It is not a beautiful tree, its leaves are ever on the droop, as though the tree were unhealthy or unhappy, sulky at being transplanted to Europe, dissatisfied with the climate, displeased with the soil, discontented with its associates. It struck me as very much like a good number of excellent and very useful souls with whom I am acquainted, who never take a cheerful view of life, are always fault-finding, hole-picking, worry-discovering, eminently good in their place as febrifuges, but not calculated to brighten their neighbourhood.
What a delightful walk is that on the cliff of the château! The day I was at Nice was the 9th of April. The crags were rich with colour, the cytisus waving its golden hair, the pelargonium blazing scarlet, beds of white stock wafting fragrance, violets scrambling over every soft bank of deep earth exhaling fragrance; roses, not many in flower, but their young leaves in masses of claret-red; wherever a ledge allowed it, there pansies of velvety blue and black and brown had been planted. In a hot sun I climbed the château cliff to where the water, conveyed to the summit, dribbled and dropped, or squirted and splashed, nourishing countless fronds of fern and beds of moss, and many a bog plant. The cedars and umbrella pines in the spring sun exhaled their aromatic breath, and the flowering birch rained down its yellow dust over one from its swaying catkins.
I see I have spoken of the cytisus. I may be excused mentioning an anecdote that the sight of this plant provokes in my mind every spring. I had a gardener—a queer, cantankerous creature, who never saw a joke, even when he made one. "Please, sir," he said to me with a solemn face, "I've been rearing a lot o' young citizens for you."