It was late when they stopped for the night at a lone house by the wayside and, after the usual description of its filth and squalor, she goes on: ‘The Vetturino had providentially brought with him our supper, or else we should have got none; and it was cooked and sent up on coarse brown earthenware. Wretched as this house was, it seemed to contain a number of inmates; and the wild, ferocious appearance of those we saw, and the hoarse voices of the men whom we did not see, which frequently met our ear in loud altercation, conspired, with the appearance of the place, and the nature of the country, to make it seem fit for the resort of banditti, and the perpetration of robbery and murder.’
The doors to their rooms having neither bolts nor locks, they again barricaded themselves in, and went to bed in fear of their lives, to be awakened in the middle of the night by the fall of one of the chairs. ‘Starting up in sudden trepidation, I flew to the door, stumbling in the dark over the empty dishes of the supper, and extinguished lamps, which rolled about with a horrible clatter; and assuming a courage I did not feel, I authoritatively demanded to know who was there, as I hastily attempted to repair my outworks. I was answered by a gruff voice, demanding admittance. In my fright and confusion, it was some time before I understood that it was for the purpose of lighting the fire, and that it was four o’clock. To us it seemed that the night had only just begun, but it was clear our repose was at an end; so, wrapping myself in my dressing-gown, and guided by the light that streamed through the numerous crevices of the door, I began to demolish the pile of chairs and tables I had raised. When the door was opened, there came in a woman with long, dishevelled hair, a dim lamp burning in her withered, skinny hand, followed by a man clad in sheep-skins, and bending beneath a burden of sticks. His face was half hid with black, bushy hair, and his eyes were overhung with shaggy eyebrows; he had shoes, but his legs were bare, and by his side was fastened a huge knife or axe, much resembling one formerly in use for cutting off people’s heads, but which I suspect he had applied to the less obnoxious purpose of cutting the wood he was carrying.’
If one looks carefully at the other side of her Gothic account it seems obvious that the people were anxious to make them as comfortable as was possible within their primitive means. But the party proceeds on its way, without breakfast, though: ‘Tea we had with us, but nothing could be got to make it or drink it in.’
On Sunday they arrived at the town of Acqua Pendente and ‘the streets were filled with men wrapped in their large cloaks, who were loitering about, or standing grouped together in corners, in that apathetic state of indolent taciturnity so expressive of complete bodily and mental inertion.
‘How unlike our English associations is a village in these countries, where a narrow street of dilapidated and windowless hovels, surrounded by filth, and inhabited by squalid wretchedness, is all that answers to the name! How melancholy and miserable do they seem, and how often has my fancy returned to the smiling villages of my own country, where neat cottages, and little gardens, scattered over the green, present the happy picture of humble contentment, cheerful industry, and rural happiness!’
And so our intrepid travellers went on their way. At one inn, where they got little or nothing to eat, the author says that the famed Muscat wine was so delicious that she hoped they would ‘not follow the example of an old German prelate, who, it seems, drank it at this inn till he died’.
A week of filthy beds and vile food did not tame her combative spirit. ‘If we did not eat, however, we were eaten; whole hosts made us their prey during the night, while we lay shivering and defenceless. This indeed is almost invariably the case throughout Italy. The people drain your purses by day, and the fleas your blood by night. They came within sight of all their endeavours!’
She was given perhaps to a fair amount of romantic exaggeration for the sake of her readers, but one must nevertheless concede that she did indeed rough it on the road to Rome. ‘Our longing eyes were intently fixed on the spot where we were told that it would first appear; when, at length, the carriage having toiled up to the top of a long hill, the Vetturino exclaimed, “Eccola!” The dome of St. Peter’s appeared in view; and, springing out of the carriage, and up a bank by the road side, we beheld from its summit, Rome!’
CHAPTER EIGHT
ROME AND NAPLES
Railways soon ran the length and breadth of Italy, so that the journey to Rome became far more comfortable. Even by the 1850s tourists could get there from London in four and a half days, by taking the train as far as Marseilles and a boat to Civitta Vecchia – where Stendhal had been the French consul in the 1830s. With regard to the shipping lines, Murray’s South Italy and Naples, 1853, states: ‘Formerly there was considerable competition between the companies; but they have latterly amalgamated, by no means to the advantage of travellers. The fares are exorbitant, and there is no longer any inducement to accelerate the speed. The complaints are consequently numerous, and travellers are frequently exposed both to annoyance and loss by the failure of the steamers to keep their engagements. Considering the importance of the line, and the large profits which the companies derive from English travellers, the proprietors should bear in mind that a want of punctuality, incivility on the part of their officers, or exorbitant charges, will inevitably force their best customers to support the French mail line exclusively, or to fall back on the old system of travelling by land.’
These complaints are omitted from the next edition of the handbook, suggesting that they had some effect; or perhaps Murray himself had been taken to task, because a note in the preface says: ‘The Publisher thinks proper to state that Mr. Blewitt, the author of the former edition of this Handbook, having been prevented superintending the present, is not responsible for the changes that have been introduced in it.’
By 1872 the railway to Rome went via Paris, Munich, Innsbruck and the Brenner Pass, a distance of 1547 miles which took three days, for the fare of twelve pounds. In 1875 there were 1600 miles of railway in Italy, and 8164 by 1889. Bradshaw, in 1897, says that Rome could be reached from London in two and a half days for ten pounds.
Such progress towards becoming a great European power was not, according to Macmillan’s Italy and Sicily, 1905, an unmixed blessing, was even ‘a little precipitate, as no social transformation had taken place which correspond to the political revolution. Owing to the variety of local conditions, one district is almost a century behind another. The Italian revolution was a triumph for the middle classes, and the labouring classes had to bear an undue share of its burdens, while they profited but little from its immediate benefits.’
Most of the hotels were full when Charlotte Eaton and her companion arrived in Rome after their arduous journey from Florence, but when they found one: ‘You cannot conceive, without having travelled Vetturino, and lodged in the holes we have done, how delightful is the sensation of being in a habitable hotel, how acceptable the idea of a good dinner, and how transporting the prospect of sleeping in a clean bed.’
Thirty years later there were not only far more hotels, but many comfortable lodging houses. Families who intended to stay a long time ‘may meet with roomy and splendid apartments in some of the great palaces; in those of the Dukes Braschi, Altieri, Ceva, and Sermoneta, there is a princely suite generally let to foreigners. However respectable the landlord may appear, a formal written agreement is desirable, and a careful verification of the inventory still more so. In the Corso it will be as well to stipulate for the exclusive possession of the windows during the Carnival, or the lodger may be surprised to find his apartments converted into show-rooms during the festivities, besides being obliged to pay for a place at his own window.’
Murray also tells us that foreigners, especially the English, ‘cannot be too strongly cautioned against a set of disreputable characters who are constantly hanging about the Piazza di Spagna and the neighbouring streets, offering lodgings for hire. Such fellows ought to be avoided by respectable persons; those who place any confidence in them, as regards p
rocuring apartments, will probably have to repent having listened to them.’
For the purpose of changing money there were three English bankers in Mr Murray’s list, one of whom was also in the wine business. ‘It is impossible not to feel, after any competent trial, how vastly different is the treatment an average Englishman receives from an English banker above an Italian one. No silly vanity should induce any traveller to afford certain grandiose Roman establishments the opportunity of fleecing him, for they will not even do it with civility, except to a duke or other great lord.’
There was an English Club in Rome, of which it was said: ‘The rules are somewhat illiberal, as regards artists residing in Rome, who are excluded.’ One could find the usual English doctors and dentists, as well as grocers and chemists, who grew more numerous as the century advanced. Hotels are also noted at which the ‘Anglo-American element is predominant’.
For those who liked to hunt: ‘A subscription pack of hounds is now kept, numbering several of the Roman princes among the subscribers, and affords very good sport to strangers residing at Rome during the winter; as foxes are abundant, and the country well suited for hunting’, but travellers were expected to send a donation to the secretary of the hunt ‘towards the maintenance of the hounds and huntsmen, at the end of the season’.
You might, of course, during your stay in the Holy City, wish to be presented to the Pope, in which case, you would receive a letter a few days before informing you of the time, generally about midday, when you were expected to wear either uniform or evening dress. ‘It is the etiquette that Protestants should show the same mark of respect to his Holiness as they do to their own sovereign, by kissing his hand. Roman Catholics will consider it their duty towards the head of their Church to kiss the Pope’s foot or knee. The presentation of ladies, except in the case of royal princesses or crowned heads, only takes place on Sundays, after the Pope’s dinner-hour.’
In the early Murray we may read – though this is condensed in later editions – that: ‘The Foundling Hospital contains upwards of 3000 children; the number annually received is 1150. In 1865, the last date for which we have returns, embracing a period of 10 years, out of 11,425 received in the hospital, 9260 died.’ This, in spite of the fact that: ‘Few cities in Europe are so distinguished for their institutions of public charity as Rome, and in none are the hospitals more magnificently lodged, or endowed with more princely liberality’, proving that if a bastard can’t live well, he or she can at least die in splendour.
One charitable institution is a hospital for Poor Protestants, which ‘deserves particular mention. It can accommodate 8 or 10 patients, and is well deserving of the support of our countrymen who visit Rome, as the only one where poor British Protestants can be received without being subjected to the persecution of the friars and attendants in the other hospitals to bring about their conversion to Romanism; upon no charity in Rome can the contribution of the English Protestants be more worthily bestowed.’
In a long section on climate and health we find the curious remarks that ‘the progress of malaria at Rome is dependent on the extension of the population. Whenever the population has diminished, the district in which the decrease has taken place has become unhealthy; and whenever a large number of persons has been crowded in a confined space, as in the Ghetto, the salubrity of the situation has become apparent in spite of the uncleanly habits of the inhabitants.’
It was thought in those days that the dreaded malaria was more likely to strike while you were asleep, ‘hence the couriers who carry the mails at all seasons between Rome and Naples make it a rule not to sleep whilst crossing the Pontine marshes, and generally smoke as an additional security’.
Murray goes to great lengths to put the perils of disease at Rome in their place, almost as if to talk them out of existence, while Baedeker’s 1897 guidebook is as usual more pragmatic – and brief, but the most sensible hints seem to be those from Rambles in Rome, by S. Russell Forbes: ‘Perhaps the health of no city in the world is so much talked about by people who know nothing whatever of the subject, as Rome. People get ill in Rome, of course, just as in any other place; but more than half the sickness is caused through their own imprudence.’ Under ‘Useful Hints’ the author gives us: ‘Avoid bad odours. Do not ride in an open carriage at night. Take lunch in the middle of the day. This is essential. It is better to take a light breakfast and lunch, than a heavy breakfast and no lunch. If out about sunset, throw an extra wrap or coat on, to avoid the sudden change in the atmosphere. There is no danger beyond being apt to take a cold. Colds are the root of all evil at Rome. Do not sit about the ruins at night. It may be very romantic, but it is very unwise. There is no harm in walking. Close your windows at night within a few inches. If you get into a heat, do not go into the shade or into a building till you have cooled down. Do not over-fatigue yourself. Follow these hints, and you will avoid that great bugbear, Roman fever.’
In 1872 Murray tells us that travellers should be on their guard against ‘an unworthy practice of innkeepers, and other interested parties at Nice, Florence, and even in Paris, and to which the newspapers have unfortunately lent themselves, in discrediting the sanitary state of Rome, thereby preventing strangers resorting to it, by representing epidemics of every kind as raging in it; indeed, the same thing has been practised in Rome itself, as regards Naples. Let the traveller shut his ears to such reports, or in case of doubt apply to some of the respectable medical men at Rome or Naples for precise information on the subject.’
For travellers who were sick, or so ailing that they died, the following difficulties were likely to arise: ‘Although somewhat indirectly connected with the sanitary matters at Rome, it may not be out of place here to allude to what is frequently a subject of complaint amongst foreign visitors. – The exorbitant demands made by a few hotel keepers, and the letters of lodgings generally, in the shape of indemnities in cases of death occurring in their houses. That they are fully entitled to such in case of deaths from infectious diseases, such as typhus fever, scarlatina, or small-pox, there can be no doubt, – as for re-papering the rooms and destruction of the carpets and bedding, or making them over to some charitable establishment, as is generally the case in hotels, after purification; but the case is different in the ordinary run of fatal maladies. In Rome, as elsewhere in Southern Europe, pulmonary consumption, in its later and final stages, is considered – and with some appearance of reason – to leave behind it infectious consequences: hence it has been a general custom to believe it to be dangerous to inhabit an apartment where a person labouring under phthisis has died, without a thorough disinfecting, – the removal of papering, carpets, bedding etc.; families must, therefore, be prepared for a demand under such circumstances, whereon it will be better to come to an understanding through their banker, or physician.’
From that topic we might move on to Murray’s description of the Protestant burial ground which ‘all foreign travellers will regard with melancholy interest. The silence and seclusion of the spot, and the inscriptions which tell the British traveller in his native tongue of those who have found their last resting-place beneath the bright skies of the Eternal City, appeal irresistibly to the heart. The cemetery has an air of romantic beauty which forms a striking contrast with the tomb of the ancient Roman and with the massive city walls and towers which overlook it. Among those who are buried here are the poets Shelley and Keats.’
Before leaving Rome for regions further south it may not be out of place to see how guidebooks deal with the subject of begging. Charlotte Eaton, at the village of Radifalconi, on the way to the city, was disappointed at not finding gems and casts from ancient medals on sale at the inn. ‘The Italians seem to neglect the most obvious means of making money honestly, but spare no trouble to get at it by begging of cheating. We were assailed by a crowd of stout, sturdy clamorous beggars, any one of whom, if they had provided themselves with these casts to sell, might have made a considerable sum by us, and probably by most trav
ellers.’
Begging is not mentioned in the early Murray guidebooks, but in the 1908 edition to Rome we read: ‘It is safe to assume that all beggars are professional idlers, and of the criminal class. The honest poor do not beg. Even the physically afflicted could, in nearly every case, earn their living by work if they chose to do so. In order to meet the fierce competition in this overcrowded profession many children are intentionally maimed for life by their parents, who are then able to live in idleness on the alms obtained by the sacrifice.’
In 1897 Baedeker advises: ‘Begging, which is most prevalent at the church-doors, has recently increased in frequency in the streets of Rome … The foolish practice of “scattering” copper coins to be struggled for by the street-arabs is highly reprehensible, and, like most idle gratuities to children, has a demoralising effect upon the recipients.’
Perhaps begging was a further corruption of tourism, because Augustus J. C. Hare, in Cities of Southern Italy, relates: ‘Without having suffered from it, no one can imagine the pest of beggars which make a long stay in the once enchanting Amalfi almost unendurable. Three-fifths of the able-bodied men, and every other woman and child, beg. The greater part of the population now loiter idle all day long in the streets or on the beach, ready to pounce upon strangers, till the traveller, half-maddened, is driven back to his hotel, or into the higher mountains. The only hope of future comfort is never, under any circumstances, to be tempted to give to a beggar; once give, and you are lost.’
The South was said to begin at Naples, and judging from the remarks in most guidebooks, people ought rather to die than see it. In 1853 Murray says: ‘Travellers are liable to four custom-house visitations from the frontier to Naples, which may generally be compromised for the sum of from 6 to 12 carlini. In fact the constant appeal of “buona grazia” will soon convince the traveller, however much he may disapprove of the system, that his convenience will be consulted by a compromise.’
Leading the Blind Page 11
