The Mediterranean: Its Storied Cities and Venerable Ruins

But long after Lars Porsenna of Clusium had retreated baffled from the broken bridge Populonia continued to be a place of some importance, for it has a castle erected in the Middle Ages. But now it is only a poor village; it retains, however, fragments of building recalling its Roman masters, and its walls of polygonal masonry carry us back to the era of the Etruscans.

It must not be forgotten that almost the whole of the coast line described in this chapter, from the river Magra to Civita Vecchia, belonged to that mysterious and, not so long since, almost unknown people, the Etruscans. Indeed, at one time their sway extended for a considerable distance north and south of these limits. Even now there is much dispute as to their origin, but they were a powerful and civilized race before Rome was so much as founded. They strove with it for supremacy in Italy, and were not finally subdued by that nation until the third century before our era. “Etruria was of old densely populated, not only in those parts which are still inhabited, but also, as is proved by remains of cities and cemeteries, in tracts now desolated by malaria and relapsed into the desert; and what is now the fen or the jungle, the haunt of the wild boar, the buffalo, the fox, and the noxious reptile, where man often dreads to stay his steps, and hurries away from a plague-stricken land, of old yielded rich harvests of corn, wine and oil, and contained numerous cities mighty and opulent, into whose laps commerce poured the treasures of the East and the more precious produce of Hellenic genius. Most of these ancient sites are now without a habitant, furrowed yearly by the plough, or forsaken as unprofitable wilderness; and such as are still occupied are, with few exceptions, mere phantoms of their pristine greatness, mere villages in the place of populous cities. On every hand are traces of bygone civilization, inferior in quality, no doubt, to that which at present exists but much wider in extent and exerting far greater influence on the neighboring nations and on the destinies of the world.”[3 - Dennis: “Cities of Etruria,” I., p. xxxii.]

South of this headland the Maremma proper begins. Follonica, the only place for some distance which can be called a town, is blackened with smoke to an extent unusual in Italy, for here much of the iron ore from Elba is smelted. But the views in the neighborhood, notwithstanding the flatness of the marshy or scrub-covered plain, are not without a charm. The inland hills are often attractive; to the north lie the headland of Piombino and sea-girt Elba, to the south the promontory of Castiglione, which ends in a lower line of bluff capped by a tower, and the irregular little island of Formica. At Castiglione della Pescaia is a little harbor, once fortified, which exports wool and charcoal, the products of the neighboring hills. The promontory of Castiglione must once have been an island, for it is parted from the inland range by the level plain of the Maremma. Presently Grosseto, the picturesque capital of the Maremma, appears, perched on steeply rising ground above the enclosing plain, its sky-line relieved by a couple of low towers and a dome; it has been protected with defenses, which date probably from late in the seventeenth century. Then, after the Omborne has been crossed, one of the rivers, which issue from the Apennines, the promontory of Talamone comes down to the sea, protecting the village of the same name. It is a picturesque little place, overlooked by an old castle, and the anchorage is sheltered by the island of S. Giglio, quiet enough now, but the guide-book tells us that here, two hundred and twenty-five years before the Christian era, the Roman troops disembarked and scattered an invading Gaulish army. But to the south lies another promontory on a larger scale than Tlamone; this is the Monte Argentario, the steep slopes of which are a mass of forests. The views on this part of the coast are exceptionally attractive. Indeed, it would be difficult to find anything more striking than the situation of Orbitello. The town lies at the foot of the mountain, for Argentario, since it rises full two thousand feet above the sea, and is bold in outline, deserves the name. It is almost separated from the mainland by a great salt-water lagoon, which is bounded on each side by two low and narrow strips of land. The best view is from the south, where we look across a curve of the sea to the town and to Monte Argentario with its double summit, which, as the border of the lagoon is so low, seems to be completely insulated.

Orbitello is clearly proved to have been an Etruscan town; perhaps, according to Mr. Dennis, founded by the Pelasgi, “for the foundations of the sea-wall which surrounds it on three sides are of vast polygonal blocks, just such as are seen in many ancient sites of central Italy (Norba, Segni, Palæstrina, to wit), and such as compose the walls of the neighboring Cosa.” Tombs of Etruscan construction have also been found in the immediate neighborhood of the city, on the isthmus of sand which connects it with the mainland. Others also have been found within the circuit of the walls. The tombs have been unusually productive; in part, no doubt, because they appear to have escaped earlier plunderers. Vases, numerous articles in bronze, and gold ornaments of great beauty have been found. Of the town itself, which from the distance has a very picturesque aspect, Mr. Dennis says: “It is a place of some size, having nearly six thousand inhabitants, and among Maremma towns is second only to Grosseto. It is a proof how much population tends to salubrity in the Maremma that Orbitello, though in the midst of a stagnant lagoon ten square miles in extent, is comparatively healthy, and has more than doubled its population in thirty years, while Telamona and other small places along the coast are almost deserted in summer, and the few people that remain become bloated like wine-skins or yellow as lizards.” But the inland district is full of ruins and remnants of towns which in many cases were strongholds long before Romulus traced out the lines of the walls of Rome with his plough, if indeed that ever happened. Ansedonia, the ancient Cosa, is a very few miles away, Rusellæ, Saturnia, Sovana at a considerably greater distance; farther to the south rises another of these forest-clad ridges which, whether insulated by sea or by fen, are so characteristic of this portion of the Italian coast. Here the old walls of Corno, another Etruscan town, may be seen to rise above the olive-trees and the holm-oaks.

Beyond this the lowland becomes more undulating, and the foreground scenery a little less monotonous. Corneto now appears, crowning a gently shelving plateau at the end of a spur from the inland hills, which is guarded at last by a line of cliffs. Enclosed by a ring of old walls, like Cortona, it “lifts to heaven a diadem of towers.” In site and in aspect it is a typical example of one of the old cities of Etruria. Three hundred feet and more above the plain which parts it from the sea, with the gleaming water full in view on one side and the forest-clad ranges on the other, the outlook is a charming one, and the attractions within its walls are by no means slight. There are several old churches, and numerous Etruscan and Roman antiquities are preserved in the municipal museum. The town itself, however, is not of Etruscan origin, its foundation dates only from the Middle Ages; but on an opposite and yet more insulated hill the ruins of Tarquinii, one of the great cities of the Etrurian League, can still be traced; hardly less important than Veii, one of the most active cities in the endeavor to restore the dynasty of the Tarquins, it continued to flourish after it had submitted to Rome, but it declined in the dark days which followed the fall of the Empire, and never held up its head after it had been sacked by the Saracens, till at last it was deserted for Corneto, and met the usual fate of becoming a quarry for the new town. Only the remnants of buildings and of its defenses are now visible; but the great necropolis which lies to the southeast of the Corneto, and on the same spur with it, has yielded numerous antiquities. A romantic tale of its discovery, so late as 1823, is related in the guide-books. A native of Corneto in digging accidentally broke into a tomb. Through the hole he beheld the figure of a warrior extended at length, accoutred in full armour. For a few minutes he gazed astonished, then the form of the dead man vanished almost like a ghost, for it crumbled into dust under the influence of the fresh air. Numerous subterranean chambers have since been opened; the contents, vases, bronzes, gems and ornaments, have been removed to museums or scattered among the cabinets of collectors, but the mural paintings still remain. They are the works of various periods from the sixth to the second or third century before the Christian era, and are indicative of the influence exercised by Greek art on the earlier inhabitants of Italy.

As the headland, crowned by the walls of Corneto, recedes into the distance a little river is crossed, which, unimportant as it seems, has a place in ecclesiastical legend, for we are informed that at the Torre Bertaldo, near its mouth, an angel dispelled St. Augustine’s doubts on the subject of the Trinity. Then the road approaches the largest port on the coast since Leghorn was left. Civita Vecchia, as the name implies, is an old town, which, after the decline of Ostia, served for centuries as the port of Rome. It was founded by Trajan, and sometimes bore his name in olden time, but there is little or nothing within the walls to indicate so great an antiquity. It was harried, like so many other places near the coast, by the Saracens, and for some years was entirely deserted, but about the middle of the ninth century the inhabitants returned to it, and the town, which then acquired its present name, by degrees grew into importance as the temporal power of the Papacy increased. If there is little to induce the traveller to halt, there is not much more to tempt the artist. Civita Vecchia occupies a very low and faintly defined headland. Its houses are whitish in color, square in outline, and rather flat-topped. There are no conspicuous towers or domes. It was once enclosed by fortifications, built at various dates about the seventeenth century. These, however, have been removed on the land side, but still remain fairly perfect in the neighborhood of the harbor, the entrance to which is protected by a small island, from which rises a low massive tower and a high circular pharos. There is neither animation nor commerce left in the place; what little there was disappeared when the railway was opened. It is living up to its name, and its old age cannot be called vigorous.

South of Civita Vecchia the coast region, though often monotonous enough, becomes for a time slightly more diversified. There is still some marshy ground, still some level plain, but the low and gently rolling hills which border the main mass of the Apennines extend at times down to the sea, and even diversify its coast-line, broken by a low headland. This now and again, as at Santa Marinella, is crowned by an old castle. All around much evergreen scrub is seen, here growing in tufts among tracts of coarse herbage, there expanding into actual thickets of considerable extent, and the views sometimes become more varied, and even pretty. Santa Severa, a large castle built of grey stone, with its keep-like group of higher towers on its low crag overlooking the sea, reminds us of some old fortress on the Fifeshire coast. Near this headland, so antiquarians say, was Pyrgos, once the port of the Etruscan town of Cære, which lies away among the hills at a distance of some half-dozen miles. Here and there also a lonely old tower may be noticed along this part of the coast. These recall to mind in their situation, though they are more picturesque in their aspect, the Martello Towers on the southern coast of England. Like them, they are a memorial of troublous times, when the invader was dreaded. They were erected to protect the Tuscan coast from the descents of the Moors, who for centuries were the dread of the Mediterranean. Again and again these corsairs swooped down; now a small flotilla would attack some weakly defended town; now a single ship would land its boatload of pirates on some unguarded beach to plunder a neighboring village or a few scattered farms, and would retreat from the raid with a little spoil and a small band of captives, doomed to slavery, leaving behind smoking ruins and bleeding corpses. It is strange to think how long it was before perfect immunity was secured from these curses of the Mediterranean. England, whatever her enemies may say, has done a few good deeds in her time, and one of the best was when her fleet, under the command of Admiral Pellew, shattered the forts of Algiers and burnt every vessel of the pirate fleet.

The scenery for a time continues to improve. The oak woods become higher, the inland hills are more varied in outline and are forest-clad. Here peeps out a crag, there a village or a castle. At Palo a large, unattractive villa and a picturesque old castle overlook a fine line of sea-beach, where the less wealthy classes in Rome come down for a breath of fresh air in the hot days of summer. It also marks the site of Alsium, where, in Roman times, one or two personages of note, of whom Pompey was the most important, had country residences. For a time there is no more level plain; the land everywhere shelves gently to the sea, covered with wood or with coarse herbage. But before long there is another change, and the great plain of the Tiber opens out before our eyes, extending on one hand to the not distant sea, on the other to the hills of Rome. It is flat, dreary, and unattractive, at any rate in the winter season, as is the valley of the Nen below Peterborough, or of the Witham beyond the Lincolnshire wolds. It is cut up by dykes, which are bordered by low banks. Here and there herds of mouse-colored oxen with long horns are feeding, and hay-ricks, round with low conical tops, are features more conspicuous than cottages. The Tiber winds on its serpentine course through this fenland plain, a muddy stream, which it was complimentary for the Romans to designate flavus, unless that word meant a color anything but attractive. One low tower in the distance marks the site of Porto, another that of Ostia and near the latter a long grove of pines is a welcome variation to the monotony of the landscape.

These two towns have had their day of greatness. The former, as its name implies, was once the port of Rome, and in the early days of Christianity was a place of note. It was founded by Trajan, in the neighborhood of a harbor constructed by Claudius; for this, like that of Ostia, which it was designed to replace, was already becoming choked up. But though emperors may propose, a river disposes, especially when its mud is in question. The port of Trajan has long since met with the same fate; it is now only a shallow basin two miles from the sea. Of late years considerable excavations have been made at Porto on the estate of Prince Tortonia, to whom the whole site belongs. The port constructed by Trajan was hexagonal in form; it was surrounded by warehouses and communicated with the sea by a canal. Between it and the outer or Claudian port a palace was built for the emperor, and the remains of the wall erected by Constantine to protect the harbor on the side of the land can still be seen. The only mediæval antiquities which Porto contains are the old castle, which serves as the episcopal palace, and the flower of the church of Santa Rufina, which is at least as old as the tenth century.

Ostia, which is a place of much greater antiquity than Porto, is not so deserted, though its star declined as that of the other rose. Founded, as some say, by Ancus Martius, it was the port of Rome until the first century of the present era. Then the silting up of its communication with the sea caused the transference of the commerce to Porto, but “the fame of the temple of Castor and Pollux, the numerous villas of the Roman patricians abundantly scattered along the coast, and the crowds of people who frequented its shores for the benefit of sea bathing, sustained the prosperity of the city for some time after the destruction of its harbor.” But at last it went down hill, and then invaders came. Once it had contained eighty thousand inhabitants; in the days of the Medici it was a poor village, and the people eked out their miserable existences by making lime of the marbles of the ruined temples! So here the vandalism of peasants, even more than of patricians, has swept away many a choice relic of classic days. Villas and temples alike have been destroyed; the sea is now at a distance; Ostia is but a small village, “one of the most picturesque though melancholy sites near Rome,” but during the greater part of the present century careful excavations have been made, many valuable art treasures have been unearthed, and a considerable portion of the ancient city has been laid bare. Shops and dwellings, temples and baths, the theater and the forum, with many a remnant of the ancient town, can now be examined, and numerous antiquities of smaller size are preserved in the museum at the old castle. This, with its strong bastions, its lofty circular tower and huge machicolations, is a very striking object as it rises above the plain “massive and gray against the sky-line.” It has been drawn by artists not a few, from Raffaelle, who saw it when it had not very long been completed, down to the present time.

X

VENICE

Its early days – The Grand Canal and its palaces – Piazza of St. Mark – A Venetian funeral – The long line of islands – Venetian glass – Torcello, the ancient Altinum – Its two unique churches.

So long as Venice is unvisited a new sensation is among the possibilities of life. There is no town like it in Europe. Amsterdam has its canals, but Venice is all canals; Genoa has its palaces, but in Venice they are more numerous and more beautiful. Its situation is unique, on a group of islands in the calm lagoon. But the Venice of to-day is not the Venice of thirty years ago. Even then a little of the old romance had gone, for a long railway viaduct had linked it to the mainland. In earlier days it could be reached only by a boat, for a couple of miles of salt water lay between the city and the marshy border of the Paduan delta. Now Venice is still more changed, and for the worse. The people seem more poverty-stricken and pauperized. Its buildings generally, especially the ordinary houses, look more dingy and dilapidated. The paint seems more chipped, the plaster more peeled, the brickwork more rotten; everything seems to tell of decadence, commercial and moral, rather than of regeneration. In the case of the more important structures, indeed, the effects of time have often been more than repaired. Here a restoration, not seldom needless and ill-judged, has marred some venerable relic of olden days with crude patches of color, due to modern reproductions of the ancient and original work: the building has suffered, as it must be admitted not a few of our own most precious heirlooms have suffered, from the results of zeal untempered by discretion, and the destroyer has worked his will under the guise of the restorer.

The mosquito flourishes still in Venice as it did of yore. It would be too much to expect that the winged representative of the genus should thrive less in Italian freedom than under Austrian bondage, but something might have been done to extirpate the two-legged species. He is present in force in most towns south of the Alps, but he is nowhere so abundant or so exasperating as in Venice. If there is one place in one town in Europe where the visitor might fairly desire to possess his soul in peace and to gaze in thoughtful wonder, it is in the great piazza, in front of the façade, strange and beautiful as a dream, of the duomo of St. Mark. Halt there and try to feast on its marvels, to worship in silence and in peace. Vain illusion. There is no crowd of hurrying vehicles or throng of hurrying men to interfere of necessity with your visions (there are often more pigeons than people in the piazza), but up crawls a beggar, in garments vermin-haunted, whining for “charity”; down swoop would-be guides, volunteering useless suggestions in broken and barely intelligible English; from this side and from that throng vendors of rubbish, shell-ornaments, lace, paltry trinkets, and long ribands of photographic “souvenirs,” appalling in their ugliness. He who can stand five minutes before San Marco and retain a catholic love of mankind must indeed be blessed with a temper of much more than average amiability.

The death of Rome was indirectly the birth of Venice. Here in the great days of the Empire there was not, so far as we know, even a village. Invaders came, the Adriatic littoral was wrecked; its salvage is to be found among the islands of the lagoons. Aquileia went up in flames, the cities of the Paduan delta trembled before the hordes of savage Huns, but the islands of its coast held out a hope of safety. What in those days these camps of refuge must have been can be inferred from the islands which now border the mainland, low, marshy, overgrown by thickets, and fringed by reeds; they were unhealthy, but only accessible by intricate and difficult channels, and with little to tempt the spoiler. It was better to risk fever in the lagoons than to be murdered or driven off into slavery on the mainland. It was some time before Venice took the lead among these scattered settlements. It became the center of government in the year 810, but it was well-nigh two centuries before the Venetian State attained to any real eminence. Towards this, the first and perhaps the most important step was crushing the Istrian and Dalmatian pirates. This enabled the Republic to become a great “Adriatic and Oriental Company,” and to get into their hands the carrying trade to the East. The men of Venice were both brave and shrewd, something like our Elizabethan forefathers, mighty on sea and land, but men of understanding also in the arts of peace. She did battle with Genoa for commercial supremacy, with the Turk for existence. She was too strong for the former, but the latter at last wore her out, and Lepanto was one of her latest and least fruitful triumphs. Still, it was not till the end of the sixteenth century that a watchful eye could detect the symptoms of senile decay. Then Venice tottered gradually to its grave. Its slow disintegration occupied more than a century and a half; but the French Revolution indirectly caused the collapse of Venice, for its last doge abdicated, and the city was occupied by Napoleon in 1797. After his downfall Venetia was handed over to Austria, and found in the Hapsburg a harsh and unsympathetic master. It made a vain struggle for freedom in 1848, but was at last ceded to Italy after the Austro-Prussian war in 1866.

The city is built upon a group of islands; its houses are founded on piles, for there is no really solid ground. How far the present canals correspond with the original channels between small islands, how far they are artificial, it is difficult to say; but whether the original islets were few or many, there can be no doubt that they were formerly divided by the largest, or the Grand Canal, the Rio Alto or Deep Stream. This takes an S-like course, and parts the city roughly into two halves. The side canals, which are very numerous, for the town is said to occupy one hundred and fourteen islands, are seldom wider, often rather narrower than a by-street in the City of London. In Venice, as has often been remarked, not a cart or a carriage, not even a coster’s donkey-cart, can be used. Streets enough there are, but they are narrow and twisting, very like the courts in the heart of London. The carriage, the cab, and the omnibus are replaced by the gondolas. These it is needless to describe, for who does not know them? One consequence of this substitution of canals for streets is that the youthful Venetian takes to the water like a young duck to a pond, and does not stand much on ceremony, in the matter of taking off his clothes. Turn into a side canal on a summer’s day, and one may see the younger members of a family all bathing from their own doorstep, the smallest one, perhaps, to prevent accidents, being tied by a cord to a convenient ring; nay, sometimes as we are wandering through one of the narrow calle (alleys) we hear a soft patter of feet, something damp brushes past, and a little Venetian lad, lithe and black-eyed, bare-legged, bare-backed, and all but bare-breeched, shoots past as he makes a short cut to his clothes across a block of buildings, round which he cannot yet manage to swim.

In such a city as Venice it is hard to praise one view above another. There is the noble sweep of the Grand Canal, with its palaces; there are many groups of buildings on a less imposing scale, but yet more picturesque, on the smaller canals, often almost every turn brings some fresh surprise; but there are two views which always rise up in my mind before all others whenever my thoughts turn to Venice, more especially as it used to be. One is the view of the façade of San Marco from the Piazza. I shall make no apology for quoting words which describe more perfectly than my powers permit the impressions awakened by this dream-like architectural conception. “Beyond those troops of ordered arches there rises a vision out of the earth, and all the great square seems to have opened from it in a kind of awe, that we may see it far away: a multitude of pillars and white domes clustered into a long, low pyramid of colored light, a treasure-heap, as it seems, partly of gold and partly of opal and mother-of-pearl, hollowed beneath into five great vaulted porches, ceiled with fair mosaic and beset with sculptures of alabaster, clear as amber and delicate as ivory; sculpture fantastic and involved, of palm-leaves and lilies, and grapes and pomegranates, and birds clinging and fluttering among the branches, all twined together into an endless network of buds and plumes, and, in the midst of it, the solemn forms of angels, sceptered and robed to the feet, and leaning to each other across the gates, their features indistinct among the gleaming of the golden ground through the leaves beside them, interrupted and dim, like the morning light as it faded back among the branches of Eden when first its gates were angel-guarded long ago. And round the walls of the porches there are set pillars of variegated stones, jasper and porphyry, and deep-green serpentine, spotted with flakes of snow, and marbles that half refuse and half yield to the sunshine, Cleopatra-like, ‘their bluest veins to kiss,’ the shadow as it steals back from them revealing line after line of azure undulation, as a receding tide leaves the waved sand: their capitals rich with interwoven tracery, rooted knots of herbage, and drifting leaves of acanthus and vine, and mystical signs all beginning and ending in the Cross: and above them in the broad archivolts a continuous chain of language and of life, angels and the signs of heaven and the labors of men, each in its appointed season upon the earth; and above them another range of glittering pinnacles, mixed with white arches edged with scarlet flowers, a confusion of delight, among which the breasts of the Greek horses are seen blazing in their breadth of golden strength, and the St. Mark’s lion, lifted on a blue field covered with stars, until at last, as if in ecstasy, the crests of the arches break into a marble foam, and toss themselves far into the blue sky in flashes and wreaths of sculptured spray, as if the breakers on the Lido shore had been frost-bound before they fell, and the sea-nymphs had inlaid them with coral and amethyst.”[4 - Ruskin: “Stones of Venice.”]

This is San Marco as it was. Eight centuries had harmed it little; they had but touched the building with a gentle hand and had mellowed its tints into tender harmony; now its new masters, cruel in their kindness, have restored the mosaics and scraped the marbles; now raw blotches and patches of crude color glare out in violent contrast with those parts which, owing to the intricacy of the carved work, or some other reason, it has been found impossible to touch. To look at St. Mark’s now is like listening to some symphony by a master of harmony which is played on instruments all out of tune.

Photographs, pictures, illustrations of all kinds, have made St. Mark’s so familiar to all the world that it is needless to attempt to give any description of its details.

It may suffice to say that the cathedral stands on the site of a smaller and older building, in which the relics of St. Mark, the tutelary saint of Venice, had been already enshrined. The present structure was begun about the year 976, and occupied very nearly a century in building. But it is adorned with the spoils of many a classic structure: with columns and slabs of marble and of porphyry and of serpentine, which were hewn from quarries in Greece and Syria, in Egypt and Libya, by the hands of Roman slaves, and decked the palaces and the baths, the temples and the theaters of Roman cities.

The inside of St. Mark’s is not less strange and impressive, but hardly so attractive as the exterior. It is plain in outline and almost heavy in design, a Greek cross in plan, with a vaulted dome above the center and each arm. Much as the exterior of St. Mark’s owes to marble, porphyry, and mosaic, it would be beautiful if constructed only of grey limestone. This could hardly be said of the interior: take away the choice stones from columns and dado and pavement, strip away the crust of mosaic, those richly robed figures on ground of gold, from wall and from vault (for the whole interior is veneered with marbles or mosaics), and only a rather dark, massive building would remain, which would seem rather lower and rather smaller than one had been led to expect.

The other view in Venice which seems to combine best its peculiar character with its picturesque beauty may be obtained at a very short distance from St. Mark’s. Leave the façade of which we have just spoken, the three great masts, with their richly ornamented sockets of bronze, from which, in the proud days of Venice, floated the banners of Candia, Cyprus, and the Morea; turn from the Piazza into the Piazzetta; leave on the one hand the huge Campanile, more huge than beautiful (if one may venture to whisper a criticism), on the other the sumptuous portico of the Ducal Palace; pass on beneath the imposing façade of the palace itself, with its grand colonnade; on between the famous columns, brought more than seven centuries since from some Syrian ruins, which bear the lion of St. Mark and the statue of St. Theodore, the other patron of the Republic; and then, standing on the Molo at the head of the Riva degli Schiavoni, look around; or better still, step down into one of the gondolas which are in waiting at the steps, and push off a few dozen yards from the land: then look back on the façade of the Palace and the Bridge of Sighs, along the busy quays of the Riva, towards the green trees of the Giardini Publici, look up the Piazzetta, between the twin columns, to the glimpses of St. Mark’s and the towering height of the Campanile, along the façade of the Royal Palace, with the fringe of shrubbery below contrasting pleasantly with all these masses of masonry, up the broad entrance to the Grand Canal, between its rows of palaces, across it to the great dome of Santa Maria della Salute and the Dogana della Mare, with its statue of Fortune (appropriate to the past rather than to the present) gazing out from its seaward angle. Beyond this, yet farther away, lies the Isola San Giorgio, a group of plain buildings only, a church, with a dome simple in outline and a brick campanile almost without adornment, yet the one thing in Venice, after the great group of St. Mark; this is a silent witness to its triumphs in presses itself on the mind. From this point of view Venice rises before our eyes in its grandeur and in its simplicity, in its patrician and its plebeian aspects, as “a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, throned on her hundred isles … a ruler of the waters and their powers.”

But to leave Venice without a visit to the Grand Canal would be to leave the city with half the tale untold. Its great historic memories are gathered around the Piazza of St. Mark; this is a silent witness to its triumphs in peace and in war, to the deeds noble and brave, of its rulers. But the Grand Canal is the center of its life, commercial and domestic; it leads from its quays to its Exchange, from the Riva degli Schiavoni and the Dogana della Mare to the Rialto. It is bordered by the palaces of the great historic families who were the rulers and princes of Venice, who made the State by their bravery and prudence, who destroyed it by their jealousies and self-seeking. The Grand Canal is a genealogy of Venice, illustrated and engraved on stone. As one glides along in a gondola, century after century in the history of domestic architecture, from the twelfth to the eighteenth, slowly unrolls itself before us. There are palaces which still remain much as they were of old, but here and there some modern structure, tasteless and ugly, has elbowed for itself a place among them; not a few, also, have been converted into places of business, and are emblazoned with prominent placards proclaiming the trade of their new masters, worthy representatives of an age that is not ashamed to daub the cliffs of the St. Gothard with the advertisements of hotels and to paint its boulders for the benefit of vendors of chocolate!

But in the present era one must be thankful for anything that is spared by the greed of wealth and the vulgarity of a “democracy.” Much of old Venice still remains, though little steamers splutter up and down the Grand Canal, and ugly iron bridges span its waters, both, it must be admitted, convenient, though hideous; still the gondolas survive; still one hears at every corner the boatman’s strange cry of warning, sometimes the only sound except the knock of the oar that breaks the silence of the liquid street. Every turn reveals something quaint and old-world. Now it is a market-boat, with its wicker panniers hanging outside, loaded with fish or piled with vegetables from one of the more distant islets; now some little bridge, now some choice architectural fragment, a doorway, a turret, an oriel, or a row of richly ornate windows, now a tiny piazzetta leading up to the façade and campanile of a more than half-hidden church; now the marble enclosure of a well. Still the water-carriers go about with buckets of hammered copper hung at each end of a curved pole; still, though more rarely, some quaint costume may be seen in the calle; still the dark shops in the narrow passages are full of goods strange to the eye, and bright in their season with the flowers and fruits of an Italian summer; still the purple pigeons gather in scores at the wonted hour to be fed on the Piazza of St. Mark, and, fearless of danger, convert the distributor of a pennyworth of maize into a walking dovecot.

Still Venice is delightful to the eyes (unhappily not always so to the nose in many a nook and corner) notwithstanding the pressure of poverty and the wantonness of restorers. Perchance it may revive and yet see better days (its commerce is said to have increased since 1866); but if so, unless a change comes over the spirit of the age, the result will be the more complete destruction of all that made its charm and its wonder; so this chapter may appropriately be closed by a brief sketch of one scene which seems in harmony with the memories of its departed greatness, a Venetian funeral. The dead no longer rest among the living beneath the pavement of the churches: the gondola takes the Venetian “about the streets” to the daily business of life; it bears him away from his home to the island cemetery. From some narrow alley, muffled by the enclosing masonry, comes the sound of a funeral march; a procession emerges on to the piazzetta by the water-side; the coffin is carried by long-veiled acolytes and mourners with lighted torches, accompanied by a brass band with clanging cymbals. A large gondola, ornamented with black and silver, is in waiting at the nearest landing place; the band and most of the attendants halt by the water-side; the coffin is placed in the boat, the torches are extinguished; a wilder wail of melancholy music, a more resonant clang of the cymbals, sounds the last farewell to home and its pleasures and its work; the oars are dipped in the water, and another child of Venice is taken from the city of the living to the city of the dead.

A long line of islands completely shelters Venice from the sea, so that the waters around its walls are very seldom ruffled into waves. The tide also rises and falls but little, not more than two or three feet, if so much. Thus no banks of pestiferous mud are laid bare at low water by the ebb and flow, and yet some slight circulation is maintained in the canals, which, were it not for this, would be as intolerable as cesspools. Small boats can find their way over most parts of the lagoon, where in many places a safe route has to be marked out with stakes, but for large vessels the channels are few. A long island, Malamocco by name, intervenes between Venice and the Adriatic, on each side of which are the chief if not the only entrances for large ships. At its northern end is the sandy beach of the Lido, a great resort of the Venetians, for there is good sea-bathing. But except this, Malamocco has little to offer; there is more interest in other parts of the lagoon. At the southern end, some fifteen miles away, the old town of Chioggia is a favorite excursion. On the sea side the long fringe of narrow islands, of which Malamocco is one, protected by massive walls, forms a barrier against the waves of the Adriatic. On the land side is the dreary fever-haunted region of the Laguna Morta, like a vast fen, beyond which rise the serrate peaks of the Alps and the broken summits of the Euganean Hills. The town itself, the Roman Fossa Claudia, is a smaller edition of Venice, joined like it to the mainland by a bridge. If it has fewer relics of architectural value it has suffered less from modern changes, and has retained much more of its old-world character.

Murano, an island or group of islands, is a tiny edition of Venice, and a much shorter excursion, for it lies only about a mile and a half away to the north of the city. Here is the principal seat of the workers in glass; here are made those exquisite reproductions of old Venetian glass and of ancient mosaic which have made the name of Salviati noted in all parts of Europe. Here, too, is a cathedral which, though it has suffered from time, neglect and restoration, is still a grand relic. At the eastern end there is a beautiful apse enriched by an arcade and decorated with inlaid marbles, but the rest of the exterior is plain. As usual in this part of Italy (for the external splendor of St. Mark’s is exceptional) all richness of decoration is reserved for the interior. Here columns of choice stones support the arches; there is a fine mosaic in the eastern apse, but the glory of Murano is its floor, a superb piece of opus Alexandrinum, inlaid work of marbles and porphyries, bearing date early in the eleventh century, and richer in design than even that at St. Mark’s, for peacocks and other birds, with tracery of strange design, are introduced into its patterns.

But there is another island beyond Murano, some half-dozen miles away from Venice, which must not be left unvisited. It is reached by a delightful excursion over the lagoon, among lonely islands thinly inhabited, the garden grounds of Venice, where they are not left to run wild with rank herbage or are covered by trees. This is Torcello, the ancient Altinum. Here was once a town of note, the center of the district when Venice was struggling into existence. Its houses now are few and ruinous; the ground is half overgrown with populars and acacias and pomegranates, red in summer-time with scarlet flowers. But it possesses two churches which, though small in size are almost unique in their interest, the duomo, dedicated to St. Mary, and the church of Sta. Fosca. They stand side by side, and are linked together by a small cloister. The former is a plain basilica which retains its ancient plan and arrangement almost intact. At one end is an octagonal baptistry, which, instead of being separated from the cathedral by an atrium or court, is only divided from it by a passage. The exterior of the cathedral is plain; the interior is not much more ornate. Ancient columns, with quaintly carved capitals supporting stilted semicircular arches, divide the aisles from the nave. Each of these has an apsidal termination. The high altar stands in the center of the middle one, and behind it, against the wall, the marble throne of the bishop is set up on high, and is approached by a long flight of marble steps. On each side, filling up the remainder of the curve, six rows of steps rise up like the seats of an amphitheater, the places of the attendant priests. The chancel, true to its name, is formed by enclosing a part of the nave with a low stone wall and railing. Opinions differ as to the date of this cathedral. According to Fergusson it was erected early in the eleventh century, but it stands on the site of one quite four centuries older, and reproduces the arrangement of its predecessor if it does not actually incorporate portions of it. Certainly the columns and capitals in the nave belong, as a rule, to an earlier building. Indeed, they have probably done duty more than once, and at least some of them were sculptured before the name of Attila had been heard of in the delta of the North Italian rivers.

The adjoining church of Sta. Fosca is hardly less interesting. An octagonal case, with apses at the eastern end, supports a circular drum, which is covered by a low conical roof, and a cloister or corridor surrounds the greater part of the church. This adds much to the beauty of the design, the idea, as Fergusson remarks, being evidently borrowed from the circular colonnades of the Roman temples. He also justly praises the beauty of the interior. In this church also, which in its present condition is not so old as the cathedral, the materials of a much older building or buildings have been employed. But over these details or the mosaics in the cathedral we must not linger, and must only pause to mention the curious stone chair in the adjacent court which bears the name of the throne of Attila; perhaps, like the chair of the Dukes of Corinthia, it was the ancient seat of the chief magistrate of the island.

XI

ALEXANDRIA

The bleak and barren shores of the Nile Delta – Peculiar shape of the city – Strange and varied picture of Alexandrian street life – The Place Mehemet Ali – Glorious panorama from the Cairo citadel – Pompey’s Pillar – The Battle of the Nile – Discovery of the famous inscribed stone at Rosetta – Port Said and the Suez Canal.

It is with a keen sense of disappointment that the traveller first sights the monotonous and dreary-looking Egyptian sea-board. The low ridges of desolate sandhills, occasionally broken by equally unattractive lagunes, form a melancholy contrast to the beautiful scenery of the North African littoral farther west, which delighted his eyes a short time before, while skirting the Algerian coast. What a change from the thickly-wooded hills gently sloping upwards from the water’s edge to the lower ridges of the Atlas range, whose snow-clad peaks stand out clear in the brilliant atmosphere, the landscape diversified with cornfields and olive groves, and thickly studded with white farmhouses, looking in the distance but white specks, and glittering like diamonds under the glowing rays of the sun. Now, instead of all this warmth of color and variety of outline, one is confronted by the bleak and barren shores of the Nile Delta.

If the expectant traveller is so disenchanted with his first view of Egypt from the sea, still greater is his disappointment as the ship approaches the harbor. This bustling and painfully modern-looking town – the city of the great Alexander, and the gate of that land of oriental romance and fascinating association – might, but for an occasional palm-tree or minaret standing out among the mass of European buildings, be mistaken for some flourishing European port, say a Marseilles or Havre plumped down on the Egyptian plain.

But though we must not look for picturesque scenery and romantic surroundings in this thriving port, there is yet much to interest the antiquarian and the “intelligent tourist” in this classic district. The Delta sea-board was for centuries the battle-ground of the Greek and Roman Empires, and the country between Alexandria and Port Said is strewed with historic sites.

Alexandria itself, though a much Europeanized and a hybrid sort of city, is not without interest. It has been rather neglected by Egyptian travel writers, and consequently by the tourist, who rarely strikes out a line for himself. It is looked upon too much as the port of Cairo, just as Leghorn is of Pisa and Florence, and visitors usually content themselves with devoting to it but one day, and then rushing off by train to Cairo.

It would be absurd, of course, to compare Alexandria, in point of artistic, antiquarian, and historical interest, to this latter city; though, as a matter of fact, Cairo is a modern city compared to the Alexandria of Alexander; just as Alexandria is but of mushroom growth contrasted with Heliopolis, Thebes, Memphis, or the other dead cities of the Nile Valley of which traces still remain. It has often been remarked that the ancient city has bequeathed nothing but its ruins and its name to Alexandria of to-day. Even these ruins are deplorably scanty, and most of the sites are mainly conjectural. Few vestiges remain of the architectural splendor of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Where are now the 4,000 palaces, the 4,000 baths, and the 400 theaters, about which the conquering general Amru boasted to his master, the Caliph Omar? What now remains of the magnificent temple of Serapis, towering over the city on its platform of one hundred steps? Though there are scarcely any traces of the glories of ancient Alexandria, once the second city of the Empire, yet the recollection of its splendors has not died out, and to the thoughtful traveller this city of memories has its attractions. Here St. Mark preached the Gospel and suffered martyrdom, and here Athanasius opposed in warlike controversy the Arian heresies. Here for many centuries were collected in this center of Greek learning and culture the greatest intellects of the civilized world. Here Cleopatra, “vainqueur des vainqueurs du monde,” held Antony willing captive, while Octavius was preparing his legions to crush him. Here Amru conquered, and here Abercrombie fell. Even those whose tastes do not incline them to historical or theological researches are familiar, thanks to Kingsley’s immortal romance, with the story of the noble-minded Hypatia and the crafty and ambitious Cyril, and can give rein to their imagination by verifying the sites of the museum where she lectured, and the Cæsarum where she fell a victim to the atrocious zeal of Peter the Reader and his rabble of fanatical monks.

The peculiar shape of the city, built partly on the Pharos Island and peninsula, and partly on the mainland, is due, according to the chroniclers, to a patriotic whim of the founder, who planned the city in the form of a chlamys, the short cloak or tunic worn by the Macedonian soldiers. The modern city, though it has pushed its boundaries a good way to the east and west, still preserves this curious outline, though to a non-classical mind it rather suggests a star-fish. Various legends are extant to account for the choice of this particular spot for a Mediterranean port. According to the popular version, a venerable seer appeared to the Great Conqueror in a dream, and quoted those lines of the Odyssey which describe the one sheltered harbor on the northern coast of Egypt: – “a certain island called Pharos, that with the high-waved sea is washed, just against Egypt.” Acting on this supernatural hint, Alexander decided to build his city on that part of the coast to which the Pharos isle acted as a natural breakwater, and where a small Greek fishing settlement was already established, called Rhacotis. The legend is interesting, but it seems scarcely necessary to fall back on a mythical story to account for the selection of this site. The two great aims of Alexander were the foundation of a center for trade, and the extension of commerce, and also the fusion of the Greek and Roman nations. For the carrying out of these objects, the establishment of a convenient sea-port with a commanding position at the mouth of the Nile was required. The choice of a site a little west of the Nile mouths was, no doubt, due to his knowledge of the fact that the sea current sets eastward, and that the alluvial soil brought down by the Nile would soon choke a harbor excavated east of the river, as had already happened at Pelusium. It is this alluvial wash which has rendered the harbors of Rosetta and Damietta almost useless for vessels of any draught, and at Port Said the accumulation of sand necessitates continuous dredging in order to keep clear the entrance of the Suez Canal.

A well-known writer on Egypt has truly observed that there are three Egypts to interest the traveller. The Egypt of the Pharoahs and the Bible, the Egypt of the Caliphates and the “Arabian Nights,” and the Egypt of European commerce and enterprise. It is to this third stage of civilization that the fine harbor of Alexandria bears witness. Not only is it of interest to the engineer and the man of science, but it is also of great historic importance. It serves as a link between ancient and modern civilization. The port is Alexander the Great’s best monument – “si quæris monumentum respice.” But for this, Alexandria might now be a little fishing port of no more importance than the little Greek fishing village, Rhacotis, whose ruins lie buried beneath its spacious quays. It is not inaccurate to say that the existing harbor is the joint work of Alexander and English engineers of the present century. It was originally formed by the construction of a vast mole (Heptastadion) joining the island of Pharos to the mainland; and this stupendous feat of engineering, planned and carried out by Alexander, has been supplemented by the magnificent breakwater constructed by England in 1872, at a cost of over two and a half millions sterling. After Marseilles, Malta, and Spezzia, it is perhaps the finest port in the Mediterranean, both on account of its natural advantages as a haven, and by reason of the vast engineering works mentioned above. The western harbor (formerly called Eunostos or “good home sailing”) of which we are speaking – for the eastern, or so-called new harbor, is choked with sand and given up to native craft – has only one drawback in the dangerous reef at its entrance, and which should have been blasted before the breakwater and the other engineering works were undertaken. The passage through the bar is very intricate and difficult, and is rarely attempted in very rough weather. The eastern harbor will be of more interest to the artist, crowded as it is with the picturesque native craft and dahabyehs with their immense lateen sails. The traveller, so disgusted with the modern aspect of the city from the western harbor, finds some consolation here, and begins to feel that he is really in the East. Formerly this harbor was alone available for foreign ships, the bigoted Moslems objecting to the “Frankish dogs” occupying their best haven. This restriction has, since the time of Mehemet Ali, been removed, greatly to the advantage of Alexandrian trade.

During the period of Turkish misrule – when Egypt under the Mamelukes, though nominally a vilayet of the Ottoman Empire, was practically under the dominion of the Beys – the trade of Alexandria had declined considerably, and Rosetta had taken away most of its commerce. When Mehemet Ali, the founder of the present dynasty, rose to power, his clear intellect at once comprehended the importance of this ancient emporium, and the wisdom of Alexander’s choice of a site for the port which was destined to become the commercial center of three continents.

Mehemet is the creator of modern Alexandria. He deepened the harbor, which had been allowed to be choked by the accumulation of sand, lined it with spacious quays, built the massive forts which protect the coast, and restored the city to its old commercial importance, by putting it into communication with the Nile through the medium of the Mahmoudiyeh Canal. This vast undertaking was only effected with great loss of life. It was excavated by the forced labor of 250,000 peasants, of whom some 20,000 died from the heat and the severe toil.

On landing from the steamer the usual scrimmage with Arab porters, Levantine hotel touts, and Egyptian donkey boys, will have to be endured by the traveller. He may perhaps be struck, if he has any time or temper left for reflection at all, with the close connection between the English world of fashion and the donkey, so far at least as nomenclature is concerned, each animal being named after some English celebrity. The inseparable incidents of disembarkation at an Eastern port are, however, familiar to all who have visited the East; and the same scenes are repeated at every North African port, from Tangier to Port Said, and need not be further described.

The great thoroughfare of Alexandria, a fine street running in a straight line from the western gate of the city to the Place Mehemet Ali, is within a few minutes of the quay. A sudden turn and this strange mingling of Eastern and Western life bursts upon the spectator’s astonished gaze. This living diorama, formed by the brilliant and ever-shifting crowd, is in its way unique. A greater variety of nationalities is collected here than even in Constantinople or cosmopolitan Algiers. Let us stand aside and watch this motley collection of all nations, kindreds, and races pouring along this busy highway. The kaleidoscopic variety of brilliant color and fantastic costume seems at first a little bewildering. Solemn and impassive-looking Turks gently ambling past on gaily caparisoned asses, grinning negroes from the Nubian hills, melancholy-looking fellahs in their scanty blue kaftans, cunning-featured Levantines, green-turbaned Shereefs, and picturesque Bedouins from the desert stalking along in their flowing bernouses, make up the mass of this restless throng. Interspersed, and giving variety of color to this living kaleidoscope, gorgeously-arrayed Jews, fierce-looking Albanians, their many-colored sashes bristling with weapons, and petticoated Greeks. Then, as a pleasing relief to this mass of color, a group of Egyptian ladies glide past, “a bevy of fair damsels richly dight,” no doubt, but their faces, as well as their rich attire, concealed under the inevitable yashmak surmounting the balloon-like trousers. Such are the elements in this mammoth masquerade which make up the strange and varied picture of Alexandrian street life. And now we may proceed to visit the orthodox sights, but we have seen the greatest sight Alexandria has to show us.

The Place Mehemet Ali, usually called for the sake of brevity the Grand Square, is close at hand. This is the center of the European quarter, and round it are collected the banks, consular offices, and principal shops. This square, the focus of the life of modern Alexandria, is appropriately named after the founder of the present dynasty, and the creator of the Egypt of to-day. To this great ruler, who at one time bid fair to become the founder, not only of an independent kingdom, but of a great Oriental Empire, Alexandria owes much of its prosperity and commercial importance. The career of Mehemet Ali is interesting and romantic. There is a certain similarity between his history and that of Napoleon I., and the coincidence seems heightened when we remember that they were born in the same year. Each, rising from an obscure position, started as an adventurer on foreign soil, and each rose to political eminence by force of arms. Unlike Napoleon, however, in one important point, Mehemet Ali founded a dynasty which still remains in power, in spite of the weakness and incapacity of his successors. To Western minds, perhaps, his great claim to hold a high rank in the world’s history lies in his efforts to introduce European institutions and methods of civilization, and to establish a system of government opposed to Mohammedan instincts. He created an army and navy which were partly based on European models, stimulated agriculture and trade, and organized an administrative and fiscal system which did much towards putting the country on a sound financial footing. The great blot of his reign was no doubt the horrible massacre of the Mameluke Beys, and this has been the great point of attack by his enemies and detractors. It is difficult to excuse this oriental example of a coup d’état, but it must be remembered that the existence of this rebellious element was incompatible with the maintenance of his rule, and that the peace of the country was as much endangered by the Mameluke Beys as was that of the Porte by the Janissaries a few years later, when a somewhat similar atrocity was perpetrated.

In the middle of the square stands a handsome equestrian statue of Mehemet Ali which is, in one respect, probably unique. The Mohammedan religion demands the strictest interpretation of the injunction in the decalogue against making “to thyself any craven image,” and consequently a statue to a follower of the creed of Mahomet is rarely seen in a Mohammedan country. The erection of this particular monument was much resented by the more orthodox of the Mussulman population of Alexandria, and the religious feelings of the mob manifested themselves in riots and other hostile demonstrations. Not only representations in stone or metal, but any kind of likeness of the human form is thought impious by Mohammedans. They believe that the author will be compelled on the Resurrection Day to indue with life the sacrilegious counterfeit presentment. Tourists in Egypt who are addicted to sketching, or who dabble in photography, will do well to remember these conscientious scruples of the Moslem race, and not let their zeal for bringing back pictorial mementoes of their travels induce them to take “snapshots” of mosque interiors, for instance. In Egypt, no doubt, the natives have too wholesome a dread of the Franks to manifest their outraged feelings by physical force, but still it is ungenerous, not to say unchristian, to wound people’s religious prejudices. In some other countries of North Africa, notably in the interior of Morocco or Tripoli, promiscuous photography might be attended with disagreeable results, if not a certain amount of danger. A tourist would find a Kodak camera, even with all the latest improvements, a somewhat inefficient weapon against a mob of fanatical Arabs.

That imposing pile standing out so prominently on the western horn of Pharos is the palace of Ras-et-Teen, built by Mehemet Ali, and restored in execrable taste by his grandson, the ex-Khedive Ismail. Seen from the ship’s side, the palace has a rather striking appearance. The exterior, however, is the best part of it, as the ornate and gaudy interior contains little of interest. From the upper balconies there is a good view of the harbor, and the gardens are well worth visiting. They are prettily laid out, and among many other trees, olives may be seen, unknown in any other part of the Delta. The decorations and appointments of the interior are characterized by a tawdry kind of magnificence. The incongruous mixture of modern French embellishments and oriental splendor gives the saloons a meretricious air, and the effect is bizarre and unpleasing. It is a relief to get away from such obtrusive evidences of the ex-Khedive’s decorative tastes, by stepping out on the balcony. What a forest of masts meets the eye as one looks down on the vast harbor; the inner one, a “sea within a sea,” crowded with vessels bearing the flags of all nations, and full of animation and movement.

The view is interesting, and makes one realize the commercial importance of this great emporium of trade, the meeting-place of the commerce of three continents, yet it does not offer many features to distinguish it from a view of any other thriving port.

For the best view of the city and the surrounding country we must climb the slopes of Mount Caffarelli to the fort which crowns the summit, or make our way to the fortress Kom-el-Deek on the elevated ground near the Rosetta Gate. Alexandria, spread out like a map, lies at our feet. At this height the commonplace aspect of a bustling and thriving seaport, which seems on a close acquaintance to be Europeanized and modernized out of the least resemblance to an oriental city, is changed to a prospect of some beauty. At Alexandria, even more than at most cities of the East, distance lends enchantment to the view. From these heights the squalid back streets and the bustling main thoroughfares look like dark threads woven into the web of the city, relieved by the white mosques, with their swelling domes curving inward like fan palms towards the crescents flashing in the rays of the sun, and their tall graceful minarets piercing the smokeless and cloudless atmosphere. The subdued roar of the busy streets and quays is occasionally varied by the melodious cry of the muezzin. Then looking northward one sees the clear blue of the Mediterranean, till it is lost in the hazy horizon. To the west and south the placid waters of the Mareotis Lake, in reality a shallow and insalubrious lagoon, but to all appearances a smiling lake, which, with its water fringed by the low-lying sand dunes, reminds the spectator of the peculiar beauties of the Norfolk Broads.

Looking south beyond the lake lies the luxuriant plain of the Delta. The view may not be what is called picturesque, but the scenery has its special charm. The country is no doubt flat and monotonous, but there is no monotony of color in this richly cultivated plain.