Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 331, May, 1843

On leaving the bay of Naples our traveller first makes for the island of Capri. The greatest curiosity which he here visits and describes in the azure grotto. He and his companion are rowed, each in a small skiff, to a narrow dark aperture upon the rocky coast, and which appears the darker from its contrast with the white surf that is dashing about it. He is told to lie down on his back in the boat, to protect his head from a concussion against the low roof.

"In a moment after I was borne upon the surge—the bark glided on with rapidity—I saw nothing but a dark rock, which seemed for a second to be weighing on my chest. Then on a sudden I found myself in a grotto so marvellous that I uttered a cry of astonishment, and started up in my admiration with a bound which endangered the frail bark on which I stood.

"I had before me, around me, above me, beneath me, a perfect enchantment, which words cannot describe, and which the pencil would utterly fail to give any impression of. Imagine an immense cavern, all pure azure—as if God had made a tent there with some residue of the firmament; a surface of water so limpid, so transparent, that you seem to float on air: above you, the pendant stalactites, huge and fantastical, reversed pyramids and pinnacles: below you a sand of gold mingled with marine vegetation; and around the margin of cave, where it is bathed by the water, the coral shooting out its capricious and glittering branches. That narrow entrance which, from the sea, showed like a dark spot, now shone at one end a luminous point, the solitary star which gave its subdued light to this fairy palace; whilst at the opposite extremity a sort of alcove led on the imagination to expect new wonders, or perhaps the apparition of the nymph or goddess of the place.

"In all probability the azure grotto was unknown to the ancients. No poet speaks of it; and surely with their marvellous imagination the Greeks could not have failed to make it the palace of some marine goddess, and to have transmitted to us her history. The sea, perhaps, was higher than it is now, and the secrets of this cave were known only to Amphitrite and her court of sirens, naiads, and tritons.

"Even now at times the sea rises and closes the orifice, so that those who have entered cannot escape. In which case they must wait till the wind, which had suddenly shifted to the east or west, returns to the north or south; and it has happened that visitors who came to spend twenty minutes in the azure grotto, have remained there two, three, and even four days. To provide against such an emergency, the boatmen always bring with them a certain quantity of biscuit to feed the prisoners, and as the rock affords fresh water in several places, there is no fear of thirst. It was not till we had been in the grotto some time that our boatmen communicated this piece of information; we were disposed to reproach them for this delay, but they answered with the utmost simplicity, that if they told this at first to travellers, half of them would decline coming, and this would injure the boatmen.

"I confess that this little piece of information raised a certain disquietude, and I found the azure grotto infinitely less agreeable to the imagination.... We again laid ourselves down at the bottom of our respective canoes, and issued forth with the same precautions, and the same good fortune, with which we had entered. But we were some minutes before we could open our eyes; the burning sun upon the glittering ocean absolutely blinded us. We had not gone many yards, however, before the eye recovered itself, and all that we had seen in the azure grotto had the consistency of a dream."

From Capri our travellers proceed to Sicily. We have a long story and a violent storm upon the passage, and are landed at Messina. Here M. Dumas enlarges his experience by an acquaintance with the Sirocco. His companion, M. Jadin, had been taken ill, and a physician had been called in.

"The doctor had ordered that the patient (who was suffering under a fever) should be exposed to all the air possible, that doors and windows should be opened, and he should be placed in the current. This was done; but on the present evening, to my astonishment, instead of the fresh breeze of the night—which was wont to blow the fresher from our neighbourhood to the sea—there entered at the open window a dry hot wind like the air from a furnace. I waited for the morning, but the morning brought no change in the state of the atmosphere.

"My patient had suffered greatly through the night. I rang the bell for some lemonade, the only drink the doctor had recommended; but no one answered the summons. I rang again, and a third time: still no one came; at length seeing that the mountain would not come to me, I went to the mountain. I wandered through the corridor, and entered apartment after apartment, and found no one to address. It was nine o'clock in the morning, yet the master and mistress of the house had not left their room, and not a domestic was at his post. It was quite incomprehensible.

"I descended to the portico; I found him lying on an old sofa all in tatters, the principal ornament of his room, and asked him why the house was thus deserted.

"'Ah, monsieur!' said he, 'do you not feel the sirocco?'

"'Sirocco or not, is this a reason why no one should come when I call?'

"'Oh, monsieur, when it is sirocco no one does any thing!'

"'And your travellers, who is to wait upon them?'

"'On those days they wait upon themselves.'

"I begged pardon of this respectable official for having disturbed him; he heaved such a sigh as indicated that it required a great amount of Christian charity to grant the pardon I had asked.

"The hour arrived when the doctor should have paid his visit, and no doctor came. I presumed that the sirocco detained him also; but as the state of Jadin appeared to me alarming, I resolved to go and rouse my Esculapius, and bring him, willing or unwilling, to the hotel. I took my hat and sallied forth.

"Messina had the appearance of a city of the dead: not an inhabitant was walking in the streets, not a head was seen at the windows. The mendicants themselves (and he who has not seen the Sicilian mendicant, knows not what wretchedness is,) lay in the corners of the streets, stretched out, doubled up, panting, without strength to stretch out their hand for charity, or voice to ask an alms. Pompeii, which I visited three months afterwards, was not more silent, more solitary, more inanimate.

"I reached the doctor's. I rang, I knocked, no one answered. I pushed against the door, it opened;—I entered, and pursued my search for the doctor.

"I traversed three or four apartments. There were women lying upon sofas, and children sprawling on the floor. Not one even raised a head to look at me. At last, in one of the rooms, the door of which was, like the rest, half-open, I found the man I was in quest of, stretched upon his bed.

"I went up to him, I took him by the hand, and felt his pulse.

"'Ah,' said he, with a melancholy voice, and scarcely turning his head towards me, 'Is that you? What can you want?'

"'Want!--I want you to come and see my friend, who is no better, as it seems to me.'

"'Go and see your friend!' cried the doctor, in a fright—'impossible!'

"'Why impossible?'

"He made a desperate effort to move, and taking his cane in his left hand, passed his right hand slowly down it, from the golden head that adorned it to the other extremity. 'Look you,' said he, 'my cane sweats.'

"And, in fact, there fell some globules of water from it, such an effect has this terrible wind even on inanimate things.

"'Well,' said I, 'and what does that prove?'

"'That proves, that at such a time as this, there are no physicians, all are patients.[3 - The extreme misery of the paupers in Sicily, who form, he tells us, a tenth part of the population, quite haunts the imagination of M. Dumas. He recurs to it several times. At one place he witnesses the distribution, at the door of a convent, of soup to these poor wretches, and gives a terrible description of the famine-stricken group. "All these creatures," he continues, "had eaten nothing since yesterday evening. They had come there to receive their porringer of soup, as they had come to-day, as they would come to-morrow. This was all their nourishment for twenty-four hours, unless some of them might obtain a few grani from their fellow-citizens, or the compassion of strangers; but this is very rare, as the Syracusans are familiarized with the spectacle, and few strangers visit Syracuse. When the distributor of this blessed soup appeared, there were unheard-of cries, and each one rushed forward with his wooden bowl in his hand. Only there were some too feeble to exclaim, or to run, and who dragged themselves forward, groaning, upon their hands and knees. There was in the midst of all, a child clothed, not in anything that could be called a shirt, but a kind of spider's web, with a thousand holes, who had no wooden bowl, and who wept with hunger. It stretched out its poor little meagre hands, and joined them together, to supply as well as it could, by this natural receptacle, the absent bowl. The cook poured in a spoonful of the soup. The soup was boiling, and burned the child's hand. It uttered a cry of pain, and was compelled to open its fingers, and the soup fell upon the pavement. The child threw itself on all fours, and began to eat in the manner of a dog."—Vol. iii. p. 58.And in another place he says, "Alas, this cry of hunger! it is the eternal cry of Sicily; I have heard nothing else for three months. There are miserable wretches, whose hunger has never been appeased, from the day when, lying in their cradle, they began to draw the milk from their exhausted mothers, to the last hour when, stretched on their bed of death, they have expired endeavouring to swallow the sacred host which the priest had laid upon their lips. Horrible to think of! there are human beings to whom, to have eaten once sufficiently, would be a remembrance for all their lives to come."—Vol. iv. p. 108.]'"—P. 175.

Seeing there was no chance of bringing the doctor to the hotel, unless he carried him there by main force, Mr Dumas contented himself with relating the symptoms of his friend. To drink lemonade—much lemonade—all the lemonade he could swallow, was the only prescription that the physician gave. And the simple remedy seems to have sufficed; for the patient shortly after recovered.

Not the least agreeable portion of these travels, is the pleasant impression they leave of the traveller himself, one who has his humours doubtless, but who is social, buoyant, brave, generous, and enterprising. A Frenchman—as a chemist, in his peculiar language, would say—is a creature "endowed with a considerable range of affinity." Our traveller has this range of affinity; he wins the heart of all and several—the crew of his speronara. We will close with the following extract, both because it shows the frank and lively feelings of the Frenchman, and because it introduces a name dear to all lovers of melody. The father of Bellini was a Sicilian, and Dumas was in Sicily.

"It was while standing on this spot, that I asked my guide if he knew the father of Bellini. At this question he turned, and pointing out to me an old man who was passing in a little carriage drawn by one horse—'Look you,' said he, 'there he is, taking his ride into the country!'

"I ran to the carriage and stopped it, knowing that he is never intrusive who speaks to a father of his son, and of such a son as Bellini's. At the first mention of his name, the old man took me by both hands, and asked me eagerly if I really knew his son. I drew from my portfolio a letter of introduction, which, on my departure from Paris, Bellini had given me for the Duchess de Noja, and asked him if he knew the handwriting. He took the letter in his hands, and answered only by kissing the superscription.

"'Ah,' said he, turning round to me, 'you know not how good he is! We are not rich. Well, at each success there comes some remembrance, something to add to the ease and comfort of an old man. If you will come home with me, I will show you how many things I owe to his goodness. Every success brings something new. This watch I carry with me, was from Norma; this little carriage and horse, from the Puritans. In every letter that he writes, he says that he will come; but Paris is far from Sicily. I do not trust to this promise—I am afraid that I shall die without seeing him again. You will see him, you——'

"'Yes,' I answered, 'and if you have any commission——'

"'No—what should I send him?—My blessing?—Dear boy, I give it him night and morning. But tell him you have given me a happy day by speaking to me of him—tell him that I embraced you as an old friend—(and he embraced me)—but you need not say that I was in tears. Besides,' he added, 'it is with joy that I weep.—And is it true that my son has a reputation?'

"'Indeed a very great reputation.'

"'How strange!' said the old man, 'who would have thought it, when I used to scold him, because, instead of working, he would be eternally beating time, and teaching his sister all the old Sicilian airs! Well, these things are written above. I wish I could see him before I die.—But your name?' he added, 'I have forgotten all this time to ask your name.'

"I told him: it woke no recollection.

"'Alexandre Dumas, Alexandre Dumas,' he repeated two or three times, 'I shall recollect that he who bears that name has given me good news of my son. Adieu! Alexandre Dumas—I shall recollect that name—Adieu!'

"Poor old man! I am sure he has not forgotten it; for the news I gave him of his son was the last he was ever to receive."—P. 226.

Sicily is one of those romantic countries, where you may still meet with adventures in your travels, where you may be shot at by banditti with pointed hats and long guns. M. Dumas passes not without his share of such adventures. Perhaps, as Sicily is less trodden ground than Italy, his "Souvenirs" will be found more interesting as he proceeds. We have naturally taken our quotations in the order in which they presented themselves, and we have not advanced further than the second of the five delectably small volumes in which these travels are printed. Would our space permit us to proceed, it is probable that our extracts would increase, instead of diminishing, in interest.

AMMALÁT BEK

A TRUE TALE OF THE CAUCASUS. FROM THE RUSSIAN OF MARLÍNSKI

CHAPTER VI

Fragments from the Diary of Ammalát Bek.—Translated from the Tartar.

... Have I been asleep till now, or am I now in a dream?... This, then, is the new world called thought!... O beautiful world! thou hast long been to me cloudy and confused, like the milky way, which, they say, consists of thousands of glittering stars! It seems to me that I am ascending the mountain of knowledge from the valley of darkness and ignorance; each step opens to me views further and more extensive.... My breast breathes freer, I gaze in the face of the sun.... I look below—the clouds murmur under my feet!... annoying clouds! You prevent me from seeing the heavens from the earth; from the heaven to look upon the earth!

I wonder how the commonest questions, whence and how, never before came into my head? All God's world, with every thing in it good or evil, was seen reflected in my soul as in the sea: I only knew as much of it as the sea does, or a mirror. In my memory, it is true, much was preserved: but to what end did this serve? Does the hawk understand why the hood is put on his head? Does the steed understand why they shoe him? Did I understand why in one place mountains are necessary, in another steppes, here eternal snows, there oceans of sand? Why storms and earthquakes were necessary? And thou, most wondrous being, Man! it never has entered my head to follow thee from thy cradle, suspended on a wandering mule, to that magnificent city which I have never seen, and which I am enchanted merely to have heard of!... I confess that I am already delighted with the mere outside of a book, without understanding the meaning of the mysterious letters ... but V. not only makes knowledge attractive, but gives me the means of acquiring it. With him, as a young swallow with its mother, I try my new wings.... The distance and the height still astonish, but no longer alarm me. The time will come when I shall mount upwards to the heavens!...

... But yet, am I happy because V. and his books teach me to think? The time was, when a spirited steed, a costly sabre, a good gun, delighted me like a child. Now, that I know the superiority of mind over body, my former pride in shooting or horsemanship appears to me ridiculous—nay, even contemptible. Is it worth while to devote oneself to a trade, in which the meanest broad-shouldered noúker can surpass me?... Is it worth while to seek honour and happiness, of which the first wound may deprive me—the first awkward leap? They have taken from me this plaything, but with what have they replaced it?... With new wants, with new wishes, which Allah himself can neither weary nor satisfy. I thought myself a man of consequence; but now I am convinced of my own nothingness. Formerly, to my memory, my grandfather and great-grandfather were at the beginning of the night of the past, with its stories and dreaming traditions.... The Caucasus contained my world, and I peacefully slept in that night. I thought to be famous in Daghestán—the height of glory. And what then? History has peopled my former desert with nations, shattering each other for glory; with heroes, terrifying the nations by valour to which we can never rise. And where are they? Half forgotten, they have vanished in the dust of ages. The description of the earth shows me that the Tartars occupy a little corner of the world; that they are miserable savages in comparison with the European nations; and that of the existence, not only of their brave warriors, but of the whole nation, nobody thinks, nobody knows, nobody wishes to know. It is worth while to be a glow-worm amongst insects. Was it worth while to expand my mind, in order to be convinced of such a bitter truth?

What is the use of a knowledge of the powers of nature to me, when I cannot change my soul, master my heart? The sea teaches me to build dykes—but I cannot restrain my tears!... I can conduct the lightning from the roof, but I cannot throw off my sorrows! Was I not unhappy enough from my feelings alone, without calling around me my thoughts, like greedy vultures? What does the sick man gain by knowing that his disease is incurable?... The tortures of my hopeless love have become sharper, more piercing, more various, since my intellect has been enlightened.