Dedication

TO MY HUSBAND

 
To Thee, whose hand has kindly led me forth
Far o’er the land, across the deep blue sea,
Whose care and love watch’d o’er me every where,
I dedicate this little History.
 
 
May it recall to thee the motley crowd
Of strange and kindly people we have seen,
The golden days of the enchanted Isle,
How wondrous bright and happy they have been.
 
 
The smiling Bosphorus and grand Stamboul,
The glorious bay of beauteous Napoli,
The festive days at Florence,—and accept
This as a sign of gratitude from me.
 

Lower Norwood,

Dec. 1st, 1865.

CHAPTER I.
FROM LONDON TO CRETE

 
“O Wandern, Wandern, meine Lust! O Wandern.”
 

W. Müller.

It was on the morning of the 18th of March, 1865, that, “equipped from top to toe,” I kissed all my little ones, shook hands with the kind friends who were to take care of them, and started with my husband on our grand wedding tour. Yes, this was to be our wedding tour; for the one we made directly after our wedding, more than ten years ago, did not deserve that name; and since then we had never travelled without, what is most properly called encumbrances, not meaning trunks or bandboxes, but babies of different sizes and ages. Our first wedding trip! Shall I confess that it did not extend farther than Broadstairs! How times change! Our wishes were more limited then; I am sure we thought we had gone quite as far as people could wish to go, for we went by water, and the weather being rather windy, we were both very nearly sea-sick when we arrived. But no more of these old bye-gone times, I have other things to tell. When we drove off, and I looked once more back, my baby clapped her little fat hands together, and called out, “Lumps of delight, lumps of delight.” A turban! a sword! a drum! screamed the boys, and off we drove on our way to Crete. Yes, to Crete! where nobody has ever been that I know of, since Theseus.

But before we got there, we arrived at London Bridge. There we met dear Mme. M–, whom we had promised to see safely to Cologne. She is the mother of one of the greatest scholars of our time, and the widow of one who would certainly have been one of the greatest German poets, had he not died at the age of thirty-three.

On the evening of the 18th we arrived safely and well at Brussels, and had a few hours time before the train started for Cologne. So we set out for a short stroll through the town by gaslight. It looked just as I had thought it would look, gay and lively. “A little Paris,” as it is so often called. The “Galleries” reminded me of the Palais Royal, and the people that leisurely walked about seemed as well dressed, and as much “on pleasure bent,” as those of the Boulevards. The shops where “knicknacks” are sold look as elegant as those of Paris, and in others there is the same delightful display of fruit and flowers, delicacies, and confectionary.

I could, of course, not walk through the streets and market-place of Brussels without thinking of Egmont and Hoorn, and of the splendid scene in Goethe’s Egmont, where Klärchen calls upon the people to save her lover. I also remembered the poor sisters, Charlotte and Emily Brontë. My husband thought of Napoleon and Wellington, and Becky Sharp, and laughed again at the thought of Jos Sedley’s flight from Brussels.

With an appetite stimulated by the walk, the keen March air, and the very inviting exhibition of dainties in several shop-windows, we dined, and then left for Cologne, where we arrived at five in the morning, and parted from Mme. M–, our dear friend, for such she had become to us, we feeling rather anxious how she would get on without us; she full of gratitude for the little we had been able to do for her, blessing us many times, and wishing us a safe return to our children; to which I said “Amen,” with all my heart.

As we had a few hours to spare before the train started for Coblentz, we went out to look at the Cathedral, which I had not seen for several years. I was pleased to see that the giant work has advanced much in that comparatively short time; they told me it would be quite finished in about six years, but that I humbly doubt.

It was a wretchedly cold morning; a sharp easterly wind blowing, which after a night passed in a railway carriage, seemed to freeze me. It chilled my love for the beautiful. I was not very deeply impressed; not even by the interior of the Cathedral, although I know it is wondrous grand and beautiful.

What a comfortable hotel, “The Giant,” at Coblentz is! And how we enjoyed our dinner at the table d’hôte, sitting down to it like civilized people after a thorough toilette. As March is not the time for English tourists on the Rhine, we had, instead of whispered English conversation, the loud talk of the Prussian officers, who had the table almost to themselves. They were most of them fine looking men, and had such a number of stars and crosses, and medals, that after seeing them I wondered that there should be still some poor little Danes left alive. I thought that these young giants must have killed them all, being all so distinguished for valour, which many of them were too young to have proved even against the rebels in Baden in 1848.

After dinner we drove to Stolzenfels, and enjoyed the view, which all who have seen it will remember with pleasure. I had looked from Stolzenfels upon Lahneck and Upper and Lower Lahnstein, when the hills that rise behind were covered with the glory of September foliage; but even without that gay dress, the scene is lovely still. We drove back to the hotel in spirits that were in harmony with the bright scene around us and the merry people that animated it. The influence of the fine continental air and the bright sunshine upon the spirits of those who have breathed the thick air of London for a whole year, with the exception perhaps of a few months at Brighton, is wonderfully exhilarating. All who have experienced it must wish for the Continent again and again, and will prefer to spend the autumn abroad, although the English lakes, Wales and Scotland, offer perhaps as much scenic beauty as Germany or France.

On the morning of the 20th we left Coblentz, and went by rail to Mayence, passing the most beautiful spots of the Rhine, enjoying it much, and forming the resolution to buy one of the ruined castles, restore it and live for ever on the Rhine, with a boat to row on the river and a guitar to accompany the German ballads we would sing on a summer evening. At Mayence we left the Rhine, and turned eastward across the Hessian plains towards Bavaria. The cold wind we had now to face made us shut all the windows, and I must confess in spite of my belonging to the Ladies’ Sanitary Association, and having read Florence Nightingale’s book and Combe’s too, we shut also the ventilators, and unstrapped all our shawls and wrappers. I looked wistfully at the snow that had appeared on the ground soon after we left Mayence, and which grew thicker and thicker, glittering in the sunshine, like a cold beauty that smiles but does not melt. The sky was perfectly cloudless, the sun brilliant and warm, the wind cutting and sharp; the shades deep and cold; after sunset the window panes became covered with frost, but not like in England, where it springs up in a very short time, and afterwards disappears as quickly, and which is of a poor tame pattern, always resembling artichoke leaves. Here the cold worked slowly, deliberately and elaborately, like a careful artist: each pane became a picture, showing a variety of beautiful and fanciful shapes and forms, flowers, miniature forests, multitudes of stars, brilliants and crystals. Gradually, it shut us completely out from the world, and after we had passed Nuremberg and Erlangen, we heard and saw no more of it, till we arrived at Passau, the Austrian frontier, where people have to undergo the ordeal of the douane.

We arrived there at 2 o’clock in the morning and had to extricate ourselves from shawls and wrappers in order to be present at the examination of our luggage. On re-entering the carriage, the guard told us that there were sixteen degrees of frost,¹ after which information, I felt that I had a right to shiver and to complain. The guard himself wrapped up in an immense fur, wearing top-boots lined with fur, and a fur cap drawn over his ears, looked provokingly cheerful and comfortable, and told me when he heard my grumbling at the cold, that in spite of that it was much better there than in England where, that he knew for certain, the sun, even in the month of June, was never visible before 9 o’clock in the morning, for till then there was always fog and mist. He had been in London, but did not like it at all. The coffee was horrible, although he suspected with much acuteness, that it was partly the fault of the milk. The tea was worse still, for they gave no rum with it, and tea without rum was little better than hot water, and he concluded, “how can you expect an Austrian to live in a place where six cigars cost a shilling or more? What are six cigars a day for a man that likes them?” There were but two things in London that had pleased him, the Crystal Palace and Mme. Tussaud’s Exhibition. The wax figures of that celebrated artist had made a deep impression upon him. We found in Vienna the weather as cold and ungenial as on our journey; but feeling that it would have been a shame not to see something of the town, we walked and drove about, and were glad when we had performed that troublesome duty.

Schönbrunnen alone, which awakens so many recollections, aroused also some degree of interest in me. The pretty pictures painted by the Emperor Francis I., especially those he painted on the fans of his wife Maria Theresa, the embroidery of that great woman, the drawings of her unhappy and beautiful daughter, Maria Antoinette, the family portraits of the Hapsburghs, down to the present Empress and her sisters, the room in which the Duc de Reichstadt died, his portrait as a fair and beautiful boy; all that interested me much. The gardens and park surrounding this pretty summer residence were still covered with snow, and the air was so cold that I was glad to get back again to the hotel, where, looking in Continental fashion from the window into the street, I spent some pleasant hours. The passers by although less elegant in appearance than in Paris, look more picturesque and appear in a much greater variety of costume. All the ladies wear large fur capes and large muffs. Many have also their little hats and bonnets trimmed with fur, and the young girls tripping along briskly, look decidedly pretty. I liked also the costume of the Hungarian men. They wear top-boots, short braided coats lined and trimmed with fur, and high fur caps. Many of the peasants of the different provinces of Austria have also a very picturesque appearance.

If the days, on account of the weather, were not the most enjoyable, the evenings were all the more so. We spent them in the theatre. Now the Burg Theatre of Vienna is old, ugly, and dark; but perfectly comfortable, and the acting first-rate; and to see first-rate acting is a great enjoyment. All the Viennese seem to think so too, for the Theatre was filled in every part; and one evening the Imperial box was adorned by the presence of the beautiful Empress of Austria. Everybody who has visited the Exhibition of 1862, and who has not been there? must recollect the charming portrait of the Empress. She is quite as beautiful, indeed even more so, for the portrait showed only the face, not her elegant commanding figure, and graceful movements. There were beside her in the box, the father of the Emperor, the Archduchess Sophia, and Count Trani, brother of the ex-King of Naples.

The journey from Vienna to Trieste must in summer be very beautiful, but when we took it, although it was already the 23rd of March, there were 10 degrees of cold,² enough to chill anybody that is neither a Russian nor Polar Bear. My husband was much interested, and declared the railroad across the Alps one of the finest works of modern engineering. The railway winds zig-zag up the mountain like the road over the Splugen, or the Mont Cenis. But the wind was cutting and cold; the snow that fell incessantly penetrated even through the closed windows. We had left Vienna in the morning; about six o’clock at night we arrived at Semmering, which is the highest point. Here the snow lay mountain deep. I had never seen it in such masses. What a feeling of solitude and desolation, deep, far-extending snow gives one. It covers the earth like a shroud. The sea in winter with a leaden sky, is a lively cheerful thing, compared to such a snowy desert. I saw in the waning light, a man at some distance, plodding apparently with difficulty through it. How lost and desolate he seemed. I was quite glad when I discovered about two miles farther on a house, from the chimney of which a thin column of smoke arose, and which I thought was probably the end of his journey; where at all events he would find shelter. Beyond Semmering, the road for many miles leads along the top of deep precipices, to look down which while travelling in a train gives one anything but a feeling of security. Wherever the road is not protected from the North wind by the mountains, there are strong high oaken palings to shelter it, for the Bora, a north-easterly gale, blows here often with such violence, that unless protected by the mountain or these palings, the whole train might be easily overthrown and hurled down some precipice. Near Adelsberg, where we arrived about midnight, the train came suddenly to a standstill; the snow being so deep on the line, that the engine could not move on. Like a good horse, it seemed to try its utmost to pull us through, but all its efforts resulted in some very uncomfortable shakings it gave us while endeavouring to push through the snow.

After about an hour’s delay they had cleared the line sufficiently for the train to move on, and in the morning we arrived at Trieste. It is a pretty modern town, in a charming situation. The villas which are scattered over the hills, that rise behind the town, look very pretty and pleasant. “Mira Mare,” the property of Prince Maximilian of Austria, Emperor of Mexico, is a beautiful marine residence. The streets of Trieste are paved as those of Florence, Naples, and Messina, with large stones, like our London footpaths, they present an animated appearance, for one sees many different costumes. I remember, especially that of the Mexican soldiers, of which there were many in Trieste, and who, in their long white woollen cloaks, and broad-brimmed straw hats, are wild and picturesque-looking fellows.

All the day there blew a strong north-easterly wind, which the Triestines however, called a Boretta, meaning a little Bora; but I must confess that in spite of that, I looked rather suspiciously at the many little white-headed waves of the Adriatic, which looked just the kind to give one an incipient sea-sickness; considering that we were to embark the next afternoon for a five days’ sea voyage, and that possibly the Boretta might become a Bora. This time however, I was luckier than I had hoped. The sun rose the next day in a cloudless sky, and when I looked out of my window, the flags on the masts of the ships, lying in the harbour, waved gently, instead of violently turning and twisting about as they had done the day before; and the sea was smooth and smiling as “The Bride of the Doges” at Venice, which I had seen, and remembered with delight.

In high spirits therefore, we went on board the Lloyd steamer “Neptune,” which was to take us to Sira. I had but one bad foreboding. We had been told, that as it was so early in the year, we might chance to have the boat almost entirely to ourselves. As I am of a sociable disposition, I did not relish the idea of being locked up in a large ship without travelling companions.