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diff --git a/40925-0.txt b/40925-0.txt index 5426a1f..55af2f7 100644 --- a/40925-0.txt +++ b/40925-0.txt @@ -1,37 +1,4 @@ -Project Gutenberg's From sketch-book and diary, by Elizabeth Butler - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: From sketch-book and diary - -Author: Elizabeth Butler - -Release Date: October 3, 2012 [EBook #40925] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM SKETCH-BOOK AND DIARY *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40925 *** FROM SKETCH-BOOK AND DIARY @@ -3918,365 +3885,4 @@ hear nocturnal frogs {pg 108} End of Project Gutenberg's From sketch-book and diary, by Elizabeth Butler -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM SKETCH-BOOK AND DIARY *** - -***** This file should be named 40925-0.txt or 40925-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/9/2/40925/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: From sketch-book and diary - -Author: Elizabeth Butler - -Release Date: October 3, 2012 [EBook #40925] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM SKETCH-BOOK AND DIARY *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - -FROM SKETCH-BOOK AND DIARY - -BY THE SAME AUTHOR - -LETTERS FROM THE HOLY LAND - -CONTAINING 16 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR -FROM PAINTINGS BY THE AUTHOR - -"Charmingly natural and spontaneous travel impressions with sixteen -harmonious illustrations. The glow, spaciousness and atmosphere of these -Eastern scenes are preserved in a way that eloquently attests the -possibilities of the best colour process work."--_Outlook_. - -"The letters in themselves afford their own justification; the sketches -are by Lady Butler, and when we have said that we have said all. -Combined, they make a book that is at once a delight to the eye and a -pleasure to handle. The coloured illustrations, marvellously well -reproduced, provide in a panoramic display faithful representations of -the Holy Land as it is seen to-day. They make a singularly attractive -collection, worthy of the distinguished artist who painted them."--_St. -James's Gazette_. - -A. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE LONDON - -AGENTS - -America The Macmillan Company - 64 & 66 Fifth Avenue, New York - -Australasia The Oxford University Press - 205 Flinders Lane, Melbourne - -Canada The Macmillan Company of Canada, Ltd. - 27 Richmond Street West, Toronto - -India Macmillan & Company, Ltd. - Macmillan Building, Bombay - 309 Bow Bazaar Street, Calcutta - -[Illustration: THE HOUR OF PRAYER, A SOUVENIR OF WADY HALFA] - - - - -FROM SKETCH-BOOK -AND DIARY - -BY - -ELIZABETH BUTLER - -WITH TWENTY-EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR -AND TWENTY-ONE SMALL SKETCHES IN THE TEXT -BY THE AUTHOR - -[Illustration: colophon] - -LONDON - -ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, W. - -BURNS AND OATES, 28 ORCHARD STREET, W. -1909 - - - - -Dedication - -TO MY SISTER, ALICE MEYNELL - - -I have an idea of writing to you, most sympathetic Reader, of certain -days and nights of my travels that have impressed themselves with -peculiar force upon my memory, and that have mostly rolled by since you -and I set out, at the Parting of the Ways, from the paternal roof-tree, -within three months of each other. - -First, I want to take you to the Wild West Land of Ireland, to a glen in -Kerry, where, so far, the tourist does not come, and then on to remote -Clew Bay, in the County Mayo. - -After that, come with me up the Nile in the time that saw the close of -the Gordon Relief Expedition, when the sailing "Dahabieh," most -fascinating of house-boats, was still the vogue for those who were not -in a hurry, and when again the tourist (of that particular year) was -away seeking safer picnic grounds elsewhere. - -Then to the Cape and the voyage thither, which may not sound alluring, -but where you may find something to smile at. - -I claim your indulgence, wherever I ask you to accompany me, for my -painter's literary crudities; but nowhere do I need it more than in -Italy, for you have trodden that field with me almost foot by foot. The -veil to which I trust for softening those asperities elsewhere must fall -asunder there. - -I have made my Diary, and in the case of the Egyptian chapters, my -letters to our mother, the mainsprings from which to draw these -reminiscences. - -Bansha CASTLE, _July_ 1909. - - - - -CONTENTS - - -I. IN THE WEST OF IRELAND - -CHAPTER I - PAGE -GLANARAGH 3 - -CHAPTER II - -COUNTY MAYO IN 1905 15 - - -II. EGYPT - -CHAPTER I - -CAIRO 31 - -CHAPTER II - -THE UPPER NILE 55 - -CHAPTER III - -ALEXANDRIA 77 - - -III. THE CAPE - -CHAPTER I - -TO THE CAPE 91 - -CHAPTER II - -AT ROSEBANK, CAPE COLONY 105 - - -IV. ITALY - -CHAPTER I - -VINTAGE-TIME IN TUSCANY 123 - -CHAPTER II - -Sienna, Perugia, and Vesuvius 143 - -CHAPTER III - -ROME 160 - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - -IN COLOUR - -1. The Hour of Prayer, A Souvenir of Wady Halfa _Frontispiece_ - - -IRELAND - - FACING PAGE - -2. Our Escort into Glenaragh 1 - -3. "A Chapel-of-Ease," Co. Kerry 8 - -4. Croagh Patrick 17 - -5. Clew Bay, Co. Mayo 20 - -6. A Little Irish River 24 - - -EGYPT - -7. In a Cairo Bazaar 33 - -8. The Camel Corps 40 - -9. The English General's Syces 49 - -10. Registering Fellaheen for the Conscription 56 - -11. "No Mooring To-night!" 59 - -12. The "Fostât" becalmed 62 - -13. At Philæ 67 - -14. A "Lament" in the Desert 70 - -15. Abu Simbel at Sunrise 76 - -16. Madame's "At Home" Day; Servants at the Gate 81 - -17. Syndioor on the Lower Nile 88 - - -THE CAPE - -18. "In the Hollow of His Hand" 97 - -19. A Corner of our Garden at Rosebank 104 - -20. The Inverted Crescent 113 - -21. The Cape "Flats" 120 - - -ITALY - -22. Bringing in the Grapes 123 - -23. A Son of the Soil, Riviera di Levante 126 - -24. Ploughing in Tuscany 145 - -25. The Bersaglieri at the Fountain, Perugia 152 - -26. A Meeting on the Pincian: French and German -Seminarists 161 - -27. A Lenten Sermon in the Colosseum 164 - -28. The Start for the Horse Race, Rome 168 - -Also head and tail pieces in black and white on pp. 2, 3, 15, 27, -28, 30, 31, 54, 55, 76, 77, 88, 90, 91, 104, 105, 122, 123, -142, 143, and 160. - -[Illustration: OUR ESCORT INTO GLENARAGH] - - - - -I - -IN THE WEST OF IRELAND - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER I - -GLENARAGH - - -My diary must introduce you to Glenaragh, where I saw a land whose -beauty was a revelation to me; a new delight unlike anything I had seen -in my experiences of the world's loveliness. To one familiarized from -childhood with Italy's peculiar charm, a sudden vision of the Wild West -of Ireland produces a sensation of freshness and surprise difficult -adequately to describe. - -"--_June_ '77.--At Killarney we left the train and set off on one of the -most enchanting carriage journeys I have ever made, passing by the -lovely Lough Leane by a road hedged in on both sides with masses of the -richest May blossom. For some distance the scenery was wooded and soft, -almost too perfect in composition of wood, lake, river, and mountain; -but by degrees we left behind us those scenes of finished beauty, and -entered upon tracts of glorious bog-land which, in the advancing -evening, impressed me beyond even my heart's desire by their breadth of -colour and solemn tones. I was beginning to taste the salt of the Wilds. - -"The scenery grew more rugged still, and against ranges of distant -mountains jutted out the strong grey and brown rocks, the stone cairns -and cabins of the Wild West land. - -"To be a figure-painter and full of interest in mankind does not mean -that one cannot enjoy, from the depths of one's heart, such scenes as -these, where what human habitations there are, are so like the stone -heaps that lie over the face of the land that they are scarcely -distinguishable from them. When observed they only convey to the mind -the sense of the feebleness of man, overpowered as he is here by the -might of the primeval landscape. This human atom stands timidly at his -black cabin door to see the stranger pass, often half-witted through -privation; or he silently tills the little patch of land he has borrowed -from the strong and barbarous earth that yields him so little. - -"The mighty 'Carran Thual,' one of the mountain group which rises out of -Glenaragh and dominates the whole land of Kerry, was ablaze with burning -heather, its peak sending up a glorious column of smoke which spread out -at the top for miles and miles and changed its exquisite smoke tints -every minute as the sun sank lower. As we reached the rocky pass that -took us by the wild and remote Lough Acoose that sun had gone down -behind an opposite mountain, and the blazing heather glowed brighter as -the twilight deepened, and circles of fire played fiercely and weirdly -on the mountain-side. Our Glen gave the 'Saxon lady' its grandest -illumination on her arrival. - -"Wild strange birds rose from the bracken as we passed, and flew -strongly away over lake and mountain torrent, and the little black Kerry -cows all watched us go by with ears pricked and heads inquiringly -raised. The last stage of the journey had a brilliant _finale_. A herd -of young horses was in our way in the narrow road, and the creatures -careered before us, unable or too stupid to turn aside into the ditches -by the roadside to let us through. We could not head them, and for fully -a mile did those shaggy wild things caper and jump ahead, their manes -flying out wildly with the glow from the west shining through them. Some -imbecile cows soon joined them in the stampede, for no imaginable -reason, unless they enjoyed the fright of being pursued, and the -ungainly progress of those recruits was a sight to behold,--tails in the -air and horns in the dust. The troop led the way right into the eye of -the sunset. With this escort we entered Glenaragh. - - * * * * * - -"--_June_ 1877.--We rode in to-night after a long excursion amidst the -mountains of this wild land of Kerry, rode down into the glen where our -little inn stands in a clump of birch and arbutus trees. That northern -light which in these high latitudes and at this season carries the -after-light of the sunset on into the dawn, lighted our path for the -last hour with surprising power. Were we sufficiently far north, of -course, the sun itself would not dip below the horizon at all, but here -we have only the upper portion of his aureole from his setting to his -rising. Oh! the wild freedom of these mountain paths, the scent of the -cabin turf fires, the round west wind rolling through the heather; what -cool wells of memories they fill up for the thirsty traveller in desert -places far away. That west wind! This is the first land it has swept -with its wings since it left the coasts of Labrador. For purity, for -freshness, for generosity, give me the Wild West wind of Ireland. - -"'Carran Thual' is still on fire; it signals each night back to the -northern light across the glen in a red glare of burning heather. The -moon, now in her first quarter, looks green-gold by contrast with all -this red of sky and flame, and altogether our glen gives us, these -nights, such a display of earthly and heavenly splendour that it seems -one should be a spectator all night of so much beauty. And to this -concert of colour runs the subtle accompaniment of rushing water, for -all these mountains are laced with silvery torrents leaping down to the -lakes and rivers that reflect the glory of the sky. Glenaragh! loveliest -of wild valleys, where is the poet that should make thee the theme of -his songs? - -"Coming through 'Windy Gap' in this illuminated gloaming we met a lonely -horseman riding fast, a rope for his bridle, his pony very shaggy. He -passed us over the rocks and rolling stones, and, looking back, we saw -his bent figure jet black against the west for a moment, ere he dipped -down through the 'Gap' out of sight. We knew who he was. Some peasant -was dying on the mountain-side beyond, and the priest was anxious to be -in time with the Viaticum. - -"A strange little creature came out of the kitchen of the inn to see us -after supper, and I made the acquaintance of a Leprechaun. Tiny, grey, -bald little manikin; a 'fairy,' the people call him. I do not want to -know why they are like that. I would rather leave them mysterious and -unexplained. - - * * * * * - -"The people speak Gaelic here, amongst themselves, and the priest -preaches in it in the little chapel with the mud floor up on the hill -over the torrent. The language and the torrent seem to speak alike, -hurrying headlong. - -[Illustration: "A CHAPEL-OF-EASE," CO. KERRY] - -"But the chapel! Shall I ever forget the tub of holy water, on my first -Sunday, placed before the rickety little altar on the mud floor, where -the people, on coming in, splashed the water up into their faces? The -old women had all brought big bottles from their homes in far-away glens -to fill at the tub, and nothing could surpass the comicality of -their attitudes as they stooped over their pious business, all wearing -the hooded cloak that made them look as broad as they were long. One old -lady, in her nice white cap, monopolized the tub an unconscionably long -time, for, catching sight of her wind-tossed tresses in that -looking-glass, she finished her devout ablutions by smoothing her few -grey hairs with her moistened fingers into tidy bands, with alternate -signs of the cross. The windows were all broken, and the men and boys -stuffed the holes with their hats and caps to keep out the mountain -blast. - -"Last Sunday, a very hot day, the tub happened to be placed outside the -door, and it was well my horse was not tied up within reach, or a former -catastrophe might have been repeated, and a 'blessed baist' have carried -me home. The heat in the rickety little gallery, where the 'quality' -have their seats, was such that I went out into the open air and -followed the rest of the service with a rock for my hassock, and two -rosy pigs toddling about me in that friendly way I notice as -characteristic of all the animals in these parts. They seem to feel they -are members of the family, and you see calves, goats, pigs, and donkeys -sauntering in and out of the cabin doors in a free-and-easy harmony -with the human beings which takes my fancy greatly. But the beasts are -by far the happiest; their lives seem passed in perfect contentment and -satisfaction, whereas the poor human animals have a hard struggle for -existence in this stony and difficult land of Kerry. - -"The other day when W. and I dismounted at a cabin door on a wild -mountain that holds, still higher up, a little dark lake which the -people declare has no bottom to it, and on the shores of which 'worms as -big as a horse' come out and bellow in the evenings, the gaunt pig that -seemed to act watch-dog charged at me like a wild boar and sent me home -in 'looped and windowed raggedness.' I never thought to find excess of -zeal in a pig! The inmates of the cabin could not do enough for us to -make up for such want of reticence. - -"On one occasion at church in Tipperary, I noticed a rather satanic goat -come pattering up the church and occupy an empty pew, where he lay down -with perfect self-complacency and remained quiescent, chewing the cud, -while we knelt; but each time the congregation stood up, up jumped the -goat, his pale eyes and enormous horns just appearing over the high -front of the pew. Then as we knelt again he would subside also, till he -was startled to his feet once more by the rustle of the people rising, -and then his wild head was again visible over the top of the pew, -staring about him. Not a single person took any notice of the weird -creature or seemed to think him out of place or at all funny. And so he -continued to rise and fall with the rest to the end. - -"Our chapel here is too small for the congregation that streams in from -places as far as fifteen miles away among the mountains, and on one -pouring wet Sunday I saw the strangest rendering of what is called 'a -chapel-of-ease.' Not much 'ease' there, for some dozen men and youths -who could find no place inside were kneeling about the door in running -water, with a stone placed under each knee. Every day I see some -incident or episode which has for me a surprise and all the charm of a -new and striking experience. I feel more 'abroad' in this country than I -do on the Continent. - -"See, again, this little scene. A friend journeying to our inn and -missing the road got belated in the defiles of the 'Reeks.' Dismounting -at one of those mud cabins, which, at a little distance, are -indistinguishable from their rocky surroundings, to ask the way, he was -invited inside and offered a meal. The light was waning, so two little -girls stood on either side of the stranger, each holding a bit of -lighted candle as he sat at table. These wild-eyed and ragged little -creatures made a pretty pair of dining-table candlesticks! I wish I -could have seen them in the dim twilight of the black, smoke-dimmed -cabin interior, their faces lighted by the candle flame. - -"The beauty of the children here is a constant pleasure to me. We are -here in the land of blue eyes and black lashes, or golden ones, when the -hair, as it so frequently is, is ruddy. The young women are quite -beautiful. I wish a painter of female beauty could have seen the girl we -passed to-day who was minding some calves in a bit of bog-land bordered -with birch-trees. It was a symphony of green; her head shawl was green -plaid, her petticoat another tone of green, the background and all her -surroundings gave every cool and delicious variation of green, and her -ruddy limbs and red-gold hair, tossed by the breeze and shone through by -the sun, looked richer in colour by the contrast. Her great blue eyes -looked shyly at us and the shawl soon covered her laughing face. What a -sweet picture, 'In the Green Isle'! - -"Every day I am more and more struck with the light-heartedness and -gaiety of the animals. Whether it is emphasized by the poverty-stricken -and quiet, saddened, demeanour of the human beings in these parts I -cannot tell, but certainly the beasts seem to have the best of it. As to -the dogs that belong to the mud cabins, never have I seen such jolly -dogs, full of comic ways, especially when in puppy-hood, and all so -valiant in confronting us as we near their strongholds. But on our near -approach that puppy who looks mighty fierce afar off usually bolts under -some door and sticks there. Then the pigs, who generally are less -valiant than our wild boar of Lough Cluen, seized with apparent panic, -rush round and round in the yard, and the flurried ducks that scuttle -from under our horses' hoofs end by falling on their sides in the -ditches--surely all in fun? And invariably the cows and calves by the -way-side prefer to be pursued along the roads, and keep up a splendid -burst of galloping with tails in the air for miles before a tumble -happening to one of them suggests a movement to the rear. All the lower -creatures are 'jolly dogs' here, and only man is care-worn." - -In the autumn we came back to our well-loved glen, and I gathered -materials there for my first _married_ Academy picture--the 'Recruits -for the Connaught Rangers.' W. found me two splendid 'bog-trotters' for -models. The elder of the two had the finer physique, and it was -explained to me that this was owing to his having been reared on -herrings as well as potatoes, whereas the other, who lived up in the -mountains, away from the sea, had not known the luxury of the herring. I -wish we could get more of these men into our army. W. at that time was -developing suggestions for forming a Regiment of Irish Guards, and I was -enthusiastic in my adhesion to such a project and filling the imaginary -ranks with big men like my two models. However, he was some twenty-three -years too soon, and the honour had to be won for Ireland through yet -another big war. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER II - -COUNTY MAYO IN 1905 - - -I wish you would make a summer tour to Mayo. It is simple; yet what a -change of scene, of sensations, of thoughts one secures by this simple -and direct journey--Euston, Holyhead, Dublin, Mulranny. You travel right -across Ireland, getting a very informing vista of the poverty and -stagnation of those Midland counties till your eyes greet the glorious -development of natural beauty on the confines of the sea-girt Western -land. I went there tired from London and came on a scene of the most -perfect repose imaginable, with the sound of the motor buses still -buzzing in my ears. - -Mulranny is supremely healthy--a place of rosy cheeks and sunburn, -bracing yet genial, clear-aired, majestic in its scenery, unspoilt. As -you near your journey's end and enter Mayo the change in the scenery -from the emptiness of Roscommon develops rapidly. Magnificent mountains -rise on the horizon, and the grandeur of the landscape grows into -extraordinary beauty as the train rounds into Clew Bay. The great cone -of Croagh Patrick rises in striking isolation at first, and then the -surrounding mountains, one by one, join it in lovely outlines against -the fresh _clean_ sky. It was a beautiful afternoon when I was -introduced to this memorable landscape, and the waters of the Bay were -quite calm. After sunset the crescent moon gave the culminating charm to -the lovely scene in the west, while to the south the red planet Mars -flamed above Croagh Patrick, and all this beauty was mirrored in the -Bay. What an emancipation from the fret and fuss of little Piccadilly in -a hot July to find oneself before these mountain forms and colours that -have not changed since the cooling of the earth. You might travel -farther a great way and not find such a virgin land. - -[Illustration: CROAGH PATRICK] - -And there is Achill Island, a one-day's excursion from Mulranny, -poignantly melancholy in its beauty and remoteness beyond anything I -have seen in the west. Achill has often been described; it holds the -traveller's attention with a wild appeal to his heart; but I don't know -that one little detail of that land "beyond the beyond" has ever been -described. It is Achill's mournful little Pompeii, a village of the -dead, on a bare hillside, which we passed one day on our way to an -unfrequented part of the island. This village was deserted in the awful -famine year of '47, some of the inhabitants creeping away in fruitless -search of work and food to die farther afield, others simply sinking -down on the home sod that could give them nothing but the grave. In the -bright sunshine its roofless cabins and grass-grown streets looked more -heart-breaking than they might have done in dismal rain. I wish I could -have made a sketch of it as I saw it that day--a subject strongly -attracting the attention of the mind rather than the eye. Pictorial -beauty there was none. - -Everywhere in this country there is that heart-piercing contrast between -natural beauty and human adversity--that companionship of sun and -sorrow. But the light and the darkness seem blended by the unquestioning -faith of these rugged Christians into a solemn unity and harmony before -which any words of mine sound only like so much dilettantism. - -See here another bit of chapel interior. A rough, plain little building, -too formless to be picturesque, packed with peasant men, women, and -children. Where but in Ireland could such a scene take place as I -witnessed there? The priest, before the beginning of the service, gave a -tremendous swish of holy water to the congregation with a mop out of a -zinc pail, from the altar. He had previously heard nearly half the -congregation's confessions, men, women, boys, and girls kneeling in turn -beside his chair at one side of the altar, without any sort of screen. I -wondered, as they pressed round him, that they did not overhear each -other, but indeed I reflected that would be "no matther whativer," as -these people must have but little to tell! - -The server ran a match along the earthen floor to light the two -guttering, unequal candles on the altar, and at the end of Mass he -produced the mop and zinc pail again. _Swish_ went the holy water once -more from the mop, wielded by the athletic sword-arm of the gigantic -young priest. For fear the nearer people should have been but poorly -sprinkled under that far-reaching arc of water, which went to the very -end wall of the chapel, he soused the mop again with a good twist and -gave everybody in the front benches a sharp whack full in their faces, -tactfully leaving us out. They received it with beaming and grateful -smiles. - -There are wonderful studies of old men's and women's heads here full of -that character which in the more "educated" parts of Ireland the School -Board seems to be rubbing out, and I was delighted to see the women and -girls wearing the head-shawls and white caps and the red petticoats that -charmed me in Kerry in '77. The railway is sure to bring the dreadful -"Frenchy" hat here in time, and then good-bye to the comely appearance -of these women. Their wild beauty undergoes an extraordinary change -under the absurd hat and feathers--these winsome colleens then lose all -their charm. - -Yet I must thank this same railway for having brought us to this haven -of rest, right up to the doors of a charming, very modern hotel, on -quite different lines from the dear little inn that fascinated me in -the old Glenaragh days. In its way it is fascinating too, for here you -have all the up-to-date amenities in the very heart of the wildest -country you could wish for. The electric light is generated by the -mountain streams and the baths filled from the glorious bay that lies -below the hotel terraces, a never-failing delight in all its moods of -sun and shadow, wind and calm. - -Sad it is to see so many cabins deserted. The strength of the country is -ebbing away. The few people that are left are nice and wholesome in mind -and manner; they have the quiet urbanity of the true peasant all the -world over. They remind me of the Tuscan in this particular, but, of -course, they have not his light-heartedness. More seriousness, I should -think, these Irish have. I was sketching sheep, for a contemplated -picture, in the evenings on the lovely marshes by the sea, and one -evening a widow, left completely lonely in her little cabin on the -heights above by the departure for America of her last child, came down -to fetch home her solitary sheep from amongst the others, and I told her -I thought these creatures were leading a very happy life. "Yes," she -answered, pausing for a moment and looking down on the flock, "and they -are without sin." - -[Illustration: CLEW BAY, CO. MAYO] - -At the ringing of the Angelus the work in the fields, the bogs, the -potato patches stops till the words of St. Luke's Gospel have been -repeated, just as we remember them said in Italy. It was a surprise--and -one of great interest to me--when I first saw peasants saying the -Angelus under a northern sky. - -My studies of the wild mountain sheep on the marshes came to an abrupt -close. I was reposing under a rock (it was well on in July) with palette -and panels ready, waiting for the sunset and its after-glow, to get -final precious notes of colour upon the fleeces. One particular sheep -had been a very useful model. It ambled in a graceful way on three legs -and we called it "Pacer." I became aware of an opaque body rising -between my closed eyes and the sun, and looking up I beheld the head of -"Pacer" peering at me over the edge of the rock over my head. But what -had happened to "Pacer's" neck? Good gracious! I jumped up and beheld a -shorn "Pacer" and all the flock in the same lamentable condition. It had -all happened in twenty-four hours. - -I want to bring before your mind two little rocky islands with green -summits off the coast of Clare, not far from here. Of all the -wind-swept little islands none could be more wind-swept. On one, the -smallest, I heard that a ferocious and unmanageable billy-goat was -deposited as a useless member of the community, and one night he was -blown out to sea--a good riddance. On the other you perceive, through -the spray, little nodules on the turf--the graves of unbaptized infants. -And the sea-gulls along the cliffs are for ever crying like legions of -children. - - * * * * * - -By returning from Mulranny by way of Tipperary and the Rosslare route to -England you can voyage down the Shannon and have an experience not -lightly to be foregone. This is the "lordly Shannon," a great wide, -slowly-flowing and majestic river of dark, clear, bluish water--blue -shot with slate. You sit at the bows of the little steamboat which takes -you from Athlone to Killaloe, so that neither smoke nor screw interferes -with your enjoyment of the lovely scenes you are to pass through. If the -time is July (_the_ time to choose) you are at once greeted on clearing -the little grey town of Athlone with the most exquisite scent from the -level banks which form two wide belts of creamy meadow-sweet all the way -to the end, at Lough Derg. These belts are interrupted, once only, by -the lock at Shannon Bridge, that little gathering of houses and gaunt -dismantled barracks and breastworks built in the days of the threatened -French invasion. Near here lived Charlotte Brontë's husband till his -death only the other day. - -You will see in the Shannon a mighty waterway for commerce, left to the -wild things that haunt it; and it has haunted me ever since that July -day on which I saw it with a sense of regret that the condition of -Ireland makes such a river out of scale with the requirements of the -country. It flows for the wild birds, the cattle, the fishes, and for -its own pleasure; and it flowed for mine that day, for I let no phase of -it escape me and gladly added its sonorous name to the long list of -those of the great rivers of the world I have already seen. - -We hardly saw a soul along the banks, but many kinds of aquatic birds, -flying, diving, and swimming, enlivened the voyage with their funny -ways, scurrying out of the track of the puffing little steamer. Along -the whole course of the great stream there stood at regular intervals, -planted in more hopeful days, navigation posts, marking the channel for -the ships that never come, and on these scarlet signs perched black -cormorants eyeing us like vultures. The herons rose slowly from the -meadow-sweet and the sedges, with their long flapping wings; the cattle -standing in the water followed us with their mild eyes. It was all -beautiful, mournful, eloquent, and when the ruins of Clonmacnoise hove -in sight I heard the spirit of Ireland speaking to me from the grave. - -Clonmacnoise! A mere curious name to us in England. Perhaps nowhere, -even in depopulated Ireland, can a more desolate, abandoned plot of land -than this be seen. And yet this great monastery and university, founded -in A.D. 544, and at the height of her renown in the eighth century while -our country was in a very immature state, was a European centre to which -scholars on the Continent came to study; which was quoted and referred -to by them as a conspicuous authority, and which for long was in what I -might call brisk communication with the centres of learning abroad, if -"brisk" was not too bizarre a word in such a place to-day. A more -mournful oblivion never fell on any once flourishing centre of active -thought and teaching. - -[Illustration: A LITTLE IRISH RIVER] - -The slow havoc of time amongst these seven remaining little churches and -blunt round towers was one day accelerated by Cromwell's gunpowder, -which has left the "Guest House" of the monastery a heap of ruins split -into ugly shapes quite out of keeping with the rest. - -As the grey group passed away from sight I thought I had never known -more eloquent silence than that which enfolds the ruins bearing the -sounding name of Clonmacnoise. - -Will the electric chain ever be linked up again that carried Ireland's -intellect and mental energy to the Continent in those remote times, and -round again from the great sources of learning there, with fresh -material to enrich her own store? - -You will have the wish to "Come back to Erin, Mavourneen," after making -this little tour. To me Ireland is very appealing, though I owe her a -grudge for being so tantalizing and evasive for the painter. The low -clouds of her skies cause such rapid changes of sun and shadow over her -landscapes that it requires feats of technical agility to catch them on -the wing beyond my landscape powers. My only chance is to have unlimited -time and thus be able to wait a week, if necessary, for the particular -effect to come round again. An artist I heard of thought he had "bested" -the Irish weather and its wiles when he set up this clever system: six -canvasses he spread out before him on the ground in a row, each with a -given arrangement of light and shade sketched out ready. But when the -psychological moment arrived he was so flurried, that while he was -wildly running his hand up and down the row of canvasses for the right -one he could never find it in time. - -A nice dance you are led, sketching in Ireland, altogether! You are, for -instance, intent on dashing down the plum-like tones of a distant -mountain, when lo! that mountain which in its purple mystery seemed some -fifteen miles away, in a moment flashes out into such vivid green that, -as the saying is here, "you might shake hands with it," so close has it -come. Even its shape is changed, for peaks and buttresses start forth in -the sunburst where you imagined unbroken slopes a few minutes before. -Shadowed woods spring into dark prominence by the sudden illumination of -the fields behind them and as suddenly are engulfed in the golden haze -of a shaft of light that pierces the very clouds whose shadows had a -minute before given them such a startling prominence on the light -background. Unsuspected lovelinesses leap forth while those we saw -before are snatched away, and the sunlight for ever wanders up and -along the mountain sides, as some one has finely said, "like the light -from a heavenly lantern." - -What those changes from beauty to beauty do towards sunset I leave you -to imagine. I have never seen Ireland at all worthily painted. I think -we ought to leave her to her poets and to the composers of her matchless -music. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -II - -EGYPT - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER I - -CAIRO - - -To the East! What a thrill of pleasure those words caused me when they -meant that I was really off for Egypt. The East has always had for me an -intense fascination, and it is one of the happiest circumstances of my -life that I should have had so much enjoyment of it. - -My childish sketch-books, as you remember, are full of it, and so are my -earliest scribblings. To see the reality of my fervid imaginings, -therefore, was to satisfy in an exquisite way the longing of all my -life. - -The Gordon expedition was my opportunity, and it was a bold and happy -conception of W.'s that of my going out with the two eldest little ones -to join him on the Nile when the war should be over. I may say I--and -the British Army--had the Nile pretty well to ourselves, for few -tourists went up the year I was there. But I had to wait some time at -Cairo and at Luxor before all trouble had been put an end to by the -battle of Ginniss, which closed the recrudescence of rebellion that -burst out after the great Khartoum campaign. - -The emotion on seeing the East for the first time can never be felt -again. The surprise can never be repeated, and holds a type of pleasure -different from that which one feels on revisiting it, as I have so often -done since. - -One knows the "gorgeous East" at first only in pictures; one takes it on -trust from Delacroix, Decamps, Gérôme, Müller, Lewis, and a host of -others. You arrive, and their pictures suddenly become breathing -realities, and in time you learn, with exquisite pleasure, that their -most brilliant effects and groups are no flights of fancy but faithful -transcripts of every-day reality. - -[Illustration: IN A CAIRO BAZAAR] - -But at first you ask, "Can those figures in robes and turbans be really -going about on ordinary business? Are they bringing on that string of -enormous camels to carry real hay down that crowded alley; are those -bundles in black and in white wrappers, astride of white asses -caparisoned in blue and silver, merely matter-of-fact ladies of the -harem taking their usual exercise? That Pasha's curvetting white Arab -horse's tail is dyed a tawny red, and what is this cinder-coloured, -bare-headed, jibbering apparition, running along, clothed in rattling -strings of sea-shells and foaming at the mouth? A _real_ fanatic? That -water-seller by Gérôme has moved; he is selling a cup of water to that -gigantic negro in the white robe and yellow slippers, and is pocketing -the money quite in an ordinary way. And there is a praying man by -Müller, not arrested in mid-prayer, but going through all the periods -with the prescribed gestures, his face to the East, and the declining -sun adding an ever-deepening flush to the back of his amber-coloured -robe." - -It takes two or three days to rid oneself of the idea that the streets -are parading their colours and movement and their endless variety of -Oriental types and costumes for your diversion only, on an open-air -stage. - -Cairo in '85, '86, was only at the beginning of its mutilations by -occidentalism, and the Oriental _cachet_ was dominant still. To sit on -the low shady terrace of the old Shepheard's hotel under the acacias and -watch the pageant of the street below was to me an endless delight. - -The very incongruity of the drama unrolling itself before one's eyes had -a charm of its own. Look at that Khedivial officer in sky-blue, jerkily -riding his pretty circus Arab. There follows him a majestic and most -genuine Bedouin in camel's hair burnoos, deigning not the turn of an -eyelash as he passes our frivolous throng on the terrace; two Greek -priests, their long hair gathered up in knots under the tall black cap -and flowing veil, equal him in quiet dignity, and a mendicant friar -rattles his little money-box, like an echo of the water-seller's cups -over the way, as a hint to our charity. An Anglo-Indian officer of high -degree is driven up to our steps in a 'bus under a pile of baggage. He -has just arrived from India and is impressively escorted by various -Sikhs, whose immense _puggarees_ are conceived in a totally different -spirit from that of the native turbans. A British hussar, smart as only -a British soldier can be, trots by on a wiry Syrian horse; a cab full of -Highlanders out for a spree bumps along the unpaved roadway. I confess -I was disappointed with the effect of our honoured British red. What did -it look like where the red worn by the natives was always of the most -harmonious tones! - -See that string of little donkeys cheerily toddling along, all but -extinguished under their loads of sugar-canes that sweep the ground with -their long leaves; humble peasant donkeys, meeting a flashing brougham -with windows rigidly closed, through which the almond eyes of veiled -ladies of some high Pasha's harem glance up at us and take us all in in -that devouring sweep of vision. Double syces run before such equipages. - -French bugles tell us an Egyptian regiment is coming, and, meeting it, -will go by with a dull rumble a string of English baggage-waggons drawn -by mules and driven by Nubians, escorted by British soldiers in dusty -khaki uniforms; stout fellows going to the front, a good many of them to -stay there--under the sand. - -About 5.30 P.M. weird music and flaring torches brings us out again on -the terrace, and we see a tumultuous crowd of pilgrims just arrived from -Mecca by the five o'clock Suez train. They gather the crowd by their -unearthly din and sweep it along with them. Beggars, flower-sellers, -snake-charmers, tourists, and touts are all rolling along in a -continuous buzz of various noises. Perhaps the full escort of cavalry -jingles past our point of observation and the native crowd salutes the -Khedive. Not so the British officers on the terrace, who keep their -seats. - -But what was all this to diving into the old city, and in a ten minutes' -donkey ride to find oneself in the Middle Ages; in the real, breathing, -moving, sounding life of the Arabian Nights? Then when inclined to come -back to our time and its comforts, which I am far from despising, ten -minutes' return ride and the glimpse into the old life of the East -became as a vision. For what I call the pageant of the street in front -of Shepheard's was much too much mixed with modernity to allow of so -complete a transformation of ideas. - -The bazaars of Cairo have been painted and written about more than those -of any other Oriental city. The idea of my having "a try" at them seems -to come a little late! But _if_ it is true that, as some croakers say, -Old Cairo is gradually dying, I feel impelled to lay one flower of -appreciation beside the grave which is ere long to close. - -What a treat, to put it in that way, it was to rove about in the reality -of the true East, to meet beauty of form and colour and light and shade -and movement wherever one's eyes turned, without being brought up with a -nasty jar by some modern hideosity or other. This was contentment. You -know what a bit of colour in sun or luminous shade does for me. Think of -my feelings when I walked through the narrow streets where the rays of -the sun slanted down through gaps in the masonry, or, as in some, -through chinks in the overhead matting--now on a white turban, now on a -rose-coloured robe relieved against the rich dark background of some -cavernous open doorway, now on a bit of brass-work. The soft tones of -the famous Carpet Bazaar in noon-day twilight, with that richness of -colour that tells you the invisible sunshine is somewhere, -fulfilled--yea, over-filled--my expectations, and close by in real -working trim were the brass-workers tinkering and tapping musically, the -while smoking their hubble-bubbles in very truth. The goldsmiths, in -their own particular alley, were sitting in the rich chiaroscuro of -their little shops waiting for me. - -Added to those feasts for the eyes were the sounds which pictures could -not give me--the warning shouts of the donkey-and camel-drivers, the -"by your leave" in Arabic, followed by the shuffling sound of hoof and -foot in the soft tan; the tinkling of the water-sellers' brass saucers; -the cries, like wild songs in the minor, of hawkers of all kinds of -things. Then the scents, also unpaintable. Incense, gums, tan, ripe -fruit, wood-smoke. And the smells? Ah, yes, well--the smells, goaty and -otherwise. They were all bound up together in that entirety which I -would not have deleted. - -There was one particular angle of street in front of I forget what ripe -old mosque, before which I would have liked to establish myself all day. -The two streams of passers-by, human and animal, ceaselessly jostling -each other, came at one particular hour into a shaft of sunlight just at -the turn where I could see them in perspective. Now a splendid figure in -yellow robe and white turban, accentuating the streak of gold to -perfection, occupied the centre of the composition and I would make a -mental note: "daffodil yellow and white in intense sunlight; dull -crimson curtain in shade behind; man in half-shade in dark brown, boy in -indigo in reflected light"--when in the shaft of light now appeared a -snow-white robe and rosy turban, putting out the preceding scheme, till -a _hadji_ in a turban of soft bluey-green and pale-blue drapery came to -suggest a very delicate emphasis to the rich and subdued surroundings. - -In the first fresh days how mysterious these covered streets appear, -these indoor thoroughfares, muffled with tan, where towering camels and -shuffling donkeys and curvetting horses seem so astonishingly out of -place. - -Anglo-Egyptians who have to live in Cairo smile at my enthusiasm, and -tell me they get tired of all this in time, and they are certainly -helping to attenuate the charm. A late high official, on leaving Egypt, -in his farewell speech told his audience that that day had been the -happiest in his life, for he had seen the first "sandwich man" in the -streets of Cairo. Since then another charming form of advertisement from -the go-ahead West has appeared over the minarets of the -alcohol-abhorring Moslems--a "sky sign" flashing out against the stars -the excellence of somebody's whisky. Can they now say "the changeless -East"? And what a whirlpool of intensely Western amusements you may be -sucked into if you are not wary. You may hide in the bazaars but you -cannot live there, and teas, gymkanas, dances, and dinners will claim -you for their own as though you were at Monte Carlo or still nearer -home. In fact I have found New Cairo a little London and Monte Carlo -rolled into one. - -[Illustration: THE CAMEL CORPS] - -One glimpse of the vanishing Past which I got on a certain Friday at -Cairo has left a queer impression on my mind, not at all a happy one. I -am told the howling and dancing Dervishes have been lately suppressed, -and I am dubious as to the fitness of us Christians being witnesses of -those performances. However, I went, and saw what one can no longer see -in Cairo. I found it difficult to believe those men were in real -earnest, otherwise I should have felt more painfully impressed, but even -as it was it was a disagreeable sight to witness the frenzied creatures -flinging themselves backwards and forwards in time with the -ever-increasing rapidity of the tom-toms till their long hair swept the -floor at one moment and flew up straight on end towards the great -vaulted interior of the mosque the next. Gasping shouts as of dying men -escaped them rhythmically, and when the bewildering music had reached -its climax it stopped, and so did they, and the priest, with gestures of -loving commiseration and encouragement, very gracefully fell on their -necks and gave them a drink of water each in turn. All this went on -in a faint light from the hanging lamps, and the heat became -suffocating. Mrs. C. put her hand on my shoulder, and pointing upwards -asked me, "What is that?" A little white figure had appeared on a ledge -high up under the drum of the dome. Whether man, woman, monkey, or -goblin, I never saw a more impish figure, and it squatted there looking -down from under its hood. I saw many very queer beings in Egypt as time -went on, and decidedly the British occupation has not exorcised all the -old magic of the Egyptians. But I have never played with it as some do. -Not from fear, but from dislike. I am told in sober truth, people who -came to scoff have begged to be let go when spell-bound with horror at -what they have seen in a drop of enchanted ink spilled on a table. - -We have sometimes played tricks on those people with imitation magic, -but never more successfully than did our friend Sir James Dormer out in -the Great Desert, when he struck the Bedouins dumb by taking out his -glass eye, which they, of course, believed to be his own, tossing it in -the air, and replacing it. He had great power over them, I should say, -for ever after. Brave man, he was killed shortly after in India by the -wild animal he had wounded and who sprang on him on his blind side. I -think a man with a single eye is doubly brave who goes out -tiger-shooting in the jungle. - -A much wholesomer diversion than the Dervishes was provided by the then -General in command at Cairo a few days later, when some three hundred of -the Native Camel Corps were put through a series of splendid -manoeuvres out in the great open spaces of Abassieh, beyond the Tombs -of the Mameluks. I got out of the carriage when warned that the final -charge was about to be delivered, and stood so as to see them coming -nearly "stem on." It was a sight worth seeing, and surprising to me, -who, before I landed, had never seen a camel worthy of the name. When -the "halt!" was sounded, down fell the three hundred bellowing creatures -on their knees in mid-career, close up to us, and the panting riders -leapt off, their accoutrements in most admired disorder, and their -puttees for the most part streaming along the ground. I was in a hurry -to get back to Shepheard's to take the impression down, for I was -greatly struck by so novel a sight. The red morocco-leather saddle -covers were most effective, and very sorry I was on my next visit to -Egypt to find they had gone the way of all "effective" bits of military -equipment, and were replaced by dull brown substitutes. Henceforth I was -an enthusiastic admirer of that most picturesque of animals, and though -I approached the camel at first with diffidence and apprehension, I soon -found him much easier to draw than the horse. What you would _like_ to -do with a horse to give him movement and action, but _mustn't_, you -_may_ do with a camel. You can twist his neck almost indefinitely and -brandish his great coarse head as you like, and his long legs give you -_carte-blanche_ for producing speed. I found out a curious fact as time -went on and I had dogged dozens of camels about the desert and made -orderlies walk them up and down for me--namely, that the camel moves his -legs _in the walk_ precisely like the horse, but when he falls into a -trot he moves the legs of the same side forward together. He walks like -a horse and trots like a camel! As to the gallop, a more dislocating -performance I never saw. Lady ---- once told me she had, by an unlucky -chance, got on a baggage camel with a hard mouth, or rather _nose_, and -it ran away with her in the wide, wide desert. She hauled in the nose -rope with the strength of despair, till the detestable animal's face -was twisted back taut into her lap and was _looking at her_, and still -the body galloped forward without the remotest check. She artistically -left the end of the adventure untold. - -As to the camel's noises, I don't think I ever got to the end of them. -The snarl and the grunt I was prepared for--the horrible querulous and -sickening sound that some one has likened to the roar of a lion and the -grunt of a pig combined; but one day, as I was making a study of one of -these ungracious creatures for a big picture, I thought I heard a sweet -lark warbling somewhere, and I marvelled at its presence over the -Egyptian desert. The warblings came from the camel's throat, and there -was a look in his eye that seemed to warn me that he considered the -sitting had lasted long enough. The length of his neck suggested that I -was within measurable distance of a bite, and I dismissed my sitter and -his lanky rider with promptitude. - -Of all the figures that delighted me in Cairo those of the syces soon -became first favourites. The dress, the springing run, the beauty of the -movements--I don't think the human figure could be more charmingly shown -off. The English General's syces alone wear the scarlet jacket, and -deep indigo blue or maroon are the usual colours for the liveries of -those mercuries. Our fast-trotting horses now try them too much, and we -don't let them run very far, but take them up after a little while. They -were intended to trot before the ambling horses or donkeys of Pashas, to -clear the way with shouts and sticks through the crowded bazaars. I saw -a lady (alas!) driving a very fast English horse past Shepheard's in a -rakish T-cart, and the unfortunate syce was constantly on the point of -being knocked down by the high-stepper. It did _not_ add to the -smartness of this turn-out to see this panting creature looking over his -shoulder every minute in terror of the horse, and sometimes, when -flagging in his run, being overtaken and having to run alongside. I -levelled mental epithets at the thoughtless driver, and wondered how -such a thing could be. Some of us are curiously inconsiderate. I am -afraid she was but a type of many. Witness the suffering horses bitted -up with tight bearing-reins standing for hours outside shops and smart -houses where "at homes" are going on, when a word from the fair owners -to their ignorant coachmen might procure ease for their miserable -beasts. I am not enthusiastic about motors, but I am thankful for the -fact that they are greatly reducing the sufferings of our poor "gees." I -hope by and by the motor will be made noiseless and odourless, for at -present I cannot enjoy its country driving. The scents of the country -are replaced by smell and the sounds by noise. - -You are better friends with the motor than I am, and have gathered much -advantage from its audacity in taking you up, for instance, such rugged -heights as those about Tivoli, well within a morning's outing from Rome, -which I have looked at as inaccessible, and only to be admired from a -lowly distance; those remote cones crowned with mediæval towns that -figure in the backgrounds of many an "Adoration of the Magi" and "Flight -into Egypt." - -I am, like you, of two minds about very rapid travel. There is something -to say for and against it. "For" it, the freshness with which the mind, -untrammelled with the bodily weariness of "diligence" or "vetturino" -jogging, receives impressions of points of interest; "against" it, the -hustling of venerable monuments and reverenced natural features which -should be approached with more ceremony. There is too much hustling -nowadays. I don't know that I enjoyed my last visit to Venice quite as -much as usual, feeling apologetic and guilty in participating in the -"bumping" of the gondolas by the electric boats, whose back-wash sends -them hopping and lurching in such an undignified manner. The sedate, -gracious gondola, too well-bred ever to be in a hurry, "knocked out of -time" by a fussing little electric launch, which is always in a hurry, -with or without reason! What with the hurry, and the whistlings, and -puffings, and syren-bellowings, the powers that be are actually -succeeding in making Venice noisy. But I have got off the Egyptian track -a long way. - -After a visit to Sakkara and to the Pyramids and the Sphinx I shall -launch out upon Old Nile at once. Our Sakkara day was typical of many I -was to experience in this strangest of lands--full of the delights, then -new to me, of donkey-riding through the fresh winter air of the desert, -but donkey-riding over tombs. Sakkara is the necropolis of Memphis, -itself long buried, that capital of the Pyramid Period that looms dark -far behind the nearer glories of Thebes and the Temples. - -My hilarity induced by the sun, the breeze, the absurd goings-on of the -donkeys of our party was constantly damped by the weird reminders we -constantly came upon. Those Sakkara pyramids lack the majesty of _the_ -Pyramids, and one looks at the amorphous heaps in an oppressed silence. -The Tomb of Ti raised one's spirits by its vivid frescoes showing the -every-day life of that Prime Minister's _ménage_: it was cheery to see -the poulterer in brilliant colours bringing in the goose to the cook, -but the final extinguisher fell when we were conducted along an -avenue--a sandy causeway--lined on either side with I forget how many -sarcophagi of sacred bulls. Each granite sarcophagus was, as far as my -memory could say, of exactly the same dimensions and of almost the same -shape as that of the great Napoleon at the "Invalides"! And all for -bulls. - -It was crushing; but well for me was the scamper back to the Cairo -train. You cannot afford to be pensive riding a donkey at that pace with -an Arab saddle to which you are not yet accustomed. - -[Illustration: THE ENGLISH GENERAL'S SYCES] - -I am not going to dare to try to say anything new about the Pyramids of -Gizeh or the Sphinx; nothing new in any shape can come in contact with -these monuments. One feels overcome with hoariness oneself by their mere -proximity and silenced by the weight of ages. I am not going to ask you -to follow me into any interiors, for I did not go in myself; and -indeed, in my progress through this land of tombs, I protested more or -less successfully against burrowing into sepulchres, shuffling in thick -gloom through pungent and uncanny mummy dust, in bat-scented atmosphere, -while above-ground the blessed light of that matchless sky and the -uplifting air of the desert were being wasted. Polite compulsion on -certain social and festive (!) excursions alone forced me to forego for -a while the joy of that "to-day" above-ground for the mould of the dead -Aeons below. - -I refer to a letter for my first visit to the Pyramids. That first sight -of anything one has read of and pictured in one's child's mind in the -course of education is a most precious occurrence, to be chronicled and -set down at the moment. - -_30th November '85._--"A sweet gentle morning; limpid air, lovely fresh -clouds in a soft blue sky. We started at 11 in a carriage, with our -dragoman, and were soon taken at the usual hand gallop over the big iron -bridge with the colossal green lions at each end which spans the wide -Nile, into the acacia-shaded road which runs for a long distance in an -imposing straight line to almost the very base of the great Pyramid. As -we sped towards the illustrious group which we saw rising grey and -stern at the very edge of the desert where it meets the bright green of -the cultivated land we alternately looked ahead at what was awaiting us -and at the ever-interesting groups of men, women, children, and animals -which we passed, and at the mud villages with their palms and rude domes -and minarets which lay in the well-watered, low-lying land on either -side of the road. From the first moment I saw the Pyramids afar off I -knew I was not destined to be disappointed, and my apprehensions caused -by some travellers' descriptions vanished at the outset. It is difficult -to put my feelings into words as I came nearer and nearer to these -wonders of man's work, so pathetic in their antiquity and in the -evidence they give of their builders' colossal failure to ensure for -their poor bodies absolute safety during the long waiting for the -Resurrection. The seals are broken, the secret places found out, the -contents gone to the winds! - -"My beloved father was constantly in my mind to-day, for he it was who -with such patience taught us the value and fascinating interest of old -Egyptian history, and here were some of the scenes he used to read to us -of so often, but which he himself was not allowed to see. - -"Mrs. C---- and I, on getting out of the carriage, first made the -circuit of the Great Pyramid--a space of 'thirteen statute acres,' I -remember Menzies telling us. I found that the most striking point from -which to feel the immensity of the Pyramids is in the centre of the -base, not the angles. - -"We hear of 'weeping stone.' Here is stone that has wept blood and -tears! Each succeeding year of the king's reign forced an additional -coating to his tomb, and prolonged the slave-toil under the lash--all to -safeguard a little dust that has now vanished. This age of ours is about -the time the old Egyptians looked to for the Great Awakening, for which -all their poor mummies were embalmed. - -"How intolerable these three Pyramids must have looked when new and -entirely coated with white marble. Their glitter under the blinding -sunlight and the hardness of their repellent shapes make me shudder as I -realise the effect. Seen in the rough, as they now are, they do not jar, -but only oppress the mind by their ponderous immensity, and the eye -takes great pleasure in their tawny colouring. - -"We next went down to the Sphinx and rested a long while in its broad -shadow. The gaze of the eyes is exceedingly impressive, and though the -face is so mutilated one would not have it restored. Strange that one -should prefer the broken nose and the hare-lip! It would not be _the_ -Sphinx if it had the universal Sphinx face as originally carved. -Originally! When? It was there long before the Pyramids, and it now -appears that more than the 'forty centuries' looked down upon Napoleon's -army from their summits. Sixty centuries, some say now. Time is -annihilated as one stands confronted with the Sphinx, and a feeling of -annihilation swirls around one's own microscopic personality. - -"This annihilation of Time is one of the sensations of Egypt. Look at -Rameses the Great in his glass coffin in the Cairo Museum. There, more -than ever, the intervening cycles are as though they had never been as -one stands face to face with Sesostris. More appalling than the -Sphinx--a chimera in stone--here is the Man. Not his effigy, not his -mask taken after death, but the _Man_! There is his hair, rusted by the -Ages, his teeth still in their sockets, the gash across his forehead -cleft in battle. His father lies in the next glass case, his grandfather -on the other side, and many other Pharaohs similarly enclosed in glass -and docketed lie around, all torn out of their hiding-places, stripped -of their multitudinous envelopes, and exposed to the stare of the -passers-by. Their mortuary jewels are ticketed in other glass cases, and -only a few shreds of winding-sheet adhere to their bodies. They were -religiously preserved, at infinite pains, for this. - -"From the entrance to the Great Pyramid in the north face I had an -enchanting view of Cairo on the right, in sun and shadow with a sky of -most beautiful cloud-forms, and on the left the lovely pearly and rosy -desert stretching away into the golden West. How cheerily, how -consolingly the wholesome, refreshing Present receives us back after -those wanderings down the corridors of the dead Ages! Let us wash our -faces and smile again and feel young. The drive back was exhilarating -and full of living interest. We overtook shepherds guiding their flocks -along the road and carrying tired lambs on their shoulders. There were -buffaloes and oxen and ploughmen going home from work in the tender -after-glow, and then as soon as we were over the big iron bridge and in -the suburbs again it was dark, and the gas lamps were being lighted, and -'Tommy Atkins' was about, and British officers were riding in from -polo, and the _cafés_ of this Parisianized quarter were full and noisy, -and I felt I had leapt back into To-day by crossing an iron bridge that -spanned six thousand years. My thoughts lingered long amongst the most -ancient, most pathetic, most solemn monuments of the pre-Christian -world." - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE UPPER NILE - - -And now for Luxor. Of all the modes of travel there is none, to my mind, -so enjoyable as that by water--fresh water, be it understood--and if you -can do this in a house-boat with your home comforts about you, what more -can you desire? We had the "Post Boat" to Luxor, and the sailing -dahabieh after that. Travelling thus on the Nile you see the life of the -people on the banks, you look into their villages, yet a few yards of -water afford you complete immunity from that nearer contact which travel -by road necessitates; and in the East, as you know, this is just as -well. Not that I really allow the drawbacks of the East to interfere -with my own enjoyment, but the isolation of the boat is best, especially -with little children on board. - -I had read many books of travel on the Nile and knew what to look for. -Is there not a charm in knowing that some city, some temple, some -natural feature you have tried to realize in your mind is about to -appear in very truth just round that bend of road or river? You are -going to see in a few minutes that historic thing itself, not its -counterfeit in a book, but _it_. And so, as we neared Luxor towards -evening, I looked out for Karnac on the left, and lo! the first pylon -glided by. My first pylon! How many like it I was to see before I had -done with Old Nile. They are not beautiful in shape, nor can any -Egyptian architecture, as far as form goes, be called beautiful; the -shapes are barbaric--I had almost said brutal--stupidly powerful and -impressive by mere bulk. The beauty lies in the colouring. What a feast -these ruins afford to the eye by their colour, what a revel of blues, -greens, and low-toned reds in their unfaded paintings! Taken as bits of -colour only, without dwelling too much on the forms, all in such light, -the shadows filled with golden reflections--taken thus, or deeply tinged -with the lustrous after-glow, or the golden moonlight, they are -all-satisfying. - -[Illustration: REGISTERING FELLAHEEN FOR THE CONSCRIPTION] - -I will not, however, burden you with these ponderous pylons and -mammoth monoliths; they can only be enjoyed _in situ_, illuminated and -glorified by the climate of their homes. Indeed, I felt often very -oppressed and tired by them, but never did I weary of the landscape, the -people, the animals, the river. - -One very saddening glimpse of fellah life was afforded Mrs. C---- and -myself at Luxor by the English Consul (a negro), who arranged that we -should see the registering of the young fellaheen for the conscription. -I think the British have changed all this lately, so we were lucky in -seeing a bit of the vanishing Past--a remnant of the Oriental Past which -no one can regret. We worked our way, led by the Consul, through the -Arab crowd in the village till we came to the entrance of the courtyard -where the drama was about to open. At the gate was a scuffling mass of -indescribably hideous old hags--the mothers and aunts and grannies of -the young fellahs inside, wailing and jerking out their lamentations -with marionette-like action of their shrivelled arms. As though by one -accord they would stop dead for a minute and look at each other, and -then all together begin again the skeleton chorus, throwing dust on -their heads. The unsavoury group came in with us pell-mell when the -gate was opened, and we found ourselves hoisted rather than conducted to -a divan prepared for us under a shed, from whence we could see all that -passed. - -[Illustration: "NO MOORING TO-NIGHT!"] - -Three Circassian inspectors, looking horrid in European clothes, were at -the head of a long rickety table, covered with a white cloth, in front -of us. This white cloth, in combination with the surging groups, made a -wonderfully good blank space in the composition of what I thought would -make a striking picture. The sketch I insert here is in no particular -arranged by me, but everything is exactly as I saw it. I noted -everything down in my sketch-book on the spot. The sheiks, stately men -in silken robes, who had brought each his quota of recruits from his -district, sat chatting over their coffee at the farther end of the -table, and the doctor at once set to to examine the miserable youths -that came up for registration. Fathers pleaded exemption for their sons -on one pretext or another, such as leprous heads, blindness, weak -chests, and so forth; the mothers, aunts, and grannies aforesaid went on -jibbering and clacking their jaws in the background, no one paying the -least attention to them. If a fellah was passed by the doctor a gendarme -gripped him and pummelled him all the way to the standard, where he -was measured. If satisfactory, the woe-begone creature received a -sounding box on the ear, just in fun, from the gendarme, and was shoved -into the pen where the successful (!) candidates were interned; if he -was below the mark, all the same he got his blow, and was pushed and -cuffed back to his friends and relatives. One mother had crept forward -while her son was having his lanky leg straightened by the doctor, the -father pleading the boy's lameness (Erckmann-Chatrian's _Conscript_ -orientalised!): a gendarme sprang forward and knocked her down, then -hauled her off by her arms, which were so very thin and suggestive of a -mummy that I could not look any longer; he was so rough I really thought -he would pull them out of their sockets. My friend was crying, and if I -had not been so concentrated on my pencil notes I should have cried too. -"Surely," she said, "that can't be his mother, she looks a hundred at -least." "A hundred!" I exclaimed, "she is four thousand years old--a -mummy!" I felt very sick as well as sorry. We were politely offered -coffee in jewelled cups, which we could not taste, and surreptitiously -emptied behind the divan. - -The English have worked wonders since those days with the Egyptian army. -Taking the young men in the right way our officers have turned them into -remarkably smart-looking soldiers, and their terror of the service, I am -told, has vanished. - -This was altogether a day which showed us the seamy side of Egyptian -life, for in the evening we and all the guests of the hotel went to see -the dancing at the _café_, a sort of mud cave full of wood smoke. It was -all very ugly and repulsive, and the music was impish and quite in -keeping. I was glad to have this experience, but once is enough. Talking -of music, I don't know anything more appealing in its local sentiment -than the song of our crew when they were hauling and poling on calm -nights later on. Strange, unaccustomed intervals, and the key always in -the minor. In the pauses we heard the beetles and crickets on the banks -chiming in in a cheerful major. - -Our sojourn at Luxor was a time of deep enjoyment, for we made almost -daily excursions on both banks of the Nile, excursions beginning in the -very early mornings, at sunrise, and ending in gallops home on our -donkeys in the after-glow, or trips on board the ferry-boat, from -Thebes, in a crowd of splendid Arabs, whose heads, figures, and blue -and white robes, or brown striped camel's hair burnouses, added greatly -to the charm of the landscape. It was a joy merely to breathe that -desert air. All that was wholesome and not too tiring, nor risky from -the sun, was enjoyed by the children with us, but I kept them chiefly in -the paradisaical hotel garden as the safest place. One had to be very -careful. I cannot say that "black care" did not sometimes ride on my -donkey's crupper, for I knew W. was pressing the enemy harder every day, -and that a battle was imminent. At last the great telegram came. Ginniss -was fought and won, and all the enemy's guns and standards taken. He -sent me the message from the field. We might now come up. It took a day -or two to get the "_Fostât_" ready--the dahabieh which he had sent down -for us. Some wounded officers from the front brought news of the battle, -and, strange to relate, the only officer killed at Ginniss was son of -one of Mrs. C.'s oldest friends! What strange things happen in life. I -had met young Soltau the year before at her house on Dartmoor, and she -and I were destined to hear together of his death in battle on the Upper -Nile. - -We set sail in the first week of '86 for Assouan, where W. was to meet -us, and I witnessed the daily development of the Nile's beauties with -the deepest pleasure, and a mind no longer over-shadowed. - -I wonder how many people who have been to Egypt recognise the fact that -all its beauty is reflected? It is either the sun or the moon or the -stars that make Egypt glorious. Under thick cloudy skies it would be -nothing. But the co-operation of the illuminated objects is admirable, -and the two powers combined produce the Egypt we admire. W. and I came -to the same conclusion, that much of the glory of the moonlights is -owing to the response of the desert, especially the golden desert of -Nubia. - -[Illustration: THE "_FOSTÂT_" BECALMED] - -But I have also seen, on rare occasions, delicate effects of veiled -sunshine on river, palms, and desert too exquisite in refinement to be -easily described. I remember one memorable grey day which we spent in -turning the loveliest river reach of the whole series below Assouan, the -wind having completely dropped--a day which dwells in my memory as a -precious passage of silvery colour amidst all the gold. The palm-tree -stems towards sundown were illuminated with rosy light against the -pallid background of sand-hills facing the West, and of the delicate -pearl-grey sky. The greens were cool and vivid, the water like a liquid -opal. I wrote a whole letter to Mamma on that one grey day on the Nile. -But even that evening the after-glow made itself felt through the -clouds, lighting them from behind in an extraordinary manner, so that -the filmy screen appeared red-hot. The beautiful cloud-veil could not -shut out so fervid a rush of colour. - -When a strong wind blows the desert sand into the air, obscuring the sun -and thickening the sky, what a change comes over the scene! Egypt is -then undoubtedly ugly, and all charm flies away on the wings of the -blast. - -But the blast speeds the dahabieh on its way, and pleasant it was -sitting of an evening in the cosy saloon to see the hanging lamp -swinging with the motion of the bounding "_Fostât_," and to hear the -creaking of the timbers, for the distance from Assouan, where W. was to -meet us, was being sensibly diminished. On some other evenings the fair -north wind was just enough to quicken the pace without dulling the -brilliant light of the moon, and there was to be no tying up under the -mud bank those nights. Then again a dead calm might come down upon us, -and after poling, tracking, or hauling up to the kedge anchor all day to -their monotonous sing-song, the crew would have orders to moor for the -night. I would then venture a run along the shore with the children, and -have a scamper among the palms and cotton plants, which were waving and -rustling mysteriously to imperceptible sighings of the air at the -water's edge. One or two armed men, of course, landed also. - -At Esneh I had the honour of entertaining the Pasha of that wonderful -place, whose temple I had particularly wished to see. He received us -with much ceremony, and we all went on shore escorted by his guard in -great state, walking through the bazaars accompanied by the wild and -ragged population. But for the soldiers and their whips we could not -have moved a yard. We visited the wonderful temple, the first we had -seen with the ceiling intact, which the colossal pillars were made to -support. I prefer the ruins so open to the sky that the sun may be seen -amongst them. Here, owing to the unbroken ceiling, all was gloom. At -Edfoo I was to see a _whole_ temple with pylons and all, almost in -perfect preservation, and to know the Egyptian temple in its entirety. - -How funny our party looked--two English ladies, two little children, and -English maid, guarded by bashi-bazouks, slowly progressing through a -crowd of indescribable dirt and wildness. We looked into an oil mill -where the press was exactly like the wine-presses in Tuscany. You -remember the one I sketched at Signa, the picturesque _Strettojo_ of the -vintage? We poked our noses into the cavernous recesses where gigantic -negroes were dyeing the native cloth a splendid indigo, their black arms -blue to the shoulder. Oh, what colour! - -On going back to the dahabieh we all, except myself, had our fortunes -told in a narrow lane where a row of Soudanese fortune-tellers were -squatting with patches of smooth sand before them on which they made the -person interested impress his or her hand. Upon the impression they made -many signs and marks. Everything was quite satisfactory. The children -were to have "pleasant paths in life and _strong loins_." The maid was -to marry a white man, which was a comfort. - -In the evening the Pasha dined on board. He spoke in French, and nothing -could surpass the florid eulogies he bestowed on "his brother, that -lion," my husband. I saw him depart on his sleek and fat white ass, -which stood quite fourteen hands, and was equipped in Arab trappings of -indigo and dead gold. In the morning I received the Pasha's presents of -fruit, vegetables, eggs in hundreds, two live turkeys, and a black lamb. -A gorgeous cavass in sky blue and carrying a wand of office was -installed on board for the rest of the voyage to Assouan. There had been -feasting and much thumping of tom-toms and whinings of curious fiddles -on deck during dinner the night before, where the crew were entertaining -the Pasha's body-guard. My dragoman's bill next day included these -items: "Trinks and trymbals for the crew"; "hay for the limp." The poor -black "limp" with his hay was put into the little boat in tow, and I had -to deliver him up, as a matter of course, to the crew a few days later. -Then came Edfoo, whose temple is one of the most conspicuous in Egypt. I -had been on the look-out for its mighty pylons with especial eagerness, -and I was glad that we had time to spend two hours on land while some -repairs were being done on the "_Fostât_." The Esneh cavass was useful -as well as extremely ornamental, as he kept off the wild crowd in the -village by magical waves of his wand of office, and an occasional thump -on a screaming villager. - -[Illustration: AT PHILÆ] - -The guard turned out and saluted our party, and altogether things went -very well, and I enjoyed my long-looked-forward-to Edfoo. - -Then on board again, with a steady north breeze which, if it had filled -our eyes with sand at Edfoo, was making up for the discomfort by -carrying us in spanking style towards Assouan and the meeting. - -After one of our fair-wind nights, when the "_Fostât_" was bowling along -over the lumpy water, I asked the reis if we had come to Comombos. He -made vigorous signs showing we had passed it in the night. "Silsileh?"; -again the welcome backward wave of his arm. That, too, was long passed. -We were getting very near. I noticed the people on the banks were -becoming blacker and there were fewer of them; the mountains had -vanished and were replaced by lion-coloured sand-hills, typically -African. The black rocks looked like sleeping crocodiles. - -A faint whisp of smoke presently rose beyond a bend of the river, far -ahead. "What is that?" I asked the dragoman. "English steamer." Great -excitement. The little armed steamer puffs into sight; some one is -waving a red handkerchief from the turret! "Furl the "_Fostât's_" -mainsail!" The crew swarm up the spar. _Ding_, _ding_ goes the electric -bell on the gunboat. The meeting is an accomplished fact--we from -Plymouth, he from Wady Halfa. We are soon at Assouan, and while the -"_Fostât_" is being hauled by great gangs of negroes through the -cataract, we are guests of the General in that command on board his -charming dahabieh moored under Philæ. There the solemn rocks echo the -waltzes of the military band and the talk and laughter of our _réunions_ -on board the "_Pharaon_." - -If the Egyptian desert answered back in harmonious tones the light of -the sun and moon, what a _crescendo_ of glowing response came from the -Nubian sands! Immediately we crossed the frontier my eyes were surprised -by the golden tone the desert had assumed, and the polished rocks that -studded it had suddenly put on the richest colours granite holds--deep -red and purple, and the black of basalt. It was a new scheme of -colouring. The sunset and the after-glow were still more astonishing -than those of Egypt, the colour of the shadows on the golden sands at -sundown more positive in their limpid colours. One felt looking at the -stars and planets as though one had been lifted to a world nearer to -them than before, so large and clear had they grown even from the -extraordinary clearness they had at Luxor. Oh! land of enchantment, is -it any wonder the Nile is so passionately loved, especially by the -artist, to whom the joy of the eye is supreme? As to worthily painting -the Egyptian landscape, I cannot think any one will ever do it--the -light is its charm, and this light is unattainable. There is one thing -very certain, oil paints are hopelessly "out of it," and in -water-colours alone can one hope to suggest that light. I soon gave up -oils in Egypt, not only on account of their heaviness, but the miseries -I endured from flies and sand were heart-breaking; your skies are seamed -with the last wanderings and struggles of moribund flies, and coated -with whiffs of sand suddenly flung on them by a desert gust! I was -particularly anxious to get a _souvenir_ of the doorway in the court of -the temple on Philæ Island, where Napoleon's soldiers engraved their -high-sounding "_Une page d'histoire ne doit pas_," etc. Unfortunately, -on the day I chose, we had a high wind, a very exasperating ordeal, and -my attempt at oil-sketching this subject was a fiasco. After persevering -with one half-blinded eye open at a time and with sand thickly mixed -with my paints, I saw the panel I had been desperately holding on the -easel hurled to the ground on its buttered side as for a moment I turned -to answer a remark of Mrs. C.'s. She said I bore it angelically. As -since those days lovely Philæ Island is being submerged and the temple -melting away, the poor little panel has become more historically -valuable than I thought it ever would do at the time, and I insert its -replica in water-colours _minus_ the smudges. - -Many pleasant hours we spent at Philæ, which, I suppose, is the -culminating point of the Nile's beauties and marvels. One day, while W. -was gone to Assouan for provisions, I went over with Mrs. C. to the -opposite bank of the river by boat, an imp of a small boy taking upon -himself to escort us. He divested himself of his one garment, which he -carried in a bundle on his head, and swam alongside our "felucca." Our -approach had been observed from a wild mud hamlet up on the fantastic -rocks, and a bevy of black and brown women came hopping and skipping -down to us. Little shrivelled old hags and wild little young women with -nose rings and anklets, their hair plaited in hundreds of little tails -reeking with castor oil, each little tail ending in a lump of mud. - -[Illustration: A "LAMENT" IN THE DESERT] - -Mrs. C. asked them to unfasten and display their locks, and in return -let down her own six-foot-long auburn tresses and stood on them to -"astonish the natives." They danced and wailed in slow cadence, softly -clapping their hands and wagging their heads in admiration as they made -the round of the tall, rosy Englishwoman. There she stood, on her hair, -that trailed on the sand, in a golden halo of sunshine, the grim -hypæthral temple and the huge rocks as background, and surrounded by -little skinny, skipping, half-naked, barbarian women and quite-naked -little children. They turned to me and made signs that I should also let -my hair down. Because I excused myself, the little boy imp, still with -his garment on his head, came forward and took upon himself -condescendingly to explain to the little women, shouting "_Mafeesh_, -_mafeesh_!" ("Nothing, nothing!") and dismissing me with a wave of his -arm. - -From Philæ we soon glided into the Tropics. I say in a letter: "The -moonlight in Nubia also surpasses that of Egypt, and I see in it a light -I never saw before I came to this wonderful land. It is difficult to -describe this light. It is brilliant yet soft; light in darkness; not -like the day; not like the dawn: the sky at full moon is so bright that -only the larger stars are seen; and the yellow sand, the ashen bloom on -the tops of the sand-hills, the various tones of green in palm-tree, -tamarisk, and mimosa keep distinctly their local tints, yet softened and -darkened and changed into a mysterious vision of colour too subtle for -words of mine. Every night Venus and other great planets and stars shed -reflections in the still water like little moons in every part of the -Great Stream wherever one turns." - -W. could not spare the time for lotus-eating under sail, so a -"stern-wheeler" towed us from Philæ to Wady Halfa. It took very little -away from the romance, and the steady progress was very grateful. On -that glassy river, as it was now, we would have been an age getting to -our goal. - -I was greatly struck with Korosko, a place which, besides its natural -desolate and most strange appearance, was sad with memories of Gordon. -This was his starting-point as he left the Nile to travel across the -desert to Khartoum, never to return. From a height one can see the black -and grey burnt-up landscape which lonely Gordon traversed. It is a most -repellent tract of desert just there, calcined and blasted. A view I had -of the Nile, southward, from the mountains of Thebes one day, though -bathed in sunshine, has remained most melancholy in my mind, because, -looking towards Khartoum, I thought of the hundreds of my countrymen who -lay buried in already obliterated graves all along those lonely banks, -away, away to the remote horizon and beyond, sacrificed to the -achievement of a great disaster. Others like them have arisen since and -will arise, eager to offer their lives for success or failure, honours -or a nameless grave. - -One evening, as the "_Fostât_," in tow, was skimming through the calm -water with a rippling sound, and we were all sitting on deck, W. -described to us so vividly a memorable night before the fight that put a -stop to hostilities, that I could see the whole scene as though I had -been there. They were out in the desert, the moon was full; the -Dervishes were "sniping" at long range, when afar off was heard a -Highland "lament." The "sniping" ceased all along the enemy's line and -dead silence fell upon the night but for the wail of the bagpipes. The -Dervishes seemed to be listening. The "lament" increased in sound, and -presently the Cameron Highlanders approached, bearing, under the Union -Jack, the body of an officer who had died that day of fever, to add yet -another grave to the number that lay at intervals along the shores of -the great river. You should hear the pipes in the desert, as well as on -the mountain-side, to understand them. - -"Every phase of the day and night" (letter, 12th January '86), "appeals -to me on the Nile, not forgetting those few moments that follow the -after-glow which are like the last sigh of the dying day. The delicacy -of those pure tints is such that one scarcely dares to handle them in -writing. Evening after evening I have watched by the desert death-bed of -the day, looking eastward so as to have the light upon the hills. - -"Those tender, sad, pathetic hills, and beyond them the mournful -mountains, possessing nothing,--not a blade of grass, not a lichen, not -a herb; they are absolute paupers amongst mountains, and they might be -in the moon, these derelicts, so bereft are they of all things. - -"And yet the light, the atmosphere, give them a consoling beauty. What a -poem might be written to them as they look thus for a minute or two -before the dark-blue pall of night sinks down!" - -Wady Sabooah, the "Valley of Lions," was one of the most striking things -I had seen on this exquisite section of our river voyage. The abrupt -sand-hills held shadows of the most delicate amethyst at noonday which, -combined with the gold of the sunlit parts, produced a delicacy of -vibrating tones which enchanted the eye but saddened the artist's mind, -recognising as it did the futility of trying to record such things in -paint! But I shall weary you with all this daily rapture, and I will bid -good-bye in these pages to the desert, well named by the Moslems "The -Garden of Allah." There is no pollution there, and He may walk in His -garden unoffended. - -In the first really hot days of March I and the children came home--Wady -Halfa was becoming no place for us, and W. remained with his Brigade -through the weary days of summer, unknown in their exhausted and -horrible listlessness to me who will always think of the Nile as an -earthly paradise. One halt I must make on our way down, at Abu Simbel, -that mysterious rock temple I had longed to see in the first ray of -sunrise, for it faces due east. W., who accompanied us as far as -Assouan, gave orders that our stern-wheeler (the old "_Fostât_" had been -dismissed) should tie up overnight at the temple, and before daylight I -was up and ready. I had packed my water-colours and had only a huge -canvas and oil-paints available. With these I climbed the hill and -waited for the first ray in the wild wind of dawn. - -The event was all I hoped for as regards the effect of those "scarlet -shafts" on the four great figures (how many sunrises had they already -awakened to?) "A great cameo," Miss Amelia Edwards calls that façade at -sunrise in her fascinating book, and that phrase had made me long for -years for this moment. But alas! my canvas acted as a sail before the -wind and nearly carried me into the river, the sand powdered the wet -paint more viciously than ever, and I returned very blue to breakfast. -Still, I had got my "Abu Simbel at Sunrise," and I insert a water-colour -taken in comfort from the hard-earned but scarcely presentable original. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: ABU SIMBEL AT SUNRISE] - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER III - -ALEXANDRIA - - -Our subsequent experiences of Egypt at Alexandria from '90 to '93 made -me acquainted with the Delta and that "Lower Nile" which has a very -particular charm of its own, and possesses the precious advantage of -being out of the tourist track altogether. - -Not the least amongst the attractions of an Egyptian command (to -Madame!) is the yearly autumn journey to that country through Italy, -with Venice as an embarkation point. Madame knows nothing of the -horrors of the summer months endured by the "man on duty" out there, and -serenely enjoys "the best," without the seamy side ever turning up. She -thinks that to spend one's winters on the Nile, and one's summers in the -"Emerald Isle," is as near an ideal existence as this world allows us. -It is good to be a woman! - -That farewell scene at Venice on board the P. & O., when friends came to -see us off with bouquets and "bon voyage"--how I should like just one -more of those gay leave-takings! I see again the dancing gondolas on the -sparkling ripples as they wait round the ship; the hat and handkerchief -wavings ashore and afloat, and Venice encircling the sprightly little -drama with her gracious arms. - -Who that has plied between Italy and Egypt does not know the poetry of -that first night at sea, when the cloud-like mountains behind the -vanished Venice have also faded away, and there is nothing for it now -but to turn to the darkling Adriatic, heaving dimly beyond the ship's -bows, and commit oneself to the mercies of the deep. "And the -dinner-bell," some one is sure to add. Never shall it be said of me that -I chronicle the meals of my little travels. - -The next morning the cessation of vibrations and throbbings wakes you. -Behold through the port-hole Ancona's white church high up overhead, -shining in the level sunbeams of the young day. - -The morning after that it is Brindisi, where they wait for the "long -sea" passengers and the mails, and the Italian chatter and laughter -along the quays never stops. Here, in the course of a -stroll, you may pat the two pillars that form the winning-post of that -Appian Way whose starting-post you know in Rome. - -There is very little monotony in a voyage of this kind, for you are -never for long out of sight of land. The Albanian coast, the Ionian -Islands, Crete, "Morea's Hills"--what a series of lovely things to -beguile the six days' passage! Yet, all the same, one has a thrill of -delight one day when an unusual stir amongst the crew begins, and the -hatches over the heavy baggage-hold are opened, and the lifting gear is -got into position. "We shall be in at daybreak." Bless the captain for -those words! And the "man on duty" aforesaid will be standing on the -landing-stage. - -W. arranged a good studio for me at our new post, but I had -distractions. British and Foreign naval squadrons occasionally bore -down on us with thundering salutes, and had to be attended to; -distinguished and even august personages paused at Alexandria on their -way "up"; picnics on horse-back, donkey-back, camel-back, by road, rail, -and river, to Aboukir, Aboo-sir, and sundry oases all claimed my -delighted co-operation, plus my unsociable sketch-book. - -Ah, the good good time, the golden Egyptian days! - -But I found nothing so interesting as a holiday we managed to squeeze in -and spend on board a little dahabieh for two, on a nine days' cruise to -Rosetta and back. I then knew the Western Delta and, superficially, the -life of its neglected and forgotten people. I am much afraid that since -the Assouan Dam and its doings, their meagre water-supply is anything -but increased, and I pray that the English authorities may remember -those poor people at last. They are like fish in a pond that is slowly -drying up. - -[Illustration: MADAME'S "AT HOME" DAY; SERVANTS AT THE GATE] - -On board the little "_Rose_," lent us by an Armenian Bey, I tasted once -more the placid pleasure of fresh water travel under sail and oar; and I -again heard the strange intervals of the songs that kept the oarsmen in -time at their work. But I also learnt what Egyptian rain was like, -and how hideous the Mahmoudieh becomes under weeping skies. I saw in -this land the deepest and ugliest mud in the world--mud of the colour of -chocolate. The weather cleared usually towards evening, and nothing more -weird have I ever seen than the villages, cemeteries, solitary tombs, -goats, buffaloes, and wild human beings that loomed upon the sky-line on -the top of the banks against the windy clouds, reddened by the fiery -globe that had sunk below the palm-fringed horizon. These canal banks -might give many people the horrors, and I certainly thought them in that -weather the uncanniest bits of manipulated nature I had ever seen. - -At Atfeh, after three days' canal, we emerged upon the wide and glorious -Nile, and the skies smiled upon us once more. But the sadness of the -country remained to us as we contemplated the miserable villages which -occurred so frequently, with their poor graveyards at their sides, the -latter only distinguishable by the smaller size of the dwellings, and -the fact that the huts of the living had doors, and the huts of the dead -had none--that was all. - -Once on the swift Nile current, with the eight sweeps flashing and -splashing to the rhythm of the strange singing (the prevailing north -wind being against sailing), we made a good run down to Rosetta, on -whose mud bank we thumped in a surprising manner, at 10 P.M. by a pale -watery moonlight. - -Never have I seen anything sadder than the land we passed through that -day--dead, neglected, forlorn. Every now and then what seemed a great -city loomed mistily ahead of us, with domes and minarets, and what -seemed mighty palaces, piled one above the other on stately terraces. -These apparitions were on the sites of once magnificent centres of -wealth and luxury, and from afar they might still appear to be what once -they were. Then, as we neared them, the domes unveiled themselves into -heaps of filthy straw; the palaces were mud hovels a few feet high; the -great mosques were merely poor half-ruined tombs into which a single -person could scarcely crawl. The illusion occurred every time we came in -sight of one of these phantasms, and the effect on the mind was most -singular. City after city arose thus on one's sight in the distance, as -though seen through the long ages that have rolled by since their prime, -and those long ages seemed like a veil that rapidly dissolved to show -us, as we approached, the wretched reality of to-day. "The pride of -life," "pomp," "arrogance," "luxury,"--those epithets were their own -once, while to-day the very antitheses of such terms would best become -them. They are literally all dust now, and there survive only the poor -blunt-shaped dwellings for living and dead, that lie huddled together in -such pathetic companionship. - -As the daylight fades we see the people creeping into their shelters -like their animals, to wait, like them, in the unlighted darkness, for -the coming of the morning. Their up-river fellow-workers live in a land -where the hardships of this cold and muddy winter misery are unknown. - -I was glad to see the Rosetta mouth of the Nile, thus completing rather -an extended, as well as intimate, knowledge of the great river from -there to Sarras in the Soudan. Return tickets to Khartoum had not yet -taken travellers by rail up the Nile in so many dusty hours. - -Still grey was the weather down to where the river merges into the -melancholy sea, between Napoleon's two dismantled forts, and what beauty -there might have been was densely veiled. The old French "Fort St. -Julien" was interesting as being the place where the "Rosetta Stone," -which gave the key to all the Egyptian hieroglyphics, was discovered. -There we moored for the night on our return to Rosetta, in a Napoleonic -atmosphere, and next day I sketched the once opulent commercial city, -where now nothing seems doing. A bald old pelican caused some movement -in the streets by raiding the odoriferous fish-market and scurrying -down, chased by small boys, to the water's edge where I was sitting, in -order to float, by copious draughts, the fish that lay in his pouch down -his throat, pill-wise. The pelican always got his pill down in time, and -the race to the river was repeated more than once with the small boys. -On another evening, on our return voyage, we moored under the wild town -of Syndioor, whose minaret, the tallest, I should think, in the world, -proved to be no phantom, but a lovely and solid reality. In the pearly -light of the succeeding mornings the shining cities looked, through -their misty veils, more lovely afar off than ever. Finally we dropped -back again between the mud banks of the canal, and in due time landed -under the oleanders of our starting-place, the crew kissing hands and -paying us the prescribed compliments of farewell. - -Our major-domo, Ruffo the European, was with us on board. I must tell -you of Ruffo; such an honest man in a country of much corruption! He did -all my housekeeping, and that zealously; but, desiring sometimes to -consult me about dinner, his figurative way of putting things before me -was a little trying. "Miladi, would you like cutlets?" patting his ribs; -"or a leg?" advancing that limb; "or, for a very nice entrée, brains?" -tapping his perspiring forehead. "Oh no, Ruffo, _never_ brains, -_please_!" He would rejoice in strokes of good luck in the market, and -fly through the sitting-rooms to me, perhaps bearing, like a gonfalon, a -piece of beef, where good beef was so rare; "Look, miladi, you will not -often meet such beef walking in the street." He always smelled the -melons on presenting them to me, to invite my attention to their -ripeness. - -After Cairo, Alexandria struck me very disagreeably at first; but when I -got over its Western pseudo-Italian garishness, I was able to console -myself with many a precious bit of orientalism, and even the bizarre -mixture of flashy European tinsel with the true native metal amused me -so much that I ended by enjoying the place and in being delighted to -return there for yet another winter, and another. Nor can I ever forget -that this appointment afforded us the most memorable journey of our -lives--the ride through Palestine! - -Not even the drive on the old Shoubra Road at Cairo surpassed the -Alexandrian Rotten Row on the Mahmoudieh Canal on a Friday afternoon in -its heterogeneous comicality. Every type was on the Mahmoudieh, in -carriages, and on horseback--Levantine, Greek, Jew, Italian, Arab; up -and down they rode on the bumpy promenade, under the shade of acacias -and other flowering trees that skirted the picturesque canal. Across -this narrow strip of water you saw the Arab villages of a totally -different world; and I really felt a qualm every time I saw a _fellah_ -over the way turning his back to the western sun (and to us) to pray, in -absolute oblivion of our silly goings-on. On our side was Worldiness -running up and down, helter-skelter; on the other, the repose of Kismet. - -Here comes a foreign consul--you know him by his armed, picturesque -ruffian on the box--in a smart Victoria, driven by a coal-black Nubian -in spotless white necktie and gloves; the Arab horse is ambling along -with high measured action. Much admired is _Monsieur le Consul_--the -observed of all observers; he looks as though he felt himself "quite, -quite." But "Awah, awah!" Here come at a smart leaping run two shouting -syces turbaned in the Alexandrian fashion; and behind them a barouche -and pair driven by an English coachman of irreproachable deportment. -What thrilling rivalry is here! - -Exquisite horses with showy saddle-cloths there are, with _le sport_ on -their backs in the person of "young Egypt" in the inevitable _tarboosh_. -That _tarboosh_! It is the "bowler" hat of the East, and I don't know -which I hate most--it or the "bowler." - -The ladies are overwhelming; and I rest my eyes occasionally by watching -the demure feminine figures of the "East end" who are filling their -_amphoræ_ under the oleanders over the way, or washing their clothes and -their babies in the drinking water supply of the native town. - -Towards sunset there is a _sauve qui peut_ of equipages citywards, and I -never heard such a din as is set up as soon as the soft roads are passed -and the paved streets are reached. Over it all you may hear:-- - - The tow-row-row and the tow-row-row - Of the British Grenadiers. - -The Suffolks or the Surreys are marching from Mandara Camp to the sound -of that drum which we like to remind ourselves "beats round the world." - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: SYNDIOOR ON THE LOWER NILE] - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -III - -THE CAPE - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER I - -TO THE CAPE - - -I don't know whether in the Atlantic that lies between England and -America you have had calm moonlight nights such as, taking the ocean -longitudinally, one may have an impressive experience of, if timing the -voyage rightly. I don't suppose a more favourable time for "detachment" -could be easily obtained than those night hours on board a great ship -out at sea, when one more easily realizes than in the daytime how the -huge "Liner" is but a pathetic little speck on the landless and -fathomless waters. The heart of this atom beats courageously enough -night and day, without a rest, as it carries its charge onwards to -deliver it at the goal that lies in the "Under World," but never does -one more sensitively feel the power of those words, "In the hollow of -His hand," than when realising the true proportion of the "vessel" that -carries us and our fortunes. - -We spent--the children, Mrs. B. (wife of W.'s Military Secretary), and -I--a few hours by night at Madeira, three days out from England, the -only land we touched throughout the six thousand miles. - -My diary says, 21st February '99: "We spent a memorable night on an -enchanted Island. Arriving at Funchal overnight instead of in the -morning of the next day, as we were timed to do, we took the place by -surprise. First we saw a blazing light on an advanced rock, which stood -out very black, well ahead of the dusky mass of the Island, which rose -high behind it, dimly crowned with spectral snow. The moon, not yet -full, was clearing her way through thin cloud veils, and the town at -first could be guessed at only by clusters of lights along the shore, -where the waves were breaking with a strange clamour on the pebbles. - -"Presently balls of fire were sent up on the slopes above the town to -tell Funchal we were coming, and, as we slowly rounded into the smooth -water of the bay, we could see a little armada of boats pushing out in a -flurried line towards us, and we presently heard the Portuguese chatter -of their occupants who were soon swarming up the side to try and get all -the money out of us that they could in exchange for fruit, embroidery, -basket-work, etc. Then a streaming triton appeared at the bulwarks, -outside, his face and brawny muscles gleaming in our electric light -against the deep-blue background of moonlit sea. The triton asked for -sixpences to be thrown into the water, and he dived for them and came -up, grinning and streaming, into the light again for more. All the world -over, where the seas are clear, this game goes on to beguile the -traveller. I must say I think those sixpences are fairly earned when I -see to what depths these creatures dive for them in semi-darkness. To -what metaphorical depths less honest men descend for petty pelf! but I -haven't time to work this out. - -"Soon Mr. Payne came on board, the wine-merchant prince, whom W. had -asked to show us the Island and give us our deck chairs. To this most -kind friend we are indebted for a memorable experience. He proposed, -though it was night, to take us on shore, and I, the three children, and -Mrs. B. followed him down the ship's side to one of the many boats that -were lurching and bumping at the foot of the ladder. The first boat -tilted over on its side and nearly spilt her two rowers, who rolled out -maledictions as the water filled her and lost them their chance of us. -We jumped into another and were rowed to the little jetty. On arriving -in the town we found little hooded sledges, drawn by small oxen, -waiting. We boarded two of these Madeira cabs and drove up to the -Casino, our cabmen running by the side and whooping to the oxen. We -entered an enchanted garden waving with palms, pines, and blue -gum-trees, and other shadowy, dark-foliaged trees, while glossy and -feathery shrubs of every type of tropical loveliness bore blossoms which -shimmered white, red, and purple in the moonlight. There was a heavy -scent of magnolia flowers. Was it all a dream to wake from in Sloane -Street? I was in that murky region only three days ago. Was it all a -dream? It might be, for things were getting mixed and incongruous. Now -cigar smoke kills the magnolia, and some electric lamplets among the -trees are jarring with the moon. We suddenly step into a pavilion where -a band is playing, and I see smart men and women, very fashionably -attired in evening dress, some of them raking in money at the roulette -table. We do not stay long there, for we did not land to see such -banalities, and, regaining the garden solitudes, make for our bullock -sledges, which are to take us up 2000 feet higher through vine-trellised -lanes all paved by those polished pebbles set edgewise for the sledges -to run smoothly on. Away we go, our cabmen now and then placing a tallow -candle enclosed in a bag under the sledge runners to lubricate them, or -there would be disagreeable friction. As soon as one runner has passed -over the emaciated candle the man on that side throws the candle across -to the man on the other, who, stooping, and always at a trot, performs -the same juggernautic process on his side. The men are handsome and -healthy fellows, wearing their coats hanging loose on their shoulders -over snowy shirts. They never speak to Mr. Payne with covered heads. - -"There is a funicular railway up this mountain, but it does not work at -night, and we thus have a taste of the vanishing Past. Far more -effective, this railway, for it climbs the hill boldly and with -uncovered sides, whilst our old road is hemmed in by high vineyard -walls, and the straining of the little goaded oxen is amongst those -belongings of the Past which I will gladly see vanish with it. - -[Illustration: "IN THE HOLLOW OF HIS HAND"] - -"On our way up the incline, which would be impossible to horses and to -wheels, our kind _cicerone_ invited us to see his garden and the view of -the bay and the great ocean which was swelling away in the light towards -Morocco. It was a lovely garden, and we crept about it round the little -cosy house, and looked up at the closed shutters, within which _la -famille Payne_ lay slumbering. We even went on tip-toe through the -sitting-rooms, which the owner, looking as though he was burgling his -own house, lit with a little lantern. In one there was a parrot asleep, -in another an engraving of the 'Roll Call,' and again I began to think I -might be dreaming and would wake, with tears, in Sloane Street. But the -'dream' was solid and we continued our upward progress with four -additional oxen to each sledge and double whooping, and swearing, and -prodding, for the gradient now was terrific. At the end of the -sledge track we halted, and, getting out, we climbed to the hill top on -foot and from there beheld a lovely sight--deep valleys and vine-clad -hills and the great ocean beyond, and our Castle Liner blazing with -electric light more than 2000 feet below in the profound calm of Funchal -Bay. The stars were very lustrous and the 'Scorpion's Heart' aflame with -red and green. We then took a mysterious walk in brilliant moonlight and -intense black shadow to the edge of a great ravine or _coral_, from the -bottom of which rose the harsh sound of a torrent, invisible in the -shadow. Sugarcanes waved in the night breeze and banana plants rustled -and whispered, but no one was awake in all the land but our little -party. - -"Dreamlike again, on our way back to where we had got out of the -sledges, we had tea in another enchanted garden at 2 A.M. Our cabmen had -hammered at that garden gate a long time, looking like stage peasants -knocking at an operatic moonlit portal, before the waiter could be -awakened, and by the time we returned from our walk the sleepy creature -in tail coat, but minus his tie, was ready for us. When we passed that -mysterious threshold we found ourselves in a garden full of the scent -of box hedges and tinkling with fountains. We walked in the chequered -shadow cast by palms and cypresses, and, soothed by the sound of running -water, we felt we would like to stay there till the dawn. What a night -to impress the children's minds with! Our tea was hilarious, in an -arbour facing the ocean, but our hilarity was to reach its climax when -we got into two toboggans, three people in each, and _slithered_ down -the 2000 foot declivity which our oxen had so painfully and slowly drawn -us up. The oxen had vanished with the sledges and the drivers, and a new -set of men piloted us down the tremendous incline. - -"Nothing makes me laugh more than a toboggan in full flight with its -helpless load. I had the pace moderated, in spite of protests, for I -really did not care to have a variation of the too recent Bay of Biscay; -but the toboggans got out of hand sometimes or had to be given their -heads round the corners. It was vertigo then. - -"Ah, good night, or rather good morning, peerless Madeira!" - -Then followed days of blue weather and ever-increasing heat. A lonely -voyage--not a sail to be seen. In that long-drawn-out monotony we made -the most of trivialities. - -I read in my diary one night in the Tropics:-- - -"There is to be a fancy-dress ball to-night, in connection with crossing -the Line the other day, I suppose; the second class passengers are to -come over and dance with the first class on the gaily decorated -promenade deck. I am pleased at the appearance of the three children. C. -has made up from some Eastern muslins a very coquettish Turkish costume -with a little cap, which becomes her to my entire satisfaction. E. looks -the typical 'duck' in a poke bonnet all over little pink roses, and I -have buckled up little M. in a colonial cavalry 'rig,' slouched hat and -all, Captain S. lending his sabre, which is somewhat longer than the -temporary owner." - - * * * * * - -Here I must interpolate the statement of certain facts which will enable -you more fully to sympathise with me in the catastrophe that closes this -mid-ocean episode. - -You must know that white servants are impossible to find at the Cape, -and one must bring all one's staff out with one, "for better, for -worse," it may be for three, four, five years. If any turn out badly, it -is true you may send them home, but--who is to replace them? I could -not persuade my cook at Dover Castle to undertake this expatriation, her -courage failing her at the last moment, and I had to find an untried -substitute. She was a Dane with the blood of generations of bellicose -Vikings coursing through her veins, and I had watched her daily on the -other deck from afar with apprehensions. - - * * * * * - -"The ball is over and I feel decidedly limp. I thought I was going to -have a pleasant evening. I was sitting with Lady ---- and all the others -who were not masquerading, enjoying the sight of the figures in all -kinds of extempore costumes appearing on the deck from below and -mustering prior to setting to, the band playing a spirited waltz, when -there slowly emerged from the saloon stairway, as though rising from the -waves she rules--Britannia! First a high brass helmet with scarlet -crest, then a trident held in one hand, a shield in the other, and the -folds of the Union Jack draping her commanding form. She stepped on -deck. 'I say,' said a voice, 'this is _the_ success of the evening; who -is it?' 'Who is it?' you heard on every side. 'Who is it?' asked -Lady ---- turning to me. 'My cook,' I faintly answered. The last speaker -knew her South Africa, and all the possibilities of the future might -have spoken in my face to judge by the choking laughter that caused her -precipitate withdrawal. Each time she ventured back within sight of my -smileless face the fit seized her again. Later on I saw Britannia -dancing in a small set of Lancers hand in hand with the Marchioness. -Shall I ever get her harnessed now?" - -I went back to hang over the bulwarks and lose myself among the stars. - -And so we made our way athwart the world. Each evening every one went to -scan the chart where the little "atom's" progress was marked with, to -us, an all too short pen-stroke, showing the distance covered in the -last twenty-four hours. And in time the sad South Atlantic broke up the -exquisite blue weather of the Tropics. - -The diary goes on: "To-night we saw the Pole Star set for the last time. -A profound melancholy--a sense of losing a life-companion--falls on the -mind. The child who has just seen its old nurse turn a bend in the road -and disappear looks with rueful eyes on the bright newcomer. The -Southern Cross and all the new stars will never fill the void left by -the constellations which I have watched above the beloved scenes of the -Northern World. My thoughts follow the Pole Star beyond the dark rim of -the horizon. Dear old friend! I shall not feel content, no matter how -beautiful I shall find the Southern heavens, till the joyful night when -the captain of the Homeward Bound tells us we shall see thee rise. When -will that be--in two--in three--years?" - -I spoke just now of the "sad" South Atlantic. To me it will always be -the saddest part of the world. The sky above it loses the transparent -and radiant quality of blue ("less blue than radiant," Mrs. Browning -happily says of the Florentine sky) and takes more of a cobalt quality, -and the tone of the sea follows suit. The effect of the diminishing -warmth also chills one morally and physically, and one knows that the -best is passed. The phrase, "a waste of waters," comes constantly to the -mind. - -The following extract from the diary will show how this mournful -sentiment of the South Atlantic was one day accentuated--stamped, as it -were, with the seal of sorrow, on our return voyage, four days from Cape -Town. "We had a burial at sea, the forlornest thing I have ever -witnessed. A poor consumptive governess, travelling alone, died last -night, who must have been far too ill to be put on board ship. She was -buried at eleven this morning. - -"We were kneeling near the body, which lay on a bier shaped like a tray, -covered with the Union Jack, at the open gangway overhanging the dreary -tossing waters. Not a glimpse of blue sky above, the dense clouds shut -it out. As she belonged to our Church, W., in uniform, read the prayers -and Captain C. the responses. When the prayers were ended the bier was -tilted by the six sailors who had been grasping it all through the -service. The poor little body, sewn up in sacking, darted out, with a -rattle of the leaden weights, from under the covering flag and fell with -a loud splash into the black ocean; the flowers that had been placed on -it scattered on the foam, and, as the ship scarcely stopped, these were -soon left behind to sink and disappear. He who read the prayers said to -me when all was over, 'Christ walks the waters as well as the land.'" - -Two days after I read: "A concert this evening, with some comic songs. I -noticed the piano was draped with the same Union Jack that covered the -poor girl two days ago." - - * * * * * - -One can hardly realize what a sailing voyage of this magnitude must have -been in the old days. Our modern impatience can hardly endure the -thought. The announcement one evening that at dawn we should sight Table -Mountain was extremely pleasant. The arrival had the never-fading charm. -"I see papa!" sang out little M. "How are the children?" hailed papa -from the quay. "All well!" And we land on utterly new ground to begin a -new experience. A short train journey, turning the flank of Table -Mountain, brings us to our new home at Rosebank, where I find a pair of -shapely Cape ponies harnessed to the Victoria awaiting us at the -station. - -[Illustration: A CORNER OF OUR GARDEN AT ROSEBANK] - - - - -CHAPTER II - -AT ROSEBANK, CAPE COLONY - - -"Strange land; strange birds with startling cries; strange flowers; -strange scents! I received a bouquet of welcome on my arrival composed -of grass-green flowers with brilliant rose-coloured leaves. Where am I? -_Where_ are the points of the compass? - -"I was watching the sun travelling to his setting this evening, and, -forgetting I was perforce facing North to watch him, he seemed to be -sloping down towards the East! And lo! when he was gone, the crescent -moon on the wrong side of the sunset and turned the wrong way. And a -cold south wind bringing melancholy messages from the Antarctic. 'There -has been a storm in the south,' some one said, and the words struck -drearily on my mind's ear. - -"My Bible, so full of imagery taken from the aspects of Nature, is -turned inside out. - - Arise (depart), north wind; and come, O south wind; blow through my - garden, and let the aromatical spices thereof flow (Canticles iv. - 16). - -"My Shakespeare is upside down. - - At Christmas I no more desire a rose - Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth.-- - _Love's Labour's Lost._ - -"Here roses load the Christmas air with sweetness, and May ushers in the -snow upon the mountains. - - When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim, - Hath put a spirit of youth in everything.--_Sonnet._ - -"Here April is in the 'sear and yellow.' - -"Yesterday a furnace-blast swooped down upon us from the great deserts -to the north, and I feel I shall never be myself while I continue to see -my shadow at noonday projected southward. But enough of grumbling for -the present. - -"Nowhere have I seen such starlight as streams upon the earth from the -Milky Way, which belts the whole heavens here with silver. I don't know -why I have never seen the Milky Way so distinct and splendid in the -Northern Hemisphere. It is the glory of the South African nights, and I -have the pleasure, too, of seeing the entire sweep of the 'Scorpion's' -tail, superb scroll of blazing stars. I knew the Southern Cross would be -disappointing, and so was not disappointed. - -"It gyrates over the Pole in a way to greatly astonish the uninitiated. -The other evening, dressing for an evening function, I saw it before my -window upright, and on coming home in the small hours, behold it on its -head! - -"I cannot hope ever to convey to the mind of those who have not -experienced Cape Colony the extraordinarily powerful local feeling of -these days and nights. Melancholy they are--at least to me--but most, -most beautiful and _pungently_ poetical. The aromatic quality of the -odours that permeate the air suggests that word. Yet all is too strange -to win the heart of a newcomer, however much his eyes and mind may be -captivated. - -"If an artist wanted to accomplish that apparently impossible feat of -painting Fairyland direct from Nature, without one touch supplied out -of his own fancy, he would only have to come here. There are effects of -light and colour on these landscapes that I never saw elsewhere. The -ordinary laws seem set aside. For instance, you expect a palm-tree to -tell dark against the sunset. Oh, dear me no, not necessarily here. I -saw one a tender green, and the sand about it was in a haze of softest -rose-colour, through which shone the vivid orange light of the sunset -behind it. Incredible altogether are the colours at sunset, but all so -fleeting. And there is no after-glow here as in Egypt and Italy; the -instant the glory of the setting sun is gone all is over and all is -grey. - -"Even the melancholy-quaint sound of the frogs through the night -suggests fairy tales. It is appealing in its own way. I thought the -Italian maremma frog noisy, but no one can imagine what an orgy of -shrill croaking fills the nights here. They are everywhere, these -irrepressibles, though invisible; near your head, far away, under your -feet, at your side, in the tree-tops, in the streams, for ever springing -their rattles with renewed zest. I shall never hear nocturnal frogs -again without being transported to these regions of strange and -melancholy nights. - -"Table Mountain rises square and precipitous above our garden, far -above the simmer of the frogs, and looks like an altar in the pure white -light that falls upon it from the Milky Way. How still, how holy in its -repose of the long ages it looks, and the thought comes to one's mind, -'Would that all the evil brought to South Africa by the finding of the -gold could be gathered together and burnt on that altar as a peace -offering!' - -"On this Rosebank side there is nothing that jars with the majestic -feeling of Table Mountain, but to see what we English have done at its -base on the other side, at Cape Town, is to see what man can do in his -little way to outrage Nature's dignity. The Dutch never jarred; their -old farm-houses with white walls, thatched roofs, green shutters, and -rounded Flemish gables look most harmonious in this landscape. Wherever -we have colonized there you will see the corrugated iron dwelling, the -barbed-wire fence, the loathsome advertisement. We talk so much of the -love of the beautiful, and yet no people do so much to spoil beauty as -we do wherever we settle down, all the world over. I respect the Dutch -saying; 'The eye must have something'--beauty is a necessity to moral -health. A clear sky and a far horizon have more value to the national -mind than we care to recognize, and though the smoking factory that -falsifies England's skies and blurs her horizons may fill our pockets -with gold, it makes us poorer by dulling our natures. I am sure that a -clear physical horizon induces a clear mental one. - -"As you gaze, enraptured, at the rosy flush of evening on the mountains -across "False Bay" from some vantage point on the road to Simon's Town, -your eye is caught by staring letters in blatant colours in the -foreground. "Keller's boots are the best"; "Guinea Gold Cigarettes"; "Go -to the Little Dust Pan, Cape Town, for your Kitchen things." I _won't_ -go to the Little Dust Pan. Of all the horrors, a dust pan at Cape Town, -where your eyes are probably full enough of dust already from the arid -streets, and your face stinging with the pebbles blown into it by a -bitter "sou'easter"? I once said in Egypt I knew nothing more trying -than paying calls in a "hamseem," but a Cape Town "sou'easter" -disarraying you, under similar circumstances, is a great deal more -exasperating. - -"I am told the Old Cape Town, when Johannesburg was as yet dormant, was -a simple and comely place--its white houses, so well adapted to this -intensely sunny climate, were deep set in wooded gardens, a few of -which have so far escaped the claws of the jerry builder. (O United -States, what things you send us--"jerry," "shoddy" ----!) But now the -glaring streets, much too wide, and left unfinished, are lined with -American "Stores" with cast-iron porticoes, above which rise buildings -of most pretentious yet nondescript architecture, and the ragged -outskirts present stretches of corrugated iron shanties which positively -rattle back the clatter of a passing train or tram-car. And all around -lie the dust bins of the population, the battered tin can, the derelict -boot. No authorities seem yet to have been established to prevent the -populace, white, brown, and black, from throwing out all their old -refuse where they like. Some day things may be taken in hand, but at -present this half-baked civilization produces very dreadful results. -There is promise of what, some day, may be done in the pleasing red -Parliament House and the beautiful public gardens of the upper town. -There is such a rush for gold, you see! No one cares for poor Cape Town -_as_ a town. The adventurer is essentially a bird of passage. Man and -Nature contrast more unfavourably to the former here than elsewhere, and -the lines, - - Where every prospect pleases - And only man is vile, - -ring in my ears all day. - -"Altogether our Eden here is sadly damaged, and I am sorry it should be -my compatriots who are chiefly answerable for the ugly patches on so -surpassingly beautiful a scene. Our sophisticated life, too, is out of -place in this unfinished country, and we ought to live more simply, as -the Dutch do, and not feel it necessary to carry on the same _ménage_ as -in London. Liveried servants in tall hats and cockades irritate me under -such a sun, and the butler in his white choker makes me gasp. An -extravagant London-trained cook is more than ever trying where all -provisions are so absurdly dear. The native servant in his own suitable -dress, as in India and Egypt, does not exist down here. - -"One of the chief reasons, I find, as I settle down in my new -surroundings, for the feeling of incompleteness which I experience, is -the fact of this country's having no history. We get forlorn glimpses of -the Past, when the old Dutch settlers used to hear the roar of the lions -outside Cape Town Fort of nights; and, further back, we get such peeps -as the quaint narratives of the early explorers allow us, but -beyond those there is the great dark void. - -[Illustration: THE INVERTED CRESCENT] - -"This is all from my own point of view, and I know there is one, an -Africander born,[1] who, with strong and vivid pen, writes with sympathy -of the charms of Italy, but only expands into heartfelt home-fervour -when returning to the red soil and atmospheric glamour of her native -veldt. This personal way of looking at things makes the value of all -art, literary and pictorial, to my mind. Set two artists of equal merit -to paint the same scene together; the two pictures will be quite unlike -each other. I am of those who believe that picture will live longest -which contains the most of the author's own thought, provided the -author's thought is worthy, and the technical qualities are good, well -understood." - - [1] Olive Schreiner. - -I will end my South African sketch by one more page of diary, which, in -recording a day's expedition to the Paarl, gives an impression of the -Cape landscape which may stand as typical of all its inland scenery. - -"On Whitsun-eve we had a most enchanting expedition to Stellenbosch and -the Paarl, which I will describe here. W., I, the children, and the -B.'s, formed the party. We left home just at sunrise, the heavy dew -warning us of a very hot winter's day, though it was then cold enough. -We took the train to Stellenbosch, and I was in ecstasies over the -perfect loveliness of the scenes we passed through as the train climbed -the incline towards those deeply serrated mountains which we were to -pierce by and by. Looking back as we rose I could more fully appreciate -the majestic proportions of Table Mountain, at whose base we live, and, -when a long way off it stood above the plain in solitude, disclosed in -its entirety, pale amethyst in the white morning light, I was more than -ever filled with a sense of the majesty of this land which this -dominating mountain seemed to gather up into itself and typify. - -"Quite different in outline are the fantastic mountains we passed -athwart to-day, and nowhere have I seen such intense unmixed ultramarine -shadows as those that palpitate in their deep kloofs in contrast with -the rosy warmth of their sunlit buttresses and jagged peaks. And as to -the foregrounds here, when you get into the primeval wilderness, what -words can I find to give an idea of their colouring, and of the -profusion of the wild shrubs, all so spiky and aromatic, and some so -weird, so strange, that cover the sandy plains? Here are some notes. In -distance, blue mountains; middle distance, pine woods, dark; in -foreground, gold-coloured shrubs, islanded in masses of bronze foliage -full of immense thistle-shaped pink and white flowers; bright green -rushes standing eight feet high, with brown heads waving; black cattle -knee-deep in the rich herbage and a silver-grey stork slowly floating -across the blue of the still sky. - -"But this most paintable and decorative vegetation is not friendly to -the intruder. These exquisitely toned shrubs with wild strong forms are -full of repellent spikes which, like bayonets, they seem to level at you -if, lured by the gentle perfume of their blossoms, you approach eye and -nose too near. Depend upon it, this country was intended for -thick-skinned blacks. - -"As you get farther from town influences there appear much better human -forms in the landscape, and to-day I was greatly struck with the -appearance of an ox-waggon drawn by twelve big-horned beasts, and upon -its piled-up load stood picturesque male and female Malays in white and -gay colours--quite a triumphal car. A negro with immense whip walked by -the side, and behind rose a long avenue of old stone-pines, and at the -end of the vista the blue sky. These stone-pine avenues that border the -red-earthed highways are among the most delightful of the many local -beauties of the Cape, and such stone-pines! Old giants bigger than any I -have seen on the Riviera. There are dense forests of them here, lovely -things to look down on, with their soft, velvety masses of round tops of -a rich dark green, looking like one solid mass. The wise Dutch who -planted them had a law whereby any one felling one of these pines was -bound to plant two saplings in its stead. We are doing a great deal of -the felling without the planting. - -"At Stellenbosch we got out, and, to my pleasure, I saw a long sort of -char-à-banc driven at a hand gallop into the station yard, drawn by -three mules and three horses--the vehicle ordered by W. to convey us to -the 'Paarl.' And why 'Paarl'? Deep among the mountains rises a double -peak, bearing imbedded in each summit an immense smooth rock rounded -like a black titanic 'Pearl' that glistens in the sun as it beats on its -polished surface. Thither we blithely sped, one driver holding the -multitudinous reins of our mixed team, the other manoeuvering with -both hands his immensely long whip, the gyrations of the thong being an -interesting thing to watch as he touched up now this beast and now that. -They have a way in this country of keeping up a uniform trot uphill, -downhill, and on the level, but stopping frequently to breathe the -team." (Ah! give me road travel with horses--it is more _human_ than the -motor!) "After an enchanting stage through wild mountain gorges we came -to an oak fixed upon by W. beforehand as marking our halting place, and -there the six beasts were 'out-spanned.' The simple harness was just -slipped off and laid along on the road where the animals stood, and then -they were allowed to stray into the wild, tumbling bush as they liked -and have a roll, if so minded. Then we lit a fire and spread our repast -under the shade of the oak at the edge of a wood that sloped down to a -mountain stream. All round the solemn mountains, all about us fragrant -aromatic flowers and the call of wild African birds! I can well -understand the passionate love an Africander-born must feel for his -country. I know none that has such strong, saturating local sentiment. -The horses and mules, whose feet I had espied several times waving in -spurts of rolling above the undergrowth, being collected and -'in-spanned,' we set off for the Paarl Station and descended back into -the Plain by rail at sunset; and as we left the mountains behind us they -were flushing in the glory from the West, their shadows remaining of the -same astonishing ultramarine they had kept all day. In any other country -the blue would have changed somewhat, but here I don't expect anything -to follow any known rules--I accept the phenomena of things around me as -time goes on, and have ceased to wonder. Oh! vision of loveliness, -strange and unique, which this day has given me, never to be forgotten." - - * * * * * - -My great regret is that I had so little time to ply my paints and try at -least to make studies which would now be very precious to me. How little -I knew the shortness of my sojourn! The two little Cape ponies (with -much of the Arab in them) were in almost daily requisition along those -great pine-bordered, red-earthed roads, to take me for my return calls, -or a portion of them. I fear I left many unreturned towards the end. -There were the Dutch as well as the English, a large circle. I had -sketching expeditions projected which never came off, with a clever -Dutch lady, who did charming water-colours of beautiful Constantia and -the striking country above Simon's Bay, and the true "Cape of Good -Hope" beyond. She had battled with snakes in the pursuit of her art, and -in the woods had sustained the stone-throwing of the baboons, who made a -target of her as she sat at work. I was willing for the baboon -bombardment, and even would chance the snakes, as one chances -everything, to wrest but a poor little water-colour from nature. - -Two events which, in that tremendous year '99, were of more than usual -importance loom large in my memory of the Cape--that is, the Queen's -Birthday Review in May, and the opening of Parliament on the 14th July. -The Birthday Review on the Plain at Green Point was the ditto of others -I had seen on the sands of Egypt, on the green sward of Laffan's Plain -at Aldershot, on the Dover Esplanade, and wherever W. had been in -command; but this time, as he rode up on his big grey to give the -Governor the Royal Salute before leading the "Three Cheers for Her -Majesty the Queen!" a prophet might have seen the War Spectre moving -through the ranks of red-coats behind the General. - -At the opening of Parliament we ladies almost filled the centre of the -"House," and I was able to study the scene from very close. The Dutch -Members, on being presented to the Speaker, took the oath by raising the -right hand, whereas the English, of course, kissed the Book. The -proceedings were all on the lines followed at Westminster, the Governor -keeping his hat on as representing the Sovereign. The opening words of -"the Speech from the Throne" sounded hollow. They proclaimed amongst -other things _urbi et orbi_, that we were at peace with the South -African Republics. - - * * * * * - -"And now," says the diary, "Good-bye, South Africa, for ever! I am glad -that in you I have had experience of one of the most enchanting portions -of this earth!" - - * * * * * - -As you know that experience only lasted five months after all. We left -on the 23rd August '99 on a day of blinding rain, which, as the ship -moved off, drew like a curtain across that country which I felt we were -leaving to a fast-approaching trouble. The war cloud was descending. It -burst in blood and fire a few weeks later and deepened the sense of -melancholy with which I shall ever think of that far-away land. - -[Illustration: THE CAPE "FLATS"] - - - - -IV - -ITALY - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: BRINGING IN THE GRAPES] - - - - -CHAPTER I - -VINTAGE-TIME IN TUSCANY - - -[Illustration] - -A descent from the Apennine on a September evening into Tuscany, with -the moon nearly full--that moon which in a few days will be shining in -all its power upon the delights of the vintage week--this I want to -recall to you who have shared the pleasure of such an experience with -me. - -A descent into the Garden of Italy, spread out wide in a haze of warm -air--can custom stale the feeling which that brings to heart and mind? - -Railway travel has its poetry, its sudden and emotional contrasts and -surprises. But a few hours ago we were in the foggy drizzle of an autumn -morning at Charing Cross, and, ere we have time to be fagged by a -too-long journey, our eyes and brain receive the image of the Tuscan -plain! - -The train slows down for a moment on emerging from the last tunnel at -the top of the mountain barrier; the grinding brakes are still, and for -a precious instant we listen at the window for the old summer night -sounds we remember and love. Yes! there they are; there _he_ is, the -dear old chirping, drumming, droning night-beetle in myriads at his old -penetrating song, persistent as the sicala's through the dog days, local -in its suggestiveness as the corncrake's endless saw among the -meadow-sweet all through the Irish summer night. - -But, _avanti!_ Down the winding track with flying sparks from the locked -wheels, every metre to the good; down to the red domes of Pistoja; -forward, then, on the level, to Florence and all it holds. - -How we English do love Italy! Somewhere in our colder nature flows a -warm Gulf Stream of love for what is sunny and clear-skied and genial, -and I think I may say, though my compatriots little realize it, that the -evidences of a living faith which are inseparable from Italian landscape -greatly add to the charm that attracts us to this land. What would her -hills be if decapitated of the convents on their summits, with each its -cypress-lined _Via Crucis_ winding up the hillside? The time of the -after-glow would be voiceless if deprived of the ringing of the Angelus. -Dimly we perceive these things, or hardly recognise them as facts--nay, -many of us still protest, _but they draw us to Italy_. - -And now the arrival at Florence. The pleasure of dwelling on that -arrival, when on the platform our friends await us with the sun of Italy -in their looks! Then away we go with them in carriages drawn by those -fast-trotting Tuscan ponies that are my wonder and admiration, with -crack of whip and jingle of bells along the white moon-lit road to the -great villa at Signa, where the vintage is about to begin. - -To recall the happy labour of those precious three days of grape-picking -in the mellow heat on the hillside, and then the all-pervading fumes of -fermenting wine of the succeeding period in the courtyard of the -_Fattoria_; the dull red hue of the crushed grapes that dyes all things, -animate and inanimate, within the sphere of work, is one of the most -grateful efforts of my memory. I see again the handsome laughing -peasants, the white oxen, the flights of pigeons across the blue of the -sky. The mental relaxation amidst all this activity of wholesome and -natural labour, the complete change of scene, afford a blessed rest to -one who has worked hard through a London winter and got very tired of a -London season. It is a patriarchal life here, and the atmosphere of good -humour between landlord and tenant seems to show the land laws and -customs of Tuscany to be in need of no reformer, the master and the man -appearing to be nearer contentment than is the case anywhere else that I -know of. You and I saw a very cheery specimen of the land system at -grand old Caravaggio. - -[Illustration: A SON OF THE SOIL, RIVIERA DI LEVANTE] - -Then the evenings! I know it is trite to talk of guitars and tenor -voices under the moonlight, but Italy woos you back to many things we -call "used up" elsewhere, and there is positive refreshment in -hearing those light tenor voices, expressive of the light heart, singing -the ever-charming _stornellos_ of the country as we sit under the -pergola after dinner each evening. The neighbours drop in and the guitar -goes round with the coffee. Everybody sings who can, and, truth to say, -some who can't. Many warm thanks to our kind friends, English and -Italian (some are gone!), who gave you and me such unforgettable -hospitality in '75, '76. - -But lest all these guitarings and airy nothings of the gentle social -life here should become oversweet, we can slip away from the rose-garden -and climb up into the vineyards of the rustic _podere_ that speak of -wholesome peasant labour, of tillage--the first principle of man's -existence on earth--and, among the practical pole-vines that bear the -true wine-making grapes (not the dessert fruit of the garden _pergola_), -have a quiet talk. - -The starry sky is disclosed almost round the entire circle of the -horizon, with "_Firenze la gentile_" in the distance on our right, the -Apennine in front, and the sleeping plain trending away to the left to -be lost in mystery. I want to talk to you of our experience of Italy the -Beloved, from our earliest childhood until to-day. - -What a happy chance it was that our parents should have been so taken -with the _Riviera di Levante_ as to return there winter after winter, -alternately with the summers spent in gentle Kent or Surrey, during our -childhood; not the French Riviera which has since become so -sophisticated, but that purely Italian stretch of coast to the east of -Genoa, ending in Porto Fino, that promontory which you and I will always -hold as a sacred bit of the world. Why? There are as lovely promontories -jutting out into the Mediterranean elsewhere? The child's love for the -scenes of its early friendships with nature is a jealous love. - -Our relations by marriage with the B. family admitted us into the centre -of a very typical Italian home of the old order. I suppose that life was -very like the life of eighteenth-century England--the domestic habits -were curiously alike, and I cannot say I regret that their vogue is -passing. We are thought to be so ridiculously fastidious, _noi altri -inglesi_, and our parents were certainly not exceptional in this -respect, and suffered accordingly. - -The master of the house, the autocratic _padrone_, had been in the -Italian Legion in Napoleon's Russian campaign, as you may remember, and -the retreat from Moscow had apparently left certain indelible -cicatrices on the old gentleman's temper. I can hear his stentorian -voice even now calling to the servant (I think there was only one -"living in," though there were about a dozen hangers-on) in the rambling -old Palazzo without bells. "O--O--O, Mariuccia!" "Padrone!" you heard in -a feminine treble from the remote regions of the kitchen upstairs, -somewhere. Mariuccia would generally get a bit of the Italian -legionary's mind when she came tumbling down the marble stairs. Madame -la Generale appeared in the morning with a red handkerchief on her head -and remained in corsetless _déshabillé_ till the afternoon. Genoese was -the home language, French was for society. No one spoke real Italian. -They had not yet begun to "Toscaneggiare," as it grew to be the fashion -to do when Italy became united. Don't you dislike to hear them? - -What recollections our parents carried away from those visits to the -Nervi household! How we used to love to hear mamma's accounts, for -instance, of the night Lord Minto came to tea. Madame Gioconda had put -the whole pound of choice green tea which she had bought at the English -shop in Genoa into a large tea-pot requisitioned for this rare English -occasion. Poor mamma had the pouring of it out, and no deluges of hot -water, brought by the astonished Mariuccia, could tame that ferocious -beverage. I am sure the brave General never got more completely -"bothered" by the Russian cannon than he did by the "gun-powder" that -evening. Nowadays such a mistake could not happen when _il thè_ is quite -the fashion. - -Italians still think it the right thing to visit England in November and -go to Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham for their informing little -tour. In those remote days it was the only way in which the few that -ever ventured so far saw our lovely land. Mamma was constantly sent into -a state of suppressed indignation by the stereotyped question, "Are -there any flowers in England?" But I have not done with the old General. -I remember we were so frightened of that Tartar that Papa used to have -to propel us into the Presence, when, in the evenings, every one, big -and little, sat down to dominoes or "tombola." Syrup and water and -little cakes made of chestnut flour refreshed the company. The General's -snuff was in the syrup, I firmly believed. We looked like two little -martyrs as we went up to salute those shaking yellow cheeks on being -sent to bed. Why are children put to these ordeals? - -The living was frugal, the real "simple life" which some of us in -England are pretending to lead to-day. But on certain occasions, such as -Shrove Tuesday, for instance, ah! no effects of oriental feasting could -surpass the repletion with which each guest left the festive board. -Mariuccia had help for three days previous to such regalings, during -which one heard the tapping of the chopper in the kitchen, preparing the -force-meat for the national dish, the succulent _ravioli_, as one passed -within earshot of that remote vaulted hall. - -And do you remember (you are a year my junior, and a year makes a great -difference in the child's mind) a certain night when there was a ball at -our villa on the Albaro shore, and the shutters of the great "_sala_" -were thrown open to let in the moonlight at midnight? A small barque lay -in the offing, surrounded by little boats, and a cheer came over the sea -in answer to what the people over there, seeing the sudden illumination -from the chandeliers, took for our flashing signal of "God-speed!" They -were a detachment of Garibaldi's Redshirts on their way to liberate -Southern Italy. The grown-ups on our side went down to supper, and our -little cropped heads remained looking at the barque in the moon's broad -reflection long after we were supposed to be asleep. I had seen the -Liberator himself talking to the gardener at the ----'s villa, where he -was staying, at Quarto, the day before he sailed for Messina. - -We were certainly an unconventional family, and we were so happy in our -rovings through the land of sun. But if you and I are inclined to bemoan -too much modernism in that Italy we so jealously love, oh! do not let us -forget the gloom of some of those old palaces which we had a mind to -inhabit a _l'Italienne_, on bad winter nights--the old three-beaked oil -lamps in the bedrooms serving, as our dear father used to say, only to -"make darkness visible"--the wind during the great storms setting some -loose shutter flapping in uninhabited upper regions of the house; the -dark places which Charles Dickens in his _Pictures from Italy_ says he -noticed in all the Italian houses he slept in on his tour, which were -not wholly innocent of scorpions. The marble floors and the paucity of -fireplaces did not give comfort for the short winters; but how glorious -those old houses became as soon as the cold was gone; shabby, -ramshackle, and splendid, we loved them "for all in all." - -In certain things modern Italy affords us an easier life. We are given -to nagging at the Italians for their dreadful want of taste in spoiling -the beauty of their cities, but in the old days we were nagging at them -for their dirt. Now Rome is the cleanest capital in the world. Some one -said it is more than clean, it is dusted. And is not the Society for the -Protection of Animals in _existence_, at least? With what derision such -an institution would have been heard of in our childhood's days--a -suggestion of those "mad English." - -Do you call to mind what scenes used to occur whenever mamma came out -with us, between her and the muleteers? I can see her now, in the -fulness of her English beauty, flying out one day at a carter for -flogging and kicking his mules that were hardly able to drag a load up -the Albaro Hill. This was the dialogue. Mamma--"_Voi siete un cattivo!_" -Muleteer--"_E voi siete bella!_" Mamma--"_Voi siete un birbante!_" -Muleteer--"_E voi siete bella!_" Mamma--"_Voi siete uno scelerato!_" -Muleteer--"_E voi siete bella!_" And so on, till we had reached the -bottom of the cruel hill, mamma at the end of her _crescendo_ of -fulminations and the man's voice, still calling "_E voi siete bella_" -in imitation of her un-Genoese phraseology, lost in distance at the top. -"I shall get a fit some day," were her first English words. Poor dear -mother, the shooting of the singing-birds in spring, the dirt, the -noise, the flies, the mosquitoes--so many thorns in her Italian rose! -Yet how she loved that rose, but not more than the sweet violet of our -England that had no such thorns. The music in the churches, too, was -trying in those days, and to none more so than to that music-loving -soul. We have seen her doing her best to fix her mind on her devotions, -with her fingers in her ears, and her face puckered up into an -excruciated bunch. I hope Pius X. has enforced the plain-chant -everywhere, and stopped those raspings of secular waltzes on sour -fiddles that were supposed to aid our fervour. But I am nagging. As a -Northerner, I have no right to lecture the Italians as to what sort of -music is best for devotion, nor to tell them that the dressing of their -sacred images in gaudy finery on festival days is not the way to deepen -reverence. The Italians do what suits them best in these matters, and if -our English taste is offended let us stay at home. - -Well, well, here below there is nothing bright without its shadow. When -we had the delicious national costumes we had the dirt and the cruelty. -But why, I ask, cannot we keep the national dress, the local customs, -the picturesqueness while we gain the cleanly and the kind? Every time I -revisit Italy I miss another bit of colour and pleasing form amongst the -populations. In Rome not a cloak is to be seen on the citizens, that -black cloak lined with red or green they used to throw over the left -shoulder, toga-wise--only old left-off ulsters or overcoats from Paris -or Berlin. Not a red cap on the men of Genoa; the _pezzotto_ and -_mezzero_, most feminine headgear for the women, are extinct there. -Ladies in Rome are even shy of wearing the black mantilla to go to the -Vatican, and put it on in the cloak-room of the palace, removing it -again to put on the barbarous Parisian hat for the streets. When we -foreign ladies drive in our mantillas to the Audiences we are stared at! -Even my old friends the red, blue, and green umbrellas of portly -dimensions, formerly dear to the clergy, no longer light up the sombre -clerical garb. Did I not see a flight of bare-footed Capuchins, last -time in Rome, put up, every monk of them, a black Gingham when a shower -came on, and I was expecting an efflorescence of my fondly-remembered -Gamps? Next time I go the other bit of clerical colour will have -vanished, and I shall find them using white pocket-handkerchiefs instead -of the effective red bandana. - -Well, but, you are told, the beggars are cleared out, those persistent -unfortunates who used to thrust their deformities and diseases before -you wherever you turned, with the wailing refrain, "_Misericordia, -signore!_" "_Un povero zoppo!_" "_Un cieco!_" "_Ho fame!_" etc. etc. But -they sunned themselves and ate their bread and onions where they liked -(not where _we_ liked) in perfect liberty. Where are they now? In dreary -poorhouses, I suppose, out of sight, regularly fed and truly miserable. -I am afraid that much of our modern comfort is owing simply to the -covering up of unpleasantnesses. In the East, especially, life is seen -with the cover taken off, and many painful sights and many startling -bits of the reality of life spoil the sunshine for us there for a while. -But worse things are in the London streets, only "respectably" covered -up, and I am sure that more cruelty is committed by the ever-increasing -secret work of the vivisector than ever wrung the heart of the -compassionate in the old days in the open street. - -And there, as we sit on the hillside above Signa, lies Florence, just -discernible in the far-off plain, where I learnt so much of my art. -Those frescoes of Masaccio, Andrea del Sarto, and all those masters of -the human face who revelled in painting every variety of human type, how -they augmented my taste that way! Nothing annoyed me so much as the -palpable use of one model in a crowded composition. Take a dinner-party -at table--will you ever see two noses alike as you run your eye along -the guests? Even in a regiment of evenly matched troops, all of one -nationality, I ask you to show me two men in the ranks sharing the same -nose! - -Ah! those days I spent in the cloisters of the SS. Annuziata, making -pencil copies of Andrea's figures in the series of frescoes illustrating -the life of St Philip. It was summer-time, and the tourists only came -bothering me towards the end. That hot summer, when I used to march into -Florence, accompanied by little Majolina, in the still-early mornings, -when the sicala was not yet in full chirp for the day! Four days a week -to my master's studio under the shadow of the Medici Chapel, and two to -my dear cloisters; the Sunday at our villa under Fiesole. Happy girl! - -I see in my diary this brilliant adaptation of Coleridge's lines-- - - "'Tis sweet to him who all the week - Through city crowds must push his way, etc." - - 'Tis sweet to her who all the week - With brush and paint must work her way - To stroll thro' florence vineyards cool - And hallow thus the Sabbath Day. - -I have much to thank my master Guiseppe Bellucci for, who drilled me so -severely, carrying on the instruction I had the advantage to receive -from thorough-going Richard Burchett the head-master at South -Kensington--never-to-be-forgotten South Kensington. - -It seems a shame to be saying so much about Florence and not to pause a -few minutes to give the other a little hand-shake in passing. There I -began my art-student life, than which no part of an artist's career can -be more free from care or more buoyed up with aspirations for the -future. Dear early days spent with those bright and generous comrades, -my fellow-students, so full of enthusiasm over what they called my -"promise"--I have all those days chronicled in the old diaries. There I -recall the day I was promoted to the "Life Class" from the "Antique"--a -joyful epoch; and the Sketching Club where "old D----," the second -master, used to give "Best" nearly every time to Kate Greenaway and -"Second Best" to me. What joy when I got a "Best" one fine day. She and -I raced neck and neck with those sketches after that. The "Life Class" -was absorbingly interesting. But how nervous and excited I felt at -grappling with my first living model. He was a fine old man (but with a -bibulous eye) costumed to represent "Cranmer walking to the Tower." I -see in the diary, "Cranmer walked rather unsteadily to the Tower to-day, -and we all did badly in consequence." Then came one of Cromwell's -Ironsides whose morion gave him a perpetual headache, followed by my -first full-length, a costume model in tights and slashed doublet whom we -spitefully called "Spindle-Shanks" and greatly disliked. What was my -surprise, long years afterwards, to stumble upon my "Spindle-Shanks" as -"'Christopher Columbus,' by the celebrated painter of etc. etc." I then -remembered I had made a present of him, when finished, to our "char," -much to her embarrassment, I should think. However, she seems to have -got rid of the "white elephant" with profit to herself in course of -time. But I must not let myself loose on those glorious student days, so -full of work and of play, otherwise I would wander too far away from my -subject. It was tempting to linger over that hand-shake. - -I don't think I ever felt such heat as in Florence. As the July sun was -sending every one out of the baking city, shutting up the House of -Deputies, and generally taking the pith out of things, I remember -Bellucci coming into the studio one day with his hair in wisps, and -hinting that it would be as well for me to give myself _un mesetto di -riposo_. I did take that "little month of rest" at our villa, and -sketched the people and the oxen, and mixed a great deal in peasant -society, benefitting thereby in the loss of my Genoese twang under the -influence of their most grammatical Tuscan. The peasant is the most -honourable, religious, and philosophical of mankind. I feel always safe -with peasants and like their conversation and ways. They lead the -natural life. Before daylight, in midsummer, one heard them directing -their oxen at the plough, and after the mid-day siesta they were back at -their work till the Ave Maria. It was a large family that inhabited the -peasant quarters of our villa and worked the landlord's vineyards. How -they delighted in my sketches, in giving me sittings in the intervals of -work, in seeing me doing amateur harvesting with a sickle and helping -(?) them to bind the wheat sheaves and sift the grain. I must often -have been in the way, now I think of it, but never a hint did these -ladies and gentlemen of the horny hand allow to escape to my confusion. -Carlotta, the eldest girl, read me some of the "Jerusalem Delivered" one -full-moon night, to show me how easily one could read small print by the -Italian moonlight. Her mother invited me to dine with the family one day -as they were having a rare repast. Cencio had found two hedgehogs in a -hollow olive-tree, and the _ragout_ that ensued must be tasted by the -_signorina_. Through the door of the kitchen where we dined on that -occasion the two white oxen were seen reposing in the next apartment -after their morning's work. After tasting the _spinoso_ stew, I begged -to be allowed to take a stool in the corner and sketch the whole family -at table, and with the perfect grace of those people I was welcomed to -do so, and I got them all in as they sucked their hedgehog bones in -concert. You were reading Keats in one of the arbours, meanwhile, I -remember. - -I loved those days at Florence where I felt I was making the most of my -time and getting on towards the day when I should paint my first "real" -picture. When next I visited Florence with you for those memorable -vintages at Caravaggio in '75, '76, which I recalled just now to your -remembrance, I had painted my first "real" picture and received in -London more welcome than I deserved or hoped for. - -Twice I have revisited the outside of my Florentine studio in recent -years, not daring to go in. Bellucci is long dead and I don't know who -is there now. Standing under that tall window I have reviewed my career -since the days I worked there. I rejoice to know that my best works are -nearly all in public galleries or in the keeping of my Sovereign. To the -artist, the idea of his works changing hands is never a restful one. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER II - -SIENNA, PERUGIA, AND VESUVIUS - - -A two days' excursion to Sienna at the close of our second vintage at -Caravaggio was a fit _finale_ to the last visit you and I ever paid to -Italy _en garçon_. - -From Tuscany to Etruria--deeper still into the luxury of associating -with the past. Honey-coloured Sienna! It dwells in my memory bathed in -sunshine; the little city like a golden cup overflowing with the riches -it can scarcely hold; the home of St. Catherine and the scene of her -ecstasies and superhuman endeavours: the battlefield of St. Bernardine's -manful struggle against vice and luxury and gambling, so rampant and -unabashed in his time. Everywhere in this city you see, sculptured on -circular plaques of old white marble, let into the walls in street and -square, that monogram which all denominations of Christians know so -well, the I.H.S. with the Cross--_Jesus Hominum Salvator_. Whether the -engraved characters seen on the tombs in the Roman Catacombs were or -were not identical with those three initials and their significance, -they were so regarded by all the Churches for centuries, and the -monogram which St. Bernardine caused to be set up in this way throughout -Sienna was moulded on them in that belief. It was he who caused this -emblem to be so placed that the reluctant public eye could not wholly -avoid it, and who had it illuminated on tablets which he held up to his -congregations at the end of his rousing sermons, thus making that appeal -to the mind through the eye which he relied upon as one of his most -effectual levers. One may say he morally forced the people to recognise -and venerate that Name once more. - -Upon the carved coats-of-arms of Guelph and Ghibelline, which seemed to -gird at each other from the walls, he imposed this sign of peace, and -hence the multiplicity of these lovely symbols I am trying to -recall. They are seals which his strong hand stamped upon his native -place. - -[Illustration: PLOUGHING IN TUSCANY] - -Like all the great saints, Bernardine was practical. The manufacturers -of playing-cards and dice, finding their customers leaving them in -ever-increasing numbers to follow the Franciscan with a fervour which -reached to extraordinary heights, brought their complaints to him. -Bankruptcy was upon them. "Turn your talent to painting this Name on -cards and sell them to the people." This was done, and these little -tablets with the "I.H.S." became endowed with a peculiar sanctity to the -purchasers and sold well, so that little fortunes flowed in to fill the -void left by the fall in playing-cards. All these we spoke of on the -spot, I remember, and I write these words to you who know it all better -than I do, to show you I have not forgotten. - -Sometimes the monogram is inserted in the marble discs in gold on a blue -ground. Do you see again those circles of warm white marble, those -shining letters surrounded with golden rays on the blue centre, the -reflected light in the hollows of the carving, the Italian sky above? -These Siennese blank walls are better employed than those of modern -Rome, where we may see somebody's soap or blacking belauded in our -mother tongue _ad nauseam_. - -"A city set on a hill cannot be hid." How high Sienna is set! A lovelier -bit of man's workmanship was never held aloft for man to see. - -"To appreciate the outside aspect of Sienna we drove out" (I see in my -diary) "to the fortress-villa of Belcaro, with an introduction to the -owner, a recluse, who, though he has been to London once, somewhere in -the 'forties, has never been to Sienna. - -"The drive to this historic villa was through a perfect Pre-Raphaelite -landscape, full of highly-cultivated hillocks, above which the grander -distant country unfolded itself. I apologized to the old Masters for -what I had said of their landscape backgrounds before I had seen the -Siennese middle distances whose type seems to have inspired so many of -them. - -"Each turn in the road gave us a new aspect of the golden-brown city -behind us, on its steep hill. Perhaps the most effective view of it is -from near Belcaro, where you get the dark stone-pines in the immediate -foreground. - -"And the interior of the city! Those narrow streets they call here -_rughe_ and _costarelle_ are fascinating, dipping down to some archway -through which you see, far below, the sudden misty distance of the -rolling campagna, or a peep of a piazza in dazzling sunlight contrasting -with the semi-darkness of the narrow stone lane. So narrow are these -lanes that a pair of oxen drawing a cart all but scrape the side walls -with the points of their enormous horns, and you must manage to avoid a -collision by obliterating yourself in the nearest doorway. We found the -people beautiful. There are no modern abominations in the way of -buildings here, so that one enjoys Sienna with unalloyed pleasure." ... -At last! - -I suppose nothing could be more satisfying to the lover of beauty and of -that dignity which belongs to the great works of architecture of the -past than the aspect of Sienna Cathedral in the light of a September -moon, the planets and stars watching with her over that sanctuary in the -cloudless heavens. - -The silence of a little Italian city like this at night, when the full -moon dispenses with the artificial lighting, is always taking. To-night -the urban silence is broken perhaps by a burst of singing and the -thrumming of a guitar; young fellows with apparently plenty of leisure -are coming jauntily along the pavement singing, "_Oi! Oi! Oi! Tirami la -gamba se tu puoi_," and suddenly dive down a pitch-dark alley; then a -burst of laughter from a cavernous wine-shop; then stillness again. A -dog barks in a garden over whose walls you see where the "blessed moon -tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops." A fountain bubbles and -gushes softly as you come upon its hiding-place in the deep shadow from -a bit of loopholed wall that you scarcely recognize as the one you were -sketching this morning. Hither a few fire-flies, remnants of the summer -host, have strayed from beyond the city ramparts. Footsteps echo in the -silence more than in the day-time; not a wheel is heard, but the -campagna below is heard. It is murmuring with its invisible life of -insects all awake and full of shrill energy--goodness knows about what. -Your own energy is ebbing after the day's enchantment and you feel that -to stroll and sit and look is all the bliss you need. - -I had a revelation at Sienna about frescoes. In this extraordinarily dry -atmosphere you can see, as nowhere else, the fresco as it was originally -intended to appear. I do not know that I liked the effect as I came into -the sacristy of the cathedral and saw Pinturicchio's apparently freshly -painted scenes. These were so true, not only in their linear, but -(strange to say) in their aërial, perspective that the effect was as if -the walls had opened to show us these crowds of figures in gorgeous -halls or airy landscapes _outside_ the building, and the eye was -deceived by a positive illusion. One wants to _feel_ the walls of an -apartment, and when its frescoes are flat and faded, and appearing more -as lovely bits of decorative colour, as we see elsewhere, the eye is -better satisfied. But, looked at as pictures, these richly coloured -works are truly masterly, full of character and natural, realistic -action. - -Much of the beauty of the Middle Ages which we delight in is owing to -the mellowing of Time. When first turned out by painter or mason this -beauty would not so charm the artist. A brandnew feudal castle must have -looked very hard and staring; a walled city like a Brobdingnagian toy -town in a round box. No lichens on those walls; no ivy, no clumps of -wallflowers, or any of those compassionate veils that Nature, if allowed -a free hand, gently lays upon our crudities, and which the modern -Italian _Sindaco_ calls "_indecenza_" and commands to be scraped away. -The mind recognises the rightness of the inevitable bare look of a new -building, but a scraped ruin offends both mind and eye. - - -PERUGIA - -ONE day in April '99 I was reading a fascinating little book by Miss -Duff Gordon on Perugia as I sat on a fallen pine-tree trunk in our wood -at Rosebank in remote Cape Colony. I read it with intenser longing than -ever to be back in the world of art, of history, of culture, of -well-known and well-loved things, and, thinking we were likely to be in -our lovely exile for at least three years (with a short flight home to -England in the interval, perhaps), I thought of several precious things -I would give to be at Perugia in reality. That very day in that very -month of the following year I was there! - -Why do we fret about the future? Vain weakness! In my experience the -future has brought more than I wished for and better things, and the sad -things that have come have been those I had not feared. - -It is a lovely journey from Florence to Perugia--all beautiful, and one -wants to be at both ends of the railway carriage at once so as to miss -nothing. The old brown cities along the route are as frequent as the -Rhine castles; they still have their battlemented walls and gateways to -delight the artist for a long while yet. Perugia did not frown upon us -so mediævally this time, as we drove up the long zigzag to it, as when -you and I first saw it. I think some of the frown has been demolished -since those days, and indeed I do not regret this. They are raising some -good public buildings where, I am told, the old castle stood, and in -these you see lovely pillars of rosy marble or granite quarried from -Assisi. That old castle had gloomy memories for the Italians and had no -claim to stay. - -Like all Italian cities, Perugia has a strongly marked character of its -own. This local character of her cities is one of Italy's richest -possessions. Genoa, brilliant in white, salmon-pink, and buff, the -colouring of her palaces, and scintillating in the sun as it beats upon -her pearl-grey roofs; Florence, sombre with the brown of her local -_pietra serena_ and roofed with the richer brown of her Tuscan tiles; -Verona, regal and stately, throned on the foothills of the Alps, her -rich colouring focussed in the red and tawny curtains which the Veronese -hang before their church doors; Padua, shady with trees, sedate and -academic, on the level, and uniform in tone, a city of arcades; Perugia, -a mountain fortress of brown bricks, her austerity mellowed by the -centuries--what a series they make! How carefully the "Young Nation" -should deal with these precious things that have all come into her -hands! Almost every great city in this land was once a capital. If only -the Italians would build as they used to I should rejoice in seeing -lovely things rising new and strong in the place of decay and thus -giving promise of a new lease of architectural beauty for Italy. But the -pity of it is that most of the new things are characterless and dreary. -Every cultivated Italian deplores the fact and one wonders who the Goths -in authority are that have the doing of these things. - -To you and me there are certain conjunctions of words that carry a swift -sense of delight to the mind. Amongst these none are more appealing than -"the Umbrian Hills." Here in Perugia we are seated amongst them, and -when I saw them again on that magic April day it was towards evening, -and in despairing haste I made the best sketch I could on arriving, from -the hotel window, to try and record those soft sunset tones on the -Perugino landscape. When next morning we were being shown the treasures -in the church of San Pietro, and I was particularly directed to examine -the lovely paintings on the shutters of the sacristy windows, I found it -hard to look at the shutters of windows that opened upon such a -prospect, where lay Assisi on the slopes of the "Umbrian Hills"! - -[Illustration: THE BERSAGLIERI AT THE FOUNTAIN, PERUGIA] - -In the Uffizi, in the Vatican Galleries, it is the same--one eye roving -out of the open windows at the reality that is there! A Lung' Arno with -Bello Sguardo calling to you over the pink almond blossoms on its -slopes; a dome of St. Peter's, silky in its grey sunlit sheen against -the Roman sky--too much, to have such things outside the gallery -windows, distracting you from your studies within. But, of course, it is -the right setting, and if you feel it gives you too much, call to mind -the prospect outside one of the British Museum windows. That, certainly, -will never inconvenience you with distractions; so be thankful for the -"too much." - - -A BIT OF DIARY - -"23_rd April_ 1900.--All day 'on the wander' through ripe old Perugia. A -silent city, full of memories, brimming over with history, lapped in -Art! Everywhere the flowering fruit-trees showed over the brown walls, -the sunshine fell pleasantly on the masses of old unfinished brickwork -and lent them a charm which on a wet day must vanish and leave them in -a grim severity. Quiet tone everywhere; no ornament in the Roman sense, -but here and there exquisite bits of carving and detail such as one can -only find in the flat-surfaced Italian Gothic which is here seen in its -very home. How that flat surface of blank wall spaces and the horizontal -tendency of the design suit the Italian light. Architecture may well be -placed as the most important of the Arts. It adds, if beautiful, to -nature's beauty, showing the height to which the human hand may dare to -rise so as to join hands with the Divine Architect Himself. How it can -disgrace His work we have only too many opportunities of judging! - -"We visited my well-loved church of San Pietro, that treasure-house left -undespoiled by the Italian Government--safeguarded, _not_ as a place of -worship--let that be well understood--but as 'an Art Monument.' So its -pictures and carvings are left in the places their authors intended them -for and not nailed up stark and shivering in a cold, staring museum, -like the poor altar pieces and modest bits of delicate carving that have -been wrenched from their life-long homes in so many churches throughout -this country. True, in the museum the light is good, far better for -showing the artist's work than the 'dim religious light' of a church. -But the painter knew all about the bad light, and still painted his -picture for such and such an altar, not to his own glory, but to the -glory of God. - -"As we were passing once more the rich-toned Duomo and Nicola Pisano's -lovely fountain that stands before it, we saw the fountain suddenly -surrounded by an eruption of Bersaglieri, who woke the echoes of that -erst-while silent Piazza with their songs and chaff. They were on -manoeuvres and were halting here for the day. Shedding heavy hats and -knapsacks, they had run down to fill their canteens and water-barrels. -_Toujours gais_ are the Bersaglieri, and a very pretty sight it was to -see those good-looking healthy lads in their red fatigue fezes unbending -in this picturesque manner. In the evening they were off again with the -fanfaronade of their massed trumpets spurring their _pas gymnastique_ to -the farthest point of swagger, and Perugia returned to its repose. - -"We strolled about the streets by the light of the moon and _felt_ the -silence of those narrow ways. Now a cat would run into the light and -disappear into blackness; a man in a cloak would emerge from a dark -alley, as it were at the back of a stage, and, coming forward into the -moonlight of an open space, look ready to begin a tenor love-song to an -overhanging balcony (the lady not yet to the fore)--the opening scene in -an opera after the overture of the Bersaglieri trumpets. Assuredly this -was old Italy. The one modern touch is a very lovely one. In place of -the old and rank olive-oil lamps of my first visit, burning at street -corners under the little holy images and in the recesses of the -wine-shops, there are drops of exquisite electric light. Thank goodness, -the hideous interval of gas is nearing its extinction in Italy and the -blessed 'white coal' which this country can generate so cheaply by her -abundant water-power, will e'er very long become the agent of her -machine-driven industries and illuminate with soft radiance her gracious -cities. I think the Via Nuova at Genoa, that street of palaces, glowing -in the light of those great electric globes, swung across from side to -side, is a quite splendid bit of modernity, for which I tender the -Genoese my hearty thanks. '_Grazie, Signori!_'" - - -VESUVIUS - -COMMEND me to a darkening winter afternoon amidst the fires of Vesuvius -for bringing the mind down to first principles! This is what we -poetise, and paint, and dance on--this Thing that we are come to gaze -at here in silence, as it shows through certain cracks in this shell we -call the solid earth! "You are here on sufferance," the Thing says to -us, "and you do well to come and see where I show a little bit of -myself. May it do you good. Remember, I am under your feet wherever you -go!" - -Jan. '96--"To-day the fumes from the nether fires came in gusts through -the snorting crater, sending sulphurous smoke rolling down on the keen -north wind straight into our labouring lungs as we pounded through the -ashes on our way up the 'cone.' There is no getting at all near the -hideous mouth; in attempting any such thing one would very soon be over -head and ears in the yellow sulphur and lost beyond recall. I thought of -the fate of a 'mad Englishman,' who, in spite of the warning cries of -the native guides, made a dart for some outlying lesser crater, -declaring he saw a shoe floating in it. Trying to hook out this precious -'shoe' with his walking-stick, he fell in and withered away like a moth -in a candle-flame. - -"I was cheered on to fresh exertions by W.'s encouraging words, -otherwise I think I would have reposed by the wayside at an early stage -of the ascent, yet too proud for a litter. Many of the party went up in -litters ignominiously carried on men's shoulders, but I went through the -whole routine on foot, as I began; only I was inclined to halt at -retardingly frequent intervals. The growls of the mountain every now and -then warned us that a volley of rocks and stones was coming, and, -behold! the bunch of them shot up in a wide arc over our heads. The -crater is a spectacle that gives the mind such occupation as it has not -had before. Talk of the Pyramids and the Sphinx that so overpowered me -at Gizeh! That crater would think it a good joke to chuck them up in the -air. - -"But nothing impressed me into silence so heavily as the sight, later -on, of a lava stream, lower down the mountain-side, issuing in thick -ooze, and crawling slowly from out a gaping cavern. Liquid, deep scarlet -fire was this, of the density, apparently, of oil, advancing like a -fiery death to scorch and consume with slow and even flow--inexorable. -No possibility of approaching its borders; even where we stood the rocks -began to burn our feet. A guide flung a log of wood on the river, and it -spontaneously burst into vivid flame, shrivelled up, and was gone in a -puff of smoke. Turning for rest and solace from the lurid spectacle, -the factitious horrors of the congealed lava all around one only -deepened the sense of gloom. Curling and curdling as they cooled, the -lava streams of bygone times have hardened into the most weird shapes -the imagination could conceive. We seemed to be on a battlefield where -Titan warriors lay distorted in their death agony; enormous mothers -clasped their babies in the embrace of death, and the war-horses were -monsters of pre-historic stature, petrified in the last throes. - -"We could see far, far down on the plain the skeleton of poor little -Pompeii like a minute raised plan delicately modelled in plaster. - -"The thunders of the Bible will reverberate in my mind with more -vitality since our excursion to Vesuvius." - -I found balm in Capri, Amalfi, and all the supreme lovelinesses of the -Neapolitan Riviera to soothe the blisters of the volcano; and if I had -trembled at the thunders of the Bible I was reassured by its blessings, -which seemed embodied in those scenes of Eden. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER III - -ROME - - -Rome! I am almost inclined to leave out this central fact, although I -never kept a fuller diary than I did during those seven months of my -student life there that followed Florence. How can I approach it and say -anything but platitudes on the subject? Every one has tried his or her -hand upon this theme, and many dreadful banalities have come of it; many -pert assertions, ignorant statements, sentimentalities. Rome has always -impressed me as being the centre of the world--not as the Ancient Romans -boasted when they set up their Golden Milestone, but in a higher sense; -and to the artist her atmosphere is known to be exhilarating, some -say "intoxicating." We all feel that physical delight in being there, -whatever views we may entertain in a spiritual sense. Who was the writer -who said that every morning on waking she said to herself, "I am in -Rome!" I believe many tacitly, at least, like to register that fact at -each awakening to another Roman day. - -[Illustration: A MEETING ON THE PINCIAN: FRENCH AND GERMAN SEMINARISTS] - -You and I have of late years seen _l'Eterna_ much changed in her -physical aspect, and have grieved over the fact; yet it is only another -of her many phases that is slowly developing before our eyes. At the -earliest period of which we know enough to imagine her aspect she was -colonnaded, porticoed and white; and the horrible time of her luxurious -decadence saw very much the same huge tenement "sky-scrapers" run up as -we are weeping over to-day. These jerry-buildings tumbled down -occasionally just as they are doing now. Then I see Rome in the Middle -Ages a city of square fortified towers--where are they all? Then comes -the florid period when the dome was dominant as we see it in our time, -and much exuberant bad taste dressed her out fantastically. Now some -very dreadful things in the way of monster houses and wide, straight, -shadeless streets are being committed; but they, too, will pass; but -Rome will remain. Eternal as to the soul the city is ever changing as -to the body. How ugly she must have been when rebuilt in a year after -one of her burnings. There was jerry-building if you like! How awful -after her sack by the Constable of Bourbon when "there was silence in -her streets for three days"! I remember, when I used to look down on the -city from a height in my very early days, wondering whether I had not -been instructed too much in Roman history to enjoy that view to the -extent I should have wished, as an art student, to do. So much cruelty -and suffering had been concentrated in that little space I saw below me. -But the joy of the eye soon banishes for me the sorrow of the mind, and -there is joy enough for the eye in Rome! - -Although I have revisited the well-loved city several times since those -early days, the first visit stands out so much more fully coloured and -intense in local sentiment than the subsequent ones, which seem almost -insipid by comparison. You and I then saw her as she can never be seen -again; we were just in time to know her under the old Papal régime, and -we left three months before the Italians came in and began to rob her of -her unique character. I cannot be too thankful that we have _that_ put -safely away in the treasury of our memories. We saw the Roman citizens -kneeling in masses along the streets as the Pope's mounted _Chasseur_, -in cocked hats and feathers, heralded the approach of Pio Nono's -ponderous coach, in which His Holiness was taking his afternoon airing. -We saw the stately cardinals and bishops in their daily stroll on the -Pincian, receiving the salutes of soldiers and civilians. There were -such constant salutations everywhere, all day long, and such punctilious -acknowledgments from the ecclesiastics that on closing my eyes at night -I always saw shovel hats rising and sinking like flocks of crows -hovering over a harvest-field. - -We saw the sentries on Good Friday mounting guard with arms reversed and -all the flags that day flying at half-mast: the Colosseum was in those -days treated as consecrated ground; more as the scene of Christian -martyrdoms than as a Pagan antiquity. There stood the stations of the -Cross, and there a friar preached every Wednesday during Lent. That -fearsome ruin was then warmly lined with rich flora and various lusty -trees and shrubs that have all been scraped and scoured away in harmony -with the spirit of modern Italy. - -What luck it was for us to be in Rome that wonderful year of 1870, when -the OEcumenical Council filled her streets and churches with every -type of episcopal ecclesiastic from the four quarters of the globe, each -accompanied by his "theologian" and by secretaries in every variety of -dress, from the modern American to the pig-tailed Chinaman. Great times -for the art student, with all these types and colours as subjects for -his pencil! The characteristics and the colour of Rome were thus -multiplied and elaborated to the utmost possible point, up to the very -verge of the Great Cleavage; and we saw it all. - -[Illustration: A LENTEN SERMON IN THE COLOSSEUM] - -The open-air incidents connected with the great Church functions have -left an extraordinarily vivid impression on my mind on account of their -eminently pictorial qualities. I see again the archaic "glass coaches" -of Pope and cardinals, high-swung and seeming to bubble over with -gilding, rumbling slowly up to the Church door where the ceremony is to -take place, over the cobblestones, behind teams of fat black steeds, the -leaders' scarlet traces sweeping the ground. The occupants of these -wonderful vehicles are glowing like rubies in their ardent robes, which -flood their faces with red reflections in the searching sunshine. A -prelate in exquisite lilac, mounted on a white mule with black -housings, bears a jewelled cross, sparkling in the sun, before the -Pope's carriage; the postilions, coachmen, and lackeys are -eighteenth-century figures come to life again, and, truth to tell, they -might have brought their liveries over with them, furbished up for the -occasion. Not much public money seems appropriated for new liveries in -the Papal household, nor in that of the College of Cardinals. Then, the -medley of modern soldiers that take part officially and unofficially in -these scenes--the off-duty zouaves, with bare necks outstretched, -cheering frantically, "Long live the Pope-King," in many languages; the -French Legion inclined to criticise the old liveries--it all seems to me -like the happening of yesterday! And I see the rain of flowers falling -on the kindly old Pope from the spectators in the balconies, where rich -draperies give harmonious backgrounds to all this colour. - -Times are changed at home as well as in Rome. Where are the gorgeous -equipages I used to wonder at as a child on drawing-room days, that made -St. James' Street a scene of gold and colour of surpassing richness? -Where are the bewigged coachmen stiff with bullion, throned on the -resplendent hammercloths of their boxes? Where the six-foot footmen -hanging on in bunches behind, in liveries pushed to the utmost limit of -extravagant finery? We only see these things on exceptional occasions -(certainly the six-footers are not grown nowadays), and the quiet landau -or motor harmonises better with our modern taste. - -Finally, we saw the last Papal Benediction to be given from the façade -of St. Peter's on that memorable Easter Sunday, 1870. The scene was made -especially notable in its pictorial effect by the masses of bishops, all -in snow-white copes and mitres, who completely filled the terrace above -the colonnade on the Vatican side of the Piazza. What a symphony of -white they made up there, partly in the luminous shadow of the long -awning, partly in the blazing sunshine. Some of the illuminated ones -used their mitres as parasols. Such a huge _parterre_ of prelates had -never been beheld before. It was a _parterre_ of human lilies. My diary -exclaims, "Oh! for Leighton's genius to paint it. It was entirely in his -style--composition, colour, and sentiment. The balustrade was hung with -mellow, old, faded tapestry, and above the bishops' heads rose those -dark old stone statues that tell so well against the sky." I remember -the moment of intense silence that fell on the multitude a little -before Pio Nono, wearing the Triple Crown, stood up and, in a loud -voice, gave forth "to the city and to the world" the mighty words of -blessing from the little balcony far up aloft. And I remember, too, how -that sudden silence seemed to cause a strange uneasiness amongst the -cavalry and artillery horses, which all began to neigh. - -On this great day the white and yellow flag, emblem of the Temporal -Power, waved upon the light spring breeze wherever one turned. How -little we dreamt that in a few months that flag was to be hauled down, -drawn under by the fall of the greatest military Empire then in -existence! - -As a postscript, do not let us forget the races of the riderless horses -that took place at the end of Carnival. Those scenes are before me now, -quite fresh, revived by the little old diary. I am glad I have still my -sketch-books that give me the outlines of these and other scenes that -are gone for ever from the world. - -There is the wide round Piazza del Popolo, like an amphitheatre; the -sun, near its setting, is tinging the upper portion of the great -Egyptian obelisk, which is the starting-post for the occasion, with -crimson, the base remaining in cool grey shade. Much stamping of hoofs -and champing of bits in the ranks of the Dragoons, who are preparing to -clear the Corso; French infantry forming up on either side of the -starting-place; the crowds in the stands expectant, many units in -carnival costume, and masked. Away go the Dragoons, splitting the crowd -that blocks the entrance to the darkening, narrow Corso. They return at -a gallop, having ridden to the end and back, and divide to take up their -positions. Then the barbs, painted in spots and stripes, are brought on -gingerly. The least jerk and it's no use trying to form a line; they -must be let go; the spiked balls, now unfastened and dangling, are -beginning to prick in spite of all the care. One after the other the -maddened creatures plunge and tug at the restraining grip of the -convicts who act as grooms on this occasion, and who literally hold -their lives in their hands,--it all passes in a quarter of a minute; -down goes the rope, a gun is fired, shouts and clapping of hands ring -through the chilly air, and the eleven furious horses plunge into the -dark street, the squibs and tin-foil on their backs explode and crackle, -the spiked balls bang against their sides. Spurts of sparks fly from -their iron heels brightly in the twilight. One horse, perhaps, slips on -the cobblestones, rolls over, picks himself up, and follows the -others, straining every nerve. They are gone--engulfed in the dark -passage, some to be recovered only after several days, wandering in the -Campagna, having burst through the sheet spread to stop them at the -finish. - -[Illustration: THE START FOR THE HORSE RACE, ROME] - -I often wondered which ordeal a horse would prefer, if he were given the -choice--this one, for a mile, or that of a great English race, with a -jockey on his back with thousands of pounds to win or lose, armed with a -steel whip and a pair of severe spurs! I never wholly enjoy a horse-race -in any shape because of these goads in various forms. - -Anyhow, I am glad these Roman races have been abolished. - -I felt greatly elated when setting up work on my own account, which I -did very soon after my arrival from Florence and Bellucci. He had told -me at parting that I could "walk by myself" now, and I very soon walked -up the steps of the Trinità to choose my first model. You remember how -those costumed loafers used to sun themselves on the steps at that time? -I had a half-frightened, half-delighted thrill when choosing my first -_Ciociaro_. It was the Judgment of Paris transposed. Three of them, in -peaked hats and goatskins, stood grinning and posing before the English -_signorina_ while the Papal zouave sentry and the whole lot of male and -female models looked on and listened. When I gave the apple to Antonio -on account of his good brown face and read waistcoat, and engaged him -for the morrow, I felt I had started. - -What trouble mamma and I had had in trying to find a studio. A young -lady working by herself! A thing unknown--no one would let me a studio, -so we ended with the makeshift you remember in our apartment. "That -comes of being a woman at starting," exclaimed mamma. - -I can never pass No. 56 Via Babuino without pausing and looking up at -one of the top windows where my head hung out one morning, watching my -model in the street below for half an hour and wondering how long he -meant to saunter up and down with his eye on the Church clock opposite -instead of coming up. I had engaged him for eight o'clock for an -eight-hour day (_giornata finita_), and there he was, strolling away a -franc's worth of sitting on purpose. "But, Signorina, one cannot always -arrive to the very instant," was the villain's excuse on coming in. I -said nothing of what I had seen out of the window. Dear old Francesco, -he was much prized for his laugh, which he could keep up for twenty -minutes at a time. I had already seen it in a picture in London. Of -course I had a try, too, and it brought me luck, for the picture where -it appears was the first Oil I sold. - -Let me remind you of the Pope's International Exhibition of -Ecclesiastical Art held that winter, for which I painted "The -Visitation." The Fine Art section was shown in the Cloisters of Sa. -Maria degli Angeli in the Baths of Diocletian. I laugh even now when I -recall the way in which my poor picture was launched into the world. -After its acceptance by the committee, I had to get a pass for its -admission into the exhibition building from the Minister of Commerce, -the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Cardinal B. Mamma and I had to wait -an age in his ante-room, conscious of being objects of extraordinary -curiosity to the crowd of men artists who were there on the same errand -as myself. Evidently artists of our sex were rarities in Italy. At last -our turn came to go in, and, after many formalities and much polite -bowing from l_'Eminentissimo_ and _riverendissimo_, I signed the several -papers, and proudly followed my mamma back through the waiting artists, -holding my roll of papers before me. We were informed that, being women, -we could not take the picture ourselves into the Cloisters, as no order -had been given to admit ladies into the monastic precincts before the -opening. So our dear father sallied forth on foot with my pass to Sa. -Maria, mamma and I following in a little hired Victoria, holding the big -picture before us (no mean handful) to keep it from tumbling out, while -hidden, ourselves, from the public eye by the carriage hood. We arrived -at the entrance to the forbidden cloisters too soon, as papa had not -arrived, and the gendarmes stopped us and told us to drive out of the -court again. We pulled up, therefore, on the threshold, with our faces -turned in the contrary direction, when the horrible hood flew back and -revealed us, holding on to the picture with straining arms and knitted -brows, to the grinning soldiers gathered about the place. Our dear -father and Mr. Severn (Keats' friend in youth) soon came to the rescue, -and, with the aid of two _facchini_, they took my _magnum opus_ and -disappeared with it into the gloom of the _Thermæ_. - -Dear, kind old Mr. Severn, he seemed so pleased to help me in my initial -struggles in Rome! When I next visited Keats' grave there, long years -afterwards with W., I found another tombstone alongside of the Poet's. -There was a palette sculptured on it in place of the other one's lyre, -and one little box hedge held the two friends within its embrace. What -made Oliver Wendell Holmes (if it was he) say the scent of box was the -scent of Eternity? I do not know the context of the passage, but I think -the idea might strike a sensitive perception in some Italian cemetery, -where that most touching perfume is always on the air, and Eternity -plays about our minds on the scent of the box. - - * * * * * - -_From the Diary_ - -_Feb._ 1906.--"And now Good-bye, Rome! I hope not a final farewell. I -have been up to the Villa Medici to see across the city, on this my last -evening, that dome which no one can ever look at unmoved, just at the -hour which at this time of year brings the setting sun behind it, so -that the crimson central ray seems to spring from the cross on the -summit. Shutting out with my hand all intervening objects I seemed to -see that purple dome floating in mid-air, a link between earth and -heaven; a living token of the intercourse between the two, poised far -above the dead ruins of the Pagan Past that lay low, in shadow, to the -eastward. Good-bye." - - - - -INDEX - -_The titles of pictures are printed in italics._ - - -Abassieh, 42 - -Abu Simbel, 75 - -Achill Island, 17 - -Alexandria, 77 - -Amalfi, 159 - -Ancona, 79 - -Assisi, 151 - -Assouan, 62 - -Atfeh, 81 - -Athlone, 22 - -Atlantic, South, 102 - - -Belcaro, 146 - -Bello Sguardo, 153 - -Bersaglieri, 155 - -Brindisi, 79 - - -Cairo, 32 - -Camels, 42 - -Cape Colony, 107 - -Cape, the: "Cape Flats," 120 - _A corner of our Garden at Rosebank_, 104 - "_In the hollow of His Hand_," 97 - _The Inverted Crescent_, 113 - -Capri, 159 - -Capuchins, 135 - -Caravaggio, 126 - -Carran Thual, 5 - -Clare, 21 - -Clew Bay, 16 - -Clonmacnoise, 24 - -Colosseum, 163 - -Comombos, 67 - -Conscription, 57 - -Constantia, 118 - -Croagh Patrick, 16 - -Cromwell, 25 - - -Delta, 77 - Western, 80 - -Dervishes, 40 - -Dickens, Charles, 132 - -Dormer, Sir James, 41 - - -Edfoo, 64 - -Edwards, Miss Amelia, 76 - -Egypt: _Abu Simbel at Sunrise_, 76 - _A "lament" in the Desert_, 70 - _At Philæ_, 67 - _In a Cairo Bazaar_, 33 - _Madame's "At Home" Day_, 81 - _Registering Fellaheen for the Conscription_, 56 - _Syndioor, on the Lower Nile_, 97 - _The Camel Corps_, 40 - _The English General's Syce_, 49 - _The Hour of Prayer_ (_Frontispiece_) - The Nile: _The "Fostât" becalmed_, 62 - The Nile: "_No Mooring To-night_," 59 - -Esneh, 64 - -Etruria, 143 - - -False Bay, 110 - -Fiesole, 137 - -Florence, 125, 151 - -Fort St. Julien, 83 - -Funchal, 92 - - -Gaelic, 8 - -Garibaldi, 131 - -Genoa, 151, 156 - -Ginniss, 32, 61 - -Glenaragh, 3 - -Gordon, 32, 72 - Miss Duff, 150 - - -Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 173 - - -Ireland: _"A Chapel-of-Ease," Co. Kerry_, 8 - _A Little Irish River_, 24 - _Clew Bay, Co. Mayo_, 20 - _Croagh Patrick_, 17 - _Our Escort into Glenaragh_, 1 - -Irish Guards, 14 - - -Karnac, 56 - -Keats, 172 - -Kerry, 6 - -Kensington, South, 138 - -Khartoum, 32 - -Killaloe, 22 - -Korosko, 72 - - -Leprechaun, 8 - -Lough Acoose, 5 - Derg, 22 - Leane, 4 - -Lung' Arno, 153 - -Luxor, 32, 55 - - -Madeira, 92 - -Mahmoudieh, 81 - Canal, 86 - -Malays, 115 - -Mayo, 15 - -Milky Way, 106 - -Mulranny, 16 - - -Native Camel Corps, 42 - -Nervi, 129 - -Nile, 32 - Lower, 77 - -Nubia, 71 - - -OEcumenical Council, 165 - - -Paarl, 113 - -Padua, 151 - -Palestine, 86 - -Papal Benediction, 166 - -Payne, Mr., 93 - -Perugia, 150 - _The Bersaglieri at the Fountain_, 152 - -Philæ, 68 - -Piazza del Popolo, 167 - -Pio Nono, 163 - -Pius X., 134 - -Pole Star, 101 - -Pompeii, 159 - -Pyramids, 47 - - -Riviera di Levante: _A Son of the Soil_, 126 - -Rome, 133, 160 - _A Lenten Sermon in the Colosseum_, 164 - _A Meeting on the Pincian_, 161 - _The Start for the Horse Race_, 168 - -Rosetta, 80 - Stone, 84 - -Ruffo, 85 - - -Sakkara, 47 - -Sarras, 83 - -Schreiner, Olive, 113 - -Servants, 99 - -Severn, Mr., 172 - -Shannon, 22 - Bridge, 23 - -Sienna, 143 - -Signa, 65, 125, 136 - -Silsileh, 67 - -Simon's Town, 110 - -Soudan, 83 - -Southern Cross, 107 - -Sphinx, 47 - -Stellenbosch, 113 - -Stone-pines, 115 - -Syces, 44 - -Syndioor, 84 - - -Table Mountain, 104 - Thebes, 80 - -Tivoli, 46 - -Tomb of Ti, 48 - -Tombs of the Mameluks, 42 - -Tropics, 101 - -Tuscany, 123, 143 - _Bringing in the Grapes_, 123 - _Ploughing in_, 145 - - -Umbrian Hills, 153 - - -Venice, 47, 78 - -Verona, 151 - -Vesuvius, 156 - - -Wady Halfa, 72 -Sabooah, 74 - - -THE END - -_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. - - * * * * * - -This typographical error has been corrected by the etext transcriber: - -hear noctural frogs=> -hear nocturnal frogs {pg 108} - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's From sketch-book and diary, by Elizabeth Butler - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM SKETCH-BOOK AND DIARY *** - -***** This file should be named 40925-8.txt or 40925-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/9/2/40925/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: From sketch-book and diary - -Author: Elizabeth Butler - -Release Date: October 3, 2012 [EBook #40925] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM SKETCH-BOOK AND DIARY *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40925 ***</div> <hr class="full" /> @@ -4243,385 +4207,6 @@ hear nocturnal frogs {pg 108} <hr class="full" /> - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's From sketch-book and diary, by Elizabeth Butler - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM SKETCH-BOOK AND DIARY *** - -***** This file should be named 40925-h.htm or 40925-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/9/2/40925/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: From sketch-book and diary - -Author: Elizabeth Butler - -Release Date: October 3, 2012 [EBook #40925] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM SKETCH-BOOK AND DIARY *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - -FROM SKETCH-BOOK AND DIARY - -BY THE SAME AUTHOR - -LETTERS FROM THE HOLY LAND - -CONTAINING 16 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR -FROM PAINTINGS BY THE AUTHOR - -"Charmingly natural and spontaneous travel impressions with sixteen -harmonious illustrations. The glow, spaciousness and atmosphere of these -Eastern scenes are preserved in a way that eloquently attests the -possibilities of the best colour process work."--_Outlook_. - -"The letters in themselves afford their own justification; the sketches -are by Lady Butler, and when we have said that we have said all. -Combined, they make a book that is at once a delight to the eye and a -pleasure to handle. The coloured illustrations, marvellously well -reproduced, provide in a panoramic display faithful representations of -the Holy Land as it is seen to-day. They make a singularly attractive -collection, worthy of the distinguished artist who painted them."--_St. -James's Gazette_. - -A. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE LONDON - -AGENTS - -America The Macmillan Company - 64 & 66 Fifth Avenue, New York - -Australasia The Oxford University Press - 205 Flinders Lane, Melbourne - -Canada The Macmillan Company of Canada, Ltd. - 27 Richmond Street West, Toronto - -India Macmillan & Company, Ltd. - Macmillan Building, Bombay - 309 Bow Bazaar Street, Calcutta - -[Illustration: THE HOUR OF PRAYER, A SOUVENIR OF WADY HALFA] - - - - -FROM SKETCH-BOOK -AND DIARY - -BY - -ELIZABETH BUTLER - -WITH TWENTY-EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR -AND TWENTY-ONE SMALL SKETCHES IN THE TEXT -BY THE AUTHOR - -[Illustration: colophon] - -LONDON - -ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, W. - -BURNS AND OATES, 28 ORCHARD STREET, W. -1909 - - - - -Dedication - -TO MY SISTER, ALICE MEYNELL - - -I have an idea of writing to you, most sympathetic Reader, of certain -days and nights of my travels that have impressed themselves with -peculiar force upon my memory, and that have mostly rolled by since you -and I set out, at the Parting of the Ways, from the paternal roof-tree, -within three months of each other. - -First, I want to take you to the Wild West Land of Ireland, to a glen in -Kerry, where, so far, the tourist does not come, and then on to remote -Clew Bay, in the County Mayo. - -After that, come with me up the Nile in the time that saw the close of -the Gordon Relief Expedition, when the sailing "Dahabieh," most -fascinating of house-boats, was still the vogue for those who were not -in a hurry, and when again the tourist (of that particular year) was -away seeking safer picnic grounds elsewhere. - -Then to the Cape and the voyage thither, which may not sound alluring, -but where you may find something to smile at. - -I claim your indulgence, wherever I ask you to accompany me, for my -painter's literary crudities; but nowhere do I need it more than in -Italy, for you have trodden that field with me almost foot by foot. The -veil to which I trust for softening those asperities elsewhere must fall -asunder there. - -I have made my Diary, and in the case of the Egyptian chapters, my -letters to our mother, the mainsprings from which to draw these -reminiscences. - -Bansha CASTLE, _July_ 1909. - - - - -CONTENTS - - -I. IN THE WEST OF IRELAND - -CHAPTER I - PAGE -GLANARAGH 3 - -CHAPTER II - -COUNTY MAYO IN 1905 15 - - -II. EGYPT - -CHAPTER I - -CAIRO 31 - -CHAPTER II - -THE UPPER NILE 55 - -CHAPTER III - -ALEXANDRIA 77 - - -III. THE CAPE - -CHAPTER I - -TO THE CAPE 91 - -CHAPTER II - -AT ROSEBANK, CAPE COLONY 105 - - -IV. ITALY - -CHAPTER I - -VINTAGE-TIME IN TUSCANY 123 - -CHAPTER II - -Sienna, Perugia, and Vesuvius 143 - -CHAPTER III - -ROME 160 - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - -IN COLOUR - -1. The Hour of Prayer, A Souvenir of Wady Halfa _Frontispiece_ - - -IRELAND - - FACING PAGE - -2. Our Escort into Glenaragh 1 - -3. "A Chapel-of-Ease," Co. Kerry 8 - -4. Croagh Patrick 17 - -5. Clew Bay, Co. Mayo 20 - -6. A Little Irish River 24 - - -EGYPT - -7. In a Cairo Bazaar 33 - -8. The Camel Corps 40 - -9. The English General's Syces 49 - -10. Registering Fellaheen for the Conscription 56 - -11. "No Mooring To-night!" 59 - -12. The "Fostat" becalmed 62 - -13. At Philae 67 - -14. A "Lament" in the Desert 70 - -15. Abu Simbel at Sunrise 76 - -16. Madame's "At Home" Day; Servants at the Gate 81 - -17. Syndioor on the Lower Nile 88 - - -THE CAPE - -18. "In the Hollow of His Hand" 97 - -19. A Corner of our Garden at Rosebank 104 - -20. The Inverted Crescent 113 - -21. The Cape "Flats" 120 - - -ITALY - -22. Bringing in the Grapes 123 - -23. A Son of the Soil, Riviera di Levante 126 - -24. Ploughing in Tuscany 145 - -25. The Bersaglieri at the Fountain, Perugia 152 - -26. A Meeting on the Pincian: French and German -Seminarists 161 - -27. A Lenten Sermon in the Colosseum 164 - -28. The Start for the Horse Race, Rome 168 - -Also head and tail pieces in black and white on pp. 2, 3, 15, 27, -28, 30, 31, 54, 55, 76, 77, 88, 90, 91, 104, 105, 122, 123, -142, 143, and 160. - -[Illustration: OUR ESCORT INTO GLENARAGH] - - - - -I - -IN THE WEST OF IRELAND - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER I - -GLENARAGH - - -My diary must introduce you to Glenaragh, where I saw a land whose -beauty was a revelation to me; a new delight unlike anything I had seen -in my experiences of the world's loveliness. To one familiarized from -childhood with Italy's peculiar charm, a sudden vision of the Wild West -of Ireland produces a sensation of freshness and surprise difficult -adequately to describe. - -"--_June_ '77.--At Killarney we left the train and set off on one of the -most enchanting carriage journeys I have ever made, passing by the -lovely Lough Leane by a road hedged in on both sides with masses of the -richest May blossom. For some distance the scenery was wooded and soft, -almost too perfect in composition of wood, lake, river, and mountain; -but by degrees we left behind us those scenes of finished beauty, and -entered upon tracts of glorious bog-land which, in the advancing -evening, impressed me beyond even my heart's desire by their breadth of -colour and solemn tones. I was beginning to taste the salt of the Wilds. - -"The scenery grew more rugged still, and against ranges of distant -mountains jutted out the strong grey and brown rocks, the stone cairns -and cabins of the Wild West land. - -"To be a figure-painter and full of interest in mankind does not mean -that one cannot enjoy, from the depths of one's heart, such scenes as -these, where what human habitations there are, are so like the stone -heaps that lie over the face of the land that they are scarcely -distinguishable from them. When observed they only convey to the mind -the sense of the feebleness of man, overpowered as he is here by the -might of the primeval landscape. This human atom stands timidly at his -black cabin door to see the stranger pass, often half-witted through -privation; or he silently tills the little patch of land he has borrowed -from the strong and barbarous earth that yields him so little. - -"The mighty 'Carran Thual,' one of the mountain group which rises out of -Glenaragh and dominates the whole land of Kerry, was ablaze with burning -heather, its peak sending up a glorious column of smoke which spread out -at the top for miles and miles and changed its exquisite smoke tints -every minute as the sun sank lower. As we reached the rocky pass that -took us by the wild and remote Lough Acoose that sun had gone down -behind an opposite mountain, and the blazing heather glowed brighter as -the twilight deepened, and circles of fire played fiercely and weirdly -on the mountain-side. Our Glen gave the 'Saxon lady' its grandest -illumination on her arrival. - -"Wild strange birds rose from the bracken as we passed, and flew -strongly away over lake and mountain torrent, and the little black Kerry -cows all watched us go by with ears pricked and heads inquiringly -raised. The last stage of the journey had a brilliant _finale_. A herd -of young horses was in our way in the narrow road, and the creatures -careered before us, unable or too stupid to turn aside into the ditches -by the roadside to let us through. We could not head them, and for fully -a mile did those shaggy wild things caper and jump ahead, their manes -flying out wildly with the glow from the west shining through them. Some -imbecile cows soon joined them in the stampede, for no imaginable -reason, unless they enjoyed the fright of being pursued, and the -ungainly progress of those recruits was a sight to behold,--tails in the -air and horns in the dust. The troop led the way right into the eye of -the sunset. With this escort we entered Glenaragh. - - * * * * * - -"--_June_ 1877.--We rode in to-night after a long excursion amidst the -mountains of this wild land of Kerry, rode down into the glen where our -little inn stands in a clump of birch and arbutus trees. That northern -light which in these high latitudes and at this season carries the -after-light of the sunset on into the dawn, lighted our path for the -last hour with surprising power. Were we sufficiently far north, of -course, the sun itself would not dip below the horizon at all, but here -we have only the upper portion of his aureole from his setting to his -rising. Oh! the wild freedom of these mountain paths, the scent of the -cabin turf fires, the round west wind rolling through the heather; what -cool wells of memories they fill up for the thirsty traveller in desert -places far away. That west wind! This is the first land it has swept -with its wings since it left the coasts of Labrador. For purity, for -freshness, for generosity, give me the Wild West wind of Ireland. - -"'Carran Thual' is still on fire; it signals each night back to the -northern light across the glen in a red glare of burning heather. The -moon, now in her first quarter, looks green-gold by contrast with all -this red of sky and flame, and altogether our glen gives us, these -nights, such a display of earthly and heavenly splendour that it seems -one should be a spectator all night of so much beauty. And to this -concert of colour runs the subtle accompaniment of rushing water, for -all these mountains are laced with silvery torrents leaping down to the -lakes and rivers that reflect the glory of the sky. Glenaragh! loveliest -of wild valleys, where is the poet that should make thee the theme of -his songs? - -"Coming through 'Windy Gap' in this illuminated gloaming we met a lonely -horseman riding fast, a rope for his bridle, his pony very shaggy. He -passed us over the rocks and rolling stones, and, looking back, we saw -his bent figure jet black against the west for a moment, ere he dipped -down through the 'Gap' out of sight. We knew who he was. Some peasant -was dying on the mountain-side beyond, and the priest was anxious to be -in time with the Viaticum. - -"A strange little creature came out of the kitchen of the inn to see us -after supper, and I made the acquaintance of a Leprechaun. Tiny, grey, -bald little manikin; a 'fairy,' the people call him. I do not want to -know why they are like that. I would rather leave them mysterious and -unexplained. - - * * * * * - -"The people speak Gaelic here, amongst themselves, and the priest -preaches in it in the little chapel with the mud floor up on the hill -over the torrent. The language and the torrent seem to speak alike, -hurrying headlong. - -[Illustration: "A CHAPEL-OF-EASE," CO. KERRY] - -"But the chapel! Shall I ever forget the tub of holy water, on my first -Sunday, placed before the rickety little altar on the mud floor, where -the people, on coming in, splashed the water up into their faces? The -old women had all brought big bottles from their homes in far-away glens -to fill at the tub, and nothing could surpass the comicality of -their attitudes as they stooped over their pious business, all wearing -the hooded cloak that made them look as broad as they were long. One old -lady, in her nice white cap, monopolized the tub an unconscionably long -time, for, catching sight of her wind-tossed tresses in that -looking-glass, she finished her devout ablutions by smoothing her few -grey hairs with her moistened fingers into tidy bands, with alternate -signs of the cross. The windows were all broken, and the men and boys -stuffed the holes with their hats and caps to keep out the mountain -blast. - -"Last Sunday, a very hot day, the tub happened to be placed outside the -door, and it was well my horse was not tied up within reach, or a former -catastrophe might have been repeated, and a 'blessed baist' have carried -me home. The heat in the rickety little gallery, where the 'quality' -have their seats, was such that I went out into the open air and -followed the rest of the service with a rock for my hassock, and two -rosy pigs toddling about me in that friendly way I notice as -characteristic of all the animals in these parts. They seem to feel they -are members of the family, and you see calves, goats, pigs, and donkeys -sauntering in and out of the cabin doors in a free-and-easy harmony -with the human beings which takes my fancy greatly. But the beasts are -by far the happiest; their lives seem passed in perfect contentment and -satisfaction, whereas the poor human animals have a hard struggle for -existence in this stony and difficult land of Kerry. - -"The other day when W. and I dismounted at a cabin door on a wild -mountain that holds, still higher up, a little dark lake which the -people declare has no bottom to it, and on the shores of which 'worms as -big as a horse' come out and bellow in the evenings, the gaunt pig that -seemed to act watch-dog charged at me like a wild boar and sent me home -in 'looped and windowed raggedness.' I never thought to find excess of -zeal in a pig! The inmates of the cabin could not do enough for us to -make up for such want of reticence. - -"On one occasion at church in Tipperary, I noticed a rather satanic goat -come pattering up the church and occupy an empty pew, where he lay down -with perfect self-complacency and remained quiescent, chewing the cud, -while we knelt; but each time the congregation stood up, up jumped the -goat, his pale eyes and enormous horns just appearing over the high -front of the pew. Then as we knelt again he would subside also, till he -was startled to his feet once more by the rustle of the people rising, -and then his wild head was again visible over the top of the pew, -staring about him. Not a single person took any notice of the weird -creature or seemed to think him out of place or at all funny. And so he -continued to rise and fall with the rest to the end. - -"Our chapel here is too small for the congregation that streams in from -places as far as fifteen miles away among the mountains, and on one -pouring wet Sunday I saw the strangest rendering of what is called 'a -chapel-of-ease.' Not much 'ease' there, for some dozen men and youths -who could find no place inside were kneeling about the door in running -water, with a stone placed under each knee. Every day I see some -incident or episode which has for me a surprise and all the charm of a -new and striking experience. I feel more 'abroad' in this country than I -do on the Continent. - -"See, again, this little scene. A friend journeying to our inn and -missing the road got belated in the defiles of the 'Reeks.' Dismounting -at one of those mud cabins, which, at a little distance, are -indistinguishable from their rocky surroundings, to ask the way, he was -invited inside and offered a meal. The light was waning, so two little -girls stood on either side of the stranger, each holding a bit of -lighted candle as he sat at table. These wild-eyed and ragged little -creatures made a pretty pair of dining-table candlesticks! I wish I -could have seen them in the dim twilight of the black, smoke-dimmed -cabin interior, their faces lighted by the candle flame. - -"The beauty of the children here is a constant pleasure to me. We are -here in the land of blue eyes and black lashes, or golden ones, when the -hair, as it so frequently is, is ruddy. The young women are quite -beautiful. I wish a painter of female beauty could have seen the girl we -passed to-day who was minding some calves in a bit of bog-land bordered -with birch-trees. It was a symphony of green; her head shawl was green -plaid, her petticoat another tone of green, the background and all her -surroundings gave every cool and delicious variation of green, and her -ruddy limbs and red-gold hair, tossed by the breeze and shone through by -the sun, looked richer in colour by the contrast. Her great blue eyes -looked shyly at us and the shawl soon covered her laughing face. What a -sweet picture, 'In the Green Isle'! - -"Every day I am more and more struck with the light-heartedness and -gaiety of the animals. Whether it is emphasized by the poverty-stricken -and quiet, saddened, demeanour of the human beings in these parts I -cannot tell, but certainly the beasts seem to have the best of it. As to -the dogs that belong to the mud cabins, never have I seen such jolly -dogs, full of comic ways, especially when in puppy-hood, and all so -valiant in confronting us as we near their strongholds. But on our near -approach that puppy who looks mighty fierce afar off usually bolts under -some door and sticks there. Then the pigs, who generally are less -valiant than our wild boar of Lough Cluen, seized with apparent panic, -rush round and round in the yard, and the flurried ducks that scuttle -from under our horses' hoofs end by falling on their sides in the -ditches--surely all in fun? And invariably the cows and calves by the -way-side prefer to be pursued along the roads, and keep up a splendid -burst of galloping with tails in the air for miles before a tumble -happening to one of them suggests a movement to the rear. All the lower -creatures are 'jolly dogs' here, and only man is care-worn." - -In the autumn we came back to our well-loved glen, and I gathered -materials there for my first _married_ Academy picture--the 'Recruits -for the Connaught Rangers.' W. found me two splendid 'bog-trotters' for -models. The elder of the two had the finer physique, and it was -explained to me that this was owing to his having been reared on -herrings as well as potatoes, whereas the other, who lived up in the -mountains, away from the sea, had not known the luxury of the herring. I -wish we could get more of these men into our army. W. at that time was -developing suggestions for forming a Regiment of Irish Guards, and I was -enthusiastic in my adhesion to such a project and filling the imaginary -ranks with big men like my two models. However, he was some twenty-three -years too soon, and the honour had to be won for Ireland through yet -another big war. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER II - -COUNTY MAYO IN 1905 - - -I wish you would make a summer tour to Mayo. It is simple; yet what a -change of scene, of sensations, of thoughts one secures by this simple -and direct journey--Euston, Holyhead, Dublin, Mulranny. You travel right -across Ireland, getting a very informing vista of the poverty and -stagnation of those Midland counties till your eyes greet the glorious -development of natural beauty on the confines of the sea-girt Western -land. I went there tired from London and came on a scene of the most -perfect repose imaginable, with the sound of the motor buses still -buzzing in my ears. - -Mulranny is supremely healthy--a place of rosy cheeks and sunburn, -bracing yet genial, clear-aired, majestic in its scenery, unspoilt. As -you near your journey's end and enter Mayo the change in the scenery -from the emptiness of Roscommon develops rapidly. Magnificent mountains -rise on the horizon, and the grandeur of the landscape grows into -extraordinary beauty as the train rounds into Clew Bay. The great cone -of Croagh Patrick rises in striking isolation at first, and then the -surrounding mountains, one by one, join it in lovely outlines against -the fresh _clean_ sky. It was a beautiful afternoon when I was -introduced to this memorable landscape, and the waters of the Bay were -quite calm. After sunset the crescent moon gave the culminating charm to -the lovely scene in the west, while to the south the red planet Mars -flamed above Croagh Patrick, and all this beauty was mirrored in the -Bay. What an emancipation from the fret and fuss of little Piccadilly in -a hot July to find oneself before these mountain forms and colours that -have not changed since the cooling of the earth. You might travel -farther a great way and not find such a virgin land. - -[Illustration: CROAGH PATRICK] - -And there is Achill Island, a one-day's excursion from Mulranny, -poignantly melancholy in its beauty and remoteness beyond anything I -have seen in the west. Achill has often been described; it holds the -traveller's attention with a wild appeal to his heart; but I don't know -that one little detail of that land "beyond the beyond" has ever been -described. It is Achill's mournful little Pompeii, a village of the -dead, on a bare hillside, which we passed one day on our way to an -unfrequented part of the island. This village was deserted in the awful -famine year of '47, some of the inhabitants creeping away in fruitless -search of work and food to die farther afield, others simply sinking -down on the home sod that could give them nothing but the grave. In the -bright sunshine its roofless cabins and grass-grown streets looked more -heart-breaking than they might have done in dismal rain. I wish I could -have made a sketch of it as I saw it that day--a subject strongly -attracting the attention of the mind rather than the eye. Pictorial -beauty there was none. - -Everywhere in this country there is that heart-piercing contrast between -natural beauty and human adversity--that companionship of sun and -sorrow. But the light and the darkness seem blended by the unquestioning -faith of these rugged Christians into a solemn unity and harmony before -which any words of mine sound only like so much dilettantism. - -See here another bit of chapel interior. A rough, plain little building, -too formless to be picturesque, packed with peasant men, women, and -children. Where but in Ireland could such a scene take place as I -witnessed there? The priest, before the beginning of the service, gave a -tremendous swish of holy water to the congregation with a mop out of a -zinc pail, from the altar. He had previously heard nearly half the -congregation's confessions, men, women, boys, and girls kneeling in turn -beside his chair at one side of the altar, without any sort of screen. I -wondered, as they pressed round him, that they did not overhear each -other, but indeed I reflected that would be "no matther whativer," as -these people must have but little to tell! - -The server ran a match along the earthen floor to light the two -guttering, unequal candles on the altar, and at the end of Mass he -produced the mop and zinc pail again. _Swish_ went the holy water once -more from the mop, wielded by the athletic sword-arm of the gigantic -young priest. For fear the nearer people should have been but poorly -sprinkled under that far-reaching arc of water, which went to the very -end wall of the chapel, he soused the mop again with a good twist and -gave everybody in the front benches a sharp whack full in their faces, -tactfully leaving us out. They received it with beaming and grateful -smiles. - -There are wonderful studies of old men's and women's heads here full of -that character which in the more "educated" parts of Ireland the School -Board seems to be rubbing out, and I was delighted to see the women and -girls wearing the head-shawls and white caps and the red petticoats that -charmed me in Kerry in '77. The railway is sure to bring the dreadful -"Frenchy" hat here in time, and then good-bye to the comely appearance -of these women. Their wild beauty undergoes an extraordinary change -under the absurd hat and feathers--these winsome colleens then lose all -their charm. - -Yet I must thank this same railway for having brought us to this haven -of rest, right up to the doors of a charming, very modern hotel, on -quite different lines from the dear little inn that fascinated me in -the old Glenaragh days. In its way it is fascinating too, for here you -have all the up-to-date amenities in the very heart of the wildest -country you could wish for. The electric light is generated by the -mountain streams and the baths filled from the glorious bay that lies -below the hotel terraces, a never-failing delight in all its moods of -sun and shadow, wind and calm. - -Sad it is to see so many cabins deserted. The strength of the country is -ebbing away. The few people that are left are nice and wholesome in mind -and manner; they have the quiet urbanity of the true peasant all the -world over. They remind me of the Tuscan in this particular, but, of -course, they have not his light-heartedness. More seriousness, I should -think, these Irish have. I was sketching sheep, for a contemplated -picture, in the evenings on the lovely marshes by the sea, and one -evening a widow, left completely lonely in her little cabin on the -heights above by the departure for America of her last child, came down -to fetch home her solitary sheep from amongst the others, and I told her -I thought these creatures were leading a very happy life. "Yes," she -answered, pausing for a moment and looking down on the flock, "and they -are without sin." - -[Illustration: CLEW BAY, CO. MAYO] - -At the ringing of the Angelus the work in the fields, the bogs, the -potato patches stops till the words of St. Luke's Gospel have been -repeated, just as we remember them said in Italy. It was a surprise--and -one of great interest to me--when I first saw peasants saying the -Angelus under a northern sky. - -My studies of the wild mountain sheep on the marshes came to an abrupt -close. I was reposing under a rock (it was well on in July) with palette -and panels ready, waiting for the sunset and its after-glow, to get -final precious notes of colour upon the fleeces. One particular sheep -had been a very useful model. It ambled in a graceful way on three legs -and we called it "Pacer." I became aware of an opaque body rising -between my closed eyes and the sun, and looking up I beheld the head of -"Pacer" peering at me over the edge of the rock over my head. But what -had happened to "Pacer's" neck? Good gracious! I jumped up and beheld a -shorn "Pacer" and all the flock in the same lamentable condition. It had -all happened in twenty-four hours. - -I want to bring before your mind two little rocky islands with green -summits off the coast of Clare, not far from here. Of all the -wind-swept little islands none could be more wind-swept. On one, the -smallest, I heard that a ferocious and unmanageable billy-goat was -deposited as a useless member of the community, and one night he was -blown out to sea--a good riddance. On the other you perceive, through -the spray, little nodules on the turf--the graves of unbaptized infants. -And the sea-gulls along the cliffs are for ever crying like legions of -children. - - * * * * * - -By returning from Mulranny by way of Tipperary and the Rosslare route to -England you can voyage down the Shannon and have an experience not -lightly to be foregone. This is the "lordly Shannon," a great wide, -slowly-flowing and majestic river of dark, clear, bluish water--blue -shot with slate. You sit at the bows of the little steamboat which takes -you from Athlone to Killaloe, so that neither smoke nor screw interferes -with your enjoyment of the lovely scenes you are to pass through. If the -time is July (_the_ time to choose) you are at once greeted on clearing -the little grey town of Athlone with the most exquisite scent from the -level banks which form two wide belts of creamy meadow-sweet all the way -to the end, at Lough Derg. These belts are interrupted, once only, by -the lock at Shannon Bridge, that little gathering of houses and gaunt -dismantled barracks and breastworks built in the days of the threatened -French invasion. Near here lived Charlotte Bronte's husband till his -death only the other day. - -You will see in the Shannon a mighty waterway for commerce, left to the -wild things that haunt it; and it has haunted me ever since that July -day on which I saw it with a sense of regret that the condition of -Ireland makes such a river out of scale with the requirements of the -country. It flows for the wild birds, the cattle, the fishes, and for -its own pleasure; and it flowed for mine that day, for I let no phase of -it escape me and gladly added its sonorous name to the long list of -those of the great rivers of the world I have already seen. - -We hardly saw a soul along the banks, but many kinds of aquatic birds, -flying, diving, and swimming, enlivened the voyage with their funny -ways, scurrying out of the track of the puffing little steamer. Along -the whole course of the great stream there stood at regular intervals, -planted in more hopeful days, navigation posts, marking the channel for -the ships that never come, and on these scarlet signs perched black -cormorants eyeing us like vultures. The herons rose slowly from the -meadow-sweet and the sedges, with their long flapping wings; the cattle -standing in the water followed us with their mild eyes. It was all -beautiful, mournful, eloquent, and when the ruins of Clonmacnoise hove -in sight I heard the spirit of Ireland speaking to me from the grave. - -Clonmacnoise! A mere curious name to us in England. Perhaps nowhere, -even in depopulated Ireland, can a more desolate, abandoned plot of land -than this be seen. And yet this great monastery and university, founded -in A.D. 544, and at the height of her renown in the eighth century while -our country was in a very immature state, was a European centre to which -scholars on the Continent came to study; which was quoted and referred -to by them as a conspicuous authority, and which for long was in what I -might call brisk communication with the centres of learning abroad, if -"brisk" was not too bizarre a word in such a place to-day. A more -mournful oblivion never fell on any once flourishing centre of active -thought and teaching. - -[Illustration: A LITTLE IRISH RIVER] - -The slow havoc of time amongst these seven remaining little churches and -blunt round towers was one day accelerated by Cromwell's gunpowder, -which has left the "Guest House" of the monastery a heap of ruins split -into ugly shapes quite out of keeping with the rest. - -As the grey group passed away from sight I thought I had never known -more eloquent silence than that which enfolds the ruins bearing the -sounding name of Clonmacnoise. - -Will the electric chain ever be linked up again that carried Ireland's -intellect and mental energy to the Continent in those remote times, and -round again from the great sources of learning there, with fresh -material to enrich her own store? - -You will have the wish to "Come back to Erin, Mavourneen," after making -this little tour. To me Ireland is very appealing, though I owe her a -grudge for being so tantalizing and evasive for the painter. The low -clouds of her skies cause such rapid changes of sun and shadow over her -landscapes that it requires feats of technical agility to catch them on -the wing beyond my landscape powers. My only chance is to have unlimited -time and thus be able to wait a week, if necessary, for the particular -effect to come round again. An artist I heard of thought he had "bested" -the Irish weather and its wiles when he set up this clever system: six -canvasses he spread out before him on the ground in a row, each with a -given arrangement of light and shade sketched out ready. But when the -psychological moment arrived he was so flurried, that while he was -wildly running his hand up and down the row of canvasses for the right -one he could never find it in time. - -A nice dance you are led, sketching in Ireland, altogether! You are, for -instance, intent on dashing down the plum-like tones of a distant -mountain, when lo! that mountain which in its purple mystery seemed some -fifteen miles away, in a moment flashes out into such vivid green that, -as the saying is here, "you might shake hands with it," so close has it -come. Even its shape is changed, for peaks and buttresses start forth in -the sunburst where you imagined unbroken slopes a few minutes before. -Shadowed woods spring into dark prominence by the sudden illumination of -the fields behind them and as suddenly are engulfed in the golden haze -of a shaft of light that pierces the very clouds whose shadows had a -minute before given them such a startling prominence on the light -background. Unsuspected lovelinesses leap forth while those we saw -before are snatched away, and the sunlight for ever wanders up and -along the mountain sides, as some one has finely said, "like the light -from a heavenly lantern." - -What those changes from beauty to beauty do towards sunset I leave you -to imagine. I have never seen Ireland at all worthily painted. I think -we ought to leave her to her poets and to the composers of her matchless -music. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -II - -EGYPT - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER I - -CAIRO - - -To the East! What a thrill of pleasure those words caused me when they -meant that I was really off for Egypt. The East has always had for me an -intense fascination, and it is one of the happiest circumstances of my -life that I should have had so much enjoyment of it. - -My childish sketch-books, as you remember, are full of it, and so are my -earliest scribblings. To see the reality of my fervid imaginings, -therefore, was to satisfy in an exquisite way the longing of all my -life. - -The Gordon expedition was my opportunity, and it was a bold and happy -conception of W.'s that of my going out with the two eldest little ones -to join him on the Nile when the war should be over. I may say I--and -the British Army--had the Nile pretty well to ourselves, for few -tourists went up the year I was there. But I had to wait some time at -Cairo and at Luxor before all trouble had been put an end to by the -battle of Ginniss, which closed the recrudescence of rebellion that -burst out after the great Khartoum campaign. - -The emotion on seeing the East for the first time can never be felt -again. The surprise can never be repeated, and holds a type of pleasure -different from that which one feels on revisiting it, as I have so often -done since. - -One knows the "gorgeous East" at first only in pictures; one takes it on -trust from Delacroix, Decamps, Gerome, Mueller, Lewis, and a host of -others. You arrive, and their pictures suddenly become breathing -realities, and in time you learn, with exquisite pleasure, that their -most brilliant effects and groups are no flights of fancy but faithful -transcripts of every-day reality. - -[Illustration: IN A CAIRO BAZAAR] - -But at first you ask, "Can those figures in robes and turbans be really -going about on ordinary business? Are they bringing on that string of -enormous camels to carry real hay down that crowded alley; are those -bundles in black and in white wrappers, astride of white asses -caparisoned in blue and silver, merely matter-of-fact ladies of the -harem taking their usual exercise? That Pasha's curvetting white Arab -horse's tail is dyed a tawny red, and what is this cinder-coloured, -bare-headed, jibbering apparition, running along, clothed in rattling -strings of sea-shells and foaming at the mouth? A _real_ fanatic? That -water-seller by Gerome has moved; he is selling a cup of water to that -gigantic negro in the white robe and yellow slippers, and is pocketing -the money quite in an ordinary way. And there is a praying man by -Mueller, not arrested in mid-prayer, but going through all the periods -with the prescribed gestures, his face to the East, and the declining -sun adding an ever-deepening flush to the back of his amber-coloured -robe." - -It takes two or three days to rid oneself of the idea that the streets -are parading their colours and movement and their endless variety of -Oriental types and costumes for your diversion only, on an open-air -stage. - -Cairo in '85, '86, was only at the beginning of its mutilations by -occidentalism, and the Oriental _cachet_ was dominant still. To sit on -the low shady terrace of the old Shepheard's hotel under the acacias and -watch the pageant of the street below was to me an endless delight. - -The very incongruity of the drama unrolling itself before one's eyes had -a charm of its own. Look at that Khedivial officer in sky-blue, jerkily -riding his pretty circus Arab. There follows him a majestic and most -genuine Bedouin in camel's hair burnoos, deigning not the turn of an -eyelash as he passes our frivolous throng on the terrace; two Greek -priests, their long hair gathered up in knots under the tall black cap -and flowing veil, equal him in quiet dignity, and a mendicant friar -rattles his little money-box, like an echo of the water-seller's cups -over the way, as a hint to our charity. An Anglo-Indian officer of high -degree is driven up to our steps in a 'bus under a pile of baggage. He -has just arrived from India and is impressively escorted by various -Sikhs, whose immense _puggarees_ are conceived in a totally different -spirit from that of the native turbans. A British hussar, smart as only -a British soldier can be, trots by on a wiry Syrian horse; a cab full of -Highlanders out for a spree bumps along the unpaved roadway. I confess -I was disappointed with the effect of our honoured British red. What did -it look like where the red worn by the natives was always of the most -harmonious tones! - -See that string of little donkeys cheerily toddling along, all but -extinguished under their loads of sugar-canes that sweep the ground with -their long leaves; humble peasant donkeys, meeting a flashing brougham -with windows rigidly closed, through which the almond eyes of veiled -ladies of some high Pasha's harem glance up at us and take us all in in -that devouring sweep of vision. Double syces run before such equipages. - -French bugles tell us an Egyptian regiment is coming, and, meeting it, -will go by with a dull rumble a string of English baggage-waggons drawn -by mules and driven by Nubians, escorted by British soldiers in dusty -khaki uniforms; stout fellows going to the front, a good many of them to -stay there--under the sand. - -About 5.30 P.M. weird music and flaring torches brings us out again on -the terrace, and we see a tumultuous crowd of pilgrims just arrived from -Mecca by the five o'clock Suez train. They gather the crowd by their -unearthly din and sweep it along with them. Beggars, flower-sellers, -snake-charmers, tourists, and touts are all rolling along in a -continuous buzz of various noises. Perhaps the full escort of cavalry -jingles past our point of observation and the native crowd salutes the -Khedive. Not so the British officers on the terrace, who keep their -seats. - -But what was all this to diving into the old city, and in a ten minutes' -donkey ride to find oneself in the Middle Ages; in the real, breathing, -moving, sounding life of the Arabian Nights? Then when inclined to come -back to our time and its comforts, which I am far from despising, ten -minutes' return ride and the glimpse into the old life of the East -became as a vision. For what I call the pageant of the street in front -of Shepheard's was much too much mixed with modernity to allow of so -complete a transformation of ideas. - -The bazaars of Cairo have been painted and written about more than those -of any other Oriental city. The idea of my having "a try" at them seems -to come a little late! But _if_ it is true that, as some croakers say, -Old Cairo is gradually dying, I feel impelled to lay one flower of -appreciation beside the grave which is ere long to close. - -What a treat, to put it in that way, it was to rove about in the reality -of the true East, to meet beauty of form and colour and light and shade -and movement wherever one's eyes turned, without being brought up with a -nasty jar by some modern hideosity or other. This was contentment. You -know what a bit of colour in sun or luminous shade does for me. Think of -my feelings when I walked through the narrow streets where the rays of -the sun slanted down through gaps in the masonry, or, as in some, -through chinks in the overhead matting--now on a white turban, now on a -rose-coloured robe relieved against the rich dark background of some -cavernous open doorway, now on a bit of brass-work. The soft tones of -the famous Carpet Bazaar in noon-day twilight, with that richness of -colour that tells you the invisible sunshine is somewhere, -fulfilled--yea, over-filled--my expectations, and close by in real -working trim were the brass-workers tinkering and tapping musically, the -while smoking their hubble-bubbles in very truth. The goldsmiths, in -their own particular alley, were sitting in the rich chiaroscuro of -their little shops waiting for me. - -Added to those feasts for the eyes were the sounds which pictures could -not give me--the warning shouts of the donkey-and camel-drivers, the -"by your leave" in Arabic, followed by the shuffling sound of hoof and -foot in the soft tan; the tinkling of the water-sellers' brass saucers; -the cries, like wild songs in the minor, of hawkers of all kinds of -things. Then the scents, also unpaintable. Incense, gums, tan, ripe -fruit, wood-smoke. And the smells? Ah, yes, well--the smells, goaty and -otherwise. They were all bound up together in that entirety which I -would not have deleted. - -There was one particular angle of street in front of I forget what ripe -old mosque, before which I would have liked to establish myself all day. -The two streams of passers-by, human and animal, ceaselessly jostling -each other, came at one particular hour into a shaft of sunlight just at -the turn where I could see them in perspective. Now a splendid figure in -yellow robe and white turban, accentuating the streak of gold to -perfection, occupied the centre of the composition and I would make a -mental note: "daffodil yellow and white in intense sunlight; dull -crimson curtain in shade behind; man in half-shade in dark brown, boy in -indigo in reflected light"--when in the shaft of light now appeared a -snow-white robe and rosy turban, putting out the preceding scheme, till -a _hadji_ in a turban of soft bluey-green and pale-blue drapery came to -suggest a very delicate emphasis to the rich and subdued surroundings. - -In the first fresh days how mysterious these covered streets appear, -these indoor thoroughfares, muffled with tan, where towering camels and -shuffling donkeys and curvetting horses seem so astonishingly out of -place. - -Anglo-Egyptians who have to live in Cairo smile at my enthusiasm, and -tell me they get tired of all this in time, and they are certainly -helping to attenuate the charm. A late high official, on leaving Egypt, -in his farewell speech told his audience that that day had been the -happiest in his life, for he had seen the first "sandwich man" in the -streets of Cairo. Since then another charming form of advertisement from -the go-ahead West has appeared over the minarets of the -alcohol-abhorring Moslems--a "sky sign" flashing out against the stars -the excellence of somebody's whisky. Can they now say "the changeless -East"? And what a whirlpool of intensely Western amusements you may be -sucked into if you are not wary. You may hide in the bazaars but you -cannot live there, and teas, gymkanas, dances, and dinners will claim -you for their own as though you were at Monte Carlo or still nearer -home. In fact I have found New Cairo a little London and Monte Carlo -rolled into one. - -[Illustration: THE CAMEL CORPS] - -One glimpse of the vanishing Past which I got on a certain Friday at -Cairo has left a queer impression on my mind, not at all a happy one. I -am told the howling and dancing Dervishes have been lately suppressed, -and I am dubious as to the fitness of us Christians being witnesses of -those performances. However, I went, and saw what one can no longer see -in Cairo. I found it difficult to believe those men were in real -earnest, otherwise I should have felt more painfully impressed, but even -as it was it was a disagreeable sight to witness the frenzied creatures -flinging themselves backwards and forwards in time with the -ever-increasing rapidity of the tom-toms till their long hair swept the -floor at one moment and flew up straight on end towards the great -vaulted interior of the mosque the next. Gasping shouts as of dying men -escaped them rhythmically, and when the bewildering music had reached -its climax it stopped, and so did they, and the priest, with gestures of -loving commiseration and encouragement, very gracefully fell on their -necks and gave them a drink of water each in turn. All this went on -in a faint light from the hanging lamps, and the heat became -suffocating. Mrs. C. put her hand on my shoulder, and pointing upwards -asked me, "What is that?" A little white figure had appeared on a ledge -high up under the drum of the dome. Whether man, woman, monkey, or -goblin, I never saw a more impish figure, and it squatted there looking -down from under its hood. I saw many very queer beings in Egypt as time -went on, and decidedly the British occupation has not exorcised all the -old magic of the Egyptians. But I have never played with it as some do. -Not from fear, but from dislike. I am told in sober truth, people who -came to scoff have begged to be let go when spell-bound with horror at -what they have seen in a drop of enchanted ink spilled on a table. - -We have sometimes played tricks on those people with imitation magic, -but never more successfully than did our friend Sir James Dormer out in -the Great Desert, when he struck the Bedouins dumb by taking out his -glass eye, which they, of course, believed to be his own, tossing it in -the air, and replacing it. He had great power over them, I should say, -for ever after. Brave man, he was killed shortly after in India by the -wild animal he had wounded and who sprang on him on his blind side. I -think a man with a single eye is doubly brave who goes out -tiger-shooting in the jungle. - -A much wholesomer diversion than the Dervishes was provided by the then -General in command at Cairo a few days later, when some three hundred of -the Native Camel Corps were put through a series of splendid -manoeuvres out in the great open spaces of Abassieh, beyond the Tombs -of the Mameluks. I got out of the carriage when warned that the final -charge was about to be delivered, and stood so as to see them coming -nearly "stem on." It was a sight worth seeing, and surprising to me, -who, before I landed, had never seen a camel worthy of the name. When -the "halt!" was sounded, down fell the three hundred bellowing creatures -on their knees in mid-career, close up to us, and the panting riders -leapt off, their accoutrements in most admired disorder, and their -puttees for the most part streaming along the ground. I was in a hurry -to get back to Shepheard's to take the impression down, for I was -greatly struck by so novel a sight. The red morocco-leather saddle -covers were most effective, and very sorry I was on my next visit to -Egypt to find they had gone the way of all "effective" bits of military -equipment, and were replaced by dull brown substitutes. Henceforth I was -an enthusiastic admirer of that most picturesque of animals, and though -I approached the camel at first with diffidence and apprehension, I soon -found him much easier to draw than the horse. What you would _like_ to -do with a horse to give him movement and action, but _mustn't_, you -_may_ do with a camel. You can twist his neck almost indefinitely and -brandish his great coarse head as you like, and his long legs give you -_carte-blanche_ for producing speed. I found out a curious fact as time -went on and I had dogged dozens of camels about the desert and made -orderlies walk them up and down for me--namely, that the camel moves his -legs _in the walk_ precisely like the horse, but when he falls into a -trot he moves the legs of the same side forward together. He walks like -a horse and trots like a camel! As to the gallop, a more dislocating -performance I never saw. Lady ---- once told me she had, by an unlucky -chance, got on a baggage camel with a hard mouth, or rather _nose_, and -it ran away with her in the wide, wide desert. She hauled in the nose -rope with the strength of despair, till the detestable animal's face -was twisted back taut into her lap and was _looking at her_, and still -the body galloped forward without the remotest check. She artistically -left the end of the adventure untold. - -As to the camel's noises, I don't think I ever got to the end of them. -The snarl and the grunt I was prepared for--the horrible querulous and -sickening sound that some one has likened to the roar of a lion and the -grunt of a pig combined; but one day, as I was making a study of one of -these ungracious creatures for a big picture, I thought I heard a sweet -lark warbling somewhere, and I marvelled at its presence over the -Egyptian desert. The warblings came from the camel's throat, and there -was a look in his eye that seemed to warn me that he considered the -sitting had lasted long enough. The length of his neck suggested that I -was within measurable distance of a bite, and I dismissed my sitter and -his lanky rider with promptitude. - -Of all the figures that delighted me in Cairo those of the syces soon -became first favourites. The dress, the springing run, the beauty of the -movements--I don't think the human figure could be more charmingly shown -off. The English General's syces alone wear the scarlet jacket, and -deep indigo blue or maroon are the usual colours for the liveries of -those mercuries. Our fast-trotting horses now try them too much, and we -don't let them run very far, but take them up after a little while. They -were intended to trot before the ambling horses or donkeys of Pashas, to -clear the way with shouts and sticks through the crowded bazaars. I saw -a lady (alas!) driving a very fast English horse past Shepheard's in a -rakish T-cart, and the unfortunate syce was constantly on the point of -being knocked down by the high-stepper. It did _not_ add to the -smartness of this turn-out to see this panting creature looking over his -shoulder every minute in terror of the horse, and sometimes, when -flagging in his run, being overtaken and having to run alongside. I -levelled mental epithets at the thoughtless driver, and wondered how -such a thing could be. Some of us are curiously inconsiderate. I am -afraid she was but a type of many. Witness the suffering horses bitted -up with tight bearing-reins standing for hours outside shops and smart -houses where "at homes" are going on, when a word from the fair owners -to their ignorant coachmen might procure ease for their miserable -beasts. I am not enthusiastic about motors, but I am thankful for the -fact that they are greatly reducing the sufferings of our poor "gees." I -hope by and by the motor will be made noiseless and odourless, for at -present I cannot enjoy its country driving. The scents of the country -are replaced by smell and the sounds by noise. - -You are better friends with the motor than I am, and have gathered much -advantage from its audacity in taking you up, for instance, such rugged -heights as those about Tivoli, well within a morning's outing from Rome, -which I have looked at as inaccessible, and only to be admired from a -lowly distance; those remote cones crowned with mediaeval towns that -figure in the backgrounds of many an "Adoration of the Magi" and "Flight -into Egypt." - -I am, like you, of two minds about very rapid travel. There is something -to say for and against it. "For" it, the freshness with which the mind, -untrammelled with the bodily weariness of "diligence" or "vetturino" -jogging, receives impressions of points of interest; "against" it, the -hustling of venerable monuments and reverenced natural features which -should be approached with more ceremony. There is too much hustling -nowadays. I don't know that I enjoyed my last visit to Venice quite as -much as usual, feeling apologetic and guilty in participating in the -"bumping" of the gondolas by the electric boats, whose back-wash sends -them hopping and lurching in such an undignified manner. The sedate, -gracious gondola, too well-bred ever to be in a hurry, "knocked out of -time" by a fussing little electric launch, which is always in a hurry, -with or without reason! What with the hurry, and the whistlings, and -puffings, and syren-bellowings, the powers that be are actually -succeeding in making Venice noisy. But I have got off the Egyptian track -a long way. - -After a visit to Sakkara and to the Pyramids and the Sphinx I shall -launch out upon Old Nile at once. Our Sakkara day was typical of many I -was to experience in this strangest of lands--full of the delights, then -new to me, of donkey-riding through the fresh winter air of the desert, -but donkey-riding over tombs. Sakkara is the necropolis of Memphis, -itself long buried, that capital of the Pyramid Period that looms dark -far behind the nearer glories of Thebes and the Temples. - -My hilarity induced by the sun, the breeze, the absurd goings-on of the -donkeys of our party was constantly damped by the weird reminders we -constantly came upon. Those Sakkara pyramids lack the majesty of _the_ -Pyramids, and one looks at the amorphous heaps in an oppressed silence. -The Tomb of Ti raised one's spirits by its vivid frescoes showing the -every-day life of that Prime Minister's _menage_: it was cheery to see -the poulterer in brilliant colours bringing in the goose to the cook, -but the final extinguisher fell when we were conducted along an -avenue--a sandy causeway--lined on either side with I forget how many -sarcophagi of sacred bulls. Each granite sarcophagus was, as far as my -memory could say, of exactly the same dimensions and of almost the same -shape as that of the great Napoleon at the "Invalides"! And all for -bulls. - -It was crushing; but well for me was the scamper back to the Cairo -train. You cannot afford to be pensive riding a donkey at that pace with -an Arab saddle to which you are not yet accustomed. - -[Illustration: THE ENGLISH GENERAL'S SYCES] - -I am not going to dare to try to say anything new about the Pyramids of -Gizeh or the Sphinx; nothing new in any shape can come in contact with -these monuments. One feels overcome with hoariness oneself by their mere -proximity and silenced by the weight of ages. I am not going to ask you -to follow me into any interiors, for I did not go in myself; and -indeed, in my progress through this land of tombs, I protested more or -less successfully against burrowing into sepulchres, shuffling in thick -gloom through pungent and uncanny mummy dust, in bat-scented atmosphere, -while above-ground the blessed light of that matchless sky and the -uplifting air of the desert were being wasted. Polite compulsion on -certain social and festive (!) excursions alone forced me to forego for -a while the joy of that "to-day" above-ground for the mould of the dead -Aeons below. - -I refer to a letter for my first visit to the Pyramids. That first sight -of anything one has read of and pictured in one's child's mind in the -course of education is a most precious occurrence, to be chronicled and -set down at the moment. - -_30th November '85._--"A sweet gentle morning; limpid air, lovely fresh -clouds in a soft blue sky. We started at 11 in a carriage, with our -dragoman, and were soon taken at the usual hand gallop over the big iron -bridge with the colossal green lions at each end which spans the wide -Nile, into the acacia-shaded road which runs for a long distance in an -imposing straight line to almost the very base of the great Pyramid. As -we sped towards the illustrious group which we saw rising grey and -stern at the very edge of the desert where it meets the bright green of -the cultivated land we alternately looked ahead at what was awaiting us -and at the ever-interesting groups of men, women, children, and animals -which we passed, and at the mud villages with their palms and rude domes -and minarets which lay in the well-watered, low-lying land on either -side of the road. From the first moment I saw the Pyramids afar off I -knew I was not destined to be disappointed, and my apprehensions caused -by some travellers' descriptions vanished at the outset. It is difficult -to put my feelings into words as I came nearer and nearer to these -wonders of man's work, so pathetic in their antiquity and in the -evidence they give of their builders' colossal failure to ensure for -their poor bodies absolute safety during the long waiting for the -Resurrection. The seals are broken, the secret places found out, the -contents gone to the winds! - -"My beloved father was constantly in my mind to-day, for he it was who -with such patience taught us the value and fascinating interest of old -Egyptian history, and here were some of the scenes he used to read to us -of so often, but which he himself was not allowed to see. - -"Mrs. C---- and I, on getting out of the carriage, first made the -circuit of the Great Pyramid--a space of 'thirteen statute acres,' I -remember Menzies telling us. I found that the most striking point from -which to feel the immensity of the Pyramids is in the centre of the -base, not the angles. - -"We hear of 'weeping stone.' Here is stone that has wept blood and -tears! Each succeeding year of the king's reign forced an additional -coating to his tomb, and prolonged the slave-toil under the lash--all to -safeguard a little dust that has now vanished. This age of ours is about -the time the old Egyptians looked to for the Great Awakening, for which -all their poor mummies were embalmed. - -"How intolerable these three Pyramids must have looked when new and -entirely coated with white marble. Their glitter under the blinding -sunlight and the hardness of their repellent shapes make me shudder as I -realise the effect. Seen in the rough, as they now are, they do not jar, -but only oppress the mind by their ponderous immensity, and the eye -takes great pleasure in their tawny colouring. - -"We next went down to the Sphinx and rested a long while in its broad -shadow. The gaze of the eyes is exceedingly impressive, and though the -face is so mutilated one would not have it restored. Strange that one -should prefer the broken nose and the hare-lip! It would not be _the_ -Sphinx if it had the universal Sphinx face as originally carved. -Originally! When? It was there long before the Pyramids, and it now -appears that more than the 'forty centuries' looked down upon Napoleon's -army from their summits. Sixty centuries, some say now. Time is -annihilated as one stands confronted with the Sphinx, and a feeling of -annihilation swirls around one's own microscopic personality. - -"This annihilation of Time is one of the sensations of Egypt. Look at -Rameses the Great in his glass coffin in the Cairo Museum. There, more -than ever, the intervening cycles are as though they had never been as -one stands face to face with Sesostris. More appalling than the -Sphinx--a chimera in stone--here is the Man. Not his effigy, not his -mask taken after death, but the _Man_! There is his hair, rusted by the -Ages, his teeth still in their sockets, the gash across his forehead -cleft in battle. His father lies in the next glass case, his grandfather -on the other side, and many other Pharaohs similarly enclosed in glass -and docketed lie around, all torn out of their hiding-places, stripped -of their multitudinous envelopes, and exposed to the stare of the -passers-by. Their mortuary jewels are ticketed in other glass cases, and -only a few shreds of winding-sheet adhere to their bodies. They were -religiously preserved, at infinite pains, for this. - -"From the entrance to the Great Pyramid in the north face I had an -enchanting view of Cairo on the right, in sun and shadow with a sky of -most beautiful cloud-forms, and on the left the lovely pearly and rosy -desert stretching away into the golden West. How cheerily, how -consolingly the wholesome, refreshing Present receives us back after -those wanderings down the corridors of the dead Ages! Let us wash our -faces and smile again and feel young. The drive back was exhilarating -and full of living interest. We overtook shepherds guiding their flocks -along the road and carrying tired lambs on their shoulders. There were -buffaloes and oxen and ploughmen going home from work in the tender -after-glow, and then as soon as we were over the big iron bridge and in -the suburbs again it was dark, and the gas lamps were being lighted, and -'Tommy Atkins' was about, and British officers were riding in from -polo, and the _cafes_ of this Parisianized quarter were full and noisy, -and I felt I had leapt back into To-day by crossing an iron bridge that -spanned six thousand years. My thoughts lingered long amongst the most -ancient, most pathetic, most solemn monuments of the pre-Christian -world." - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE UPPER NILE - - -And now for Luxor. Of all the modes of travel there is none, to my mind, -so enjoyable as that by water--fresh water, be it understood--and if you -can do this in a house-boat with your home comforts about you, what more -can you desire? We had the "Post Boat" to Luxor, and the sailing -dahabieh after that. Travelling thus on the Nile you see the life of the -people on the banks, you look into their villages, yet a few yards of -water afford you complete immunity from that nearer contact which travel -by road necessitates; and in the East, as you know, this is just as -well. Not that I really allow the drawbacks of the East to interfere -with my own enjoyment, but the isolation of the boat is best, especially -with little children on board. - -I had read many books of travel on the Nile and knew what to look for. -Is there not a charm in knowing that some city, some temple, some -natural feature you have tried to realize in your mind is about to -appear in very truth just round that bend of road or river? You are -going to see in a few minutes that historic thing itself, not its -counterfeit in a book, but _it_. And so, as we neared Luxor towards -evening, I looked out for Karnac on the left, and lo! the first pylon -glided by. My first pylon! How many like it I was to see before I had -done with Old Nile. They are not beautiful in shape, nor can any -Egyptian architecture, as far as form goes, be called beautiful; the -shapes are barbaric--I had almost said brutal--stupidly powerful and -impressive by mere bulk. The beauty lies in the colouring. What a feast -these ruins afford to the eye by their colour, what a revel of blues, -greens, and low-toned reds in their unfaded paintings! Taken as bits of -colour only, without dwelling too much on the forms, all in such light, -the shadows filled with golden reflections--taken thus, or deeply tinged -with the lustrous after-glow, or the golden moonlight, they are -all-satisfying. - -[Illustration: REGISTERING FELLAHEEN FOR THE CONSCRIPTION] - -I will not, however, burden you with these ponderous pylons and -mammoth monoliths; they can only be enjoyed _in situ_, illuminated and -glorified by the climate of their homes. Indeed, I felt often very -oppressed and tired by them, but never did I weary of the landscape, the -people, the animals, the river. - -One very saddening glimpse of fellah life was afforded Mrs. C---- and -myself at Luxor by the English Consul (a negro), who arranged that we -should see the registering of the young fellaheen for the conscription. -I think the British have changed all this lately, so we were lucky in -seeing a bit of the vanishing Past--a remnant of the Oriental Past which -no one can regret. We worked our way, led by the Consul, through the -Arab crowd in the village till we came to the entrance of the courtyard -where the drama was about to open. At the gate was a scuffling mass of -indescribably hideous old hags--the mothers and aunts and grannies of -the young fellahs inside, wailing and jerking out their lamentations -with marionette-like action of their shrivelled arms. As though by one -accord they would stop dead for a minute and look at each other, and -then all together begin again the skeleton chorus, throwing dust on -their heads. The unsavoury group came in with us pell-mell when the -gate was opened, and we found ourselves hoisted rather than conducted to -a divan prepared for us under a shed, from whence we could see all that -passed. - -[Illustration: "NO MOORING TO-NIGHT!"] - -Three Circassian inspectors, looking horrid in European clothes, were at -the head of a long rickety table, covered with a white cloth, in front -of us. This white cloth, in combination with the surging groups, made a -wonderfully good blank space in the composition of what I thought would -make a striking picture. The sketch I insert here is in no particular -arranged by me, but everything is exactly as I saw it. I noted -everything down in my sketch-book on the spot. The sheiks, stately men -in silken robes, who had brought each his quota of recruits from his -district, sat chatting over their coffee at the farther end of the -table, and the doctor at once set to to examine the miserable youths -that came up for registration. Fathers pleaded exemption for their sons -on one pretext or another, such as leprous heads, blindness, weak -chests, and so forth; the mothers, aunts, and grannies aforesaid went on -jibbering and clacking their jaws in the background, no one paying the -least attention to them. If a fellah was passed by the doctor a gendarme -gripped him and pummelled him all the way to the standard, where he -was measured. If satisfactory, the woe-begone creature received a -sounding box on the ear, just in fun, from the gendarme, and was shoved -into the pen where the successful (!) candidates were interned; if he -was below the mark, all the same he got his blow, and was pushed and -cuffed back to his friends and relatives. One mother had crept forward -while her son was having his lanky leg straightened by the doctor, the -father pleading the boy's lameness (Erckmann-Chatrian's _Conscript_ -orientalised!): a gendarme sprang forward and knocked her down, then -hauled her off by her arms, which were so very thin and suggestive of a -mummy that I could not look any longer; he was so rough I really thought -he would pull them out of their sockets. My friend was crying, and if I -had not been so concentrated on my pencil notes I should have cried too. -"Surely," she said, "that can't be his mother, she looks a hundred at -least." "A hundred!" I exclaimed, "she is four thousand years old--a -mummy!" I felt very sick as well as sorry. We were politely offered -coffee in jewelled cups, which we could not taste, and surreptitiously -emptied behind the divan. - -The English have worked wonders since those days with the Egyptian army. -Taking the young men in the right way our officers have turned them into -remarkably smart-looking soldiers, and their terror of the service, I am -told, has vanished. - -This was altogether a day which showed us the seamy side of Egyptian -life, for in the evening we and all the guests of the hotel went to see -the dancing at the _cafe_, a sort of mud cave full of wood smoke. It was -all very ugly and repulsive, and the music was impish and quite in -keeping. I was glad to have this experience, but once is enough. Talking -of music, I don't know anything more appealing in its local sentiment -than the song of our crew when they were hauling and poling on calm -nights later on. Strange, unaccustomed intervals, and the key always in -the minor. In the pauses we heard the beetles and crickets on the banks -chiming in in a cheerful major. - -Our sojourn at Luxor was a time of deep enjoyment, for we made almost -daily excursions on both banks of the Nile, excursions beginning in the -very early mornings, at sunrise, and ending in gallops home on our -donkeys in the after-glow, or trips on board the ferry-boat, from -Thebes, in a crowd of splendid Arabs, whose heads, figures, and blue -and white robes, or brown striped camel's hair burnouses, added greatly -to the charm of the landscape. It was a joy merely to breathe that -desert air. All that was wholesome and not too tiring, nor risky from -the sun, was enjoyed by the children with us, but I kept them chiefly in -the paradisaical hotel garden as the safest place. One had to be very -careful. I cannot say that "black care" did not sometimes ride on my -donkey's crupper, for I knew W. was pressing the enemy harder every day, -and that a battle was imminent. At last the great telegram came. Ginniss -was fought and won, and all the enemy's guns and standards taken. He -sent me the message from the field. We might now come up. It took a day -or two to get the "_Fostat_" ready--the dahabieh which he had sent down -for us. Some wounded officers from the front brought news of the battle, -and, strange to relate, the only officer killed at Ginniss was son of -one of Mrs. C.'s oldest friends! What strange things happen in life. I -had met young Soltau the year before at her house on Dartmoor, and she -and I were destined to hear together of his death in battle on the Upper -Nile. - -We set sail in the first week of '86 for Assouan, where W. was to meet -us, and I witnessed the daily development of the Nile's beauties with -the deepest pleasure, and a mind no longer over-shadowed. - -I wonder how many people who have been to Egypt recognise the fact that -all its beauty is reflected? It is either the sun or the moon or the -stars that make Egypt glorious. Under thick cloudy skies it would be -nothing. But the co-operation of the illuminated objects is admirable, -and the two powers combined produce the Egypt we admire. W. and I came -to the same conclusion, that much of the glory of the moonlights is -owing to the response of the desert, especially the golden desert of -Nubia. - -[Illustration: THE "_FOSTAT_" BECALMED] - -But I have also seen, on rare occasions, delicate effects of veiled -sunshine on river, palms, and desert too exquisite in refinement to be -easily described. I remember one memorable grey day which we spent in -turning the loveliest river reach of the whole series below Assouan, the -wind having completely dropped--a day which dwells in my memory as a -precious passage of silvery colour amidst all the gold. The palm-tree -stems towards sundown were illuminated with rosy light against the -pallid background of sand-hills facing the West, and of the delicate -pearl-grey sky. The greens were cool and vivid, the water like a liquid -opal. I wrote a whole letter to Mamma on that one grey day on the Nile. -But even that evening the after-glow made itself felt through the -clouds, lighting them from behind in an extraordinary manner, so that -the filmy screen appeared red-hot. The beautiful cloud-veil could not -shut out so fervid a rush of colour. - -When a strong wind blows the desert sand into the air, obscuring the sun -and thickening the sky, what a change comes over the scene! Egypt is -then undoubtedly ugly, and all charm flies away on the wings of the -blast. - -But the blast speeds the dahabieh on its way, and pleasant it was -sitting of an evening in the cosy saloon to see the hanging lamp -swinging with the motion of the bounding "_Fostat_," and to hear the -creaking of the timbers, for the distance from Assouan, where W. was to -meet us, was being sensibly diminished. On some other evenings the fair -north wind was just enough to quicken the pace without dulling the -brilliant light of the moon, and there was to be no tying up under the -mud bank those nights. Then again a dead calm might come down upon us, -and after poling, tracking, or hauling up to the kedge anchor all day to -their monotonous sing-song, the crew would have orders to moor for the -night. I would then venture a run along the shore with the children, and -have a scamper among the palms and cotton plants, which were waving and -rustling mysteriously to imperceptible sighings of the air at the -water's edge. One or two armed men, of course, landed also. - -At Esneh I had the honour of entertaining the Pasha of that wonderful -place, whose temple I had particularly wished to see. He received us -with much ceremony, and we all went on shore escorted by his guard in -great state, walking through the bazaars accompanied by the wild and -ragged population. But for the soldiers and their whips we could not -have moved a yard. We visited the wonderful temple, the first we had -seen with the ceiling intact, which the colossal pillars were made to -support. I prefer the ruins so open to the sky that the sun may be seen -amongst them. Here, owing to the unbroken ceiling, all was gloom. At -Edfoo I was to see a _whole_ temple with pylons and all, almost in -perfect preservation, and to know the Egyptian temple in its entirety. - -How funny our party looked--two English ladies, two little children, and -English maid, guarded by bashi-bazouks, slowly progressing through a -crowd of indescribable dirt and wildness. We looked into an oil mill -where the press was exactly like the wine-presses in Tuscany. You -remember the one I sketched at Signa, the picturesque _Strettojo_ of the -vintage? We poked our noses into the cavernous recesses where gigantic -negroes were dyeing the native cloth a splendid indigo, their black arms -blue to the shoulder. Oh, what colour! - -On going back to the dahabieh we all, except myself, had our fortunes -told in a narrow lane where a row of Soudanese fortune-tellers were -squatting with patches of smooth sand before them on which they made the -person interested impress his or her hand. Upon the impression they made -many signs and marks. Everything was quite satisfactory. The children -were to have "pleasant paths in life and _strong loins_." The maid was -to marry a white man, which was a comfort. - -In the evening the Pasha dined on board. He spoke in French, and nothing -could surpass the florid eulogies he bestowed on "his brother, that -lion," my husband. I saw him depart on his sleek and fat white ass, -which stood quite fourteen hands, and was equipped in Arab trappings of -indigo and dead gold. In the morning I received the Pasha's presents of -fruit, vegetables, eggs in hundreds, two live turkeys, and a black lamb. -A gorgeous cavass in sky blue and carrying a wand of office was -installed on board for the rest of the voyage to Assouan. There had been -feasting and much thumping of tom-toms and whinings of curious fiddles -on deck during dinner the night before, where the crew were entertaining -the Pasha's body-guard. My dragoman's bill next day included these -items: "Trinks and trymbals for the crew"; "hay for the limp." The poor -black "limp" with his hay was put into the little boat in tow, and I had -to deliver him up, as a matter of course, to the crew a few days later. -Then came Edfoo, whose temple is one of the most conspicuous in Egypt. I -had been on the look-out for its mighty pylons with especial eagerness, -and I was glad that we had time to spend two hours on land while some -repairs were being done on the "_Fostat_." The Esneh cavass was useful -as well as extremely ornamental, as he kept off the wild crowd in the -village by magical waves of his wand of office, and an occasional thump -on a screaming villager. - -[Illustration: AT PHILAE] - -The guard turned out and saluted our party, and altogether things went -very well, and I enjoyed my long-looked-forward-to Edfoo. - -Then on board again, with a steady north breeze which, if it had filled -our eyes with sand at Edfoo, was making up for the discomfort by -carrying us in spanking style towards Assouan and the meeting. - -After one of our fair-wind nights, when the "_Fostat_" was bowling along -over the lumpy water, I asked the reis if we had come to Comombos. He -made vigorous signs showing we had passed it in the night. "Silsileh?"; -again the welcome backward wave of his arm. That, too, was long passed. -We were getting very near. I noticed the people on the banks were -becoming blacker and there were fewer of them; the mountains had -vanished and were replaced by lion-coloured sand-hills, typically -African. The black rocks looked like sleeping crocodiles. - -A faint whisp of smoke presently rose beyond a bend of the river, far -ahead. "What is that?" I asked the dragoman. "English steamer." Great -excitement. The little armed steamer puffs into sight; some one is -waving a red handkerchief from the turret! "Furl the "_Fostat's_" -mainsail!" The crew swarm up the spar. _Ding_, _ding_ goes the electric -bell on the gunboat. The meeting is an accomplished fact--we from -Plymouth, he from Wady Halfa. We are soon at Assouan, and while the -"_Fostat_" is being hauled by great gangs of negroes through the -cataract, we are guests of the General in that command on board his -charming dahabieh moored under Philae. There the solemn rocks echo the -waltzes of the military band and the talk and laughter of our _reunions_ -on board the "_Pharaon_." - -If the Egyptian desert answered back in harmonious tones the light of -the sun and moon, what a _crescendo_ of glowing response came from the -Nubian sands! Immediately we crossed the frontier my eyes were surprised -by the golden tone the desert had assumed, and the polished rocks that -studded it had suddenly put on the richest colours granite holds--deep -red and purple, and the black of basalt. It was a new scheme of -colouring. The sunset and the after-glow were still more astonishing -than those of Egypt, the colour of the shadows on the golden sands at -sundown more positive in their limpid colours. One felt looking at the -stars and planets as though one had been lifted to a world nearer to -them than before, so large and clear had they grown even from the -extraordinary clearness they had at Luxor. Oh! land of enchantment, is -it any wonder the Nile is so passionately loved, especially by the -artist, to whom the joy of the eye is supreme? As to worthily painting -the Egyptian landscape, I cannot think any one will ever do it--the -light is its charm, and this light is unattainable. There is one thing -very certain, oil paints are hopelessly "out of it," and in -water-colours alone can one hope to suggest that light. I soon gave up -oils in Egypt, not only on account of their heaviness, but the miseries -I endured from flies and sand were heart-breaking; your skies are seamed -with the last wanderings and struggles of moribund flies, and coated -with whiffs of sand suddenly flung on them by a desert gust! I was -particularly anxious to get a _souvenir_ of the doorway in the court of -the temple on Philae Island, where Napoleon's soldiers engraved their -high-sounding "_Une page d'histoire ne doit pas_," etc. Unfortunately, -on the day I chose, we had a high wind, a very exasperating ordeal, and -my attempt at oil-sketching this subject was a fiasco. After persevering -with one half-blinded eye open at a time and with sand thickly mixed -with my paints, I saw the panel I had been desperately holding on the -easel hurled to the ground on its buttered side as for a moment I turned -to answer a remark of Mrs. C.'s. She said I bore it angelically. As -since those days lovely Philae Island is being submerged and the temple -melting away, the poor little panel has become more historically -valuable than I thought it ever would do at the time, and I insert its -replica in water-colours _minus_ the smudges. - -Many pleasant hours we spent at Philae, which, I suppose, is the -culminating point of the Nile's beauties and marvels. One day, while W. -was gone to Assouan for provisions, I went over with Mrs. C. to the -opposite bank of the river by boat, an imp of a small boy taking upon -himself to escort us. He divested himself of his one garment, which he -carried in a bundle on his head, and swam alongside our "felucca." Our -approach had been observed from a wild mud hamlet up on the fantastic -rocks, and a bevy of black and brown women came hopping and skipping -down to us. Little shrivelled old hags and wild little young women with -nose rings and anklets, their hair plaited in hundreds of little tails -reeking with castor oil, each little tail ending in a lump of mud. - -[Illustration: A "LAMENT" IN THE DESERT] - -Mrs. C. asked them to unfasten and display their locks, and in return -let down her own six-foot-long auburn tresses and stood on them to -"astonish the natives." They danced and wailed in slow cadence, softly -clapping their hands and wagging their heads in admiration as they made -the round of the tall, rosy Englishwoman. There she stood, on her hair, -that trailed on the sand, in a golden halo of sunshine, the grim -hypaethral temple and the huge rocks as background, and surrounded by -little skinny, skipping, half-naked, barbarian women and quite-naked -little children. They turned to me and made signs that I should also let -my hair down. Because I excused myself, the little boy imp, still with -his garment on his head, came forward and took upon himself -condescendingly to explain to the little women, shouting "_Mafeesh_, -_mafeesh_!" ("Nothing, nothing!") and dismissing me with a wave of his -arm. - -From Philae we soon glided into the Tropics. I say in a letter: "The -moonlight in Nubia also surpasses that of Egypt, and I see in it a light -I never saw before I came to this wonderful land. It is difficult to -describe this light. It is brilliant yet soft; light in darkness; not -like the day; not like the dawn: the sky at full moon is so bright that -only the larger stars are seen; and the yellow sand, the ashen bloom on -the tops of the sand-hills, the various tones of green in palm-tree, -tamarisk, and mimosa keep distinctly their local tints, yet softened and -darkened and changed into a mysterious vision of colour too subtle for -words of mine. Every night Venus and other great planets and stars shed -reflections in the still water like little moons in every part of the -Great Stream wherever one turns." - -W. could not spare the time for lotus-eating under sail, so a -"stern-wheeler" towed us from Philae to Wady Halfa. It took very little -away from the romance, and the steady progress was very grateful. On -that glassy river, as it was now, we would have been an age getting to -our goal. - -I was greatly struck with Korosko, a place which, besides its natural -desolate and most strange appearance, was sad with memories of Gordon. -This was his starting-point as he left the Nile to travel across the -desert to Khartoum, never to return. From a height one can see the black -and grey burnt-up landscape which lonely Gordon traversed. It is a most -repellent tract of desert just there, calcined and blasted. A view I had -of the Nile, southward, from the mountains of Thebes one day, though -bathed in sunshine, has remained most melancholy in my mind, because, -looking towards Khartoum, I thought of the hundreds of my countrymen who -lay buried in already obliterated graves all along those lonely banks, -away, away to the remote horizon and beyond, sacrificed to the -achievement of a great disaster. Others like them have arisen since and -will arise, eager to offer their lives for success or failure, honours -or a nameless grave. - -One evening, as the "_Fostat_," in tow, was skimming through the calm -water with a rippling sound, and we were all sitting on deck, W. -described to us so vividly a memorable night before the fight that put a -stop to hostilities, that I could see the whole scene as though I had -been there. They were out in the desert, the moon was full; the -Dervishes were "sniping" at long range, when afar off was heard a -Highland "lament." The "sniping" ceased all along the enemy's line and -dead silence fell upon the night but for the wail of the bagpipes. The -Dervishes seemed to be listening. The "lament" increased in sound, and -presently the Cameron Highlanders approached, bearing, under the Union -Jack, the body of an officer who had died that day of fever, to add yet -another grave to the number that lay at intervals along the shores of -the great river. You should hear the pipes in the desert, as well as on -the mountain-side, to understand them. - -"Every phase of the day and night" (letter, 12th January '86), "appeals -to me on the Nile, not forgetting those few moments that follow the -after-glow which are like the last sigh of the dying day. The delicacy -of those pure tints is such that one scarcely dares to handle them in -writing. Evening after evening I have watched by the desert death-bed of -the day, looking eastward so as to have the light upon the hills. - -"Those tender, sad, pathetic hills, and beyond them the mournful -mountains, possessing nothing,--not a blade of grass, not a lichen, not -a herb; they are absolute paupers amongst mountains, and they might be -in the moon, these derelicts, so bereft are they of all things. - -"And yet the light, the atmosphere, give them a consoling beauty. What a -poem might be written to them as they look thus for a minute or two -before the dark-blue pall of night sinks down!" - -Wady Sabooah, the "Valley of Lions," was one of the most striking things -I had seen on this exquisite section of our river voyage. The abrupt -sand-hills held shadows of the most delicate amethyst at noonday which, -combined with the gold of the sunlit parts, produced a delicacy of -vibrating tones which enchanted the eye but saddened the artist's mind, -recognising as it did the futility of trying to record such things in -paint! But I shall weary you with all this daily rapture, and I will bid -good-bye in these pages to the desert, well named by the Moslems "The -Garden of Allah." There is no pollution there, and He may walk in His -garden unoffended. - -In the first really hot days of March I and the children came home--Wady -Halfa was becoming no place for us, and W. remained with his Brigade -through the weary days of summer, unknown in their exhausted and -horrible listlessness to me who will always think of the Nile as an -earthly paradise. One halt I must make on our way down, at Abu Simbel, -that mysterious rock temple I had longed to see in the first ray of -sunrise, for it faces due east. W., who accompanied us as far as -Assouan, gave orders that our stern-wheeler (the old "_Fostat_" had been -dismissed) should tie up overnight at the temple, and before daylight I -was up and ready. I had packed my water-colours and had only a huge -canvas and oil-paints available. With these I climbed the hill and -waited for the first ray in the wild wind of dawn. - -The event was all I hoped for as regards the effect of those "scarlet -shafts" on the four great figures (how many sunrises had they already -awakened to?) "A great cameo," Miss Amelia Edwards calls that facade at -sunrise in her fascinating book, and that phrase had made me long for -years for this moment. But alas! my canvas acted as a sail before the -wind and nearly carried me into the river, the sand powdered the wet -paint more viciously than ever, and I returned very blue to breakfast. -Still, I had got my "Abu Simbel at Sunrise," and I insert a water-colour -taken in comfort from the hard-earned but scarcely presentable original. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: ABU SIMBEL AT SUNRISE] - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER III - -ALEXANDRIA - - -Our subsequent experiences of Egypt at Alexandria from '90 to '93 made -me acquainted with the Delta and that "Lower Nile" which has a very -particular charm of its own, and possesses the precious advantage of -being out of the tourist track altogether. - -Not the least amongst the attractions of an Egyptian command (to -Madame!) is the yearly autumn journey to that country through Italy, -with Venice as an embarkation point. Madame knows nothing of the -horrors of the summer months endured by the "man on duty" out there, and -serenely enjoys "the best," without the seamy side ever turning up. She -thinks that to spend one's winters on the Nile, and one's summers in the -"Emerald Isle," is as near an ideal existence as this world allows us. -It is good to be a woman! - -That farewell scene at Venice on board the P. & O., when friends came to -see us off with bouquets and "bon voyage"--how I should like just one -more of those gay leave-takings! I see again the dancing gondolas on the -sparkling ripples as they wait round the ship; the hat and handkerchief -wavings ashore and afloat, and Venice encircling the sprightly little -drama with her gracious arms. - -Who that has plied between Italy and Egypt does not know the poetry of -that first night at sea, when the cloud-like mountains behind the -vanished Venice have also faded away, and there is nothing for it now -but to turn to the darkling Adriatic, heaving dimly beyond the ship's -bows, and commit oneself to the mercies of the deep. "And the -dinner-bell," some one is sure to add. Never shall it be said of me that -I chronicle the meals of my little travels. - -The next morning the cessation of vibrations and throbbings wakes you. -Behold through the port-hole Ancona's white church high up overhead, -shining in the level sunbeams of the young day. - -The morning after that it is Brindisi, where they wait for the "long -sea" passengers and the mails, and the Italian chatter and laughter -along the quays never stops. Here, in the course of a -stroll, you may pat the two pillars that form the winning-post of that -Appian Way whose starting-post you know in Rome. - -There is very little monotony in a voyage of this kind, for you are -never for long out of sight of land. The Albanian coast, the Ionian -Islands, Crete, "Morea's Hills"--what a series of lovely things to -beguile the six days' passage! Yet, all the same, one has a thrill of -delight one day when an unusual stir amongst the crew begins, and the -hatches over the heavy baggage-hold are opened, and the lifting gear is -got into position. "We shall be in at daybreak." Bless the captain for -those words! And the "man on duty" aforesaid will be standing on the -landing-stage. - -W. arranged a good studio for me at our new post, but I had -distractions. British and Foreign naval squadrons occasionally bore -down on us with thundering salutes, and had to be attended to; -distinguished and even august personages paused at Alexandria on their -way "up"; picnics on horse-back, donkey-back, camel-back, by road, rail, -and river, to Aboukir, Aboo-sir, and sundry oases all claimed my -delighted co-operation, plus my unsociable sketch-book. - -Ah, the good good time, the golden Egyptian days! - -But I found nothing so interesting as a holiday we managed to squeeze in -and spend on board a little dahabieh for two, on a nine days' cruise to -Rosetta and back. I then knew the Western Delta and, superficially, the -life of its neglected and forgotten people. I am much afraid that since -the Assouan Dam and its doings, their meagre water-supply is anything -but increased, and I pray that the English authorities may remember -those poor people at last. They are like fish in a pond that is slowly -drying up. - -[Illustration: MADAME'S "AT HOME" DAY; SERVANTS AT THE GATE] - -On board the little "_Rose_," lent us by an Armenian Bey, I tasted once -more the placid pleasure of fresh water travel under sail and oar; and I -again heard the strange intervals of the songs that kept the oarsmen in -time at their work. But I also learnt what Egyptian rain was like, -and how hideous the Mahmoudieh becomes under weeping skies. I saw in -this land the deepest and ugliest mud in the world--mud of the colour of -chocolate. The weather cleared usually towards evening, and nothing more -weird have I ever seen than the villages, cemeteries, solitary tombs, -goats, buffaloes, and wild human beings that loomed upon the sky-line on -the top of the banks against the windy clouds, reddened by the fiery -globe that had sunk below the palm-fringed horizon. These canal banks -might give many people the horrors, and I certainly thought them in that -weather the uncanniest bits of manipulated nature I had ever seen. - -At Atfeh, after three days' canal, we emerged upon the wide and glorious -Nile, and the skies smiled upon us once more. But the sadness of the -country remained to us as we contemplated the miserable villages which -occurred so frequently, with their poor graveyards at their sides, the -latter only distinguishable by the smaller size of the dwellings, and -the fact that the huts of the living had doors, and the huts of the dead -had none--that was all. - -Once on the swift Nile current, with the eight sweeps flashing and -splashing to the rhythm of the strange singing (the prevailing north -wind being against sailing), we made a good run down to Rosetta, on -whose mud bank we thumped in a surprising manner, at 10 P.M. by a pale -watery moonlight. - -Never have I seen anything sadder than the land we passed through that -day--dead, neglected, forlorn. Every now and then what seemed a great -city loomed mistily ahead of us, with domes and minarets, and what -seemed mighty palaces, piled one above the other on stately terraces. -These apparitions were on the sites of once magnificent centres of -wealth and luxury, and from afar they might still appear to be what once -they were. Then, as we neared them, the domes unveiled themselves into -heaps of filthy straw; the palaces were mud hovels a few feet high; the -great mosques were merely poor half-ruined tombs into which a single -person could scarcely crawl. The illusion occurred every time we came in -sight of one of these phantasms, and the effect on the mind was most -singular. City after city arose thus on one's sight in the distance, as -though seen through the long ages that have rolled by since their prime, -and those long ages seemed like a veil that rapidly dissolved to show -us, as we approached, the wretched reality of to-day. "The pride of -life," "pomp," "arrogance," "luxury,"--those epithets were their own -once, while to-day the very antitheses of such terms would best become -them. They are literally all dust now, and there survive only the poor -blunt-shaped dwellings for living and dead, that lie huddled together in -such pathetic companionship. - -As the daylight fades we see the people creeping into their shelters -like their animals, to wait, like them, in the unlighted darkness, for -the coming of the morning. Their up-river fellow-workers live in a land -where the hardships of this cold and muddy winter misery are unknown. - -I was glad to see the Rosetta mouth of the Nile, thus completing rather -an extended, as well as intimate, knowledge of the great river from -there to Sarras in the Soudan. Return tickets to Khartoum had not yet -taken travellers by rail up the Nile in so many dusty hours. - -Still grey was the weather down to where the river merges into the -melancholy sea, between Napoleon's two dismantled forts, and what beauty -there might have been was densely veiled. The old French "Fort St. -Julien" was interesting as being the place where the "Rosetta Stone," -which gave the key to all the Egyptian hieroglyphics, was discovered. -There we moored for the night on our return to Rosetta, in a Napoleonic -atmosphere, and next day I sketched the once opulent commercial city, -where now nothing seems doing. A bald old pelican caused some movement -in the streets by raiding the odoriferous fish-market and scurrying -down, chased by small boys, to the water's edge where I was sitting, in -order to float, by copious draughts, the fish that lay in his pouch down -his throat, pill-wise. The pelican always got his pill down in time, and -the race to the river was repeated more than once with the small boys. -On another evening, on our return voyage, we moored under the wild town -of Syndioor, whose minaret, the tallest, I should think, in the world, -proved to be no phantom, but a lovely and solid reality. In the pearly -light of the succeeding mornings the shining cities looked, through -their misty veils, more lovely afar off than ever. Finally we dropped -back again between the mud banks of the canal, and in due time landed -under the oleanders of our starting-place, the crew kissing hands and -paying us the prescribed compliments of farewell. - -Our major-domo, Ruffo the European, was with us on board. I must tell -you of Ruffo; such an honest man in a country of much corruption! He did -all my housekeeping, and that zealously; but, desiring sometimes to -consult me about dinner, his figurative way of putting things before me -was a little trying. "Miladi, would you like cutlets?" patting his ribs; -"or a leg?" advancing that limb; "or, for a very nice entree, brains?" -tapping his perspiring forehead. "Oh no, Ruffo, _never_ brains, -_please_!" He would rejoice in strokes of good luck in the market, and -fly through the sitting-rooms to me, perhaps bearing, like a gonfalon, a -piece of beef, where good beef was so rare; "Look, miladi, you will not -often meet such beef walking in the street." He always smelled the -melons on presenting them to me, to invite my attention to their -ripeness. - -After Cairo, Alexandria struck me very disagreeably at first; but when I -got over its Western pseudo-Italian garishness, I was able to console -myself with many a precious bit of orientalism, and even the bizarre -mixture of flashy European tinsel with the true native metal amused me -so much that I ended by enjoying the place and in being delighted to -return there for yet another winter, and another. Nor can I ever forget -that this appointment afforded us the most memorable journey of our -lives--the ride through Palestine! - -Not even the drive on the old Shoubra Road at Cairo surpassed the -Alexandrian Rotten Row on the Mahmoudieh Canal on a Friday afternoon in -its heterogeneous comicality. Every type was on the Mahmoudieh, in -carriages, and on horseback--Levantine, Greek, Jew, Italian, Arab; up -and down they rode on the bumpy promenade, under the shade of acacias -and other flowering trees that skirted the picturesque canal. Across -this narrow strip of water you saw the Arab villages of a totally -different world; and I really felt a qualm every time I saw a _fellah_ -over the way turning his back to the western sun (and to us) to pray, in -absolute oblivion of our silly goings-on. On our side was Worldiness -running up and down, helter-skelter; on the other, the repose of Kismet. - -Here comes a foreign consul--you know him by his armed, picturesque -ruffian on the box--in a smart Victoria, driven by a coal-black Nubian -in spotless white necktie and gloves; the Arab horse is ambling along -with high measured action. Much admired is _Monsieur le Consul_--the -observed of all observers; he looks as though he felt himself "quite, -quite." But "Awah, awah!" Here come at a smart leaping run two shouting -syces turbaned in the Alexandrian fashion; and behind them a barouche -and pair driven by an English coachman of irreproachable deportment. -What thrilling rivalry is here! - -Exquisite horses with showy saddle-cloths there are, with _le sport_ on -their backs in the person of "young Egypt" in the inevitable _tarboosh_. -That _tarboosh_! It is the "bowler" hat of the East, and I don't know -which I hate most--it or the "bowler." - -The ladies are overwhelming; and I rest my eyes occasionally by watching -the demure feminine figures of the "East end" who are filling their -_amphorae_ under the oleanders over the way, or washing their clothes and -their babies in the drinking water supply of the native town. - -Towards sunset there is a _sauve qui peut_ of equipages citywards, and I -never heard such a din as is set up as soon as the soft roads are passed -and the paved streets are reached. Over it all you may hear:-- - - The tow-row-row and the tow-row-row - Of the British Grenadiers. - -The Suffolks or the Surreys are marching from Mandara Camp to the sound -of that drum which we like to remind ourselves "beats round the world." - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: SYNDIOOR ON THE LOWER NILE] - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -III - -THE CAPE - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER I - -TO THE CAPE - - -I don't know whether in the Atlantic that lies between England and -America you have had calm moonlight nights such as, taking the ocean -longitudinally, one may have an impressive experience of, if timing the -voyage rightly. I don't suppose a more favourable time for "detachment" -could be easily obtained than those night hours on board a great ship -out at sea, when one more easily realizes than in the daytime how the -huge "Liner" is but a pathetic little speck on the landless and -fathomless waters. The heart of this atom beats courageously enough -night and day, without a rest, as it carries its charge onwards to -deliver it at the goal that lies in the "Under World," but never does -one more sensitively feel the power of those words, "In the hollow of -His hand," than when realising the true proportion of the "vessel" that -carries us and our fortunes. - -We spent--the children, Mrs. B. (wife of W.'s Military Secretary), and -I--a few hours by night at Madeira, three days out from England, the -only land we touched throughout the six thousand miles. - -My diary says, 21st February '99: "We spent a memorable night on an -enchanted Island. Arriving at Funchal overnight instead of in the -morning of the next day, as we were timed to do, we took the place by -surprise. First we saw a blazing light on an advanced rock, which stood -out very black, well ahead of the dusky mass of the Island, which rose -high behind it, dimly crowned with spectral snow. The moon, not yet -full, was clearing her way through thin cloud veils, and the town at -first could be guessed at only by clusters of lights along the shore, -where the waves were breaking with a strange clamour on the pebbles. - -"Presently balls of fire were sent up on the slopes above the town to -tell Funchal we were coming, and, as we slowly rounded into the smooth -water of the bay, we could see a little armada of boats pushing out in a -flurried line towards us, and we presently heard the Portuguese chatter -of their occupants who were soon swarming up the side to try and get all -the money out of us that they could in exchange for fruit, embroidery, -basket-work, etc. Then a streaming triton appeared at the bulwarks, -outside, his face and brawny muscles gleaming in our electric light -against the deep-blue background of moonlit sea. The triton asked for -sixpences to be thrown into the water, and he dived for them and came -up, grinning and streaming, into the light again for more. All the world -over, where the seas are clear, this game goes on to beguile the -traveller. I must say I think those sixpences are fairly earned when I -see to what depths these creatures dive for them in semi-darkness. To -what metaphorical depths less honest men descend for petty pelf! but I -haven't time to work this out. - -"Soon Mr. Payne came on board, the wine-merchant prince, whom W. had -asked to show us the Island and give us our deck chairs. To this most -kind friend we are indebted for a memorable experience. He proposed, -though it was night, to take us on shore, and I, the three children, and -Mrs. B. followed him down the ship's side to one of the many boats that -were lurching and bumping at the foot of the ladder. The first boat -tilted over on its side and nearly spilt her two rowers, who rolled out -maledictions as the water filled her and lost them their chance of us. -We jumped into another and were rowed to the little jetty. On arriving -in the town we found little hooded sledges, drawn by small oxen, -waiting. We boarded two of these Madeira cabs and drove up to the -Casino, our cabmen running by the side and whooping to the oxen. We -entered an enchanted garden waving with palms, pines, and blue -gum-trees, and other shadowy, dark-foliaged trees, while glossy and -feathery shrubs of every type of tropical loveliness bore blossoms which -shimmered white, red, and purple in the moonlight. There was a heavy -scent of magnolia flowers. Was it all a dream to wake from in Sloane -Street? I was in that murky region only three days ago. Was it all a -dream? It might be, for things were getting mixed and incongruous. Now -cigar smoke kills the magnolia, and some electric lamplets among the -trees are jarring with the moon. We suddenly step into a pavilion where -a band is playing, and I see smart men and women, very fashionably -attired in evening dress, some of them raking in money at the roulette -table. We do not stay long there, for we did not land to see such -banalities, and, regaining the garden solitudes, make for our bullock -sledges, which are to take us up 2000 feet higher through vine-trellised -lanes all paved by those polished pebbles set edgewise for the sledges -to run smoothly on. Away we go, our cabmen now and then placing a tallow -candle enclosed in a bag under the sledge runners to lubricate them, or -there would be disagreeable friction. As soon as one runner has passed -over the emaciated candle the man on that side throws the candle across -to the man on the other, who, stooping, and always at a trot, performs -the same juggernautic process on his side. The men are handsome and -healthy fellows, wearing their coats hanging loose on their shoulders -over snowy shirts. They never speak to Mr. Payne with covered heads. - -"There is a funicular railway up this mountain, but it does not work at -night, and we thus have a taste of the vanishing Past. Far more -effective, this railway, for it climbs the hill boldly and with -uncovered sides, whilst our old road is hemmed in by high vineyard -walls, and the straining of the little goaded oxen is amongst those -belongings of the Past which I will gladly see vanish with it. - -[Illustration: "IN THE HOLLOW OF HIS HAND"] - -"On our way up the incline, which would be impossible to horses and to -wheels, our kind _cicerone_ invited us to see his garden and the view of -the bay and the great ocean which was swelling away in the light towards -Morocco. It was a lovely garden, and we crept about it round the little -cosy house, and looked up at the closed shutters, within which _la -famille Payne_ lay slumbering. We even went on tip-toe through the -sitting-rooms, which the owner, looking as though he was burgling his -own house, lit with a little lantern. In one there was a parrot asleep, -in another an engraving of the 'Roll Call,' and again I began to think I -might be dreaming and would wake, with tears, in Sloane Street. But the -'dream' was solid and we continued our upward progress with four -additional oxen to each sledge and double whooping, and swearing, and -prodding, for the gradient now was terrific. At the end of the -sledge track we halted, and, getting out, we climbed to the hill top on -foot and from there beheld a lovely sight--deep valleys and vine-clad -hills and the great ocean beyond, and our Castle Liner blazing with -electric light more than 2000 feet below in the profound calm of Funchal -Bay. The stars were very lustrous and the 'Scorpion's Heart' aflame with -red and green. We then took a mysterious walk in brilliant moonlight and -intense black shadow to the edge of a great ravine or _coral_, from the -bottom of which rose the harsh sound of a torrent, invisible in the -shadow. Sugarcanes waved in the night breeze and banana plants rustled -and whispered, but no one was awake in all the land but our little -party. - -"Dreamlike again, on our way back to where we had got out of the -sledges, we had tea in another enchanted garden at 2 A.M. Our cabmen had -hammered at that garden gate a long time, looking like stage peasants -knocking at an operatic moonlit portal, before the waiter could be -awakened, and by the time we returned from our walk the sleepy creature -in tail coat, but minus his tie, was ready for us. When we passed that -mysterious threshold we found ourselves in a garden full of the scent -of box hedges and tinkling with fountains. We walked in the chequered -shadow cast by palms and cypresses, and, soothed by the sound of running -water, we felt we would like to stay there till the dawn. What a night -to impress the children's minds with! Our tea was hilarious, in an -arbour facing the ocean, but our hilarity was to reach its climax when -we got into two toboggans, three people in each, and _slithered_ down -the 2000 foot declivity which our oxen had so painfully and slowly drawn -us up. The oxen had vanished with the sledges and the drivers, and a new -set of men piloted us down the tremendous incline. - -"Nothing makes me laugh more than a toboggan in full flight with its -helpless load. I had the pace moderated, in spite of protests, for I -really did not care to have a variation of the too recent Bay of Biscay; -but the toboggans got out of hand sometimes or had to be given their -heads round the corners. It was vertigo then. - -"Ah, good night, or rather good morning, peerless Madeira!" - -Then followed days of blue weather and ever-increasing heat. A lonely -voyage--not a sail to be seen. In that long-drawn-out monotony we made -the most of trivialities. - -I read in my diary one night in the Tropics:-- - -"There is to be a fancy-dress ball to-night, in connection with crossing -the Line the other day, I suppose; the second class passengers are to -come over and dance with the first class on the gaily decorated -promenade deck. I am pleased at the appearance of the three children. C. -has made up from some Eastern muslins a very coquettish Turkish costume -with a little cap, which becomes her to my entire satisfaction. E. looks -the typical 'duck' in a poke bonnet all over little pink roses, and I -have buckled up little M. in a colonial cavalry 'rig,' slouched hat and -all, Captain S. lending his sabre, which is somewhat longer than the -temporary owner." - - * * * * * - -Here I must interpolate the statement of certain facts which will enable -you more fully to sympathise with me in the catastrophe that closes this -mid-ocean episode. - -You must know that white servants are impossible to find at the Cape, -and one must bring all one's staff out with one, "for better, for -worse," it may be for three, four, five years. If any turn out badly, it -is true you may send them home, but--who is to replace them? I could -not persuade my cook at Dover Castle to undertake this expatriation, her -courage failing her at the last moment, and I had to find an untried -substitute. She was a Dane with the blood of generations of bellicose -Vikings coursing through her veins, and I had watched her daily on the -other deck from afar with apprehensions. - - * * * * * - -"The ball is over and I feel decidedly limp. I thought I was going to -have a pleasant evening. I was sitting with Lady ---- and all the others -who were not masquerading, enjoying the sight of the figures in all -kinds of extempore costumes appearing on the deck from below and -mustering prior to setting to, the band playing a spirited waltz, when -there slowly emerged from the saloon stairway, as though rising from the -waves she rules--Britannia! First a high brass helmet with scarlet -crest, then a trident held in one hand, a shield in the other, and the -folds of the Union Jack draping her commanding form. She stepped on -deck. 'I say,' said a voice, 'this is _the_ success of the evening; who -is it?' 'Who is it?' you heard on every side. 'Who is it?' asked -Lady ---- turning to me. 'My cook,' I faintly answered. The last speaker -knew her South Africa, and all the possibilities of the future might -have spoken in my face to judge by the choking laughter that caused her -precipitate withdrawal. Each time she ventured back within sight of my -smileless face the fit seized her again. Later on I saw Britannia -dancing in a small set of Lancers hand in hand with the Marchioness. -Shall I ever get her harnessed now?" - -I went back to hang over the bulwarks and lose myself among the stars. - -And so we made our way athwart the world. Each evening every one went to -scan the chart where the little "atom's" progress was marked with, to -us, an all too short pen-stroke, showing the distance covered in the -last twenty-four hours. And in time the sad South Atlantic broke up the -exquisite blue weather of the Tropics. - -The diary goes on: "To-night we saw the Pole Star set for the last time. -A profound melancholy--a sense of losing a life-companion--falls on the -mind. The child who has just seen its old nurse turn a bend in the road -and disappear looks with rueful eyes on the bright newcomer. The -Southern Cross and all the new stars will never fill the void left by -the constellations which I have watched above the beloved scenes of the -Northern World. My thoughts follow the Pole Star beyond the dark rim of -the horizon. Dear old friend! I shall not feel content, no matter how -beautiful I shall find the Southern heavens, till the joyful night when -the captain of the Homeward Bound tells us we shall see thee rise. When -will that be--in two--in three--years?" - -I spoke just now of the "sad" South Atlantic. To me it will always be -the saddest part of the world. The sky above it loses the transparent -and radiant quality of blue ("less blue than radiant," Mrs. Browning -happily says of the Florentine sky) and takes more of a cobalt quality, -and the tone of the sea follows suit. The effect of the diminishing -warmth also chills one morally and physically, and one knows that the -best is passed. The phrase, "a waste of waters," comes constantly to the -mind. - -The following extract from the diary will show how this mournful -sentiment of the South Atlantic was one day accentuated--stamped, as it -were, with the seal of sorrow, on our return voyage, four days from Cape -Town. "We had a burial at sea, the forlornest thing I have ever -witnessed. A poor consumptive governess, travelling alone, died last -night, who must have been far too ill to be put on board ship. She was -buried at eleven this morning. - -"We were kneeling near the body, which lay on a bier shaped like a tray, -covered with the Union Jack, at the open gangway overhanging the dreary -tossing waters. Not a glimpse of blue sky above, the dense clouds shut -it out. As she belonged to our Church, W., in uniform, read the prayers -and Captain C. the responses. When the prayers were ended the bier was -tilted by the six sailors who had been grasping it all through the -service. The poor little body, sewn up in sacking, darted out, with a -rattle of the leaden weights, from under the covering flag and fell with -a loud splash into the black ocean; the flowers that had been placed on -it scattered on the foam, and, as the ship scarcely stopped, these were -soon left behind to sink and disappear. He who read the prayers said to -me when all was over, 'Christ walks the waters as well as the land.'" - -Two days after I read: "A concert this evening, with some comic songs. I -noticed the piano was draped with the same Union Jack that covered the -poor girl two days ago." - - * * * * * - -One can hardly realize what a sailing voyage of this magnitude must have -been in the old days. Our modern impatience can hardly endure the -thought. The announcement one evening that at dawn we should sight Table -Mountain was extremely pleasant. The arrival had the never-fading charm. -"I see papa!" sang out little M. "How are the children?" hailed papa -from the quay. "All well!" And we land on utterly new ground to begin a -new experience. A short train journey, turning the flank of Table -Mountain, brings us to our new home at Rosebank, where I find a pair of -shapely Cape ponies harnessed to the Victoria awaiting us at the -station. - -[Illustration: A CORNER OF OUR GARDEN AT ROSEBANK] - - - - -CHAPTER II - -AT ROSEBANK, CAPE COLONY - - -"Strange land; strange birds with startling cries; strange flowers; -strange scents! I received a bouquet of welcome on my arrival composed -of grass-green flowers with brilliant rose-coloured leaves. Where am I? -_Where_ are the points of the compass? - -"I was watching the sun travelling to his setting this evening, and, -forgetting I was perforce facing North to watch him, he seemed to be -sloping down towards the East! And lo! when he was gone, the crescent -moon on the wrong side of the sunset and turned the wrong way. And a -cold south wind bringing melancholy messages from the Antarctic. 'There -has been a storm in the south,' some one said, and the words struck -drearily on my mind's ear. - -"My Bible, so full of imagery taken from the aspects of Nature, is -turned inside out. - - Arise (depart), north wind; and come, O south wind; blow through my - garden, and let the aromatical spices thereof flow (Canticles iv. - 16). - -"My Shakespeare is upside down. - - At Christmas I no more desire a rose - Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth.-- - _Love's Labour's Lost._ - -"Here roses load the Christmas air with sweetness, and May ushers in the -snow upon the mountains. - - When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim, - Hath put a spirit of youth in everything.--_Sonnet._ - -"Here April is in the 'sear and yellow.' - -"Yesterday a furnace-blast swooped down upon us from the great deserts -to the north, and I feel I shall never be myself while I continue to see -my shadow at noonday projected southward. But enough of grumbling for -the present. - -"Nowhere have I seen such starlight as streams upon the earth from the -Milky Way, which belts the whole heavens here with silver. I don't know -why I have never seen the Milky Way so distinct and splendid in the -Northern Hemisphere. It is the glory of the South African nights, and I -have the pleasure, too, of seeing the entire sweep of the 'Scorpion's' -tail, superb scroll of blazing stars. I knew the Southern Cross would be -disappointing, and so was not disappointed. - -"It gyrates over the Pole in a way to greatly astonish the uninitiated. -The other evening, dressing for an evening function, I saw it before my -window upright, and on coming home in the small hours, behold it on its -head! - -"I cannot hope ever to convey to the mind of those who have not -experienced Cape Colony the extraordinarily powerful local feeling of -these days and nights. Melancholy they are--at least to me--but most, -most beautiful and _pungently_ poetical. The aromatic quality of the -odours that permeate the air suggests that word. Yet all is too strange -to win the heart of a newcomer, however much his eyes and mind may be -captivated. - -"If an artist wanted to accomplish that apparently impossible feat of -painting Fairyland direct from Nature, without one touch supplied out -of his own fancy, he would only have to come here. There are effects of -light and colour on these landscapes that I never saw elsewhere. The -ordinary laws seem set aside. For instance, you expect a palm-tree to -tell dark against the sunset. Oh, dear me no, not necessarily here. I -saw one a tender green, and the sand about it was in a haze of softest -rose-colour, through which shone the vivid orange light of the sunset -behind it. Incredible altogether are the colours at sunset, but all so -fleeting. And there is no after-glow here as in Egypt and Italy; the -instant the glory of the setting sun is gone all is over and all is -grey. - -"Even the melancholy-quaint sound of the frogs through the night -suggests fairy tales. It is appealing in its own way. I thought the -Italian maremma frog noisy, but no one can imagine what an orgy of -shrill croaking fills the nights here. They are everywhere, these -irrepressibles, though invisible; near your head, far away, under your -feet, at your side, in the tree-tops, in the streams, for ever springing -their rattles with renewed zest. I shall never hear nocturnal frogs -again without being transported to these regions of strange and -melancholy nights. - -"Table Mountain rises square and precipitous above our garden, far -above the simmer of the frogs, and looks like an altar in the pure white -light that falls upon it from the Milky Way. How still, how holy in its -repose of the long ages it looks, and the thought comes to one's mind, -'Would that all the evil brought to South Africa by the finding of the -gold could be gathered together and burnt on that altar as a peace -offering!' - -"On this Rosebank side there is nothing that jars with the majestic -feeling of Table Mountain, but to see what we English have done at its -base on the other side, at Cape Town, is to see what man can do in his -little way to outrage Nature's dignity. The Dutch never jarred; their -old farm-houses with white walls, thatched roofs, green shutters, and -rounded Flemish gables look most harmonious in this landscape. Wherever -we have colonized there you will see the corrugated iron dwelling, the -barbed-wire fence, the loathsome advertisement. We talk so much of the -love of the beautiful, and yet no people do so much to spoil beauty as -we do wherever we settle down, all the world over. I respect the Dutch -saying; 'The eye must have something'--beauty is a necessity to moral -health. A clear sky and a far horizon have more value to the national -mind than we care to recognize, and though the smoking factory that -falsifies England's skies and blurs her horizons may fill our pockets -with gold, it makes us poorer by dulling our natures. I am sure that a -clear physical horizon induces a clear mental one. - -"As you gaze, enraptured, at the rosy flush of evening on the mountains -across "False Bay" from some vantage point on the road to Simon's Town, -your eye is caught by staring letters in blatant colours in the -foreground. "Keller's boots are the best"; "Guinea Gold Cigarettes"; "Go -to the Little Dust Pan, Cape Town, for your Kitchen things." I _won't_ -go to the Little Dust Pan. Of all the horrors, a dust pan at Cape Town, -where your eyes are probably full enough of dust already from the arid -streets, and your face stinging with the pebbles blown into it by a -bitter "sou'easter"? I once said in Egypt I knew nothing more trying -than paying calls in a "hamseem," but a Cape Town "sou'easter" -disarraying you, under similar circumstances, is a great deal more -exasperating. - -"I am told the Old Cape Town, when Johannesburg was as yet dormant, was -a simple and comely place--its white houses, so well adapted to this -intensely sunny climate, were deep set in wooded gardens, a few of -which have so far escaped the claws of the jerry builder. (O United -States, what things you send us--"jerry," "shoddy" ----!) But now the -glaring streets, much too wide, and left unfinished, are lined with -American "Stores" with cast-iron porticoes, above which rise buildings -of most pretentious yet nondescript architecture, and the ragged -outskirts present stretches of corrugated iron shanties which positively -rattle back the clatter of a passing train or tram-car. And all around -lie the dust bins of the population, the battered tin can, the derelict -boot. No authorities seem yet to have been established to prevent the -populace, white, brown, and black, from throwing out all their old -refuse where they like. Some day things may be taken in hand, but at -present this half-baked civilization produces very dreadful results. -There is promise of what, some day, may be done in the pleasing red -Parliament House and the beautiful public gardens of the upper town. -There is such a rush for gold, you see! No one cares for poor Cape Town -_as_ a town. The adventurer is essentially a bird of passage. Man and -Nature contrast more unfavourably to the former here than elsewhere, and -the lines, - - Where every prospect pleases - And only man is vile, - -ring in my ears all day. - -"Altogether our Eden here is sadly damaged, and I am sorry it should be -my compatriots who are chiefly answerable for the ugly patches on so -surpassingly beautiful a scene. Our sophisticated life, too, is out of -place in this unfinished country, and we ought to live more simply, as -the Dutch do, and not feel it necessary to carry on the same _menage_ as -in London. Liveried servants in tall hats and cockades irritate me under -such a sun, and the butler in his white choker makes me gasp. An -extravagant London-trained cook is more than ever trying where all -provisions are so absurdly dear. The native servant in his own suitable -dress, as in India and Egypt, does not exist down here. - -"One of the chief reasons, I find, as I settle down in my new -surroundings, for the feeling of incompleteness which I experience, is -the fact of this country's having no history. We get forlorn glimpses of -the Past, when the old Dutch settlers used to hear the roar of the lions -outside Cape Town Fort of nights; and, further back, we get such peeps -as the quaint narratives of the early explorers allow us, but -beyond those there is the great dark void. - -[Illustration: THE INVERTED CRESCENT] - -"This is all from my own point of view, and I know there is one, an -Africander born,[1] who, with strong and vivid pen, writes with sympathy -of the charms of Italy, but only expands into heartfelt home-fervour -when returning to the red soil and atmospheric glamour of her native -veldt. This personal way of looking at things makes the value of all -art, literary and pictorial, to my mind. Set two artists of equal merit -to paint the same scene together; the two pictures will be quite unlike -each other. I am of those who believe that picture will live longest -which contains the most of the author's own thought, provided the -author's thought is worthy, and the technical qualities are good, well -understood." - - [1] Olive Schreiner. - -I will end my South African sketch by one more page of diary, which, in -recording a day's expedition to the Paarl, gives an impression of the -Cape landscape which may stand as typical of all its inland scenery. - -"On Whitsun-eve we had a most enchanting expedition to Stellenbosch and -the Paarl, which I will describe here. W., I, the children, and the -B.'s, formed the party. We left home just at sunrise, the heavy dew -warning us of a very hot winter's day, though it was then cold enough. -We took the train to Stellenbosch, and I was in ecstasies over the -perfect loveliness of the scenes we passed through as the train climbed -the incline towards those deeply serrated mountains which we were to -pierce by and by. Looking back as we rose I could more fully appreciate -the majestic proportions of Table Mountain, at whose base we live, and, -when a long way off it stood above the plain in solitude, disclosed in -its entirety, pale amethyst in the white morning light, I was more than -ever filled with a sense of the majesty of this land which this -dominating mountain seemed to gather up into itself and typify. - -"Quite different in outline are the fantastic mountains we passed -athwart to-day, and nowhere have I seen such intense unmixed ultramarine -shadows as those that palpitate in their deep kloofs in contrast with -the rosy warmth of their sunlit buttresses and jagged peaks. And as to -the foregrounds here, when you get into the primeval wilderness, what -words can I find to give an idea of their colouring, and of the -profusion of the wild shrubs, all so spiky and aromatic, and some so -weird, so strange, that cover the sandy plains? Here are some notes. In -distance, blue mountains; middle distance, pine woods, dark; in -foreground, gold-coloured shrubs, islanded in masses of bronze foliage -full of immense thistle-shaped pink and white flowers; bright green -rushes standing eight feet high, with brown heads waving; black cattle -knee-deep in the rich herbage and a silver-grey stork slowly floating -across the blue of the still sky. - -"But this most paintable and decorative vegetation is not friendly to -the intruder. These exquisitely toned shrubs with wild strong forms are -full of repellent spikes which, like bayonets, they seem to level at you -if, lured by the gentle perfume of their blossoms, you approach eye and -nose too near. Depend upon it, this country was intended for -thick-skinned blacks. - -"As you get farther from town influences there appear much better human -forms in the landscape, and to-day I was greatly struck with the -appearance of an ox-waggon drawn by twelve big-horned beasts, and upon -its piled-up load stood picturesque male and female Malays in white and -gay colours--quite a triumphal car. A negro with immense whip walked by -the side, and behind rose a long avenue of old stone-pines, and at the -end of the vista the blue sky. These stone-pine avenues that border the -red-earthed highways are among the most delightful of the many local -beauties of the Cape, and such stone-pines! Old giants bigger than any I -have seen on the Riviera. There are dense forests of them here, lovely -things to look down on, with their soft, velvety masses of round tops of -a rich dark green, looking like one solid mass. The wise Dutch who -planted them had a law whereby any one felling one of these pines was -bound to plant two saplings in its stead. We are doing a great deal of -the felling without the planting. - -"At Stellenbosch we got out, and, to my pleasure, I saw a long sort of -char-a-banc driven at a hand gallop into the station yard, drawn by -three mules and three horses--the vehicle ordered by W. to convey us to -the 'Paarl.' And why 'Paarl'? Deep among the mountains rises a double -peak, bearing imbedded in each summit an immense smooth rock rounded -like a black titanic 'Pearl' that glistens in the sun as it beats on its -polished surface. Thither we blithely sped, one driver holding the -multitudinous reins of our mixed team, the other manoeuvering with -both hands his immensely long whip, the gyrations of the thong being an -interesting thing to watch as he touched up now this beast and now that. -They have a way in this country of keeping up a uniform trot uphill, -downhill, and on the level, but stopping frequently to breathe the -team." (Ah! give me road travel with horses--it is more _human_ than the -motor!) "After an enchanting stage through wild mountain gorges we came -to an oak fixed upon by W. beforehand as marking our halting place, and -there the six beasts were 'out-spanned.' The simple harness was just -slipped off and laid along on the road where the animals stood, and then -they were allowed to stray into the wild, tumbling bush as they liked -and have a roll, if so minded. Then we lit a fire and spread our repast -under the shade of the oak at the edge of a wood that sloped down to a -mountain stream. All round the solemn mountains, all about us fragrant -aromatic flowers and the call of wild African birds! I can well -understand the passionate love an Africander-born must feel for his -country. I know none that has such strong, saturating local sentiment. -The horses and mules, whose feet I had espied several times waving in -spurts of rolling above the undergrowth, being collected and -'in-spanned,' we set off for the Paarl Station and descended back into -the Plain by rail at sunset; and as we left the mountains behind us they -were flushing in the glory from the West, their shadows remaining of the -same astonishing ultramarine they had kept all day. In any other country -the blue would have changed somewhat, but here I don't expect anything -to follow any known rules--I accept the phenomena of things around me as -time goes on, and have ceased to wonder. Oh! vision of loveliness, -strange and unique, which this day has given me, never to be forgotten." - - * * * * * - -My great regret is that I had so little time to ply my paints and try at -least to make studies which would now be very precious to me. How little -I knew the shortness of my sojourn! The two little Cape ponies (with -much of the Arab in them) were in almost daily requisition along those -great pine-bordered, red-earthed roads, to take me for my return calls, -or a portion of them. I fear I left many unreturned towards the end. -There were the Dutch as well as the English, a large circle. I had -sketching expeditions projected which never came off, with a clever -Dutch lady, who did charming water-colours of beautiful Constantia and -the striking country above Simon's Bay, and the true "Cape of Good -Hope" beyond. She had battled with snakes in the pursuit of her art, and -in the woods had sustained the stone-throwing of the baboons, who made a -target of her as she sat at work. I was willing for the baboon -bombardment, and even would chance the snakes, as one chances -everything, to wrest but a poor little water-colour from nature. - -Two events which, in that tremendous year '99, were of more than usual -importance loom large in my memory of the Cape--that is, the Queen's -Birthday Review in May, and the opening of Parliament on the 14th July. -The Birthday Review on the Plain at Green Point was the ditto of others -I had seen on the sands of Egypt, on the green sward of Laffan's Plain -at Aldershot, on the Dover Esplanade, and wherever W. had been in -command; but this time, as he rode up on his big grey to give the -Governor the Royal Salute before leading the "Three Cheers for Her -Majesty the Queen!" a prophet might have seen the War Spectre moving -through the ranks of red-coats behind the General. - -At the opening of Parliament we ladies almost filled the centre of the -"House," and I was able to study the scene from very close. The Dutch -Members, on being presented to the Speaker, took the oath by raising the -right hand, whereas the English, of course, kissed the Book. The -proceedings were all on the lines followed at Westminster, the Governor -keeping his hat on as representing the Sovereign. The opening words of -"the Speech from the Throne" sounded hollow. They proclaimed amongst -other things _urbi et orbi_, that we were at peace with the South -African Republics. - - * * * * * - -"And now," says the diary, "Good-bye, South Africa, for ever! I am glad -that in you I have had experience of one of the most enchanting portions -of this earth!" - - * * * * * - -As you know that experience only lasted five months after all. We left -on the 23rd August '99 on a day of blinding rain, which, as the ship -moved off, drew like a curtain across that country which I felt we were -leaving to a fast-approaching trouble. The war cloud was descending. It -burst in blood and fire a few weeks later and deepened the sense of -melancholy with which I shall ever think of that far-away land. - -[Illustration: THE CAPE "FLATS"] - - - - -IV - -ITALY - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: BRINGING IN THE GRAPES] - - - - -CHAPTER I - -VINTAGE-TIME IN TUSCANY - - -[Illustration] - -A descent from the Apennine on a September evening into Tuscany, with -the moon nearly full--that moon which in a few days will be shining in -all its power upon the delights of the vintage week--this I want to -recall to you who have shared the pleasure of such an experience with -me. - -A descent into the Garden of Italy, spread out wide in a haze of warm -air--can custom stale the feeling which that brings to heart and mind? - -Railway travel has its poetry, its sudden and emotional contrasts and -surprises. But a few hours ago we were in the foggy drizzle of an autumn -morning at Charing Cross, and, ere we have time to be fagged by a -too-long journey, our eyes and brain receive the image of the Tuscan -plain! - -The train slows down for a moment on emerging from the last tunnel at -the top of the mountain barrier; the grinding brakes are still, and for -a precious instant we listen at the window for the old summer night -sounds we remember and love. Yes! there they are; there _he_ is, the -dear old chirping, drumming, droning night-beetle in myriads at his old -penetrating song, persistent as the sicala's through the dog days, local -in its suggestiveness as the corncrake's endless saw among the -meadow-sweet all through the Irish summer night. - -But, _avanti!_ Down the winding track with flying sparks from the locked -wheels, every metre to the good; down to the red domes of Pistoja; -forward, then, on the level, to Florence and all it holds. - -How we English do love Italy! Somewhere in our colder nature flows a -warm Gulf Stream of love for what is sunny and clear-skied and genial, -and I think I may say, though my compatriots little realize it, that the -evidences of a living faith which are inseparable from Italian landscape -greatly add to the charm that attracts us to this land. What would her -hills be if decapitated of the convents on their summits, with each its -cypress-lined _Via Crucis_ winding up the hillside? The time of the -after-glow would be voiceless if deprived of the ringing of the Angelus. -Dimly we perceive these things, or hardly recognise them as facts--nay, -many of us still protest, _but they draw us to Italy_. - -And now the arrival at Florence. The pleasure of dwelling on that -arrival, when on the platform our friends await us with the sun of Italy -in their looks! Then away we go with them in carriages drawn by those -fast-trotting Tuscan ponies that are my wonder and admiration, with -crack of whip and jingle of bells along the white moon-lit road to the -great villa at Signa, where the vintage is about to begin. - -To recall the happy labour of those precious three days of grape-picking -in the mellow heat on the hillside, and then the all-pervading fumes of -fermenting wine of the succeeding period in the courtyard of the -_Fattoria_; the dull red hue of the crushed grapes that dyes all things, -animate and inanimate, within the sphere of work, is one of the most -grateful efforts of my memory. I see again the handsome laughing -peasants, the white oxen, the flights of pigeons across the blue of the -sky. The mental relaxation amidst all this activity of wholesome and -natural labour, the complete change of scene, afford a blessed rest to -one who has worked hard through a London winter and got very tired of a -London season. It is a patriarchal life here, and the atmosphere of good -humour between landlord and tenant seems to show the land laws and -customs of Tuscany to be in need of no reformer, the master and the man -appearing to be nearer contentment than is the case anywhere else that I -know of. You and I saw a very cheery specimen of the land system at -grand old Caravaggio. - -[Illustration: A SON OF THE SOIL, RIVIERA DI LEVANTE] - -Then the evenings! I know it is trite to talk of guitars and tenor -voices under the moonlight, but Italy woos you back to many things we -call "used up" elsewhere, and there is positive refreshment in -hearing those light tenor voices, expressive of the light heart, singing -the ever-charming _stornellos_ of the country as we sit under the -pergola after dinner each evening. The neighbours drop in and the guitar -goes round with the coffee. Everybody sings who can, and, truth to say, -some who can't. Many warm thanks to our kind friends, English and -Italian (some are gone!), who gave you and me such unforgettable -hospitality in '75, '76. - -But lest all these guitarings and airy nothings of the gentle social -life here should become oversweet, we can slip away from the rose-garden -and climb up into the vineyards of the rustic _podere_ that speak of -wholesome peasant labour, of tillage--the first principle of man's -existence on earth--and, among the practical pole-vines that bear the -true wine-making grapes (not the dessert fruit of the garden _pergola_), -have a quiet talk. - -The starry sky is disclosed almost round the entire circle of the -horizon, with "_Firenze la gentile_" in the distance on our right, the -Apennine in front, and the sleeping plain trending away to the left to -be lost in mystery. I want to talk to you of our experience of Italy the -Beloved, from our earliest childhood until to-day. - -What a happy chance it was that our parents should have been so taken -with the _Riviera di Levante_ as to return there winter after winter, -alternately with the summers spent in gentle Kent or Surrey, during our -childhood; not the French Riviera which has since become so -sophisticated, but that purely Italian stretch of coast to the east of -Genoa, ending in Porto Fino, that promontory which you and I will always -hold as a sacred bit of the world. Why? There are as lovely promontories -jutting out into the Mediterranean elsewhere? The child's love for the -scenes of its early friendships with nature is a jealous love. - -Our relations by marriage with the B. family admitted us into the centre -of a very typical Italian home of the old order. I suppose that life was -very like the life of eighteenth-century England--the domestic habits -were curiously alike, and I cannot say I regret that their vogue is -passing. We are thought to be so ridiculously fastidious, _noi altri -inglesi_, and our parents were certainly not exceptional in this -respect, and suffered accordingly. - -The master of the house, the autocratic _padrone_, had been in the -Italian Legion in Napoleon's Russian campaign, as you may remember, and -the retreat from Moscow had apparently left certain indelible -cicatrices on the old gentleman's temper. I can hear his stentorian -voice even now calling to the servant (I think there was only one -"living in," though there were about a dozen hangers-on) in the rambling -old Palazzo without bells. "O--O--O, Mariuccia!" "Padrone!" you heard in -a feminine treble from the remote regions of the kitchen upstairs, -somewhere. Mariuccia would generally get a bit of the Italian -legionary's mind when she came tumbling down the marble stairs. Madame -la Generale appeared in the morning with a red handkerchief on her head -and remained in corsetless _deshabille_ till the afternoon. Genoese was -the home language, French was for society. No one spoke real Italian. -They had not yet begun to "Toscaneggiare," as it grew to be the fashion -to do when Italy became united. Don't you dislike to hear them? - -What recollections our parents carried away from those visits to the -Nervi household! How we used to love to hear mamma's accounts, for -instance, of the night Lord Minto came to tea. Madame Gioconda had put -the whole pound of choice green tea which she had bought at the English -shop in Genoa into a large tea-pot requisitioned for this rare English -occasion. Poor mamma had the pouring of it out, and no deluges of hot -water, brought by the astonished Mariuccia, could tame that ferocious -beverage. I am sure the brave General never got more completely -"bothered" by the Russian cannon than he did by the "gun-powder" that -evening. Nowadays such a mistake could not happen when _il the_ is quite -the fashion. - -Italians still think it the right thing to visit England in November and -go to Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham for their informing little -tour. In those remote days it was the only way in which the few that -ever ventured so far saw our lovely land. Mamma was constantly sent into -a state of suppressed indignation by the stereotyped question, "Are -there any flowers in England?" But I have not done with the old General. -I remember we were so frightened of that Tartar that Papa used to have -to propel us into the Presence, when, in the evenings, every one, big -and little, sat down to dominoes or "tombola." Syrup and water and -little cakes made of chestnut flour refreshed the company. The General's -snuff was in the syrup, I firmly believed. We looked like two little -martyrs as we went up to salute those shaking yellow cheeks on being -sent to bed. Why are children put to these ordeals? - -The living was frugal, the real "simple life" which some of us in -England are pretending to lead to-day. But on certain occasions, such as -Shrove Tuesday, for instance, ah! no effects of oriental feasting could -surpass the repletion with which each guest left the festive board. -Mariuccia had help for three days previous to such regalings, during -which one heard the tapping of the chopper in the kitchen, preparing the -force-meat for the national dish, the succulent _ravioli_, as one passed -within earshot of that remote vaulted hall. - -And do you remember (you are a year my junior, and a year makes a great -difference in the child's mind) a certain night when there was a ball at -our villa on the Albaro shore, and the shutters of the great "_sala_" -were thrown open to let in the moonlight at midnight? A small barque lay -in the offing, surrounded by little boats, and a cheer came over the sea -in answer to what the people over there, seeing the sudden illumination -from the chandeliers, took for our flashing signal of "God-speed!" They -were a detachment of Garibaldi's Redshirts on their way to liberate -Southern Italy. The grown-ups on our side went down to supper, and our -little cropped heads remained looking at the barque in the moon's broad -reflection long after we were supposed to be asleep. I had seen the -Liberator himself talking to the gardener at the ----'s villa, where he -was staying, at Quarto, the day before he sailed for Messina. - -We were certainly an unconventional family, and we were so happy in our -rovings through the land of sun. But if you and I are inclined to bemoan -too much modernism in that Italy we so jealously love, oh! do not let us -forget the gloom of some of those old palaces which we had a mind to -inhabit a _l'Italienne_, on bad winter nights--the old three-beaked oil -lamps in the bedrooms serving, as our dear father used to say, only to -"make darkness visible"--the wind during the great storms setting some -loose shutter flapping in uninhabited upper regions of the house; the -dark places which Charles Dickens in his _Pictures from Italy_ says he -noticed in all the Italian houses he slept in on his tour, which were -not wholly innocent of scorpions. The marble floors and the paucity of -fireplaces did not give comfort for the short winters; but how glorious -those old houses became as soon as the cold was gone; shabby, -ramshackle, and splendid, we loved them "for all in all." - -In certain things modern Italy affords us an easier life. We are given -to nagging at the Italians for their dreadful want of taste in spoiling -the beauty of their cities, but in the old days we were nagging at them -for their dirt. Now Rome is the cleanest capital in the world. Some one -said it is more than clean, it is dusted. And is not the Society for the -Protection of Animals in _existence_, at least? With what derision such -an institution would have been heard of in our childhood's days--a -suggestion of those "mad English." - -Do you call to mind what scenes used to occur whenever mamma came out -with us, between her and the muleteers? I can see her now, in the -fulness of her English beauty, flying out one day at a carter for -flogging and kicking his mules that were hardly able to drag a load up -the Albaro Hill. This was the dialogue. Mamma--"_Voi siete un cattivo!_" -Muleteer--"_E voi siete bella!_" Mamma--"_Voi siete un birbante!_" -Muleteer--"_E voi siete bella!_" Mamma--"_Voi siete uno scelerato!_" -Muleteer--"_E voi siete bella!_" And so on, till we had reached the -bottom of the cruel hill, mamma at the end of her _crescendo_ of -fulminations and the man's voice, still calling "_E voi siete bella_" -in imitation of her un-Genoese phraseology, lost in distance at the top. -"I shall get a fit some day," were her first English words. Poor dear -mother, the shooting of the singing-birds in spring, the dirt, the -noise, the flies, the mosquitoes--so many thorns in her Italian rose! -Yet how she loved that rose, but not more than the sweet violet of our -England that had no such thorns. The music in the churches, too, was -trying in those days, and to none more so than to that music-loving -soul. We have seen her doing her best to fix her mind on her devotions, -with her fingers in her ears, and her face puckered up into an -excruciated bunch. I hope Pius X. has enforced the plain-chant -everywhere, and stopped those raspings of secular waltzes on sour -fiddles that were supposed to aid our fervour. But I am nagging. As a -Northerner, I have no right to lecture the Italians as to what sort of -music is best for devotion, nor to tell them that the dressing of their -sacred images in gaudy finery on festival days is not the way to deepen -reverence. The Italians do what suits them best in these matters, and if -our English taste is offended let us stay at home. - -Well, well, here below there is nothing bright without its shadow. When -we had the delicious national costumes we had the dirt and the cruelty. -But why, I ask, cannot we keep the national dress, the local customs, -the picturesqueness while we gain the cleanly and the kind? Every time I -revisit Italy I miss another bit of colour and pleasing form amongst the -populations. In Rome not a cloak is to be seen on the citizens, that -black cloak lined with red or green they used to throw over the left -shoulder, toga-wise--only old left-off ulsters or overcoats from Paris -or Berlin. Not a red cap on the men of Genoa; the _pezzotto_ and -_mezzero_, most feminine headgear for the women, are extinct there. -Ladies in Rome are even shy of wearing the black mantilla to go to the -Vatican, and put it on in the cloak-room of the palace, removing it -again to put on the barbarous Parisian hat for the streets. When we -foreign ladies drive in our mantillas to the Audiences we are stared at! -Even my old friends the red, blue, and green umbrellas of portly -dimensions, formerly dear to the clergy, no longer light up the sombre -clerical garb. Did I not see a flight of bare-footed Capuchins, last -time in Rome, put up, every monk of them, a black Gingham when a shower -came on, and I was expecting an efflorescence of my fondly-remembered -Gamps? Next time I go the other bit of clerical colour will have -vanished, and I shall find them using white pocket-handkerchiefs instead -of the effective red bandana. - -Well, but, you are told, the beggars are cleared out, those persistent -unfortunates who used to thrust their deformities and diseases before -you wherever you turned, with the wailing refrain, "_Misericordia, -signore!_" "_Un povero zoppo!_" "_Un cieco!_" "_Ho fame!_" etc. etc. But -they sunned themselves and ate their bread and onions where they liked -(not where _we_ liked) in perfect liberty. Where are they now? In dreary -poorhouses, I suppose, out of sight, regularly fed and truly miserable. -I am afraid that much of our modern comfort is owing simply to the -covering up of unpleasantnesses. In the East, especially, life is seen -with the cover taken off, and many painful sights and many startling -bits of the reality of life spoil the sunshine for us there for a while. -But worse things are in the London streets, only "respectably" covered -up, and I am sure that more cruelty is committed by the ever-increasing -secret work of the vivisector than ever wrung the heart of the -compassionate in the old days in the open street. - -And there, as we sit on the hillside above Signa, lies Florence, just -discernible in the far-off plain, where I learnt so much of my art. -Those frescoes of Masaccio, Andrea del Sarto, and all those masters of -the human face who revelled in painting every variety of human type, how -they augmented my taste that way! Nothing annoyed me so much as the -palpable use of one model in a crowded composition. Take a dinner-party -at table--will you ever see two noses alike as you run your eye along -the guests? Even in a regiment of evenly matched troops, all of one -nationality, I ask you to show me two men in the ranks sharing the same -nose! - -Ah! those days I spent in the cloisters of the SS. Annuziata, making -pencil copies of Andrea's figures in the series of frescoes illustrating -the life of St Philip. It was summer-time, and the tourists only came -bothering me towards the end. That hot summer, when I used to march into -Florence, accompanied by little Majolina, in the still-early mornings, -when the sicala was not yet in full chirp for the day! Four days a week -to my master's studio under the shadow of the Medici Chapel, and two to -my dear cloisters; the Sunday at our villa under Fiesole. Happy girl! - -I see in my diary this brilliant adaptation of Coleridge's lines-- - - "'Tis sweet to him who all the week - Through city crowds must push his way, etc." - - 'Tis sweet to her who all the week - With brush and paint must work her way - To stroll thro' florence vineyards cool - And hallow thus the Sabbath Day. - -I have much to thank my master Guiseppe Bellucci for, who drilled me so -severely, carrying on the instruction I had the advantage to receive -from thorough-going Richard Burchett the head-master at South -Kensington--never-to-be-forgotten South Kensington. - -It seems a shame to be saying so much about Florence and not to pause a -few minutes to give the other a little hand-shake in passing. There I -began my art-student life, than which no part of an artist's career can -be more free from care or more buoyed up with aspirations for the -future. Dear early days spent with those bright and generous comrades, -my fellow-students, so full of enthusiasm over what they called my -"promise"--I have all those days chronicled in the old diaries. There I -recall the day I was promoted to the "Life Class" from the "Antique"--a -joyful epoch; and the Sketching Club where "old D----," the second -master, used to give "Best" nearly every time to Kate Greenaway and -"Second Best" to me. What joy when I got a "Best" one fine day. She and -I raced neck and neck with those sketches after that. The "Life Class" -was absorbingly interesting. But how nervous and excited I felt at -grappling with my first living model. He was a fine old man (but with a -bibulous eye) costumed to represent "Cranmer walking to the Tower." I -see in the diary, "Cranmer walked rather unsteadily to the Tower to-day, -and we all did badly in consequence." Then came one of Cromwell's -Ironsides whose morion gave him a perpetual headache, followed by my -first full-length, a costume model in tights and slashed doublet whom we -spitefully called "Spindle-Shanks" and greatly disliked. What was my -surprise, long years afterwards, to stumble upon my "Spindle-Shanks" as -"'Christopher Columbus,' by the celebrated painter of etc. etc." I then -remembered I had made a present of him, when finished, to our "char," -much to her embarrassment, I should think. However, she seems to have -got rid of the "white elephant" with profit to herself in course of -time. But I must not let myself loose on those glorious student days, so -full of work and of play, otherwise I would wander too far away from my -subject. It was tempting to linger over that hand-shake. - -I don't think I ever felt such heat as in Florence. As the July sun was -sending every one out of the baking city, shutting up the House of -Deputies, and generally taking the pith out of things, I remember -Bellucci coming into the studio one day with his hair in wisps, and -hinting that it would be as well for me to give myself _un mesetto di -riposo_. I did take that "little month of rest" at our villa, and -sketched the people and the oxen, and mixed a great deal in peasant -society, benefitting thereby in the loss of my Genoese twang under the -influence of their most grammatical Tuscan. The peasant is the most -honourable, religious, and philosophical of mankind. I feel always safe -with peasants and like their conversation and ways. They lead the -natural life. Before daylight, in midsummer, one heard them directing -their oxen at the plough, and after the mid-day siesta they were back at -their work till the Ave Maria. It was a large family that inhabited the -peasant quarters of our villa and worked the landlord's vineyards. How -they delighted in my sketches, in giving me sittings in the intervals of -work, in seeing me doing amateur harvesting with a sickle and helping -(?) them to bind the wheat sheaves and sift the grain. I must often -have been in the way, now I think of it, but never a hint did these -ladies and gentlemen of the horny hand allow to escape to my confusion. -Carlotta, the eldest girl, read me some of the "Jerusalem Delivered" one -full-moon night, to show me how easily one could read small print by the -Italian moonlight. Her mother invited me to dine with the family one day -as they were having a rare repast. Cencio had found two hedgehogs in a -hollow olive-tree, and the _ragout_ that ensued must be tasted by the -_signorina_. Through the door of the kitchen where we dined on that -occasion the two white oxen were seen reposing in the next apartment -after their morning's work. After tasting the _spinoso_ stew, I begged -to be allowed to take a stool in the corner and sketch the whole family -at table, and with the perfect grace of those people I was welcomed to -do so, and I got them all in as they sucked their hedgehog bones in -concert. You were reading Keats in one of the arbours, meanwhile, I -remember. - -I loved those days at Florence where I felt I was making the most of my -time and getting on towards the day when I should paint my first "real" -picture. When next I visited Florence with you for those memorable -vintages at Caravaggio in '75, '76, which I recalled just now to your -remembrance, I had painted my first "real" picture and received in -London more welcome than I deserved or hoped for. - -Twice I have revisited the outside of my Florentine studio in recent -years, not daring to go in. Bellucci is long dead and I don't know who -is there now. Standing under that tall window I have reviewed my career -since the days I worked there. I rejoice to know that my best works are -nearly all in public galleries or in the keeping of my Sovereign. To the -artist, the idea of his works changing hands is never a restful one. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER II - -SIENNA, PERUGIA, AND VESUVIUS - - -A two days' excursion to Sienna at the close of our second vintage at -Caravaggio was a fit _finale_ to the last visit you and I ever paid to -Italy _en garcon_. - -From Tuscany to Etruria--deeper still into the luxury of associating -with the past. Honey-coloured Sienna! It dwells in my memory bathed in -sunshine; the little city like a golden cup overflowing with the riches -it can scarcely hold; the home of St. Catherine and the scene of her -ecstasies and superhuman endeavours: the battlefield of St. Bernardine's -manful struggle against vice and luxury and gambling, so rampant and -unabashed in his time. Everywhere in this city you see, sculptured on -circular plaques of old white marble, let into the walls in street and -square, that monogram which all denominations of Christians know so -well, the I.H.S. with the Cross--_Jesus Hominum Salvator_. Whether the -engraved characters seen on the tombs in the Roman Catacombs were or -were not identical with those three initials and their significance, -they were so regarded by all the Churches for centuries, and the -monogram which St. Bernardine caused to be set up in this way throughout -Sienna was moulded on them in that belief. It was he who caused this -emblem to be so placed that the reluctant public eye could not wholly -avoid it, and who had it illuminated on tablets which he held up to his -congregations at the end of his rousing sermons, thus making that appeal -to the mind through the eye which he relied upon as one of his most -effectual levers. One may say he morally forced the people to recognise -and venerate that Name once more. - -Upon the carved coats-of-arms of Guelph and Ghibelline, which seemed to -gird at each other from the walls, he imposed this sign of peace, and -hence the multiplicity of these lovely symbols I am trying to -recall. They are seals which his strong hand stamped upon his native -place. - -[Illustration: PLOUGHING IN TUSCANY] - -Like all the great saints, Bernardine was practical. The manufacturers -of playing-cards and dice, finding their customers leaving them in -ever-increasing numbers to follow the Franciscan with a fervour which -reached to extraordinary heights, brought their complaints to him. -Bankruptcy was upon them. "Turn your talent to painting this Name on -cards and sell them to the people." This was done, and these little -tablets with the "I.H.S." became endowed with a peculiar sanctity to the -purchasers and sold well, so that little fortunes flowed in to fill the -void left by the fall in playing-cards. All these we spoke of on the -spot, I remember, and I write these words to you who know it all better -than I do, to show you I have not forgotten. - -Sometimes the monogram is inserted in the marble discs in gold on a blue -ground. Do you see again those circles of warm white marble, those -shining letters surrounded with golden rays on the blue centre, the -reflected light in the hollows of the carving, the Italian sky above? -These Siennese blank walls are better employed than those of modern -Rome, where we may see somebody's soap or blacking belauded in our -mother tongue _ad nauseam_. - -"A city set on a hill cannot be hid." How high Sienna is set! A lovelier -bit of man's workmanship was never held aloft for man to see. - -"To appreciate the outside aspect of Sienna we drove out" (I see in my -diary) "to the fortress-villa of Belcaro, with an introduction to the -owner, a recluse, who, though he has been to London once, somewhere in -the 'forties, has never been to Sienna. - -"The drive to this historic villa was through a perfect Pre-Raphaelite -landscape, full of highly-cultivated hillocks, above which the grander -distant country unfolded itself. I apologized to the old Masters for -what I had said of their landscape backgrounds before I had seen the -Siennese middle distances whose type seems to have inspired so many of -them. - -"Each turn in the road gave us a new aspect of the golden-brown city -behind us, on its steep hill. Perhaps the most effective view of it is -from near Belcaro, where you get the dark stone-pines in the immediate -foreground. - -"And the interior of the city! Those narrow streets they call here -_rughe_ and _costarelle_ are fascinating, dipping down to some archway -through which you see, far below, the sudden misty distance of the -rolling campagna, or a peep of a piazza in dazzling sunlight contrasting -with the semi-darkness of the narrow stone lane. So narrow are these -lanes that a pair of oxen drawing a cart all but scrape the side walls -with the points of their enormous horns, and you must manage to avoid a -collision by obliterating yourself in the nearest doorway. We found the -people beautiful. There are no modern abominations in the way of -buildings here, so that one enjoys Sienna with unalloyed pleasure." ... -At last! - -I suppose nothing could be more satisfying to the lover of beauty and of -that dignity which belongs to the great works of architecture of the -past than the aspect of Sienna Cathedral in the light of a September -moon, the planets and stars watching with her over that sanctuary in the -cloudless heavens. - -The silence of a little Italian city like this at night, when the full -moon dispenses with the artificial lighting, is always taking. To-night -the urban silence is broken perhaps by a burst of singing and the -thrumming of a guitar; young fellows with apparently plenty of leisure -are coming jauntily along the pavement singing, "_Oi! Oi! Oi! Tirami la -gamba se tu puoi_," and suddenly dive down a pitch-dark alley; then a -burst of laughter from a cavernous wine-shop; then stillness again. A -dog barks in a garden over whose walls you see where the "blessed moon -tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops." A fountain bubbles and -gushes softly as you come upon its hiding-place in the deep shadow from -a bit of loopholed wall that you scarcely recognize as the one you were -sketching this morning. Hither a few fire-flies, remnants of the summer -host, have strayed from beyond the city ramparts. Footsteps echo in the -silence more than in the day-time; not a wheel is heard, but the -campagna below is heard. It is murmuring with its invisible life of -insects all awake and full of shrill energy--goodness knows about what. -Your own energy is ebbing after the day's enchantment and you feel that -to stroll and sit and look is all the bliss you need. - -I had a revelation at Sienna about frescoes. In this extraordinarily dry -atmosphere you can see, as nowhere else, the fresco as it was originally -intended to appear. I do not know that I liked the effect as I came into -the sacristy of the cathedral and saw Pinturicchio's apparently freshly -painted scenes. These were so true, not only in their linear, but -(strange to say) in their aerial, perspective that the effect was as if -the walls had opened to show us these crowds of figures in gorgeous -halls or airy landscapes _outside_ the building, and the eye was -deceived by a positive illusion. One wants to _feel_ the walls of an -apartment, and when its frescoes are flat and faded, and appearing more -as lovely bits of decorative colour, as we see elsewhere, the eye is -better satisfied. But, looked at as pictures, these richly coloured -works are truly masterly, full of character and natural, realistic -action. - -Much of the beauty of the Middle Ages which we delight in is owing to -the mellowing of Time. When first turned out by painter or mason this -beauty would not so charm the artist. A brandnew feudal castle must have -looked very hard and staring; a walled city like a Brobdingnagian toy -town in a round box. No lichens on those walls; no ivy, no clumps of -wallflowers, or any of those compassionate veils that Nature, if allowed -a free hand, gently lays upon our crudities, and which the modern -Italian _Sindaco_ calls "_indecenza_" and commands to be scraped away. -The mind recognises the rightness of the inevitable bare look of a new -building, but a scraped ruin offends both mind and eye. - - -PERUGIA - -ONE day in April '99 I was reading a fascinating little book by Miss -Duff Gordon on Perugia as I sat on a fallen pine-tree trunk in our wood -at Rosebank in remote Cape Colony. I read it with intenser longing than -ever to be back in the world of art, of history, of culture, of -well-known and well-loved things, and, thinking we were likely to be in -our lovely exile for at least three years (with a short flight home to -England in the interval, perhaps), I thought of several precious things -I would give to be at Perugia in reality. That very day in that very -month of the following year I was there! - -Why do we fret about the future? Vain weakness! In my experience the -future has brought more than I wished for and better things, and the sad -things that have come have been those I had not feared. - -It is a lovely journey from Florence to Perugia--all beautiful, and one -wants to be at both ends of the railway carriage at once so as to miss -nothing. The old brown cities along the route are as frequent as the -Rhine castles; they still have their battlemented walls and gateways to -delight the artist for a long while yet. Perugia did not frown upon us -so mediaevally this time, as we drove up the long zigzag to it, as when -you and I first saw it. I think some of the frown has been demolished -since those days, and indeed I do not regret this. They are raising some -good public buildings where, I am told, the old castle stood, and in -these you see lovely pillars of rosy marble or granite quarried from -Assisi. That old castle had gloomy memories for the Italians and had no -claim to stay. - -Like all Italian cities, Perugia has a strongly marked character of its -own. This local character of her cities is one of Italy's richest -possessions. Genoa, brilliant in white, salmon-pink, and buff, the -colouring of her palaces, and scintillating in the sun as it beats upon -her pearl-grey roofs; Florence, sombre with the brown of her local -_pietra serena_ and roofed with the richer brown of her Tuscan tiles; -Verona, regal and stately, throned on the foothills of the Alps, her -rich colouring focussed in the red and tawny curtains which the Veronese -hang before their church doors; Padua, shady with trees, sedate and -academic, on the level, and uniform in tone, a city of arcades; Perugia, -a mountain fortress of brown bricks, her austerity mellowed by the -centuries--what a series they make! How carefully the "Young Nation" -should deal with these precious things that have all come into her -hands! Almost every great city in this land was once a capital. If only -the Italians would build as they used to I should rejoice in seeing -lovely things rising new and strong in the place of decay and thus -giving promise of a new lease of architectural beauty for Italy. But the -pity of it is that most of the new things are characterless and dreary. -Every cultivated Italian deplores the fact and one wonders who the Goths -in authority are that have the doing of these things. - -To you and me there are certain conjunctions of words that carry a swift -sense of delight to the mind. Amongst these none are more appealing than -"the Umbrian Hills." Here in Perugia we are seated amongst them, and -when I saw them again on that magic April day it was towards evening, -and in despairing haste I made the best sketch I could on arriving, from -the hotel window, to try and record those soft sunset tones on the -Perugino landscape. When next morning we were being shown the treasures -in the church of San Pietro, and I was particularly directed to examine -the lovely paintings on the shutters of the sacristy windows, I found it -hard to look at the shutters of windows that opened upon such a -prospect, where lay Assisi on the slopes of the "Umbrian Hills"! - -[Illustration: THE BERSAGLIERI AT THE FOUNTAIN, PERUGIA] - -In the Uffizi, in the Vatican Galleries, it is the same--one eye roving -out of the open windows at the reality that is there! A Lung' Arno with -Bello Sguardo calling to you over the pink almond blossoms on its -slopes; a dome of St. Peter's, silky in its grey sunlit sheen against -the Roman sky--too much, to have such things outside the gallery -windows, distracting you from your studies within. But, of course, it is -the right setting, and if you feel it gives you too much, call to mind -the prospect outside one of the British Museum windows. That, certainly, -will never inconvenience you with distractions; so be thankful for the -"too much." - - -A BIT OF DIARY - -"23_rd April_ 1900.--All day 'on the wander' through ripe old Perugia. A -silent city, full of memories, brimming over with history, lapped in -Art! Everywhere the flowering fruit-trees showed over the brown walls, -the sunshine fell pleasantly on the masses of old unfinished brickwork -and lent them a charm which on a wet day must vanish and leave them in -a grim severity. Quiet tone everywhere; no ornament in the Roman sense, -but here and there exquisite bits of carving and detail such as one can -only find in the flat-surfaced Italian Gothic which is here seen in its -very home. How that flat surface of blank wall spaces and the horizontal -tendency of the design suit the Italian light. Architecture may well be -placed as the most important of the Arts. It adds, if beautiful, to -nature's beauty, showing the height to which the human hand may dare to -rise so as to join hands with the Divine Architect Himself. How it can -disgrace His work we have only too many opportunities of judging! - -"We visited my well-loved church of San Pietro, that treasure-house left -undespoiled by the Italian Government--safeguarded, _not_ as a place of -worship--let that be well understood--but as 'an Art Monument.' So its -pictures and carvings are left in the places their authors intended them -for and not nailed up stark and shivering in a cold, staring museum, -like the poor altar pieces and modest bits of delicate carving that have -been wrenched from their life-long homes in so many churches throughout -this country. True, in the museum the light is good, far better for -showing the artist's work than the 'dim religious light' of a church. -But the painter knew all about the bad light, and still painted his -picture for such and such an altar, not to his own glory, but to the -glory of God. - -"As we were passing once more the rich-toned Duomo and Nicola Pisano's -lovely fountain that stands before it, we saw the fountain suddenly -surrounded by an eruption of Bersaglieri, who woke the echoes of that -erst-while silent Piazza with their songs and chaff. They were on -manoeuvres and were halting here for the day. Shedding heavy hats and -knapsacks, they had run down to fill their canteens and water-barrels. -_Toujours gais_ are the Bersaglieri, and a very pretty sight it was to -see those good-looking healthy lads in their red fatigue fezes unbending -in this picturesque manner. In the evening they were off again with the -fanfaronade of their massed trumpets spurring their _pas gymnastique_ to -the farthest point of swagger, and Perugia returned to its repose. - -"We strolled about the streets by the light of the moon and _felt_ the -silence of those narrow ways. Now a cat would run into the light and -disappear into blackness; a man in a cloak would emerge from a dark -alley, as it were at the back of a stage, and, coming forward into the -moonlight of an open space, look ready to begin a tenor love-song to an -overhanging balcony (the lady not yet to the fore)--the opening scene in -an opera after the overture of the Bersaglieri trumpets. Assuredly this -was old Italy. The one modern touch is a very lovely one. In place of -the old and rank olive-oil lamps of my first visit, burning at street -corners under the little holy images and in the recesses of the -wine-shops, there are drops of exquisite electric light. Thank goodness, -the hideous interval of gas is nearing its extinction in Italy and the -blessed 'white coal' which this country can generate so cheaply by her -abundant water-power, will e'er very long become the agent of her -machine-driven industries and illuminate with soft radiance her gracious -cities. I think the Via Nuova at Genoa, that street of palaces, glowing -in the light of those great electric globes, swung across from side to -side, is a quite splendid bit of modernity, for which I tender the -Genoese my hearty thanks. '_Grazie, Signori!_'" - - -VESUVIUS - -COMMEND me to a darkening winter afternoon amidst the fires of Vesuvius -for bringing the mind down to first principles! This is what we -poetise, and paint, and dance on--this Thing that we are come to gaze -at here in silence, as it shows through certain cracks in this shell we -call the solid earth! "You are here on sufferance," the Thing says to -us, "and you do well to come and see where I show a little bit of -myself. May it do you good. Remember, I am under your feet wherever you -go!" - -Jan. '96--"To-day the fumes from the nether fires came in gusts through -the snorting crater, sending sulphurous smoke rolling down on the keen -north wind straight into our labouring lungs as we pounded through the -ashes on our way up the 'cone.' There is no getting at all near the -hideous mouth; in attempting any such thing one would very soon be over -head and ears in the yellow sulphur and lost beyond recall. I thought of -the fate of a 'mad Englishman,' who, in spite of the warning cries of -the native guides, made a dart for some outlying lesser crater, -declaring he saw a shoe floating in it. Trying to hook out this precious -'shoe' with his walking-stick, he fell in and withered away like a moth -in a candle-flame. - -"I was cheered on to fresh exertions by W.'s encouraging words, -otherwise I think I would have reposed by the wayside at an early stage -of the ascent, yet too proud for a litter. Many of the party went up in -litters ignominiously carried on men's shoulders, but I went through the -whole routine on foot, as I began; only I was inclined to halt at -retardingly frequent intervals. The growls of the mountain every now and -then warned us that a volley of rocks and stones was coming, and, -behold! the bunch of them shot up in a wide arc over our heads. The -crater is a spectacle that gives the mind such occupation as it has not -had before. Talk of the Pyramids and the Sphinx that so overpowered me -at Gizeh! That crater would think it a good joke to chuck them up in the -air. - -"But nothing impressed me into silence so heavily as the sight, later -on, of a lava stream, lower down the mountain-side, issuing in thick -ooze, and crawling slowly from out a gaping cavern. Liquid, deep scarlet -fire was this, of the density, apparently, of oil, advancing like a -fiery death to scorch and consume with slow and even flow--inexorable. -No possibility of approaching its borders; even where we stood the rocks -began to burn our feet. A guide flung a log of wood on the river, and it -spontaneously burst into vivid flame, shrivelled up, and was gone in a -puff of smoke. Turning for rest and solace from the lurid spectacle, -the factitious horrors of the congealed lava all around one only -deepened the sense of gloom. Curling and curdling as they cooled, the -lava streams of bygone times have hardened into the most weird shapes -the imagination could conceive. We seemed to be on a battlefield where -Titan warriors lay distorted in their death agony; enormous mothers -clasped their babies in the embrace of death, and the war-horses were -monsters of pre-historic stature, petrified in the last throes. - -"We could see far, far down on the plain the skeleton of poor little -Pompeii like a minute raised plan delicately modelled in plaster. - -"The thunders of the Bible will reverberate in my mind with more -vitality since our excursion to Vesuvius." - -I found balm in Capri, Amalfi, and all the supreme lovelinesses of the -Neapolitan Riviera to soothe the blisters of the volcano; and if I had -trembled at the thunders of the Bible I was reassured by its blessings, -which seemed embodied in those scenes of Eden. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER III - -ROME - - -Rome! I am almost inclined to leave out this central fact, although I -never kept a fuller diary than I did during those seven months of my -student life there that followed Florence. How can I approach it and say -anything but platitudes on the subject? Every one has tried his or her -hand upon this theme, and many dreadful banalities have come of it; many -pert assertions, ignorant statements, sentimentalities. Rome has always -impressed me as being the centre of the world--not as the Ancient Romans -boasted when they set up their Golden Milestone, but in a higher sense; -and to the artist her atmosphere is known to be exhilarating, some -say "intoxicating." We all feel that physical delight in being there, -whatever views we may entertain in a spiritual sense. Who was the writer -who said that every morning on waking she said to herself, "I am in -Rome!" I believe many tacitly, at least, like to register that fact at -each awakening to another Roman day. - -[Illustration: A MEETING ON THE PINCIAN: FRENCH AND GERMAN SEMINARISTS] - -You and I have of late years seen _l'Eterna_ much changed in her -physical aspect, and have grieved over the fact; yet it is only another -of her many phases that is slowly developing before our eyes. At the -earliest period of which we know enough to imagine her aspect she was -colonnaded, porticoed and white; and the horrible time of her luxurious -decadence saw very much the same huge tenement "sky-scrapers" run up as -we are weeping over to-day. These jerry-buildings tumbled down -occasionally just as they are doing now. Then I see Rome in the Middle -Ages a city of square fortified towers--where are they all? Then comes -the florid period when the dome was dominant as we see it in our time, -and much exuberant bad taste dressed her out fantastically. Now some -very dreadful things in the way of monster houses and wide, straight, -shadeless streets are being committed; but they, too, will pass; but -Rome will remain. Eternal as to the soul the city is ever changing as -to the body. How ugly she must have been when rebuilt in a year after -one of her burnings. There was jerry-building if you like! How awful -after her sack by the Constable of Bourbon when "there was silence in -her streets for three days"! I remember, when I used to look down on the -city from a height in my very early days, wondering whether I had not -been instructed too much in Roman history to enjoy that view to the -extent I should have wished, as an art student, to do. So much cruelty -and suffering had been concentrated in that little space I saw below me. -But the joy of the eye soon banishes for me the sorrow of the mind, and -there is joy enough for the eye in Rome! - -Although I have revisited the well-loved city several times since those -early days, the first visit stands out so much more fully coloured and -intense in local sentiment than the subsequent ones, which seem almost -insipid by comparison. You and I then saw her as she can never be seen -again; we were just in time to know her under the old Papal regime, and -we left three months before the Italians came in and began to rob her of -her unique character. I cannot be too thankful that we have _that_ put -safely away in the treasury of our memories. We saw the Roman citizens -kneeling in masses along the streets as the Pope's mounted _Chasseur_, -in cocked hats and feathers, heralded the approach of Pio Nono's -ponderous coach, in which His Holiness was taking his afternoon airing. -We saw the stately cardinals and bishops in their daily stroll on the -Pincian, receiving the salutes of soldiers and civilians. There were -such constant salutations everywhere, all day long, and such punctilious -acknowledgments from the ecclesiastics that on closing my eyes at night -I always saw shovel hats rising and sinking like flocks of crows -hovering over a harvest-field. - -We saw the sentries on Good Friday mounting guard with arms reversed and -all the flags that day flying at half-mast: the Colosseum was in those -days treated as consecrated ground; more as the scene of Christian -martyrdoms than as a Pagan antiquity. There stood the stations of the -Cross, and there a friar preached every Wednesday during Lent. That -fearsome ruin was then warmly lined with rich flora and various lusty -trees and shrubs that have all been scraped and scoured away in harmony -with the spirit of modern Italy. - -What luck it was for us to be in Rome that wonderful year of 1870, when -the OEcumenical Council filled her streets and churches with every -type of episcopal ecclesiastic from the four quarters of the globe, each -accompanied by his "theologian" and by secretaries in every variety of -dress, from the modern American to the pig-tailed Chinaman. Great times -for the art student, with all these types and colours as subjects for -his pencil! The characteristics and the colour of Rome were thus -multiplied and elaborated to the utmost possible point, up to the very -verge of the Great Cleavage; and we saw it all. - -[Illustration: A LENTEN SERMON IN THE COLOSSEUM] - -The open-air incidents connected with the great Church functions have -left an extraordinarily vivid impression on my mind on account of their -eminently pictorial qualities. I see again the archaic "glass coaches" -of Pope and cardinals, high-swung and seeming to bubble over with -gilding, rumbling slowly up to the Church door where the ceremony is to -take place, over the cobblestones, behind teams of fat black steeds, the -leaders' scarlet traces sweeping the ground. The occupants of these -wonderful vehicles are glowing like rubies in their ardent robes, which -flood their faces with red reflections in the searching sunshine. A -prelate in exquisite lilac, mounted on a white mule with black -housings, bears a jewelled cross, sparkling in the sun, before the -Pope's carriage; the postilions, coachmen, and lackeys are -eighteenth-century figures come to life again, and, truth to tell, they -might have brought their liveries over with them, furbished up for the -occasion. Not much public money seems appropriated for new liveries in -the Papal household, nor in that of the College of Cardinals. Then, the -medley of modern soldiers that take part officially and unofficially in -these scenes--the off-duty zouaves, with bare necks outstretched, -cheering frantically, "Long live the Pope-King," in many languages; the -French Legion inclined to criticise the old liveries--it all seems to me -like the happening of yesterday! And I see the rain of flowers falling -on the kindly old Pope from the spectators in the balconies, where rich -draperies give harmonious backgrounds to all this colour. - -Times are changed at home as well as in Rome. Where are the gorgeous -equipages I used to wonder at as a child on drawing-room days, that made -St. James' Street a scene of gold and colour of surpassing richness? -Where are the bewigged coachmen stiff with bullion, throned on the -resplendent hammercloths of their boxes? Where the six-foot footmen -hanging on in bunches behind, in liveries pushed to the utmost limit of -extravagant finery? We only see these things on exceptional occasions -(certainly the six-footers are not grown nowadays), and the quiet landau -or motor harmonises better with our modern taste. - -Finally, we saw the last Papal Benediction to be given from the facade -of St. Peter's on that memorable Easter Sunday, 1870. The scene was made -especially notable in its pictorial effect by the masses of bishops, all -in snow-white copes and mitres, who completely filled the terrace above -the colonnade on the Vatican side of the Piazza. What a symphony of -white they made up there, partly in the luminous shadow of the long -awning, partly in the blazing sunshine. Some of the illuminated ones -used their mitres as parasols. Such a huge _parterre_ of prelates had -never been beheld before. It was a _parterre_ of human lilies. My diary -exclaims, "Oh! for Leighton's genius to paint it. It was entirely in his -style--composition, colour, and sentiment. The balustrade was hung with -mellow, old, faded tapestry, and above the bishops' heads rose those -dark old stone statues that tell so well against the sky." I remember -the moment of intense silence that fell on the multitude a little -before Pio Nono, wearing the Triple Crown, stood up and, in a loud -voice, gave forth "to the city and to the world" the mighty words of -blessing from the little balcony far up aloft. And I remember, too, how -that sudden silence seemed to cause a strange uneasiness amongst the -cavalry and artillery horses, which all began to neigh. - -On this great day the white and yellow flag, emblem of the Temporal -Power, waved upon the light spring breeze wherever one turned. How -little we dreamt that in a few months that flag was to be hauled down, -drawn under by the fall of the greatest military Empire then in -existence! - -As a postscript, do not let us forget the races of the riderless horses -that took place at the end of Carnival. Those scenes are before me now, -quite fresh, revived by the little old diary. I am glad I have still my -sketch-books that give me the outlines of these and other scenes that -are gone for ever from the world. - -There is the wide round Piazza del Popolo, like an amphitheatre; the -sun, near its setting, is tinging the upper portion of the great -Egyptian obelisk, which is the starting-post for the occasion, with -crimson, the base remaining in cool grey shade. Much stamping of hoofs -and champing of bits in the ranks of the Dragoons, who are preparing to -clear the Corso; French infantry forming up on either side of the -starting-place; the crowds in the stands expectant, many units in -carnival costume, and masked. Away go the Dragoons, splitting the crowd -that blocks the entrance to the darkening, narrow Corso. They return at -a gallop, having ridden to the end and back, and divide to take up their -positions. Then the barbs, painted in spots and stripes, are brought on -gingerly. The least jerk and it's no use trying to form a line; they -must be let go; the spiked balls, now unfastened and dangling, are -beginning to prick in spite of all the care. One after the other the -maddened creatures plunge and tug at the restraining grip of the -convicts who act as grooms on this occasion, and who literally hold -their lives in their hands,--it all passes in a quarter of a minute; -down goes the rope, a gun is fired, shouts and clapping of hands ring -through the chilly air, and the eleven furious horses plunge into the -dark street, the squibs and tin-foil on their backs explode and crackle, -the spiked balls bang against their sides. Spurts of sparks fly from -their iron heels brightly in the twilight. One horse, perhaps, slips on -the cobblestones, rolls over, picks himself up, and follows the -others, straining every nerve. They are gone--engulfed in the dark -passage, some to be recovered only after several days, wandering in the -Campagna, having burst through the sheet spread to stop them at the -finish. - -[Illustration: THE START FOR THE HORSE RACE, ROME] - -I often wondered which ordeal a horse would prefer, if he were given the -choice--this one, for a mile, or that of a great English race, with a -jockey on his back with thousands of pounds to win or lose, armed with a -steel whip and a pair of severe spurs! I never wholly enjoy a horse-race -in any shape because of these goads in various forms. - -Anyhow, I am glad these Roman races have been abolished. - -I felt greatly elated when setting up work on my own account, which I -did very soon after my arrival from Florence and Bellucci. He had told -me at parting that I could "walk by myself" now, and I very soon walked -up the steps of the Trinita to choose my first model. You remember how -those costumed loafers used to sun themselves on the steps at that time? -I had a half-frightened, half-delighted thrill when choosing my first -_Ciociaro_. It was the Judgment of Paris transposed. Three of them, in -peaked hats and goatskins, stood grinning and posing before the English -_signorina_ while the Papal zouave sentry and the whole lot of male and -female models looked on and listened. When I gave the apple to Antonio -on account of his good brown face and read waistcoat, and engaged him -for the morrow, I felt I had started. - -What trouble mamma and I had had in trying to find a studio. A young -lady working by herself! A thing unknown--no one would let me a studio, -so we ended with the makeshift you remember in our apartment. "That -comes of being a woman at starting," exclaimed mamma. - -I can never pass No. 56 Via Babuino without pausing and looking up at -one of the top windows where my head hung out one morning, watching my -model in the street below for half an hour and wondering how long he -meant to saunter up and down with his eye on the Church clock opposite -instead of coming up. I had engaged him for eight o'clock for an -eight-hour day (_giornata finita_), and there he was, strolling away a -franc's worth of sitting on purpose. "But, Signorina, one cannot always -arrive to the very instant," was the villain's excuse on coming in. I -said nothing of what I had seen out of the window. Dear old Francesco, -he was much prized for his laugh, which he could keep up for twenty -minutes at a time. I had already seen it in a picture in London. Of -course I had a try, too, and it brought me luck, for the picture where -it appears was the first Oil I sold. - -Let me remind you of the Pope's International Exhibition of -Ecclesiastical Art held that winter, for which I painted "The -Visitation." The Fine Art section was shown in the Cloisters of Sa. -Maria degli Angeli in the Baths of Diocletian. I laugh even now when I -recall the way in which my poor picture was launched into the world. -After its acceptance by the committee, I had to get a pass for its -admission into the exhibition building from the Minister of Commerce, -the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Cardinal B. Mamma and I had to wait -an age in his ante-room, conscious of being objects of extraordinary -curiosity to the crowd of men artists who were there on the same errand -as myself. Evidently artists of our sex were rarities in Italy. At last -our turn came to go in, and, after many formalities and much polite -bowing from l_'Eminentissimo_ and _riverendissimo_, I signed the several -papers, and proudly followed my mamma back through the waiting artists, -holding my roll of papers before me. We were informed that, being women, -we could not take the picture ourselves into the Cloisters, as no order -had been given to admit ladies into the monastic precincts before the -opening. So our dear father sallied forth on foot with my pass to Sa. -Maria, mamma and I following in a little hired Victoria, holding the big -picture before us (no mean handful) to keep it from tumbling out, while -hidden, ourselves, from the public eye by the carriage hood. We arrived -at the entrance to the forbidden cloisters too soon, as papa had not -arrived, and the gendarmes stopped us and told us to drive out of the -court again. We pulled up, therefore, on the threshold, with our faces -turned in the contrary direction, when the horrible hood flew back and -revealed us, holding on to the picture with straining arms and knitted -brows, to the grinning soldiers gathered about the place. Our dear -father and Mr. Severn (Keats' friend in youth) soon came to the rescue, -and, with the aid of two _facchini_, they took my _magnum opus_ and -disappeared with it into the gloom of the _Thermae_. - -Dear, kind old Mr. Severn, he seemed so pleased to help me in my initial -struggles in Rome! When I next visited Keats' grave there, long years -afterwards with W., I found another tombstone alongside of the Poet's. -There was a palette sculptured on it in place of the other one's lyre, -and one little box hedge held the two friends within its embrace. What -made Oliver Wendell Holmes (if it was he) say the scent of box was the -scent of Eternity? I do not know the context of the passage, but I think -the idea might strike a sensitive perception in some Italian cemetery, -where that most touching perfume is always on the air, and Eternity -plays about our minds on the scent of the box. - - * * * * * - -_From the Diary_ - -_Feb._ 1906.--"And now Good-bye, Rome! I hope not a final farewell. I -have been up to the Villa Medici to see across the city, on this my last -evening, that dome which no one can ever look at unmoved, just at the -hour which at this time of year brings the setting sun behind it, so -that the crimson central ray seems to spring from the cross on the -summit. Shutting out with my hand all intervening objects I seemed to -see that purple dome floating in mid-air, a link between earth and -heaven; a living token of the intercourse between the two, poised far -above the dead ruins of the Pagan Past that lay low, in shadow, to the -eastward. Good-bye." - - - - -INDEX - -_The titles of pictures are printed in italics._ - - -Abassieh, 42 - -Abu Simbel, 75 - -Achill Island, 17 - -Alexandria, 77 - -Amalfi, 159 - -Ancona, 79 - -Assisi, 151 - -Assouan, 62 - -Atfeh, 81 - -Athlone, 22 - -Atlantic, South, 102 - - -Belcaro, 146 - -Bello Sguardo, 153 - -Bersaglieri, 155 - -Brindisi, 79 - - -Cairo, 32 - -Camels, 42 - -Cape Colony, 107 - -Cape, the: "Cape Flats," 120 - _A corner of our Garden at Rosebank_, 104 - "_In the hollow of His Hand_," 97 - _The Inverted Crescent_, 113 - -Capri, 159 - -Capuchins, 135 - -Caravaggio, 126 - -Carran Thual, 5 - -Clare, 21 - -Clew Bay, 16 - -Clonmacnoise, 24 - -Colosseum, 163 - -Comombos, 67 - -Conscription, 57 - -Constantia, 118 - -Croagh Patrick, 16 - -Cromwell, 25 - - -Delta, 77 - Western, 80 - -Dervishes, 40 - -Dickens, Charles, 132 - -Dormer, Sir James, 41 - - -Edfoo, 64 - -Edwards, Miss Amelia, 76 - -Egypt: _Abu Simbel at Sunrise_, 76 - _A "lament" in the Desert_, 70 - _At Philae_, 67 - _In a Cairo Bazaar_, 33 - _Madame's "At Home" Day_, 81 - _Registering Fellaheen for the Conscription_, 56 - _Syndioor, on the Lower Nile_, 97 - _The Camel Corps_, 40 - _The English General's Syce_, 49 - _The Hour of Prayer_ (_Frontispiece_) - The Nile: _The "Fostat" becalmed_, 62 - The Nile: "_No Mooring To-night_," 59 - -Esneh, 64 - -Etruria, 143 - - -False Bay, 110 - -Fiesole, 137 - -Florence, 125, 151 - -Fort St. Julien, 83 - -Funchal, 92 - - -Gaelic, 8 - -Garibaldi, 131 - -Genoa, 151, 156 - -Ginniss, 32, 61 - -Glenaragh, 3 - -Gordon, 32, 72 - Miss Duff, 150 - - -Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 173 - - -Ireland: _"A Chapel-of-Ease," Co. Kerry_, 8 - _A Little Irish River_, 24 - _Clew Bay, Co. Mayo_, 20 - _Croagh Patrick_, 17 - _Our Escort into Glenaragh_, 1 - -Irish Guards, 14 - - -Karnac, 56 - -Keats, 172 - -Kerry, 6 - -Kensington, South, 138 - -Khartoum, 32 - -Killaloe, 22 - -Korosko, 72 - - -Leprechaun, 8 - -Lough Acoose, 5 - Derg, 22 - Leane, 4 - -Lung' Arno, 153 - -Luxor, 32, 55 - - -Madeira, 92 - -Mahmoudieh, 81 - Canal, 86 - -Malays, 115 - -Mayo, 15 - -Milky Way, 106 - -Mulranny, 16 - - -Native Camel Corps, 42 - -Nervi, 129 - -Nile, 32 - Lower, 77 - -Nubia, 71 - - -OEcumenical Council, 165 - - -Paarl, 113 - -Padua, 151 - -Palestine, 86 - -Papal Benediction, 166 - -Payne, Mr., 93 - -Perugia, 150 - _The Bersaglieri at the Fountain_, 152 - -Philae, 68 - -Piazza del Popolo, 167 - -Pio Nono, 163 - -Pius X., 134 - -Pole Star, 101 - -Pompeii, 159 - -Pyramids, 47 - - -Riviera di Levante: _A Son of the Soil_, 126 - -Rome, 133, 160 - _A Lenten Sermon in the Colosseum_, 164 - _A Meeting on the Pincian_, 161 - _The Start for the Horse Race_, 168 - -Rosetta, 80 - Stone, 84 - -Ruffo, 85 - - -Sakkara, 47 - -Sarras, 83 - -Schreiner, Olive, 113 - -Servants, 99 - -Severn, Mr., 172 - -Shannon, 22 - Bridge, 23 - -Sienna, 143 - -Signa, 65, 125, 136 - -Silsileh, 67 - -Simon's Town, 110 - -Soudan, 83 - -Southern Cross, 107 - -Sphinx, 47 - -Stellenbosch, 113 - -Stone-pines, 115 - -Syces, 44 - -Syndioor, 84 - - -Table Mountain, 104 - Thebes, 80 - -Tivoli, 46 - -Tomb of Ti, 48 - -Tombs of the Mameluks, 42 - -Tropics, 101 - -Tuscany, 123, 143 - _Bringing in the Grapes_, 123 - _Ploughing in_, 145 - - -Umbrian Hills, 153 - - -Venice, 47, 78 - -Verona, 151 - -Vesuvius, 156 - - -Wady Halfa, 72 -Sabooah, 74 - - -THE END - -_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. - - * * * * * - -This typographical error has been corrected by the etext transcriber: - -hear noctural frogs=> -hear nocturnal frogs {pg 108} - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's From sketch-book and diary, by Elizabeth Butler - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM SKETCH-BOOK AND DIARY *** - -***** This file should be named 40925.txt or 40925.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/9/2/40925/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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