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+Project Gutenberg's Mentone, Cairo, and Corfu, by Constance Fenimore Woolson
+
+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
+
+
+Title: Mentone, Cairo, and Corfu
+
+Author: Constance Fenimore Woolson
+
+Release Date: August 7, 2010 [EBook #33367]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MENTONE, CAIRO, AND CORFU ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
+produced from scanned images of public domain material
+from the Internet Archive.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: STREET IN THE NEW QUARTER OF CAIRO Page 151]
+
+
+
+
+MENTONE, CAIRO, AND CORFU
+
+BY
+
+CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
+
+AUTHOR OF
+"ANNE" "EAST ANGELS" "HORACE CHASE" ETC.
+
+ILLUSTRATED
+
+[Illustration]
+
+NEW YORK
+HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+1896
+
+    BY CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON.
+
+    THE FRONT YARD, Etc. Illustrated. $1 25.
+    ANNE. Illustrated. $1 25.
+    EAST ANGELS. $1 25.
+    JUPITER LIGHTS. $1 25.
+    HORACE CHASE. $1 25.
+    CASTLE NOWHERE. $1 00.
+    RODMAN THE KEEPER. $1 00.
+    FOR THE MAJOR. Illustrated. $1 00.
+
+PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
+
+_All rights reserved._
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHERS' NOTE.
+
+
+The substance of this collection of Miss Woolson's sketches of travel in
+the Mediterranean originally appeared in HARPER'S MAGAZINE. "At Mentone"
+was published in that periodical in 1884; "Cairo in 1890," and "Corfu
+and the Ionian Sea," appeared in 1891 and 1892. As presented in this
+volume, the two sketches last mentioned contain much interesting
+material not included in their original form as magazine articles.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PAGE
+
+AT MENTONE                      3
+
+CAIRO IN 1890                 149
+
+CORFU AND THE IONIAN SEA      283
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+PAGE
+
+STREET IN THE NEW QUARTER OF CAIRO                         _Frontispiece_
+
+AT MENTONE                                                             5
+
+THE OLD TOWN                                                           9
+
+A STREET IN THE OLD TOWN                                              13
+
+RUE LONGUE BLOCKADED BY AN ARTIST                                     19
+
+THE CORNICE ROAD, MENTONE                                             23
+
+"TO ITALY"--PONT ST. LOUIS                                            27
+
+THE PALMS OF BORDIGHERA                                               31
+
+THE BONE CAVERNS                                                      37
+
+THE PROFESSOR DISCOURSES                                              43
+
+THE WASHER-WOMEN                                                      49
+
+OIL MILL                                                              55
+
+A MEDITERRANEAN BOAT                                                  60
+
+BRINGING LEMONS FROM THE TERRACE                                      63
+
+ON THE WAY TO L'ANNUNZIATA                                            69
+
+THE MONASTERY OF L'ANNUNZIATA                                         74
+
+CAPUCHIN MONKS                                                        77
+
+MONACO                                                                83
+
+STREET IN ROCCABRUNA                                                  91
+
+THE KING OF THE OLIVES                                                97
+
+FEUDAL TOWER NEAR VENTIMIGLIA                                        102
+
+DOLCE ACQUA                                                          107
+
+PIFFERARI                                                            113
+
+MONACO--THE PALACE AND PORT                                          117
+
+ENTRANCE TO THE PALACE, MONACO                                       121
+
+THE SALLE GRIMALDI, IN THE PALACE, MONACO                            126
+
+THE RIDE TO SANT' AGNESE                                             129
+
+VIEW FROM SANT' AGNESE                                               134
+
+F�TE, VILLAGE OF SANT' AGNESE                                        137
+
+VESTIGES OF ROMAN MONUMENTS                                          140
+
+THE STATUE IN THE CEMETERY                                           143
+
+CONTEMPORARY PORTRAIT OF CLEOPATRA                                   149
+
+THE NILE BRIDGE, CAIRO                                               154
+
+BEFORE THE LITTLE MOSQUE                                             158
+
+TOMB-MOSQUE OF KAIT BEY                                              161
+
+A SELLER OF WATER-JUGS, CAIRO                                        167
+
+STATUE OF PRINCE RAHOTEP'S WIFE                                      172
+
+THE WOODEN MAN                                                       175
+
+AN EGYPTIAN WOMAN                                                    181
+
+THE NILE--COMING DOWN TO GET WATER                                   187
+
+THE DOCK AT OLD CAIRO                                                191
+
+MOUCHRABIYEHS IN THE OLD QUARTER                                     195
+
+INTERIOR COURT OF A NATIVE HOUSE, CAIRO                              199
+
+A DONKEY RIDE                                                        205
+
+AN ARAB CAF�                                                         209
+
+HEAD-PIECE                                                           212
+
+PORCH OF EL AZHAR                                                    215
+
+STUDENTS IN THE OUTER COURT, EL AZHAR                                221
+
+BEFORE THE SACRED NICHE                                              227
+
+OUTER ENTRANCE OF THE CITADEL, CAIRO                                 233
+
+A MECCA DOOR                                                         237
+
+THE ROAD TO CHOUBRA                                                  239
+
+GARDEN-HOUSE AT CHOUBRA, SHOWING PART OF THE LAKE NEAR CAIRO         243
+
+THE KHEDIVE                                                          247
+
+CHIEF WIFE OF EX-KHEDIVE ISMAIL, WITH HER PRIVATE BAND               251
+
+AN EGYPTIAN DANCING-GIRL                                             259
+
+THE INUNDATION NEAR CAIRO                                            267
+
+A MOHAMMEDAN CEMETERY, CAIRO                                         278
+
+SOUVENIRS OF CAIRO                                                   279
+
+HEAD-PIECE                                                           283
+
+PART OF THE TOWN OF CORFU                                            287
+
+THE PALACE                                                           293
+
+UNIVERSITY OF THE IONIAN ISLANDS                                     294
+
+SMALL TEMPLE, MEMORIAL TO SIR THOMAS MAITLAND                        296
+
+STATUE OF CAPO D'ISTRIA                                              299
+
+THE TOMB OF MENEKRATES                                               305
+
+THE ISLET CALLED "THE SHIP OF ULYSSES"                               311
+
+VILLAGE OF PELLEKA                                                   315
+
+KING GEORGE OF GREECE                                                319
+
+QUEEN OLGA OF GREECE                                                 323
+
+"MON REPOS," SUMMER RESIDENCE OF THE KING OF GREECE                  327
+
+IN THE GROUNDS OF THE NEW VILLA OF THE EMPRESS OF AUSTRIA            331
+
+ALBANIAN MALE COSTUME                                                335
+
+ALBANIAN FEMALE COSTUME                                              339
+
+GALA COSTUME, CORFU                                                  343
+
+OLIVE GROVE, CORFU                                                   351
+
+
+
+
+AT MENTONE
+
+
+I
+
+"_Kennst du das Land wo die Citronen bl�hen?_"
+--GOETHE
+
+It is of no consequence why or how we came to Mentone. The vast subject
+of health and health resorts, of balancings between Torquay and Madeira,
+Algeria and Sicily, and, in a smaller sphere, between Cannes, Nice,
+Mentone, and San Remo, may as well be left at one side while we happily
+imitate the Happy-thought Man's trains in Bradshaw, which never "start,"
+but "arrive." We therefore arrived. Our party, formed not by selection,
+or even by the survival of the fittest (after the ocean and Channel),
+but simply by chance aggregation, was now composed of Mrs. Trescott and
+her daughter Janet, Professor Mackenzie, Miss Graves, the two youths
+Inness and Baker, my niece, and myself, myself being Jane Jefferson,
+aged fifty, and my niece Margaret Severin, aged twenty-eight.
+
+As I said above, we were an aggregation. The Trescotts had started
+alone, but had "accumulated" (so Mrs. Trescott informed me) the
+Professor. The Professor had started alone, and had accumulated the
+Trescotts. Inness and Baker had started singly, but had first
+accumulated each other, and then ourselves; while Margaret and I, having
+accumulated Miss Graves, found ourselves, with her, imbedded in the
+aggregation, partly by chance and partly by that powerful force
+propinquity. Arriving at Mentone, our aggregation went unbroken to the
+H�tel des Anglais, in the East Bay--the East Bay, the Professor said,
+being warmer than the West: the Professor had been at Mentone before.
+"The East Bay," he explained, "is warmer because more closely encircled
+by the mountains, which rise directly behind the house. The West Bay has
+more level space, and there are several little valleys opening into it,
+through which currents of air can pass; it is therefore cooler, but only
+a matter of two or three degrees." It was evening, and our omnibus
+proceeded at a pace adapted to the "Dead March" from _Saul_ through a
+street so narrow and walled in that it was like going through catacombs.
+Only, as Janet remarked, they did not crack whips in the catacombs, and
+here the atmosphere seemed to be principally cracks. But the Professor
+brought up the flagellants who might have been there, and they remained
+up until we reached our destination. We decided that the cracking of
+whips and the wash of the sea were the especial sounds of Mentone; but
+the whips ceased at nightfall, and the waves kept on, making a soft
+murmurous sound which lulled us all to restful slumber. We learned later
+that all vehicles are obliged, by orders from the town authorities, to
+proceed at a snail's pace through the narrow street of the "old town,"
+the city treasury not being rich enough to pay for the number of wooden
+legs and arms which would be required were this rule disregarded.
+
+[Illustration: AT MENTONE]
+
+The next morning when we opened our windows there entered the
+Mediterranean Sea. It is the bluest water in the world; not a clear cold
+blue like that of the Swiss lakes, but a soft warm tint like that of
+June sky, shading off on the horizon, not into darker blue or gray,
+but into the white of opal and mother-of-pearl. With the sea came in
+also the sunshine. The sunshine of Mentone is its glory, its riches, its
+especial endowment. Day follows day, month follows month, without a
+cloud; the air is pure and dry, fog is unknown. "The sun never stops
+shining;" and to show that this idea, which soon takes possession of one
+there, is not without some foundation, it can be stated that the average
+number of days upon which the sun does shine, as the phrase is, all day
+long is two hundred and fifty-nine; that is, almost nine months out of
+the twelve. "All the world is cheered by the sun," writes Shakespeare;
+and certainly "cheer" is the word that best expresses the effect of the
+constant sunshine of Mentone.
+
+We all came to breakfast with unclouded foreheads; even the three fixed
+wrinkles which crossed Mrs. Trescott's brow (she always alluded to them
+as "midnight oil") were not so deep as usual, and her little countenance
+looked as though it had been, if not ironed, at least smoothed out by
+the long sleep in the soft air. She floated into the sunny
+breakfast-room in an aureola of white lace, with Janet beside her, and
+followed by Inness and Baker. Margaret and I had entered a moment before
+with Miss Graves, and presently Professor Mackenzie joined us, radiating
+intelligence through his shining spectacles to that extent that I
+immediately prepared myself for the "Indeeds?" "Is it possibles?" "You
+surprise me," with which I was accustomed to assist him, when, after
+going all around the circle in vain for an attentive eye, he came at
+last to mine, which are not beautiful, but always, I trust, friendly to
+the friendless. Yet so self-deceived is man that I have no doubt but
+that if at this moment interrogated as to his best listener during that
+journey and sojourn at Mentone, he would immediately reply, "Miss
+Trescott."
+
+People were coming in and out of the room while we were there, the
+light Continental "first breakfast" of rolls and coffee or tea not
+detaining them long. Two, however, were evidently loitering, under a
+flimsy pretext of reading the unflimsy London _Times_, in order to have
+a longer look at Janet; these two were Englishmen. Was Janet, then,
+beautiful? That is a question hard to answer. She was a slender,
+graceful girl with a delicate American face, small, well-poised head,
+sweet voice, quiet manner, and eyes--well, yes, the expression in
+Janet's eyes was certainly a remarkable endowment. It could never be
+fixed in colors; it cannot be described in ink; it may perhaps be
+faintly indicated as each gazing man's ideal promised land. And this
+centre was surrounded by such a blue and childlike unconsciousness that
+every new-comer tumbled in immediately, as into a blue lake, and never
+emerged.
+
+"You have been roaming, Professor," said Mrs. Trescott, as he took his
+seat; "you have a fine breezy look of the sea. I heard the wa-ash,
+wa-ash, upon the beach all night. But _you_ have been out early,
+communing with Aurora. Do not deny it."
+
+The Professor had no idea of denying it. "I have been as far as the West
+Bay," he said, taking a roll. "Mentone has two bays, the East, where we
+are, and the West, the two being separated by the port and the 'old
+town.' Behind us, on the north, extends the double chain of mountains,
+the first rising almost directly from the sea, the second and higher
+chain behind, so that the two together form a screen, which completely
+protects this coast. Thus sheltered, and opening only towards the south,
+the bays of Mentone are like a conservatory, and _we_ like the plants
+growing within." (This, for the Professor, was quite poetical.)
+
+[Illustration: THE OLD TOWN]
+
+"I have often thought that to be a flower in a conservatory would be a
+happy lot," observed Janet. "One could have of the perfumes, sit
+still all the time, and never be out in the rain."
+
+"I trust, Miss Trescott, you have not often been exposed to inclement
+weather?" said the Professor, looking up.
+
+_He_ meant rain; but Mrs. Trescott, who took it upon herself to answer
+him, always meant metaphor. "Not yet," she answered; "no inclement
+weather yet for my child, because I have stood between. But the time may
+come when, _that_ barrier removed--" Here she waved her little claw-like
+hand, heavy with gems, in a sort of sepulchral suggestiveness, and took
+refuge in coffee.
+
+The Professor, who supposed the conversation still concerned the
+weather, said a word or two about the excellent English umbrella he had
+purchased in London, and then returned to his discourse. "The first
+mountains behind us," he remarked, "are between three and four thousand
+feet high; the second chain attains a height of eight and nine thousand
+feet, and, stretching back, mingles with the Swiss Alps. _Our_ name is
+Alpes Maritimes; we run along the coast in this direction" (indicating
+it on the table-cloth with his spoon), "and at Genoa we become the
+Apennines. The winter climate of Mentone is due, therefore, to its
+protected situation; cold winds from the north and northeast, coming
+over these mountains behind us, pass far above our heads, and advance
+several miles over the sea before they fall into the water. The mistral,
+too, that scourge of Southern France, that wind, cold, dry, and sharp,
+bringing with it a yellow haze, is unknown here, kept off by a
+fortunately placed shoulder of mountain running down into the sea on the
+west."
+
+"Indeed?" I said, seeing the search for a listener beginning.
+
+"Yes," he replied, starting on anew, encouraged, but, as usual, not
+noticing from whom the encouragement came--"yes; and the sirocco is
+even pleasant here, because it comes to us over a wide expanse of water.
+The characteristics of a Mentone winter are therefore sunshine,
+protection from the winds, and dryness. It is, in truth, remarkably
+dry."
+
+"Very," said Inness.
+
+"I have scarcely ever seen it equalled," remarked Baker.
+
+Margaret smiled, but I looked at the two youths reprovingly. Mrs.
+Trescott said, "Dry? Do you find it so? But you are young, whereas _I_
+have reminiscences. _Tears_ are not dry."
+
+They certainly are not; but why she should have alluded to them at that
+moment, no one but herself knew. There was a mystery about some of Mrs.
+Trescott's moods which made her society interesting: no one could ever
+tell what she would say next.
+
+After breakfast we sat awhile in the garden, where there were palm,
+lemon, and orange trees, high woody bushes of heliotrope, grotesque
+growth of cactus, and the great gray-blue swords of the century-plant.
+Before us stretched the sea. Even if we had not known it, we should have
+felt sure that its waters laved tropical shores somewhere, and that it
+was the reflection of those far skies which we caught here.
+
+Miss Graves now joined us, with an acquaintance she had discovered, a
+Mrs. Clary, who had "spent several winters at Mentone," and who adored
+"every stone of it." This phrase, which no doubt sounded well coming
+from Mrs. Clary, who was an impulsive person, with fine dark eyes and
+expressive mobile face, assumed a comical aspect when repeated by the
+sober voice of Miss Graves. Mrs. Clary, laughing, hastened to explain;
+and Miss Graves, noticing Mrs. Trescott on a bench in the shade, where
+she and her laces had floated down, said, warningly, "I should advise
+you to rise; I have just learned that the shade of Mentone is of the
+most deadly nature, and to be avoided like a scorpion."
+
+[Illustration: A STREET IN THE OLD TOWN]
+
+Mrs. Trescott and her laces floated up. "Is it damp?" she asked,
+alarmed.
+
+"No," replied Miss Graves, "it is not damp. It does not know how to be
+damp at Mentone. But the shade is deadly, all the same. Now in Florida
+it was otherwise." And she went into the house to get a white umbrella.
+
+"Matilda's temperament is really Alpine," said Mrs. Clary, smiling. "I
+have always felt that she would be cold even in heaven."
+
+"In that case," said Baker, "she might try--" But he had the grace to
+stop.
+
+"What is it about the shade?" I asked.
+
+"Only this," said Mrs. Clary: "as the warmth is due to the heat of the
+sun, and not to the air, which is cool, there is more difference between
+the sunshine and shade here than we are accustomed to elsewhere. But
+surely it is a small thing to remember. The treasure of Mentone is its
+sunshine: in it, safety; out of it, danger."
+
+"Like Mr. Micawber's income," said Margaret, smiling. "Amount, twenty
+shillings; you spend nineteen shillings and sixpence--riches; twenty
+shillings and sixpence--bankruptcy."
+
+A little later we went down to the "old town," as the closely built
+village of the Middle Ages, clinging to the side hill, and hardly
+changed in the long lapse of centuries, is called. The "old town" lies
+between the East Bay and the West Bay, as the body of a bird lies
+between the two long, slender wings.
+
+"The West Bay has its Promenade du Midi, and the East Bay has its
+sea-wall," said Mrs. Clary. "I like a sea-wall."
+
+"This one does not _approach_ that at St. Augustine," said Miss Graves.
+
+"Here is one of the fountains or wells," said Mrs. Clary. "You will soon
+see that going for water and gossiping at the well are two occupations
+of the women everywhere in this region. It comes, I suppose, from the
+scarcity of water, which is brought in pipes from long distances to
+these wells, to which the women must go for all the water needed by
+their households. Notice the classic shapes of the jugs and jars they
+bear on their heads. Those green ones might be majolica."
+
+We now turned up a paved ascent, and passing under a broad stone
+archway, entered the "old town," through whose narrow, lane-like streets
+no vehicle could be driven, through some of them hardly a donkey. The
+principal avenue, the Rue Longue, but a few feet in width, was smoothly
+paved and clean; but walking there was like being at the bottom of a
+well, so far above and so narrow was the little ribbon of blue sky at
+the top. Unbroken stone walls rose on each side, directly upon the
+street, five and six stories in height, shutting out the sunshine; and
+these tall gray walls were often joined above our heads also by arches,
+"like uncelebrated bridges of sighs," Janet said. These closely built
+continuous blocks were the homes of the native population, "old
+Mentone," unspoiled by progress and strangers. The low doorways showed
+stone steps ascending somewhere in the darkness, showed low-ceilinged
+rooms, whose only light was from the door, where were mothers and
+babies, men mending shoes, women sewing and occupied with household
+tasks, as calmly as though daylight was not the natural atmosphere of
+mankind, but rather their own dusky gloom. Outside the doors little
+black-eyed children sat on the pavement, eating the dark sour bread of
+the country, and here and there old women in circular white hats like
+large dinner plates were spinning thread with distaff and spindle. Above
+were some bits of color: pots of flowers on high window-sills,
+bright-hued rags hung out to dry, or a dark-eyed girl, with red kerchief
+tied over her black braids, looking down.
+
+"It is all like a scene from an opera," said Janet.
+
+"Oh no," said Mrs. Clary; "say rather that it is like a scene from the
+Middle Ages."
+
+"That is what I mean," said Janet. "The scenes in the operas are
+generally from the Middle Ages."
+
+"The chorus _always_," said Baker.
+
+"It is a pity you cannot see the old mansion of the Princes," said Mrs.
+Clary. "But I see the street is blockaded just now by the artist."
+
+"By the artist?" said Janet.
+
+"Yes; this one, a Frenchman, is rather broad-shouldered, and when he is
+at work he blockades the street. However, the mansion is not especially
+interesting; it was built by one of the later Princes with the stones of
+the ruined castle above, and has, I believe, only a vaulted hallway and
+one or two marble pillars. It is now a lodging-house. I saw dancing-dogs
+going up the stairway yesterday."
+
+From the Rue Longue we had turned into a labyrinth of crooked,
+staircase-like lanes, winding here and there from side to side, but
+constantly ascending, the whole net-work, owing to the number of arches
+thrown across above, seeming to be half underground, but in reality a
+honey-combed erection clinging to the steep hill-side.
+
+"Dancing-dogs!" said Janet, pausing in the darkest of these turnings.
+"Let us go back and see them."
+
+But we all exclaimed against this; Mrs. Trescott's little old feet were
+wearied with curling over the round stones, and Margaret was tired.
+Inness and Baker offered to make dancing-dogs of themselves for the
+remainder of the morning, and dogs, too, of a very superior quality, if
+she would only go on.
+
+The Professor, who, in his "winnowing progress," as Mrs. Trescott
+called it, had fallen behind, now joined us, followed by Miss Graves.
+
+"I have just witnessed a remarkably interesting little ceremony," he
+began, "quite medi�val--a herald, with his trumpet, making an
+announcement through the streets. I could not comprehend all he said,
+but no doubt it was something of importance to the community."
+
+"It was," said Miss Graves's monotonous voice. "He was telling them that
+excellent sausage-meat was now to be obtained at a certain shop for a
+price much lower than before."
+
+"Ah," said the Professor. Then, rallying, he added, "But the ceremony
+was the same."
+
+"Certainly," I said, with my usual unappreciated benevolence.
+
+"I wonder what induced these people to build their houses upon such a
+crag as this, when they had the whole sunny coast to choose from?" said
+Janet.
+
+The Professor, charmed with this idle little speech (which he took for a
+thirst for knowledge), hastened by several of us as we walked in single
+file, in order to be nearer to the questioner.
+
+"You may not be aware, Miss Trescott," he began (she was still in
+advance, but he hoped to make up the distance), "that this whole shore,
+called the Riviera--"
+
+"Let us begin fairly," I said. "What _is_ the Riviera?"
+
+"It is heaven," said Mrs. Clary.
+
+[Illustration: RUE LONGUE BLOCKADED BY AN ARTIST]
+
+"It is the coast of the Gulf of Genoa," said the Professor, "extending
+both eastward and westward from the city of that name. On the west it
+extends geographically to Nice; but Cannes and Antibes are generally
+included. This shore-line, then, has been subject from a very early date
+to attacks from the pirates of the Mediterranean, who swept down upon
+the coast and carried off as slaves all who came in their way. To
+escape the horrors of this slavery the inhabitants chose situations like
+this steep hill-side, and crowded their stone dwellings closely together
+so that they formed continuous walls, which were often joined also by
+arched bridges, like these above us now, and connected by dark and
+winding passageways below, so that escape was easy and pursuit
+impossible. It was a veritable--"
+
+"Rabbit-warren," suggested Baker.
+
+Inness made no suggestions; he was next to the Professor, and fully
+occupied in blocking, with apparent entire unconsciousness, all his
+efforts to pass and join Janet.
+
+The Professor, not accepting, however, the rabbit-warren, continued: "As
+recently as 1830, Miss Trescott, when the French took possession of
+Algiers, they found there thousands of miserable Christian slaves,
+natives of this northern shore, who had been seized on the coast or
+taken from their fishing-boats at sea. There are men now living in
+Mentone who in their youth spent years as slaves in Tunis and Algiers.
+These pirates, these scourges of the Mediterranean, were Saracens,
+and--"
+
+"Saracens!" said Janet, with an accent of admiration; "what a lovely
+word it is! What visions of romance and adventure it brings up,
+especially when spelled with two r's, so as to be Sarrasins! It is even
+better than Paynim."
+
+I could not see how the Professor took this, because we were now all
+entirely in the dark, groping our way along a passage which apparently
+led through cellars.
+
+"We are in an _impasse_, or blind passage," called Mrs. Clary from
+behind; "we had better go back."
+
+Hearing this, we all retraced our steps--at least, we supposed we did.
+But when we reached comparative daylight again we found that Janet,
+Inness, and Baker were not with us; they had found a way through that
+_impasse_, although we could not, and were sitting high above us on a
+white wall in the sunshine, when, breathless, we at last emerged from
+the labyrinth and discovered them.
+
+"That looks like a cemetery," said Mrs. Trescott, disapprovingly,
+disentangling her lace shawl from a bush. "You _said_ it was a castle."
+She addressed the Professor, and with some asperity; she did not like
+cemeteries.
+
+"It was the castle," explained our learned guide; "the castle erected in
+1502, by one of the Princes, upon the site of a still earlier one, built
+in 1250."
+
+"That Prince used the ruins of his ancestors as his descendants
+afterwards used his," observed Margaret, referring to the mansion in the
+street below.
+
+"Possibly," said the Professor. He never gave Margaret more than a
+possibility; although a man of hyphens and semicolons, he generally
+dismissed her with an early period. "These old arches and buttresses,"
+he continued, turning to Mrs. Trescott, "were once part of the castle.
+Turreted walls extended from here down to the sea."
+
+"What they did once, of course I do not know," said Mrs. Trescott,
+implacably, "but now they plainly enclose a cemetery. Janet! Janet! come
+down! we are going back." And she turned to descend.
+
+"The cemetery is a lovely spot," said Mrs. Clary, as we lingered a
+moment looking at the white marble crosses gleaming above us, outlined
+against the blue sky.
+
+[Illustration: THE CORNICE ROAD, MENTONE]
+
+"Some other time," I answered, following Mrs. Trescott. For the quiet,
+lovely gardens where we lay our dead had too strong an attraction for
+Margaret already. She was fond of lingering amid their perfume and their
+silence, and she sought this one the next day, and afterwards often
+went there. It was a peculiar little cemetery, alone on the height, and
+walled like a fortress; but it was beautiful in its way, lifted up
+against the sky and overlooking the sea. On the eastern edge was a
+monument, the seated figure of a woman with her hands gently clasped,
+her eyes gazing over the water; the face was lovely, and not
+idealized--the face of a woman, not an angel. Margaret took a fancy to
+this white watcher on the height, and often stole away to look at the
+sunset, seated near it. I think she identified its loneliness somewhat
+with herself.
+
+We went through the labyrinth again, but by another route, not quite so
+dark and piratical, although equally narrow. Miss Graves liked nothing
+she saw, but walked on unmoved, save that at intervals she observed that
+it was "deathly cold" in these "stony lanes," and "_must_ be unhealthy."
+Mrs. Clary's assertion that the people looked remarkably vigorous only
+called out a shake of the head; Miss Graves was set upon "fever." It was
+amusing to see how carefully all the houses were numbered, up and down
+these break-neck little streets, through the narrowest burrows, and
+under the darkest arches. Here and there some citizen wealthier than his
+neighbors had painted his section of front in bright pink or yellow, and
+perhaps adorned his Madonna in her little shrine over the door with new
+robes, those broadly contrasted blues and reds of Italy, which American
+eyes must learn by gradual education to admire; or, if not by education,
+then by residence; for he will find himself liking them naturally after
+a while, as a relief from the unchanging white light of the Italian day.
+We came down by way of the square or piazza on the hill-side, to and
+from which broad flights of steps ascend and descend. Here are the two
+churches of St. Michael and the White Penitents, whose campaniles, with
+that of the Black Penitents beyond, make the "three spires of Mentone,"
+which stand out so picturesquely one above the other, visible in profile
+far to the east and the west on the sharp angle of the hill.
+
+"The different use of the same word in different languages is droll,"
+said Margaret. "French writers almost always speak of these little
+country church-spires as 'coquettes.'"
+
+"There is a Turkish lance here somewhere," said Inness, emerging
+unexpectedly from what I had thought was a cellar. "It is in one of
+these churches. It was taken at the battle of Lepanto, and is a
+'glorious relic.' We must see it."
+
+"No," said Janet, appearing with Baker at the top of a flight of steps
+which I had supposed was the back entrance of a private house, "we will
+not see it, but imagine it. I want to go homeward by the Rue Longue."
+
+"Now, Janet, if you mean those dancing-dogs--" began Mrs. Trescott.
+
+"I had forgotten their very existence, mamma. I was thinking of
+something quite different." Here she turned towards the Professor. "I
+was hoping that Professor Mackenzie would feel like telling me something
+of Mentone in the past, as we walk through that quaint old street."
+
+"He feels like it--feels like it day and night," said Baker to Inness,
+behind me. "He's a perfect statistics Niagara."
+
+"Look at him now, gorged with joy!" said Inness, indignantly. "But I'll
+floor him yet, and on his own ground, too. I'll study up, and _then_
+we'll see!"
+
+But the Professor, not hearing this threat, had already begun, and begun
+(for him) quite gayly. "The origin of Mentone, Miss Trescott, has been
+attributed to the pirates, and also to Hercules."
+
+"I have always been _so_ interested in Hercules," replied that young
+person.
+
+[Illustration: "TO ITALY"--PONT ST. LOUIS]
+
+"Mythical--mythical," said the Professor. "I merely mentioned it as one
+of the legends. To come down to facts--always much more impressive to a
+rightly disposed mind--the first mention of Mentone, _per se_, on the
+authentic page of history, occurs in the eighth century. In A.D. 975 it
+belonged to the Lascaris, Counts of Ventimiglia, a family of royal
+origin and Greek descent."
+
+"Are there any of them left?" inquired Janet.
+
+"I really do not know," replied the Professor, who was not interested in
+that branch of the subject. "In the fourteenth century the village
+passed into the possession of the Grimaldi family, Princes of Monaco,
+and they held it, legally at least, until 1860, when it was attached to
+France."
+
+"He is really quite Cyclopean in his information," murmured Mrs.
+Trescott.
+
+But the Professor had now discovered Inness, who, with an expression of
+deepest interest on his face, was walking close at his heels, and
+writing as he walked in a note-book.
+
+"What are you doing, sir?" said the Professor, in his college tone.
+
+"Taking notes," replied Inness, respectfully. "Miss Trescott may feel
+willing to trust her memory, but _I_ wish to preserve your remarks for
+future reference," and he went on with his writing.
+
+The Professor looked at him sharply, but the youth's face remained
+immovable, and he went on.
+
+"These three little towns, then, Mentone, Roccabruna, and Monaco, have
+belonged to the Princes of Monaco since the early Middle Ages."
+
+"Those dear Middle Ages!" said Mrs. Clary.
+
+The Professor gravely looked at her, and then repeated his phrase, as if
+linking together his remarks over her unimportant head. "As I
+observed--the early Middle Ages. But in 1848 Mentone and Roccabruna,
+unable longer to endure the tyranny of their rulers, revolted and
+declared their independence. The Prince at that time lived in Paris,
+knew little of his subjects, and apparently cared less, save to get from
+them through agents as much income as possible for his Parisian
+luxuries." (Impossible to describe the accent which our Puritan
+Professor gave to those two words.) "His little territory produced only
+olives, oranges, and lemons. By his order the oranges and lemons were
+taxed so heavily that the poor peasant owner made nothing from his toil;
+his olives, also, must be ground at the 'Prince's mill,' where a higher
+price was demanded than elsewhere. Finally an even more odious monopoly
+was established: all subjects were compelled to purchase the 'Prince's
+bread,' which, made from cheap grain bought on the docks of Marseilles
+and Genoa, was often unfit to eat. So severe were the laws that any
+traveller entering the principality must throw away at the boundary line
+all bread he might have with him, and the captain of a vessel having on
+board a single slice upon arrival in port was heavily fined. This state
+of things lasted twenty-five years, during which period the Prince in
+Paris spent annually his eighty thousand dollars, gained from this poor
+little domain of eight or nine thousand souls." The Professor in his
+heat stood still, and we all stood still with him. The Mentonnais,
+looking down from their high windows and up from their dark little
+doors, no doubt wondered what we were talking about; they little knew it
+was their own story.
+
+"A revolution made by bread. And ours was made by tea," observed Janet,
+thoughtfully.
+
+"We need now only one made by butter, to be complete," said Inness.
+
+Again the Professor scrutinized him, but discovered nothing.
+
+[Illustration: THE PALMS OF BORDIGHERA]
+
+_I_, however, discovered something, although not from Inness; I
+discovered why Janet had wished to pass a second time through that Rue
+Longue. For here was the French artist sketching the old mansion, and
+with him (she could not have known this, of course; but chance always
+favored Janet) were the two Englishmen, the respectful gazers of the
+breakfast-table, sketching also. There were therefore six artistic eyes
+instead of two to dwell upon her as she approached, passed, and went
+onward, her slender figure outlined against the light coming through the
+archway beyond, old St. Julian's Gate, a remnant of feudal
+fortification. Artists are not slack in the use of their eyes; an
+"artistic gaze" is not considered a stare. I was obliged to repeat this
+axiom to Baker, who did not appreciate it, but looked as though he would
+like to go back and artistically demolish those gazers. He contented
+himself, however, with the remark that water-color sketches were "weak,
+puling daubs," and then he went on through the old archway as
+majestically as he could.
+
+"One of the features of Mentone seems to be the number of false windows
+carefully painted on the outside of the houses, windows adorned with
+blinds, muslin curtains, pots of flowers, and even gay rugs hanging over
+the sill," said Margaret.
+
+"And then the frescos," I added--"landscapes, trees, gods and goddesses,
+in the most brilliant colors, on the side of the house."
+
+"_I_ like it," said Mrs. Clary; "it is so tropical."
+
+"You commend falsity, then," said Miss Graves. "_What_ can be more false
+than a false rug?"
+
+We went homeward by the sea-wall, and saw some boys coming up from the
+beach with a basket of sea-urchins. "They eat them, you know," said Mrs.
+Clary.
+
+"Is that tropical too?" said Janet, shuddering.
+
+"It is, after all, but a difference in custom," observed the Professor.
+"I myself have eaten puppies in China, and found them not unpalatable."
+
+Janet surveyed him; then fell behind and joined Inness and Baker.
+
+Some fishermen on the beach were talking to two women with red
+handkerchiefs on their heads, who were leaning over the sea-wall. "Their
+language is a strange patois," said the Professor; "it is composed of a
+mixture of Italian, French, Spanish, and even Arabic."
+
+"But the people themselves are thoroughly Italian, I think, in spite of
+the French boundary line," said Margaret. "They are a handsome race,
+with their dark eyes, thick hair, and rich coloring."
+
+"I have never bestowed much thought upon beauty _per se_," responded the
+Professor. "The imperishable mind has far more interest."
+
+"How much of the imperishable M. do you possess, Miss Trescott?" I heard
+Inness murmur.
+
+"Breakfast" was served at one o'clock in the large dining-room, and we
+found ourselves opposite the two English artists, and a young lady whom
+they called "Miss Elaine."
+
+"Elaine is bad enough; but 'Miss Elaine'!" said Margaret aside to me.
+
+However, Miss Elaine seemed very well satisfied with herself and her
+Tennysonian title. She was a short, plump blonde, with a high color, and
+I could see that she regarded Janet with pity as she noted her slender
+proportions and delicate complexion in the one exhaustive glance with
+which girls survey each other when they first meet. We were some time at
+the table, but during the first five minutes both of the artists
+succeeded in offering some slight service to Mrs. Trescott which gave an
+opportunity for opening a conversation. The taller of the two, called
+"Verney" by his friend, advised for the afternoon an expedition up the
+Cornice Road to the "Pont St. Louis," and on "to Italy."
+
+"But that will be too far, will it not?" said Mrs. Trescott.
+
+"Oh no; to Italy! to Italy!" said Janet, with enthusiasm. Verney now
+explained that Italy was but ten minutes' walk from the hotel, and Janet
+was, of course, duly astonished. But not more astonished than the
+Professor, who, having told her the same fact not a half-hour before,
+could not comprehend how she should so soon have forgotten it.
+
+"And if we _are_ but 'ten minutes' walk from Italy'--a phrase so often
+repeated--what of it?" said Miss Graves to Margaret. "We are simply ten
+minutes' walk from a most uncleanly land." Miss Graves always wore a
+gray worsted shawl, and took no wine; in spite of the sunshine,
+therefore, she preserved a frosty appearance.
+
+After breakfast Miss Elaine introduced herself to Mrs. Trescott. She had
+met some Americans the year before; they were charming; they were from
+Brazil; perhaps we knew them? She had always felt ever since that all
+Americans were her dear, dear friends. She had an invalid mother
+up-stairs (sharing her good opinion of Americans) who would be "very
+pleased" to make our acquaintance; and hearing Pont St. Louis mentioned,
+she assured Janet that it was a "very jolly place--very jolly indeed."
+It ended in our going to the "jolly place," accompanied by the two
+artists and Miss Elaine herself, who smiled upon us all, upon the rocks,
+the sky, and the sea, in the most amiable and continuous manner. This
+time we were not all on foot; one of the loose-jointed little Mentone
+phaetons, with a great deal of driver and whip and very little horse,
+had been engaged for Mrs. Trescott and Margaret. This left Mrs. Clary
+and myself together (Miss Graves having remained at home), and Inness,
+Baker, the Professor, Verney, and the other artist, whose name was
+Lloyd, all trying to walk with Janet, while Miss Elaine devoted herself
+in turn to the unsuccessful ones, and never from first to last perceived
+the real situation.
+
+We went eastward. Presently we passed a small house bearing the
+following na�ve inscription in French on the side towards the road: "The
+first villa built at Mentone, in 1855, to attract hither the strangers.
+The sun, the sea, and the soft air combined are benefactions bestowed
+upon us by the good God. Thanks be to Him, therefore, for His mercies in
+thus favoring us."
+
+"Mentone is said to have been 'discovered by the English' in 1857," said
+Mrs. Clary. "Dr. Bennet, the London physician, may be called its real
+discoverer, as Lord Brougham was the discoverer of Cannes. From a
+sleepy, unknown little Riviera village it has grown into the winter
+resort we now see, with fifty hotels and two hundred villas full of
+strangers from all parts of the world."
+
+The Professor was discoursing upon the climate. "It is very beneficial
+to all whose lungs are delicate," he said. "Also" (checking off the
+different classes on his fingers) "to the aged, to those who need
+general renovating, to the rheumatic, and to those afflicted with gout."
+
+"Where, then, do I come in?" said Janet, sweetly, as he finished the
+left hand.
+
+"Nowhere," answered the Professor, meaning to be gallant, but not quite
+succeeding. Perceiving this, he added, slowly, and with solemnity, "But
+the fair and healthy flower should be willing to shine upon the less
+endowed for the pure beneficence of the act."
+
+[Illustration: THE BONE CAVERNS]
+
+Baker and Inness sat down on the sea-wall behind him to recover from
+this. The two Englishmen were equally amused, although Miss Elaine,
+who was walking with them, did not discover it. However, Miss Elaine
+seldom discovered anything save herself. We now began to ascend, passing
+between the high walls of villa gardens along a smooth, broad, white
+road.
+
+"This is the Cornice," said Mrs. Clary; "it winds along this coast from
+Marseilles to Genoa."
+
+"From Nice to Genoa," said the Professor, turning to correct her. But by
+turning he lost his place. Inness slipped into it, and not only that,
+but into his information also. In the leisure hour or two before and
+after "breakfast," Inness had carried out his threat of "studying up,"
+and we soon became aware of it.
+
+"The genius of Napoleon, Miss Trescott," he began, "caused this
+wonderful road to spring from the bosom of the mighty rock."
+
+"Before it there was no road, only a mule track," said the Professor
+from behind.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Inness, suavely, "but there was a road, the
+old Roman way, called Via Julia Augusta, traces of which are still to be
+seen at more than one point in this neighborhood."
+
+"Ah!" said the Professor, surprised by this unexpected antiquity, "you
+are going back to the Roman period. I have omitted that."
+
+"But I have not," replied Inness. "The Romans were a remarkable people,
+and all their relics are penetrated with the profoundest interest for
+me. I am aware, however, that other minds are more modern," he added,
+carelessly, with an air of patronage, which so delighted Baker that he
+fell behind to conceal it.
+
+"The Cornichy, Miss Trescott, as we pronounce the Italian word (Corniche
+in French), is almost our own word cornice," pursued Inness, "meaning a
+shelf or ledge along the side of the mountain. It was begun by Napoleon,
+and has been finished by the energy of successive governments since the
+death of that wonderful man, who was all governments in one."
+
+"You surprise me," said Janet, breaking into laughter.
+
+"Not more than you do me," I said, joining her.
+
+The Professor (who had rather neglected the Cornice in his Cyclopean
+information) gazed at us inquiringly, surprised at our merriment.
+
+"The best description of the Cornice, I think, is the one in Ruffini's
+novel called _Doctor Antonio_" said Mrs. Clary. "The scene is laid at
+Bordighera, you know, that little white town on the eastern point so
+conspicuous from Mentone. Of course you all remember _Doctor Antonio_?"
+
+Presently our road wound around a curve, and we came upon a wild gorge,
+spanned by a bridge with a sentinel's box at each end; one side was
+France and the other Italy. The bridge, the official boundary line
+between the two countries, is a single arch thrown across the gorge,
+which is singularly stern, great masses of bare gray rock rising
+perpendicularly hundreds of feet into the air, with a little rill of
+water trickling down on one side, trying to create a tiny line of
+verdure. Below was an old aqueduct on arches, which the Professor
+hastened to say was "Roman."
+
+"The Romans must have been enormous drinkers of water," observed Baker,
+as we looked down. "The first thing they made in every conquered country
+was an aqueduct. What could have given the name to Roman punch?"
+
+"Do you see that narrow track cut in the face of the rock?" said Mrs.
+Clary, pointing out a line crossing one side of the gorge at a dizzy
+height. "It is a little path beside a watercourse, and so narrow that in
+some places there is not room for one's two feet. The wall of rock
+rises, as you see, perpendicularly hundreds of feet on one side, and
+falls away hundreds of feet perpendicularly on the other; there is
+nothing to hold on by, and in addition the glancing motion of the little
+stream, running rapidly downhill along the edge, makes the path still
+more dizzy. Yet the peasants coming down from Ciotti--a village above
+us--use it, as it shortens the distance to town. And there are those
+among the strangers too who try it, generally, I must confess, of our
+race. The French and Italians say, with a shrug, 'It is only the English
+and Americans who enjoy such risks.'"
+
+"It does not look so narrow," said Janet. Then, as we exclaimed, she
+added, "I mean, not wide enough for one's two feet."
+
+"Feet," remarked Inness, in a general way, as if addressing the gorge,
+"are not all of the same size."
+
+We happened to be standing in a row, with our backs against the southern
+parapet of the bridge, looking up at the little path; the result was
+that eighteen feet were plainly visible on the white dust of the bridge,
+and, naturally enough, at Inness's speech eighteen eyes looked downward
+and noted them. There were the Professor's boots, the laced shoes of the
+younger men, the comfortable foot-gear of Mrs. Clary and myself, the
+broad substantial soles of Miss Elaine, and a certain dainty little pair
+of high-arched, high-heeled boots, which, small as they were, were yet
+quite large enough for the pretty feet they contained. I thought Miss
+Elaine would be vexed; but no, not at all. It never occurred to Miss
+Elaine to doubt the perfection of any of her attributes. But now Mrs.
+Trescott's phaeton, which had started later, reached the bridge, and the
+gorge, path, and aqueduct had to be explained to her. Lloyd undertook
+this.
+
+"I wonder how many girls have thrown themselves off that rock?" said
+Janet, gazing at an isolated peak, shaped like a sugar-loaf, which
+stood alone within the ravine.
+
+"What a holocaust you imagine, Miss Trescott!" said Verney. "How could
+they climb up there, to begin with?"
+
+"I do not know. But they always do. I have never known a rock of that
+kind which has succeeded in evading them," answered Janet. "They
+generally call them 'Lovers' Leaps.'"
+
+After a while we went on "to Italy," passing the square Italian
+custom-house perched on its cliff, and following the road by the little
+Garibaldi inn, and on towards the point of Mortola.
+
+"This is the Italian frontier," said Verney. "In old times, during the
+Prince's reign, no one could leave the domain without buying a passport;
+any one, therefore, who wished to take an afternoon walk was obliged to
+have one. But things are altered now in Menton."
+
+"Are we to call the place Menton or Mentone?" asked Janet. "We might as
+well come to some decision."
+
+"Menton is correct," said the Professor; "it is now a French town."
+
+"Oh no! let us keep to the dear old names, and say Men-to-ne," said Mrs.
+Clary.
+
+"_I_ have even heard it pronounced to rhyme with bone," said Verney,
+smiling. Inness and Baker now looked at each other, and fell behind, but
+after a few minutes they came forward again, and, advancing to the
+front, faced us, and delivered the following epic:
+
+     Inness:
+
+    "What shall we call thee? Shall we give our own
+    Plain English vowels to thee, fair Mentone?"
+
+[Illustration: THE PROFESSOR DISCOURSES]
+
+
+     Baker:
+
+    "Or shall we yield thee back thy patrimony,
+    The lost Italian sweetness of Mentone?"
+
+     Inness:
+
+    "Or, with French accent, and the n's half gone,
+    Try the Parisian syllables--Men-ton?"
+
+We all applauded their impromptu. The Professor, seeing that poetry held
+the field, walked apart musingly. I think he was trying to recall, but
+without success, an appropriate Latin quotation.
+
+The view from the point above Mortola is very beautiful. On the west,
+Mentone with its three spires, the green of Cap Martin; and beyond, the
+bold dark forehead of the Dog's Head rising above Monaco.
+
+"Do you see that blue line of coast?" said Verney. "That is the island
+where lived the Man with the Iron Mask."
+
+"Bazaine was confined there also," said the Professor.
+
+But none of us cared for Bazaine. We began to talk about the Mask, and
+then diverged to Kaspar Hauser, finally ending with Eleazer Williams, of
+"Have we a Bourbon among us?" who had to be explained to the Englishmen.
+It was some time before we came back to the view; but all the while
+there it was before us, and we were unconsciously enjoying it. On the
+east was, first, the little village of Mortola at our feet; then
+fortified Ventimiglia; and beyond, Bordighera, gleaming whitely on its
+low point out in the blue sea.
+
+"Blanche Bordighera," said Mrs. Clary; "it is to me like
+paradise--always silvery and fair. No matter where you go, there it is;
+whether you look from Cap Martin or St. Agnese, from Ciotti or
+Roccabruna, you can always see Bordighera shining in the sunlight. Even
+when there is a mist, so that Mentone itself is veiled and Ventimiglia
+lost, Bordighera can be seen gleaming whitely through. And finally you
+end by not wanting to go there; you dread spoiling the vision by a less
+fair reality, and you go away, leaving it unvisited, but carrying with
+you the remembrance of its shining and its feathery palms."
+
+"Is it palmy?" asked Janet.
+
+"There are probably now more palms at Bordighera than in the Holy Land
+itself," said Verney, who had wound himself into a place beside her. I
+say "wound," because Verney was so long and lithe that he could slip
+gracefully into places which other men could not obtain. Lloyd was not
+with us. He had not left his post of duty beside the phaeton, which was
+coming slowly up the hill behind us; but I noticed that he had selected
+Margaret's side of it.
+
+"Palms would grow at Mentone, or at any other sheltered spot on this
+coast," said the Professor, at last abandoning the obstinate quotation,
+and coming back to the present. "But the cultivation is not remunerative
+save at Bordighera, where they own the monopoly of supplying the palm
+branches used on Palm-Sunday at Rome."
+
+"Excuse me," said Inness; "but I think you did not mention the origin of
+that monopoly?"
+
+"A monkish legend," said the Professor, contemptuously.
+
+"In those days everything was monkish," replied Inness; "architecture,
+knowledge, and religion. If we had lived then, no doubt we should all
+have been monks."
+
+"Ah, yes!" said Miss Elaine, fervently. "Do tell us the legend, Mr.
+Inness. I adore legends, especially if ecclesiastical."
+
+"Well," said Inness, "a good while ago--in 1586--the Pope decided to
+raise and place upon a pedestal an Egyptian obelisk, which, transported
+to Rome by Caligula, had been left lying neglected upon the ground. An
+apparatus was constructed to lift the huge block, and with the aid of
+one hundred and fifty horses and nine hundred men it was raised, poised,
+and then let down slowly towards its position, amid the breathless
+silence of a multitude, when suddenly it was seen that the ropes on one
+side failed to bring it into place. All, including the engineer in
+charge, stood stupefied with alarm, when a voice from the crowd called
+out, 'Wet the ropes!' It was done; the ropes shortened; the obelisk
+reached its place in safety. The Pope sent for the man whose timely
+advice had saved the lives of many, and asked him what reward would
+please him most. He was a simple countryman, and with much timidity he
+answered that he lived at Bordighera, and that if the palms of
+Bordighera could be used in Rome on Holy Palm-Sunday he should die
+happy. His wish was granted," concluded Inness, "and--he died."
+
+"I hope not immediately," I said, laughing.
+
+On our way back, Verney showed us a path leading up the cliff. "Let me
+give you a glimpse of a lovely garden," he said. We looked up, and there
+it was on the cliff above us, like the hanging gardens of Babylon, green
+terraces clothing the bare gray rock with beautiful verdure. Margaret
+left the phaeton and went up the winding path with us, Mrs. Trescott and
+Mrs. Clary remaining below. The gate of the garden, which bore the
+inscription "Salvete Amici," opened upon a long columned walk; from
+pillar to pillar over our heads ran climbing vines, and on each side
+were ranks of rare and curious plants, the lovely wild flowers of the
+country having their place also among the costlier blossoms. "Before you
+go farther turn and look at the tower," said Verney. "It has been made
+habitable within, but otherwise it is unchanged. It was built either as
+a lookout in which to keep watch for the Saracens, or else by the
+Saracens themselves when they held the coast."
+
+"By the Sarrasins themselves, of course--always with two r's," said
+Janet. "Think of it--a Sarrasin tower! I would rather own it than
+anything else in the whole world."
+
+Whereupon Verney, Inness, the Professor, Lloyd, and Baker all wished to
+know what she would do with it.
+
+"Do with it?" repeated Janet. "Live in it, of course. I have always had
+the greatest desire to live in a tower; even light-houses tempt me."
+
+"I shall tell Dr. Bennet," said Verney, laughing. "This is his garden,
+you know."
+
+At the end of the columned walk we went around a curve by a smaller
+tower, and descended to a lower path bordered with miniature groves of
+hyacinth, whose dense sweetness, mingled with that of heliotrope, filled
+the air. Here Margaret seated herself to enjoy the fragrance and
+sunshine, while we went onward, coming to a magnificent array of
+primulas, rank upon rank, in every shade of delicate and gorgeous
+coloring, a pomp of tints against a background of ferns. Below was a
+little vine-covered terrace with thick, soft, English grass for its
+velvet flooring; here was another paradisiacal little seat, like the one
+where we had left Margaret, overlooking the blue sea. On terraces above
+were camellias, roses, and numberless other blossoms, mingled with
+tropical plants and curious growths of cacti; behind was a lemon grove
+rising a little higher; then the background of gray rocks from which all
+this beauty had been won inch by inch; then the great peaks of the
+mountain amphitheatre against the sky--in all, beauty enough for a
+thousand gardens here concentrated in one enchanting spot.
+
+[Illustration: THE WASHER-WOMEN]
+
+"That picturesque village on the height is Grimaldi," said Verney.
+
+"The original home of the clowns, I suppose," said Baker.
+
+"English and Americans always say that; they can never think of anything
+but the great circus Hamlet," replied Verney. "In reality, however,
+Grimaldi is one of the oldest of the noble names on this coast--the
+family name of the Princes of Monaco."
+
+"Who are worse than clowns," said the Professor, sternly. "The Grimaldi
+who was a clown at least honestly earned his bread, but the Grimaldis of
+the present day live by the worst dishonesty. Monaco, formerly called
+the Port of Hercules, may now well be called the Port of Hell."
+
+"Well," said Inness, "if Monaco, on one side of us, represents
+l'Inferno, Bordighera, on the other, represents Paradiso, and so we are
+saved."
+
+"It depends upon which way you go, young man," said the Professor, still
+sternly.
+
+After a while we came back to the bench among the hyacinths where we had
+left Margaret, and found Lloyd with her, looking at the sea; the lovely
+garden overhangs the sea, whose beautiful near blue closes every
+blossoming vista. It had been decided that we were to go homeward by way
+of the Bone Caverns, and as Mrs. Trescott was fond of bones, and wished
+to see their abode, I offered to remain and drive home with Margaret.
+
+"Let me accompany Miss Severin," said Lloyd. "I have seen the caverns,
+and do not care to see them again."
+
+I looked at Margaret, thinking she would object; she seldom cared for
+the society of strangers. But in some way Mr. Lloyd no longer seemed a
+stranger; he had crossed the numerous little barriers which she kept
+erected between herself and the outside world, crossed them probably
+without even seeing them. But none the less were they crossed.
+
+So we left them in the sunny garden to return homeward at their leisure,
+and, descending to the road, went eastward a short distance, and turned
+down a narrow path leading to the beach. It brought us under the
+enormous mass of the Red Rocks, rising perpendicularly three hundred
+feet from the water. Inness, who was in advance, had paused on a little
+bridge of one arch over a hollow, and was holding it, as it were, when
+we came up. "Behold a fragment of the ancient Roman way, Via Julia
+Augusta," he began, introducing the bridge with a wave of his cane.
+"When we think of this road in the past, what visions rise in the
+mind--visions like--like mists on the mountain-tops floating away,
+which--which merge in each other at dawning of day! In comparison with
+the ancient Romans, the builders of this bridge, Hercules, the Lascaris,
+even the Sarrasins (always with two r's), are _nowhere_. Roman feet
+touched this very archway upon which my own unworthy shoes now stand."
+
+We looked at his shoes with respect, the Professor (who had gone onward
+to the Bone Caverns) not being there to contradict.
+
+"The Romans," continued Inness, "never stayed long. They dropped here a
+tomb, there an aqueduct, and then moved on. They were the first great
+pedestrians. We cannot _see_ them, but we can imagine them. As Pope well
+says,
+
+    "'While fancy brings the vanished piles to view,
+    And builds imaginary Rome anew.'"
+
+"Ah, yes," said Mrs. Trescott, "the Romans, the Romans, how dreamy they
+were! They always remind me of those lines:
+
+    "'Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
+        And let the young lambs bound
+        As to the tabor's sound,
+        The primal sympathy,
+    Which, having been, must ever be!'"
+
+This finished the bridge. As we had no idea what she meant, even Inness
+deserted it, and we all went onward to the Bone Caverns. The caverns
+were dark hollows in the cliff some distance above the road. From the
+entrance of one of them issued a cloud of dust; the Professor was in
+there digging.
+
+"Let us ascend at once," said Mrs. Trescott, enthusiastically. "I wish
+to stand in the very abode of the primitive man."
+
+But it was something of a task to get her up; there was always a great
+deal of loose drapery about Mrs. Trescott, which had a way of catching
+on everything far and near. With her veil, her plumes, her lace shawl,
+her long watch-chain, her dangling fan, her belt bag and scent bottle,
+her parasol and basket, it was difficult to get her safely through any
+narrow or bushy place. But to-day Verney gallantly undertook the feat:
+he knew the advantages of propitiating the higher powers.
+
+Men were quarrying the face of the Red Rocks at a dizzy height, hanging
+suspended in mid-air by ropes in order to direct the blasting; below,
+the patient horses were waiting to convey the great blocks of stone to
+the town, and destroy, by their daily procession, the last traces of the
+Julia Augusta.
+
+"I hope these rocks are porphyry," said Janet, gazing upward; "it is
+such a lovely name."
+
+"Yes, they are," said the unblushing Inness. "The Troglodytes, whose
+homes are beneath, were fond of porphyry. They were very �sthetic, you
+know."
+
+We now reached the entrance of one of the caverns and looked in.
+
+"The Troglodytes," continued Inness, "were the original, _really_
+original, proprietors of Mentone. They lived here, clad in bear-skins,
+and their voices are said to have been not sweet. See Pliny and Strabo.
+The bones of their dinners left here, and a few of their own (untimely
+deaths from fighting with each other for more), have now become the most
+precious treasures of the scientific world, equalling in richness the
+never-to-be-sufficiently-prized-and-investigated kitchen refuse of the
+Swiss lakes."
+
+But the Professor, overhearing something of this frivolity at the sacred
+door, emerged from the hole in which he had been digging, and, covered
+with dust, but rich in the possession of a ball and socket joint of some
+primeval animal, came to the entrance, and forcibly, if not by force,
+addressed us:
+
+"At a recent period it has been discovered that these five caverns in
+this limestone rock--"
+
+"Alas, my porphyry!" murmured Janet.
+
+"--contain bones of animals mixed with flint instruments imbedded in
+sand. The animals were the food and the flint instruments the weapons of
+a race of men who must have existed far back in prehistoric times. This
+was a rich discovery; but a richer was to come. In 1872 a human
+skeleton, all but perfect, a skeleton of a tall man, was discovered in
+the fourth cavern, surrounded by bones which prove its great
+antiquity--which prove, in fact, almost beyond a doubt, that it belonged
+to--the--_Paleolithic epoch_!" And the Professor paused, really overcome
+by the tremendous power of his own words.
+
+[Illustration: OIL MILL]
+
+But I am afraid we all gazed stupidly enough, first at him, then into
+the cave, then at him again, with only the vaguest idea of
+"Paleolithic's" importance. I must except Verney; he knew more. But
+he had gone inside, and was now digging in the hole in his turn to find
+flints for Janet.
+
+Mrs. Trescott, who was our bone-master (she had studied anatomy, and
+highly admired "form"), asked if the skeleton had been "painted in
+oils."
+
+Miss Elaine hoped that they buried it again "reverently," and "in
+consecrated ground."
+
+The Professor gazed at them in turn; he literally could not find a word
+for reply.
+
+Then I, coming to the rescue, said: "I am very dull, I know, but pity my
+dulness, and tell me why the skeleton was so important, and how they
+knew it was so old."
+
+The poor man, overcome by such crass ignorance, gazed at his ball and
+socket joint and at our group in silence. Then, in a spiritless voice,
+he said, "The bones surrounding the skeleton were those of animals now
+extinct--animals that existed at a period heretofore supposed to have
+been before that of man; but by their presence here they prove a
+contemporary, and we therefore know that he existed at a much earlier
+age of the world's history than we had imagined."
+
+Verney now gave Janet the treasures he had found--some pieces of flint
+about an inch long, rudely pointed at one end. "These," he said, "are
+the knives of the primitive man."
+
+"They are very disappointing," said Janet, surveying them as they lay in
+the palm of her slender gray glove, buttoned half-way to the elbow.
+
+"Did you expect carved handles and steel blades?" I said, smiling.
+
+"And here are some nummulites," pursued Verney, taking a quantity of the
+round coin-like shells from his pocket. "You might have a necklace made,
+with the nummulites above and the flints below as pendants."
+
+"And label it prehistoric; it would be quite as attractive as
+preraphaelite," said Inness. "I don't know what _you_ think," he
+continued, turning to Verney, "but to me there is nothing so ugly as the
+way some of the girls--generally the tall ones--are getting themselves
+up nowadays in what they call the preraphaelite style--a general effect
+of awkward lankness as to shape and gown, a classic fillet, hair to the
+eyebrows, and a gait not unlike that which would be produced by having
+the arms tied together behind at the elbows. If your Botticelli is
+responsible for this, his canvases should be demolished."
+
+Verney laughed; he was at heart, I think, a strong preraphaelite both of
+the present and the past; but how could he avow it when a reality so
+charming and at the same time so unlike that type stood beside him?
+Janet's costumes were not at all preraphaelite; they were
+American-French.
+
+We left the Red Rocks, and went slowly onward along the sea-shore
+towards home. Miss Elaine, having first taken me aside to ask if I
+thought it "quite proper," had challenged Inness to a rapid walk, and
+soon carried him away from us and out of sight. On our way we passed the
+St. Louis brook, where the laundresses were at work in two rows along
+the stream, each kneeling at the edge in a broad open basket like a
+boat, and bending over the low pool, alternately soaping and beating her
+clothes with a flat wooden mallet. It was a picturesque sight--the long
+rows of figures in baskets, the heads decked with bright-colored
+handkerchiefs. But to a housewifely mind like my own the idea which most
+forcibly presented itself was the small amount of water. Of a celebrated
+trout fisherman it was once said that all he required was a little damp
+spot, and forthwith he caught a trout; and the Mentone laundresses seem
+to consider that only a little damp spot is needed for their daily
+labors.
+
+But in truth they cannot help themselves; the crying fault of Mentone is
+the want of water. A spring is more precious than the land itself, and
+is divided between different proprietors for stated periods of each day.
+The poor little rills do a dozen tasks before they reach the laundresses
+and the beach. The beautiful terrace vegetation which clothes the sides
+of the mountains is supported by an elaborate and costly system of tanks
+and watercourses which would dishearten an American proprietor at the
+outset. The Mentone laundresses work for wages which a New World
+laundress would scorn; but there is one marked difference between them
+and between all the French and Italian working-people and those of
+America, and that is that among these foreigners there seems to be not
+one too poor to have his daily bottle of wine. We saw the necks of these
+bottles peeping from the rough dinner-baskets of the laundresses, and
+afterwards from those also of the quarry-men, vine-dressers,
+olive-pickers, and lemon-gatherers. It was an inexpensive "wine of the
+country"; still, it was wine.
+
+The sun was now sinking into the water, and exquisite hues were stealing
+over the soft sea. The picturesque Mediterranean boats with lateen-sails
+were coming towards home, and one whose little sail was crimson made a
+lovely picture on the water. At the sea-wall we met Miss Graves gloomily
+taking a walk, and presently the phaeton with Margaret and Lloyd stopped
+near us as we stood looking at the hues. Two ships in the distance
+sailed first on blue water, then on rose, on lilac, on purple, violet,
+and gold. Over the sea fell a pink flush, met on the horizon by salmon
+in a broad band, then next above it amber, then violet edged with rose,
+and higher still a zone of clear pale green bordered with gold. At the
+same moment the Red Rocks were flooded with rose light which extended in
+a lovely flush up the high gray peaks behind far in the sky, lingering
+there when all the lower splendor was gone, and the sea and shore veiled
+in dusky twilight gray.
+
+[Illustration: A MEDITERRANEAN BOAT]
+
+"It is almost as beautiful at sunrise," said Mrs. Clary; "and then, too,
+you can see the Fairy Island."
+
+"What is that?" I asked.
+
+"Never mind what it is in reality," answered Mrs. Clary. "I consider it
+enchanted--the Fortunate Land, whose shores and mountain-peaks can be
+seen only between dawn and sunrise, when they loom up distinctly, soon
+fading away, however, mysteriously into the increasing daylight, and
+becoming entirely invisible when the sun appears."
+
+"I saw it this morning," said Miss Graves, soberly. "It is only
+Corsica."
+
+"Brigands and vendetta," said Inness.
+
+"Napoleon," said all the rest of us.
+
+"My idea of it is much the best," said Mrs. Clary; "it is Fairy-land,
+the lost Isles of the Blest."
+
+After that each morning at breakfast the question always was, who had
+seen Corsica. And a vast amount of ingenious evasion was displayed in
+the answers. However, I did see it once. It rose from the water on the
+southeastern horizon, its line of purple mountain-peaks and low shore so
+distinctly visible that it seemed as if one could take the little boat
+with the crimson sail and be over there in an hour, although it was
+ninety miles away; but while I gazed it faded slowly, melted, as it
+were, into the gold of the awakening day.
+
+The weeks passed, and we rode, drove, walked, and climbed hither and
+thither, looking at the carouba-trees, the stiff pyramidal cypresses,
+the euphorbias in woody bushes five feet high, the great planes, the
+grotesque naked figs, the aloes and oleanders growing wild, and the
+fantastic shapes of the cacti. We searched for ferns, finding the rusty
+ceterach, the little trichomanes, and _Adiantum nigrum_, but especially
+the exquisite maiden-hair of the delicate variety called _Capillus
+veneris_, which fringed every watercourse and bank and rock where there
+is the least moisture with its lovely green fretwork. There is a phrase
+current in Mentone and applied to this fern, as well as to the violets
+which grow wild in rich profusion, starring the ground with their blue;
+unthinking people say of them that they are "so common they become
+weeds." This phrase should be suppressed by a society for the
+cultivation of good taste and the prevention of cruelty to plants. Ivy
+was everywhere, growing wild, and heather in bloom.
+
+Miss Graves was brought almost to tears one day by finding her old
+friend the wild climbing smilax of Florida on these Mediterranean rocks,
+and only recovered her self-possession because Lloyd would call it
+"sarsaparilla," and she felt herself called upon to do battle. But the
+profusion of the violets, the pomp of the red anemones, the perfume of
+the white narcissus, the hyacinths and sweet alyssum, all growing wild,
+who shall describe them? There were also tulips, orchids, English
+primroses, and daisies. Even when nothing else could grow there was
+always the demure rosemary. Of course, too, we made close acquaintance
+with the olive and lemon, the characteristic trees of Mentone, whose
+foliage forms its verdure, and whose fruit forms its commerce. The
+orange groves were insignificant and the oranges sour compared with
+those of Florida; but the olive and lemon groves were new to us, and in
+themselves beautiful and luxuriant. Our hotel stood on the edge of an
+old olive grove climbing the mountain-side slowly on broad terraces
+rising endlessly as one looked up. After some weeks' experience we found
+that we represented collectively various shades of opinion concerning
+olive groves in general, which may be given as follows:
+
+Mrs. Clary: "These old trees are to me so sacred! When I walk under
+their great branches I always think of the dove bringing the leaf to the
+ark, of the olive boughs of the entry into Jerusalem, and of the Mount
+of Olives."
+
+[Illustration: BRINGING LEMONS FROM THE TERRACE]
+
+The Professor: "Olives are interesting because their manner of growth
+allows them to attain an almost indefinite age. The trunk decays and
+splits, but the bark, which still retains its vigor, grows around the
+dissevered portions, making, as it were, new trunks of them, although
+curved and distorted, so that three or four trees seem to be growing
+from the same root. It is this which gives the tree its characteristic
+knotted and gnarled appearance. This species of olive attains a very
+fine development in the neighborhood of Mentone; there are said to be
+trees still alive at Cap Martin which were coeval with the Roman
+Empire."
+
+Verney: "The light in an old olive grove is beautiful and peculiar; it
+is like nothing but itself. It is quite impossible to give on canvas the
+gray shade of the long aisles without making them dim, and they are not
+in the least dim. I have noticed, too, that the sunshine never filters
+through sufficiently to touch the ground in a glancing beam, or even a
+single point of yellow light; and yet the leaves are small, and the
+foliage does not appear thick."
+
+Baker: "Olives and olive oil, the groundwork of every good dinner! I
+wonder how much a grove would cost?"
+
+Mrs. Trescott: "How they murmur to us--like doves! My one regret now is
+that I did not name my child Olive. She would then have been so
+Biblical."
+
+Inness: "I should think more of the groves if I did not know that they
+were fertilized with woollen rags, old boots, and bones."
+
+Janet: "The inside tint of the leaves would be lovely for a summer
+costume. I have never had just that shade."
+
+Miss Graves: "Live-oak groves draped in long moss are much more
+imposing."
+
+Miss Elaine: "It is so jolly, you know, to sit under the trees with
+one's embroidery, and have some one read aloud--something sweet, like
+Adelaide Procter."
+
+Margaret: "Sitting here is like being in a great cathedral in Lent."
+
+Lloyd: "Shall we go quietly on, Miss Severin?"
+
+And Lloyd, I think, had the best of it. I mean that he knew how to
+derive the most pleasure from the groves. This English use of "quietly,"
+by-the-way, always amused Margaret and myself greatly. Lloyd and Verney
+were constantly suggesting that we should go here or there "quietly," as
+though otherwise we should be likely to go with banners, trumpets, and
+drums. The longer one remains in Mentone, the stronger grows attachment
+to the olive groves. But they do not seem fit places for the young,
+whose gay voices resound through their gray aisles; neither are they for
+the old, who need the cheer and warmth of the sun. But they are for the
+middle-aged, those who are beyond the joys and have not yet reached the
+peace of life, the poor, unremembered, hard-worked middle-aged. The
+olives of Mentone are small, and used only for making oil. We saw them
+gathered: men were beating the boughs with long poles, while old women
+and children collected the dark purple berries and placed them in sacks,
+which the patient donkeys bore to the mill. The oil mills are venerable
+and picturesque little buildings of stone, placed in the ravines where
+there is a stream of water. We visited one on the side hill; its only
+light came from the open door, and its interior made a picture which
+Gerard Douw might well have painted. The great oil jars, the old hearth
+and oven, the earthen jugs, hanging lamps with floating wicks, and the
+figures of the men moving about, made a picturesque scene. The fruit was
+first crushed by stone rollers, the wheel being turned by water-power;
+the pulp, saturated with warm water, was then placed in flat, round rope
+baskets, which were piled one upon the other, and the whole subjected to
+strong pressure, which caused the clear yellow oil to exude through the
+meshes of the baskets, and flow down into the little reservoir below.
+
+"Our manners would become charmingly suave if we lived here long," said
+Inness. "It would be impossible to resist the influence of so much oil."
+
+The lemon terraces were as unlike the olive groves as a gay love song is
+unlike a Gregorian chant. The trees rose brightly and youthfully from
+the grassy hill-side steps, each leaf shining as though it was
+varnished, and the yellow globes of fruit gleaming like so much
+imprisoned sunshine. Here was no shade, no weird grayness, but
+everything was either vivid gold or vivid green. Janet said this.
+
+"_I_ am the latter, I think," said Baker, "to be caught here again on
+these terraces. I don't know what your experience has been, but for my
+part I detest them; I have been lost here again and again. You get into
+them and you think it all very easy, and you keep going on and on. You
+climb hopefully from one to the next by those narrow sidling little
+stone steps, only to find it the exact counterpart of the one you have
+left, with still another beyond. And you keep on plunging up and up
+until you are worn out. At last you meet a man, and you ask him
+something or other beginning with 'Purtorn'--"
+
+"What in the world do you mean?" said Janet, breaking into laughter.
+
+"I am sure I don't know; but that is what you all say."
+
+"Perhaps you mean 'Peut-on,'" suggested Margaret.
+
+"Well, whatever I mean, the man always answers 'Oui,' and so I am no
+better off than I was before, but keep plunging on," said Baker,
+ruefully.
+
+But the Professor now opened a more instructive subject. "Lemons are the
+most important product of Mentone," he began. "As they can be kept
+better than those of Naples and Sicily, they command a large price. The
+tree flowers all the year through, and the fruit is gathered at four
+different periods. The annual production of lemons at Mentone is about
+thirty millions."
+
+"Thirty millions of lemons!" I said, appalled. "What an acid idea!"
+
+"The idea may be acid, but the air is not," said Margaret. "It is
+singularly delicious, almost intoxicating."
+
+And in truth there was a subtle fragrance which had an influence upon
+me, although no doubt it had much more upon Margaret, who was peculiarly
+sensitive to perfumes.
+
+"Have you heard the legend of the Mentone lemons?" said Verney.
+
+"No; what is it? We should be _very_ pleased to hear it," said Miss
+Elaine, throwing herself down upon the grass in what she considered a
+rural way. She was bestowing her smiles upon Verney that day; she had
+mentioned to me on the way up the hill that she did not approve of
+giving too much of one's attention "to one especial gentleman
+exclusively"--it was so "conspicuous." I was smiling inwardly at this,
+since the only "conspicuous" person among us, as far as attention to
+"the gentlemen" was concerned, was Miss Elaine herself, when I caught
+her glance directed towards Margaret and Lloyd. This set me to thinking.
+Could she be referring to them? They had been much together, without
+doubt, for Margaret liked him, and he was very kind to her. My poor
+Margaret, she was very precious, to me; but to others she was only a
+pale, careworn woman, silent, quiet, and no longer young. With the
+remembrance of Miss Elaine's words in my mind, I now looked around for
+Margaret as we sat down on the grass to hear Verney's legend; but she
+had strolled off down the long green and gold aisle with Lloyd.
+
+"Miss Severin is so well informed that she does not care for our simple
+little amusements," said Miss Elaine, in her artless way.
+
+[Illustration: ON THE WAY TO L' ANNUNZIATA]
+
+"Once upon a time, as we all know," began Verney, "Adam and Eve were
+banished from the garden of Paradise. Poor Eve, sobbing, put up her hand
+just before passing through the gate and plucked a lemon from the last
+tree beside the angel. The two then wandered through the world together,
+wandered far and wide, and at last, following the shores of the
+Mediterranean, they came to Mentone. Here the sea was so blue, the
+sunshine so bright, and the sky so cloudless, that Eve planted her
+treasured fruit. 'Go, little seed,' she said; 'grow and prosper. Make
+another Eden of this enchanting spot, so that those who come after may
+know at least something of the tastes and the perfumes of Paradise.'"
+
+The Professor had not remained to hear the legend; he had gone up the
+mountain, and we now heard him shouting; that is, he was trying to
+shout, although he produced only a sort of long, thin hoot.
+
+"What can that be?" I said, startled.
+
+"It is the Professor," answered Mrs. Trescott. "It is his way of
+calling. He has his own methods of doing everything."
+
+It turned out that he had found a path down which the lemon girls were
+coming from the terraces above. We went up to this point to see them
+pass. They were all strong and ruddy, and walked with wonderful
+erectness, balancing the immense weight of fruit on their heads without
+apparent effort; they were barefooted, and moved with a solid, broad
+step down the steep, stony road. The load of fruit for each one was one
+hundred and twenty pounds; they worked all day in this manner, and
+earned about thirty cents each! But they looked robust and cheerful, and
+some of them smiled at us under their great baskets as they passed.
+
+One afternoon not long after this we went to the Capuchin monastery of
+the Annunziata. Some of us were on donkeys and some on foot, forming
+one of those processions so often seen winding through the streets of
+the little Mediterranean town. We passed the shops filled with the
+Mentone swallow, singing his "Je reviendrai" upon articles in wood, in
+glass, mosaic, silver, straw, canvas, china, and even letter-paper, with
+continuous perseverance; we passed the venders of hot chestnuts, which
+we not infrequently bought and ate ourselves. Then we came to the
+perfume distilleries, where thousands of violets yield their sweetness
+daily.
+
+"They cultivate them for the purpose, you know," said Verney. "It's a
+poetical sort of agriculture, isn't it? Imagination can hardly go
+further, I think, than the idea of a violet farm."
+
+We passed small chapels with their ever-burning lamps; the new villas
+described by the French newspapers as "ravishing constructions"; and
+then, turning from the road, we ascended a narrow path which wound
+upward, its progress marked here and there by stone shrines, some
+freshly repainted, others empty and ruined, pointing the way to the holy
+church of the Annunziata.
+
+"The only way to appreciate Mentone is to take these excursions up the
+valleys and mountains," said Mrs. Clary. "Those who confine themselves
+to sitting in the gardens of the hotels or strolling along the Promenade
+du Midi have no more idea of its real beauty than a man born blind has
+of a painting. Descriptions are nothing; one must _see_. I think the
+mountain excursions may be called the shibboleth of Mentone; if you do
+not know them, you are no true Israelite."
+
+Verney had a graceful way of gathering delicate little sprays and
+blossoms here and there and silently giving them to Janet. The Professor
+had noticed this, and to-day emulated him by gathering a bunch of
+mallow with great care--a bunch nearly a yard in circumference--which
+he presented to Janet with much ceremony.
+
+"Oh, thanks; I am _so_ fond of flowers!" responded that young person.
+"Is it asphodel? I long to see asphodel."
+
+Now asphodel was said to grow in that neighborhood, and Janet knew it;
+by expressing a wish to see the classic blossom she sent the poor
+Professor on a long search for it, climbing up and down and over the
+rocks, until I, looking on from my safe donkey's back, felt tired for
+him. And it was not long before our donkeys' steady pace left him far
+behind.
+
+"With its pale, dusty leaves and weakly lavender flowers, it is, I
+think, about as depressing a flower as I have seen," said Inness,
+looking at the mammoth bouquet.
+
+"I might fasten it to the saddle, and relieve your hands, Miss
+Trescott," suggested Verney. So the delicate gray gloves relinquished
+the pound of mallow, which was tied to the saddle, and there hung
+ignominiously all the remainder of the day.
+
+The church and convent of L'Annunziata crown an isolated vine-clad hill
+between two of the lovely valleys behind Mentone. The church was at the
+end of a little plaza, surrounded by a stone-wall; in front there was an
+opening towards the south, where stood an iron cross twenty feet high,
+visible, owing to its situation, for many a mile. The stone monastery
+was on one side; and the whole looked like a little fortification on the
+point of the hill. We went into the church, and looked at the primitive
+ex-votos on the wall, principally the offerings of Mediterranean sailors
+in remembrance of escape from shipwreck--fragments of rope and chain,
+pictures of storms at sea, and little wooden models of ships. In
+addition to these marine souvenirs, there were also some tokens of
+events on dry land, generally pictures of run-aways, where such
+remarkable angels were represented sitting unexpectedly but calmly on
+the tops of trees by the road-side that it was no wonder the horses ran.
+But the lovely view of sea and shore at the foot of the great cross in
+the sunshine was better than the dark, musty little church, and we soon
+went out and seated ourselves on the edge of the wall to look at it.
+While we were there one of the Capuchins, clad in his long brown gown,
+came out, crossed the plaza, gazed at us slowly, and then with equal
+slowness stooped and kissed the base of the cross, and returned, giving
+us another long gaze as he passed.
+
+[Illustration: THE MONASTERY OF L'ANNUNZIATA]
+
+"Was that piety or curiosity?" I said.
+
+"I think it was Miss Trescott," said Baker.
+
+Now as Miss Elaine was present, this was a little cruel; but I learned
+afterwards that Baker had been rendered violent that day by hearing that
+his American politeness regarding Miss Elaine's self-bestowed society
+had been construed by that young lady into a hidden attachment to
+herself--an attachment which she "deeply regretted," but could not
+"prevent." She had confided this to several persons, who kept the secret
+in that strict way in which such secrets are usually kept. Indeed, with
+all the strictness, it was quite remarkable that Baker heard it. But not
+remarkable that he writhed under it. However, his remarks and manners
+made no difference to Miss Elaine; she attributed them to despair.
+
+While we were sitting on the wall the Professor came toiling up the
+hill; but he had not found the asphodel. However, when Janet had given
+him a few of her pretty phrases he revived, and told us that the plaza
+was the site of an ancient village called Podium-Pinum, and that the
+Lascaris once had a ch�teau there.
+
+"The same Lascaris who lived in the old castle at Mentone?" said Janet.
+
+"The same."
+
+"These old monks have plenty of wine, I suppose," said Inness, looking
+at the vine terraces which covered the sunny hill-side.
+
+"Very good wine was formerly made around Mentone," said the Professor;
+"but the vines were destroyed by a disease, and the peasants thought it
+the act of Providence, and for some time gave up the culture. But lately
+they have replanted them, and wine is now again produced which, I am
+told, is quite palatable."
+
+"That is but a cold phrase to apply to the _bon petit vin blanc_ of
+Sant' Agnese, for instance," said Verney, smiling.
+
+Soon we started homeward. While we were winding down the narrow path, we
+met a Capuchin coming up, with his bag on his back; he was an old man
+with bent shoulders and a meek, dull face, to whom the task of patient
+daily begging would not be more of a burden than any other labor. But
+when we reached the narrow main street, and found a momentary block,
+another Capuchin happened to stand near us who gave me a very different
+impression. Among the carriages was a phaeton, with silken canopy, fine
+horses, and a driver in livery; upon the cushioned seat lounged a young
+man, one of Fortune's favorites and Nature's curled darlings, a little
+stout from excess of comfort, perhaps, but noticeably handsome and
+noticeably haughty--probably a Russian nobleman. The monk who stood near
+us with his bag of broken bread and meat over his back was of the same
+age, and equally handsome, as far as the coloring and outline bestowed
+by nature could go. His dark eyes were fixed immovably upon the occupant
+of the phaeton, and I wondered if he was noting the difference; it
+seemed as if he must be noting it. It was a striking tableau of life's
+utmost riches and utmost poverty.
+
+That evening there was music in the garden; a band of Italian singers
+chanted one or two songs to the saints, and then ended with a gay
+Tarantella, which set all the house-maids dancing in the moonlight. We
+listened to the music, and looked off over the still sea.
+
+"Isn't it beautiful?" said Mrs. Clary. "I think loving Mentone is like
+loving your lady-love. To you she is all beautiful, and you describe her
+as such. But perhaps when others see her they say: 'She is by no means
+all beautiful; she has this or that fault. What do you mean?' Then you
+answer: 'I love her; therefore to me she is all beautiful. As for her
+faults, they may be there, but I do not see them: I am blind.'"
+
+[Illustration: CAPUCHIN MONKS]
+
+That same evening Margaret gave me the following verses which she had
+written:
+
+MENTONE.
+
+"_And there was given unto them a short time before they went forward._"
+
+              Upon this sunny shore
+    A little space for rest. The care and sorrow,
+      Sad memory's haunting pain that would not cease,
+    Are left behind. It is not yet to-morrow.
+      To-day there falls the dear surprise of peace;
+    The sky and sea, their broad wings round us sweeping,
+    Close out the world, and hold us in their keeping.
+    A little space for rest. Ah! though soon o'er,
+    How precious is it on the sunny shore!
+
+              Upon this sunny shore
+    A little space for love, while those, our dearest,
+      Yet linger with us ere they take their flight
+    To that far world which now doth seem the nearest,
+      So deep and pure this sky's down-bending light
+    Slow, one by one, the golden hours are given
+    A respite ere the earthly ties are riven.
+    When left alone, how, 'mid our tears, we store
+    Each breath of their last days upon this shore!
+
+              Upon this sunny shore
+    A little space to wait: the life-bowl broken,
+      The silver cord unloosed, the mortal name
+    We bore upon this earth by God's voice spoken,
+      While at the sound all earthly praise or blame,
+    Our joys and griefs, alike with gentle sweetness
+    Fade in the dawn of the next world's completeness.
+    The hour is thine, dear Lord; we ask no more,
+    But wait thy summons on the sunny shore.
+
+
+II
+
+    "Thy skies are blue, thy crags as wild,
+    Thine olive ripe, as when Minerva smiled."
+
+    --BYRON.
+
+
+"So having rung that bell once too often, they were all carried off,"
+concluded Inness, as we came up.
+
+"Who?" I asked.
+
+"Look around you, and divine."
+
+We were on Capo San Martino. This, being interpreted, is only Cape
+Martin; but as we had agreed to use the "dear old names," we could not
+leave out that of the poor cape only because it happened to have six
+syllables. We looked around. Before us were ruins--walls built of that
+unintelligible broken stone mixed at random with mortar, which confounds
+time, and may be, as a construction, five or five hundred years old.
+
+"They--whoever they were--lived here?" I said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And it was from here that they were carried off?"
+
+"It was."
+
+"Were they those interesting Greek Lascaris?" said Mrs. Trescott.
+
+"No."
+
+"The Troglodytes?" suggested Mrs. Clary.
+
+"No."
+
+"The poor old ancient gods and goddesses of the coast?" said Margaret.
+
+"No."
+
+"But who carried them off?" I said. "That is the point. It makes all the
+difference in the world."
+
+"I know it does," replied Inness; "especially in the case of an
+elopement. In this case it happened to be Miss Trescott's friends
+(always with two r's), the Sarrasins. The story is but a Mediterranean
+version of the boy and the wolf. These ruins are the remains of an
+ancient convent built in--in the remote Past. The good nuns, after
+taking possession (perhaps they were inland nuns, and did not know what
+they were coming to when they came to a shore), began to be in great
+fear of the sea and Sarrasin sails. They therefore besought the men of
+Mentone and Roccabruna to fly to their aid if at any time they heard the
+bell of the chapel ringing rapidly. The men promised, and held
+themselves in readiness to fly. One night they heard the bell. Then
+westward ran the men of Mentone, and down the hill came those of
+Roccabruna, and together they flew out on Capo San Martino to this
+convent--only to find no Sarrasins at all, but only the nuns in a row
+upon their knees entreating pardon: they had rung the bell as a test.
+Not long afterwards the bell rang again, but no one went. This time it
+really was the Sarrasins, and the nuns were all carried off."
+
+"Very dramatic. The slight discrepancy that this happened to be a
+monastery for monks makes no difference: who cares for details!" said
+Verney, who, under the pretence of sketching the ruins, was making his
+eighth portrait of Janet. He said of these little pencil portraits that
+he "threw them in." Janet was therefore thrown into the Red Rocks, the
+"old town," the Bone Caverns, the Pont St. Louis, Dr. Bennet's garden,
+the cemetery, Capo San Martino, and before we finished into Roccabruna,
+Castellare, Monaco, Dolce Acqua, Sant' Agnese, and the old Roman Trophy
+at Turbia.
+
+Leaving the ruins, we went down to the point, where the cape juts out
+sharply into the sea, forming the western boundary of the Mentone bay.
+Opposite, on the eastern point, lay blanche Bordighera, fair and silvery
+as ever in the sunshine. We found the Professor on the point examining
+the rocks.
+
+"This is a formation similar to that which we may see in process of
+construction at the present moment off the coast of Florida," he
+explained.
+
+"Not _coquina_?" cried Miss Graves, instantly going down and selecting a
+large fragment.
+
+"It is conglomerate," replied the Professor, disappearing around the
+cliff corner, walking on little knobs of rock, and almost into the
+Mediterranean in his eagerness.
+
+"That word conglomerate is one of the most useful terms I know," said
+Inness. "It covers everything: like Renaissance."
+
+"The rock is also called pudding-stone," said Verney.
+
+"Away with pudding-stone! we will have none of it. We are nothing if not
+dignified, are we, Miss Elaine?" said Inness, turning to that young
+lady, who was bestowing upon him the boon of her society for the happy
+afternoon.
+
+"I am sure I have always thought you had a _great_ deal of dignity, Mr.
+Inness," replied Miss Elaine, with her sweetest smile.
+
+We sat down on the rocks and looked at the blue sea. "It is commonplace
+to be continually calling it blue," I said; "but it is inevitable, for
+no one can look at it without thinking of its color."
+
+"It has seen so much," said Mrs. Clary, in her earnest way; "it has
+carried the fleets of all antiquity. The Egyptians, the Greeks, the
+Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, and the Romans passed to and fro
+across it; the Apostles sailed over it; yet it looks as fresh and young
+and untraversed as though created yesterday."
+
+[Illustration: MONACO]
+
+"It certainly is the fairest water in the world," said Janet. "It must
+be the reflection of heaven."
+
+"It is the proportion of salt," said the Professor, who had come back
+around the rock corner on the knobs. "A larger amount of salt is held in
+solution in the Mediterranean than in the Atlantic. It is a very deep
+body of water, too, along this coast: at Nice it was found to be three
+thousand feet deep only a few yards from the shore."
+
+"These Mediterranean sailors are such cowards," said Inness. "At the
+first sign of a storm they all come scudding in. If the Phoenicians
+were like them, another boyhood illusion is gone! However, since they
+demolished William Tell, I have not much cared."
+
+"The Mediterranean sailors of the past were probably, like those of the
+present, obliged to come scudding in," said Verney, "because the winds
+were so uncertain and variable. They use lateen-sails for the same
+reason, because they can be let down by the run; all the coasting xebecs
+and feluccas use them."
+
+"Xebecs and feluccas--delicious words!" said Janet.
+
+"I still maintain that they are cowards," resumed Inness. "The other
+day, when there was that capful of wind, you know, twenty of these
+delicious xebecs came hurrying into our little port, running into each
+other in their haste, and crowding together in the little pool like
+frightened chickens under a hen's wings. And they were not all delicious
+xebecs, either; there were some good-sized sea-going vessels among them,
+brig-rigged in front with the seven or eight small square sails they
+string up one above the other, and a towel out to windward."
+
+"The winds of Mentone are wizards," said Margaret; "they never come from
+the point they seem to come from. If they blow full in your face from
+the east, make up your mind that they come directly from the west. They
+are enchanted."
+
+"They are turned aside by the slopes of the mountains," said Baker,
+practically.
+
+"But the Mediterranean has not lived up to its reputation, after all,"
+said Janet. "I expected to see fleets of nautilus, and I have not seen
+one. And not a porpoise!"
+
+"For porpoises," said Miss Graves, who had knotted a handkerchief around
+her conglomerate, and was carrying it tied to a scarf like a
+shawl-strap--"for porpoises you must go to Florida."
+
+We left the cape and went inland through the woods, looking for the old
+Roman tomb. We found it at last, appropriately placed in a gray old
+olive grove, some of whose trees, no doubt, saw its foundations laid.
+The fragment of old roadway near it was introduced by Inness as "the
+Julia Augusta, lifting up its head again." It had laid it down last at
+the Red Rocks. The tomb originally was as large as a small chapel; one
+of the side walls was gone, but the front remained almost perfect. This
+front was in three arches; traces of fresco decoration were still
+visible under the curves. Below were lines of stone in black and white
+alternately, and the same mosaic was repeated above, where there was
+also a cornice stretching from the sides to a central empty space, once
+filled by the square marble slab bearing the inscription. We found Lloyd
+here, sketching; but as we came up he closed his sketch-book, joined
+Margaret, and the two strolled off through the old wood, which had, as
+Inness remarked, "as many moving associations" as we chose to recall,
+"from the feet of the Roman legions to those of the armies of Napoleon."
+
+"I wish we knew what the inscription was," said Janet, who was sitting
+on the grass in front of the old tomb. "I should like to know who it was
+who was laid here so long, long ago."
+
+"Some old Roman," said Baker.
+
+"He might not have been old," said Verney, who was now sketching in his
+turn. "There is another Roman tomb, or fragment of one, above us on the
+side of the mountain, and the inscription on that one gives the name of
+a youth who died, 'aged eighteen years and ten months,' two thousand
+years ago, 'much sorrowed for by his father and his mother.'"
+
+"Love then was the same as now, and will be the same after we are gone,
+I suppose," said Janet, thoughtfully, leaning her pretty head back
+against an old olive-tree.
+
+"A reason why we should take it while we can," observed Inness.
+
+The Professor and Miss Graves now appeared in sight, for we had come
+across from the cape in accidental little groups, and these two had
+found themselves one of them. As the Professor had his sack of specimens
+and Miss Graves her conglomerate, we thought they looked well together;
+but the Professor evidently did not think so, for he immediately joined
+Janet.
+
+"I do not know that there is any surer sign of advancing age in a man
+than a growing preference for the society of very young girls--mere
+youth _per se_, as the Professor himself would say," said Mrs. Clary to
+me in an undertone.
+
+Meanwhile the Professor, unconscious of this judgment, was telling Janet
+that she was standing upon the site of the old Roman station "Lumone,"
+mentioned in Antony's Itinerary, and that the tomb was that of a
+patrician family.
+
+Mrs. Trescott was impressed by this. She said it was "a p�an moment" for
+us all, if we would but realize it; and she plucked a fern in
+remembrance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One bright day not long after this we went to Mentone's sister city,
+Roccabruna, a little town looking as if it were hooked on to the side
+of the mountain. As we passed through the "old town" on our donkeys we
+met a wedding-party, walking homeward from the church, in the middle of
+the street. The robust bride, calm and majestic, moved at the head of
+the procession with her father, her white muslin gown sweeping the
+pavement behind her. Probably it would have been considered undignified
+to lift it. The father, a small, wizened old man, looked timorous, and
+the bridegroom, next behind with the bride's mother, still more so, even
+the quantity of brave red satin cravat he wore failing to give him a
+martial air. Next came the relatives and friends, two and two, all the
+gowns of the women sweeping out with dignity. In truth this seemed to be
+the feature of the occasion, since at all other times their gowns were
+either short or carefully held above the dust. There was no music, no
+talking, hardly a smile. A christening party we had met the day before
+was much more joyous, for then the smiling father and mother threw from
+the carriage at intervals handfuls of sugar-plums and small copper
+coins, which were scrambled for by a crowd of children, while the
+gorgeously dressed baby was held up proudly at the window.
+
+We were going first to Gorbio. The Gorbio Valley is charming. Of all the
+valleys, the narrow Val de Menton is the loveliest for an afternoon
+walk; but for longer excursions, and compared with the valleys of Carrei
+and Borrigo, that of Gorbio is the most beautiful, principally because
+there is more water in the stream, which comes sweeping and tumbling
+over its bed of flat rock like the streams of the White Mountains,
+whereas the so-called "torrents" of Carrei and Borrigo are generally but
+wide, arid torrents of stone. We passed olive and lemon groves, mills,
+vineyards, and millions upon millions of violets. Then the path, which
+constantly ascended, grew wilder, but not so wild as Inness. I could not
+imagine what possessed him. He sang, told stories, vaulted over Baker,
+and laughed until the valley rang again; but as his voice was good and
+his stories amusing, we enjoyed his merriment. Miss Elaine looked on, I
+thought, with an air of pity; but then Miss Elaine pitied everybody. She
+would have pitied Jenny Lind at the height of her fame, and no doubt
+when she was in Florence she pitied the Venus de' Medici.
+
+We found Gorbio a little village of six hundred inhabitants, perched on
+the point of a rock, with the ground sloping away on all sides; the
+remains of its old wall and fortified gates were still to be seen. We
+entered and explored its two streets--narrow passageways between the old
+stone houses, whose one idea seemed to be to crowd as closely together
+and occupy as little of the ground space as possible. Above the
+clustered roofs towered the ruined walls of what was once the castle,
+the tower only remaining distinct. This tower bore armorial bearings,
+which I was trying to decipher, when Verney came up with Janet. "Nothing
+but those same arms of the Lascaris," he said.
+
+"Why do you say 'nothing but'?" said Janet. "To be royal, and Greek, and
+have three castles--for this is the third we have seen--is not nothing,
+but something, and a great deal of something. How I wish _I_ had lived
+in those days!"
+
+As the Professor was not with us, we knew nothing of the story of
+Gorbio, and walked about rather uncomfortable and ill-informed in
+consequence. But it turned out that Gorbio, like the knife-grinder, had
+no story. "Story? Lord bless you! I have none to tell, sir." Inness,
+however, had reserved one fact, which he finally delivered to us under
+the great elm in the centre of the little plaza, where we had assembled
+to rest. "This peaceful village," he began, "whose idyllic children now
+form a gazing circle around us, was the scene of a sanguinary combat
+between the French and Spanish-Austrian armies in 1746."
+
+"Oh, modern! modern!" said Verney from behind (where he was throwing
+Janet into Gorbio).
+
+"Your pardon," said Inness, with majesty; "not modern at all. In 1746,
+as I beg to remind you, even the foundation-stones of our great republic
+were not laid, yet the man who ventures to say that it is not, as a
+construction, absolutely venerable, from exceeding merit, will be a rash
+one. In America, Time is not old or slow; he has given up his
+hour-glass, and travels by express. Each month of ours equals one of
+your years, each year a century. Therefore have we all a singularly
+mature air--as exemplified in myself. But to return. Upon this spot,
+then, my friends, there was once--carnage! The only positive and
+historical carnage in the neighborhood of Mentone. Therefore all warlike
+spirits should come to Gorbio, and breathe the inspiring air."
+
+We did not stay long enough in the inspiring air to become belligerent,
+however, but, on the contrary, went peacefully past a quiet old shrine,
+and took the path to Roccabruna--one of the most beautiful paths in the
+neighborhood of Mentone. By-and-by we came to a tall cross on the top of
+a high ridge. We had seen it outlined against the sky while still in the
+streets of Gorbio. These mountain-side crosses were not uncommon. They
+are not locally commemorative, as we first supposed, but seem to be
+placed here and there, where there is a beautiful view, to remind the
+gazer of the hand that created it all. Some distance farther we found a
+still wider prospect; and then we came down into Roccabruna, and spread
+out our lunch on the battlements of the old castle. From this point our
+eyes rested on the coast-line stretching east and west, the frowning
+Dog's Head at Monaco, and the white winding course of the Cornice Road.
+The castle was on the side of the mountain, eight hundred feet above the
+sea. Although forming part of the village, it was completely isolated by
+its position on a high pinnacle of rock, which rose far above the roofs
+on all sides.
+
+[Illustration: STREET IN ROCCABRUNA]
+
+"How these poor timid little towns clung close to and under their lords'
+walls!" said Baker, with the fine contempt of a young American. "They
+are all alike: the castle towering above; next the church and the
+priest; and the people--nowhere!"
+
+"The people were happy enough, living in this air," said Mrs. Clary.
+"How does it strike you? To me it seems delicious; but many persons find
+it too exciting."
+
+"It certainly gives me an appetite," I said, taking another sandwich.
+
+Miss Elaine found it "too warm." Miss Graves found it "too cold." Mrs.
+Trescott, having been made herself again by a glass of the "good little
+white wine" of Gorbio, said that it was "almost too idealizing." Lloyd
+remarked that it was not "too anything unless too delightful," and that,
+for his part, he wished that, with the present surroundings, he might
+"breathe it forever!" This was gallant. Janet looked at him: he was the
+only one who had not bowed at her shrine, and it made her pensive.
+Meanwhile Inness's gayety continued; he made a voyage of discovery
+through the narrow streets below, coming back with the legend that he
+had met the prettiest girl he had seen since his "pretty girl of Arles,"
+whose eyes, "enshrined beside those of Miss Trescott" (with a grand
+bow), had remained ever since in his "heart's inmost treasury." This,
+like Baker's L' Annunziata speech, was both un-American and unnecessary
+in the presence of a second young lady, and I looked at Inness,
+surprised. But Miss Elaine only smiled on.
+
+The Professor now appeared, having come out from Mentone on a donkey. We
+immediately became historical. It appeared that the castle upon whose
+old battlements we were idly loitering was one of the "homes" of the
+Lascaris, Counts of Ventimiglia, who in 1358 transferred it with its
+domains to the Grimaldis, Princes of Monaco.
+
+"These Lascaris and Grimaldis seem to have played at seesaw for the
+possession of this coast," said Baker. "Now one is up, and now the
+other, but never any one else."
+
+But Janet was impressed. "_Again_ the Lascaris!" she murmured.
+
+"What is your idea of them?" said Verney.
+
+"I hardly know; but of course they were knights in armor; and of course,
+being Greeks, they had classic profiles. They were impulsive, and they
+were generous; but if any one seriously displeased them, they
+immediately ordered him cast into that terrible _oubliette_ we saw
+below."
+
+"That," said the Professor, mildly, "is only the well." Then, as if to
+strengthen her with something authentic, he added, "The village was
+sacked by the Duke of Guise towards the end of the sixteenth century,
+when this castle was reduced to the ruined condition in which we find it
+now."
+
+"Happily it is not altogether ruined," said Mrs. Trescott, putting up
+her eye-glass; "one of the--the apartments seems to be roofed, and to
+possess doors."
+
+"That," said the Professor, "is a donkey-stable, erected--or rather
+adapted--later."
+
+"Do the donkeys come up all these stairs?" I said, amused.
+
+"I believe they do," replied the Professor. "Indeed, I have seen them
+coming up after the day's work is over."
+
+"I am sorry, Janet, but I shall never be able to think of this home of
+your Lascaris after this without seeing a procession of donkeys coming
+up-stairs on their way to their high apartments," I said, laughing.
+
+"The _procession_ might have been the same in the days of the Lascaris,"
+suggested Baker.
+
+Roccabruna--brown rock--is an appropriate name for the village, which is
+so brown and so mixed with and built into the cliff to which it clings
+that it is difficult to tell where man's work ends and that of nature
+begins.
+
+"The town was the companion of Mentone in its rebellion against the
+Princes of Monaco," said the Professor. "Mentone and Roccabruna freed
+themselves, but Monaco remained enslaved."
+
+"They are all now in France," said Baker.
+
+"Sir!" replied the Professor, with heat, "it is in a much worse place
+than France that wretched Monaco now finds herself!"
+
+We went homeward down the mountain-side, passing the little chapel of
+the Madonna della Pausa--a pause being indeed necessary when one is
+ascending. Here, where the view was finest, there was another way-side
+cross. Farther on, as we entered the old olive wood below, Margaret
+dismounted; she always liked to walk through the silver-gray shade; and
+Lloyd seemed to have adopted an equal fondness for the same tint.
+
+That evening, when we were alone, Margaret explained the secret of
+Inness's remarkable and unflagging gayety. It seemed that Miss Elaine
+had, during the day before, confided to Verney--as a fellow-countryman,
+I suppose--her self-reproach concerning "that poor young American
+gentleman, Mr. Inness." What _should_ she do? Would he advise her? She
+must go to some one, and she did not feel like troubling her dear mamma.
+It was true that Mr. Inness had been with her a good deal, had helped
+her wind her worsteds in the evening, but she never meant
+anything--never dreamed of anything. And now, she could not but
+feel--there was something in his manner that forced her to see--In
+short, had not Mr. Verney noticed it?
+
+Now I have no doubt but that Verney told her he had "seen" and had
+"noticed" everything she desired. But in the meanwhile he could not
+resist confiding the story to Baker, who having been already a victim,
+was overcome with glee, and in his turn hastened to repeat the tale to
+Inness.
+
+Inness raged, but hardly knew what to do. He finally decided to become a
+perfect Catharine-wheel of gayety, shooting off laughter and jokes in
+all directions to convince the world that he remained heart-whole.
+
+"But it will be of no avail," I said to Margaret, laughing, as I
+recalled the look of soft pity on Miss Elaine's face all day; "she will
+think it but the gayety of desperation." Then, more soberly, I added:
+"Mr. Lloyd told you this, I suppose? You are with him a great deal, are
+you not?"
+
+"You see that I am, aunt. But it is only because she has not come yet."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The brighter and younger woman who will take my place." But I did not
+think she believed it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On another day we went to Castellare, a little stone village much like
+Gorbio, perched on its ridge, and rejoicing in an especial resemblance
+to one of C�sar's fortified camps. The castle here was not so much a
+castle as a ch�teau; its principal apartment was adorned with frescos
+representing the history of Adam and Eve. We should not have seen these
+frescos if it had not been for Miss Graves: I am afraid we should have
+(there is no other word) shirked them. But Miss Graves had heard of the
+presence of ancient works of art, and was bent upon finding them. In
+vain Lloyd conducted her in and out of half a dozen old houses,
+suggesting that each one was "probably" all that was left of the
+"ch�teau." Miss Graves remained inflexibly unconvinced, and in the end
+gained her point. We all saw Adam and Eve.
+
+"Why did they want frescos away out here in this primitive little
+village to which no road led, hardly even a donkey path?" I said.
+
+"That is the very reason," replied Margaret. "They had no society,
+nothing to do; so they looked at their frescos exhaustively."
+
+"What do those eagles at the corners represent?" said Janet.
+
+"They are the device of the Lascaris," replied the Professor.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that _this_ was one of their homes also?" she
+exclaimed. "Let a chair be brought, and all of you leave me. I wish to
+remain here alone, and imagine that I am one of them."
+
+"Couldn't you imagine two?" said Inness. And he gained his point.
+
+On our way home we found another block in the main street, and paused.
+We were near what we called the umbrella place--an archway opening down
+towards the old port; here against the stone wall an umbrella-maker had
+established his open-air shop, and his scarlet and blue lined parasols
+and white umbrellas, hung up at the entrance, made a picturesque spot of
+color we had all admired. This afternoon we were late; it was nearly
+twilight, and, in this narrow, high-walled street, almost night. As we
+waited we heard chanting, and through the dusky archway came a
+procession. First a tall white crucifix borne between two swinging
+lamps; then the surpliced choir-boys, chanting; then the incense and the
+priests; then a coffin, draped, and carried in the old way on the
+shoulders of the bearers, who were men robed in long-hooded black gowns
+reaching to the feet, their faces covered, with only two holes for the
+eyes. These were members of the Society of Black Penitents, who, with
+the White Penitents, attend funerals by turn, and care for the sick and
+poor, from charitable motives alone, and without reward. Behind the
+Penitents walked the relatives and friends, each with a little lighted
+taper. As the procession came through the dark archway, crossed the
+street, and wound up the hill into the "old town," its effect, with
+the glancing lights and chanting voices, was weirdly picturesque. It was
+on its way to the cemetery above.
+
+[Illustration: THE KING OF THE OLIVES]
+
+"Did you ever read this, Mr. Lloyd?" I heard Margaret say behind me, as
+we went onward towards home:
+
+    "'One day, in desolate wind-swept space,
+      In twilight-land, in no-man's-land,
+    Two hurrying Shapes met face to face,
+      And bade each other stand.
+    "And who art thou?" cried one, agape,
+      Shuddering in the gloaming light.
+    "I do not know," said the second Shape:
+      "I only died last night."'"
+
+I turned. Lloyd was looking at her curiously, or rather with wonder.
+
+"Come, Margaret," I said, falling behind so as to join them, "the
+English are not mystical, as some of us are. They are content with what
+they can definitely know, and they leave the rest."
+
+During the next week, after a long discussion, we decided to go up the
+valley of the Nervia. The discussion was not inharmonious: we liked
+discussions.
+
+"This is by no means one of the ordinary Mentone excursions," said Mrs.
+Clary, as our three carriages ascended the Cornice Road towards the
+east, on a beautiful morning after one of the rare showers. "Many
+explore all of the other valleys, and visit Monaco and Monte Carlo; but
+comparatively few go up the Nervia."
+
+The scene of the instalment of our twelve selves in these three
+carriages, by-the-way, was amusing. Between the inward determination of
+Inness, Verney, Baker, and the Professor to be in the carriage which
+held Janet, and the equally firm determination of Miss Elaine to be in
+the carriage which held _them_, it seemed as if we should never be
+placed. But no one said what he or she wished; far from it. Everybody
+was very polite, wonderfully polite; everybody offered his or her place
+to everybody else. Lloyd, after waiting a few moments, calmly helped
+Margaret into one of the carriages, handed in her shawl, and then took a
+seat himself opposite. But the rest of us surged helplessly to and fro
+among the wheels, not quite knowing what to do, until the arrival of the
+hotel omnibus hurried us, when we took our places hastily, without any
+arrangement at all, and drove off as follows: in the first carriage,
+Mrs. Trescott, Janet, Miss Elaine, and myself; in the second, Miss
+Graves, Inness, Verney, and Baker; in the third, Mrs. Clary, Margaret,
+Lloyd, and the Professor. This assortment was so comical that I laughed
+inwardly all the way up the first hill. Miss Elaine looked as if she was
+on the point of shedding tears; and the Professor, who did not enjoy the
+conversation of either Margaret or Mrs. Clary, was equally discomfited.
+As for the faces of the three young men shut in with Miss Graves, they
+were a study. However, it did not last long. The young men soon
+preferred "to walk uphill." Then we stopped at Mortola to see the
+Hanbury garden, and took good care not to arrange ourselves in the same
+manner a second time. Still, as four persons cannot, at least in the
+present state of natural science, occupy at the same moment the space
+only large enough for one, there was all day more or less manoeuvring.
+From Mortola to Ventimiglia I was in the carriage with Janet, Inness,
+and Verney.
+
+"What ruin is that on the top of the hill?" said Janet. "It looks like a
+castle."
+
+"It is a castle--Castel d'Appio," said Verney; "a position taken by the
+Genoese in 1221 from the Lascaris, who--"
+
+"Stop the carriage!--I must go up," said Janet.
+
+"I assure you, Miss Trescott, that, Lascaris or no Lascaris, you will
+find yourself mummied in mud after this rain," said Inness. "_I_ went up
+there in a dry time, and even then had to wade."
+
+Now if there is anything which Janet especially cherishes, it is her
+pretty boots; so Castel d'Appio remained unvisited upon its height, in
+lonely majesty against the sky. The next object of interest was a square
+tower, standing on the side-hill not far above the road; it was not
+large on the ground, rather was it narrow, but it rose in the air to an
+imposing height. I could not imagine what its use had been: it stood too
+far from the sea for a lookout, and, from its shape, could hardly have
+been a residence; in its isolation, not a fortress. Inness said it
+looked like a steeple with the church blown away; and then, inspired by
+his own comparison, he began to chant an ancient ditty about
+
+    "'The next thing they saw was a barn on a hill:
+            One said 'twas a barn;
+            The other said "Na-ay;"
+    And t'other 'twas a church with its steeple blown away:
+                    Look--a--there!'"
+
+This extremely venerable ballad delighted Miss Graves in the carriage
+behind so that she waved her black parasol in applause. She asked if
+Inness could not sing "Springfield Mountain."
+
+"There is nothing left now," I said, laughing, "but the 'Battle of the
+Nile.'"
+
+Verney, who had sketched the tower early in the winter, explained that
+the old road to Ventimiglia passed directly through the lower story,
+which was built in the shape of an arch. All the carriages were now
+together, as we gazed at the relic.
+
+"The road goes through?" said Miss Graves. "Probably, then, it was a
+toll-gate."
+
+[Illustration: FEUDAL TOWER NEAR VENTIMIGLIA]
+
+This was so probable, although unromantic, that thereafter the venerable
+structure was called by that name, or, as Inness suggested, "not to be
+too disrespectful, the medi�val T.G."
+
+Ventimiglia, seven miles from Mentone, was "one of the most ancient
+towns in Liguria," the Professor remarked. Mrs. Trescott, Mrs. Clary,
+and I looked much wiser after this information, but carefully abstained
+from saying anything to each other of the cloudy nature of our ideas
+respecting the geographical word. However, we noticed, unaided, that its
+fortifications were extensive, for we rolled over a drawbridge to enter
+it, passing high stone-walls, bastions, and port-holes, while on the
+summit of the hill above us frowned a large Italian fort. The Roya, a
+broad river which divides the town into two parts, is crossed by a long
+bridge; and we were over this bridge and some distance beyond before we
+discovered that we had left the old quarter on the other side, its
+closely clustering roofs and spires having risen so directly over our
+heads on the steep side-hill that we had not observed them. Should we go
+back? The carriages drew up to consider. We had still "a long drive
+before us;" these "old Riviera villages" were "all alike;" the hill
+seemed "very steep;" and "we can come here, you know, at any time"--were
+some of the opinions given. The Professor, who really wished to stop,
+gallantly yielded. Miss Graves, alone in the opposition, was obliged to
+yield also; but she was deeply disappointed. The cathedral, formerly
+dedicated to Jupiter, "'possesses a white marble pulpit incrusted with
+mosaics, and an octagon font, very ancient,'" she read, mournfully,
+aloud, from her manuscript note-book. "'The Church of St. Michael, also,
+guards Roman antiquities of surpassing interest.'" This word "guards"
+had a fine effect.
+
+But, "we can come here at any time, you know," carried the day; and we
+drove on. I may as well mention that, as usual in such cases, we never
+did "come here at any time," save on the one occasion of our departure
+for Florence--an occasion which no railway traveller going to Italy by
+this route is likely soon to forget, the Ventimiglia custom-house being
+modelled patriotically upon the circles of Dante's "Inferno."
+
+When we were at a safe distance--"I suppose you know, Miss Trescott,
+that Ventimiglia was the principal home of your Lascaris?" said Verney.
+"First of all, they were Counts of Ventimiglia: that Italian port stands
+on the site of their old castle. I have been looking into their
+genealogy a little on your account; and I find that the first count of
+whom we have authentic record was a son of the King of Italy, A.D. 950.
+His son married the Princess Eudoxie, daughter of Theodore Lascaris,
+Emperor of Greece, and assumed the arms and name of his wife's family.
+Their descendants, besides being Counts of Ventimiglia, became Seigniors
+of Mentone, Castellare, Gorbio, Peille, Tende, and Briga, Roccabruna,
+and what is now L'Annunziata. They also had a ch�teau at Nice."
+
+"Let us go back!" said Janet.
+
+"To Nice?" I asked, smiling.
+
+But Verney appeased her with an offering--nothing less than a sketch he
+had made. "The Lascaris," he said, as if introducing them. And there
+they were, indeed, a group of knights on horseback, dressed in velvet
+doublets and lace ruffles, with long white plumes, followed by a train
+of pages and squires with armor and led-horses. All had Greek profiles:
+in truth, they were but various views of the Apollo Belvedere. This
+splendid party was crossing the drawbridge of a castle, and, from a
+latticed casement above, two beautiful and equally Greek ladies, attired
+in ermine, with long veils and golden crowns, waved their scarfs in
+token of adieu.
+
+"Charming!" said Janet, much pleased. (And in truth it was, if fanciful,
+a very pretty sketch.) "But who are those ladies above?"
+
+"I suppose they had wives and sisters, did they not?" said Verney.
+
+"I suppose they did--of _some_ sort," said Janet, disparagingly.
+
+But Verney now produced a second sketch; "another study of the same
+subject," he called it. This was a picture of the same number of men,
+clad in clumsy armor, with rough, coarse faces, attacking a pass and
+compelling two miserable frightened peasants with loaded mules to yield
+up what they had, while, from a rude tower above, like our medi�val T.
+G., two or three swarthy women with children were watching the scene.
+The wrappings of the two sketches being now removed, we saw that one was
+labelled, "The Lascaris--her Idea of them;" and the other, "The
+Lascaris--as they were."
+
+We all laughed. But I think Janet was not quite pleased. After the next
+change Verney found himself, by some mysterious chance, left to occupy
+the seat beside Miss Elaine, while Baker had his former place.
+
+The Nervia, a clear rapid little snow-formed river, ran briskly down
+over its pebbles towards the sea. Our road followed the western bank,
+and before long brought us to Campo Rosso, a little village with a
+picturesque belfry, a church whose fa�ade was decorated with old
+frescos, two marble sirens spouting water, and numberless "bits" in the
+way of vistas through narrow arched passages and crooked streets, which
+are the delight of artists. But Campo Rosso was not our destination, and
+entering the carriage again, we went onward through an olive wood whose
+broad terraces extended above, below, and on all sides as far as eye
+could reach. When we had stopped wondering over its endlessness, and had
+grown accustomed to the gray light, suddenly we came out under the open
+sky again, with Dolce Acqua before us, its castle above, its church
+tower below, and, far beyond, our first view of snow-capped peaks rising
+high and silvery against the deep blue sky. Inness and Baker threw up
+their hats and saluted the snow with an American hurrah. "What with
+those white peaks and this Italian sky, I feel like the Merry Swiss Boy
+and the Marble Faun rolled into one," said Baker.
+
+We drove up to the Locanda Desiderio, or "Desired Inn," as Inness
+translated it. It was now noon, and in the brick-floored apartment below
+a number of peasants were eating sour bread and drinking wine. But the
+host, a handsome young Italian, hastened to show us an upper chamber,
+where, with the warm sunshine flooding through the open windows across
+the bare floor, we spread our luncheon on a table covered with coarse
+but snowy homespun, and decked with remarkable plates in brilliant hues
+and still more brilliant designs. The luncheon was accompanied by
+several bottles of "the good little white wine" of the neighborhood--an
+accompaniment we had learned to appreciate.
+
+Upon the chimney-piece of a room adjoining ours, whose door stood open,
+there was an old brass lamp. In shape it was not unlike a high
+candlestick crowned with an oval reservoir for oil, which had three
+little curving tubes for wicks, and an upright handle above ending in a
+ring; it was about a foot and a half high, and from it hung three brass
+chains holding a brass lamp-scissors and little brass extinguishers.
+Mrs. Clary, Mrs. Trescott, Miss Graves, Miss Elaine, and myself all
+admired this lamp as we strolled about the rooms after luncheon before
+starting for the castle. It happened that Janet was not there; she had
+gone, by an unusual chance, with Lloyd, to look at some cinque-cento
+frescos in an old church somewhere, and was, I have no doubt, deeply
+interested in them. When she returned she too spied the old lamp, and
+admired it. "I wish I had it for my own room at home," she exclaimed. "I
+feel sure it is Aladdin's."
+
+[Illustration: DOLCE ACQUA]
+
+"Come, come, Janet," called Mrs. Trescott from below. "The castle
+waits."
+
+"It has waited some time already," said Inness--"a matter of six or
+seven centuries, I believe."
+
+"And looks as though it would wait six or seven more," I said, as we
+stood on the arched bridge admiring the massive walls above.
+
+"It has withstood numerous attacks," said the Professor. "Genoese armies
+came up this valley more than once to take it, and went back
+unsuccessful."
+
+"To me it is more especially distinguished by _not_ having been a home
+of the Lascaris," said Baker.
+
+"To whom, then, did it belong?" said Janet, contemptuously.
+
+We all, in a chorus, answered grandly, "To the Dorias!" (We were so glad
+to have reached a name we knew.)
+
+The castle crowned the summit of a crag, ruined but imposing; in shape a
+parallelogram, it had in front square towers, five stories in height,
+pierced with round-arched windows. It was the finest as well as largest
+ruin we lately landed Americans had seen, and we went hither and thither
+with much animation, telling each other all we knew, and much that we
+did not know, about ruined towers, square towers, drawbridges, moats,
+donjon keeps, and the like; while Miss Elaine, who had placed herself
+beside Verney on the knoll where he was sketching, looked on in a kindly
+patronizing way, as much as to say: "Enjoy yourselves, primitive
+children of the New World. We of England are familiar with ruins."
+
+Margaret and Lloyd found a seat in one of the ruined windows of the
+south tower; I stood beside them for a few moments looking at the view.
+On the north the narrow valley curved and went onward, while over its
+dark near green rose the glittering snowy peaks so far away. In the
+south, the blue of the Mediterranean stretched across the mouth of the
+valley, whose sides were bold and high; the little river gleamed out in
+spots of silver here and there, and the white belfry of Campo Rosso rose
+picturesquely against the dark olive forest. Directly under us were the
+roofs of the village, and the old stone bridge of one high arch. "Do you
+notice that many of these roofs are flat, with benches, and pots of
+flowers?" said Lloyd. "You do not see that in Mentone. It is thoroughly
+Italian."
+
+Janet, Mrs. Trescott, Inness, Baker, and the Professor were up on the
+highest point of the crag, where the Professor was giving a succinct
+account of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. His words floated down to us,
+but to which of those celebrated and eternally quarrelling factions
+these Dorias belong I regret to say I cannot now remember. But it was
+evident that he was talking eloquently, and Inness, who was quite
+distanced, by way of diversion threw pebbles at the north tower.
+
+We came down from the castle after a while, and strolled through the
+village streets--all of us save Margaret and Lloyd, who remained sitting
+in their window. Mrs. Trescott, seeing a vaulted entrance, stopped to
+examine it, and the broad doors being partly open, she peeped within. As
+there was more vaulting and no one to forbid, she stepped into the old
+hall, and we all followed her. We were looking at the massive, finely
+proportioned stairway, when a little girl appeared above gazing down
+curiously. She was a pretty child of seven or eight, and held some
+little thumbed school-books under her arm.
+
+"Is this a school?" asked Verney, in Italian.
+
+She nodded shyly, and ran away, but soon returned accompanied by a
+Sister, or nun, who, with a mixture of politeness and timidity, asked if
+we wished to see their schools. Of course we wished to see everything,
+and going up the broad stairway, we were ushered into an unexpected and
+remarkable apartment.
+
+"We came to see an infant school, and we find a row of noblemen," said
+Baker. "They must be all the Dorias upon their native heath!"
+
+The "heath" was the wall, upon which, in black frames, were ranged
+forty-two portraits in a long procession going around three sides of the
+great room, which must have been fifty feet in length. At the head of
+the apartment was a picture seven feet square, representing a
+full-blooming lady in a long-bodied white satin dress, with an
+extraordinary structure of plumes and pearls on her head, accompanied by
+a stately little heir in a pink satin court suit, and several younger
+children. One grim, dark old man in red, farther down the hall, was
+"Roberto: Seigneur Dolce Acqua. Anno 1270." A dame in yellow brocade,
+with hoop, ruff, and jewels, and a little curly dog under her arm, was
+"Brigida: Domina Dolce Acqua. 1290."
+
+"So they carried dogs in that way then as well as now," observed Janet.
+
+The Mother Superior now came in. She informed us that this was the
+ch�teau of the Dorias, built after their castle was destroyed, and
+occupied by descendants of the family until a comparatively recent
+period. Its plain exterior, extending across one end of the little
+square, we had not especially distinguished from the other buildings
+which joined it, forming the usual continuous wall of the Riviera towns.
+The ch�teau was now a convent and school. There were benches across one
+side of the large apartment where the village children were already
+assembled under the black-framed portraits, but there was not much
+studying that day, I think, save a study of strangers.
+
+"Here is the real treasure," said Verney.
+
+It was a chimney-piece of stone, extending across one end of the room,
+richly carved with various devices in relief, figures, and ornaments,
+and a row of heads on shields across the front, now the profile of an
+old bearded man looking out, and now that of a youth in armor. It was
+fifteen feet high, and a remarkably fine piece of work.
+
+"Quite thrown away here," said Miss Graves.
+
+"Oh, I don't know; the portraits can see it," replied Janet.
+
+The Mother Superior conducted us all over the ch�teau, reserving only
+the corridor where were her own and the Sisters' apartments. The
+dignified stone stairway with its broad stone steps extended unchanged
+to the top of the house.
+
+"In the matter of stairways," I said, "I must acknowledge that our New
+World ideas are deficient. We have spacious rooms, broad windows, high
+ceilings, but such a stairway as this is beyond us."
+
+The empty sunny rooms above were gayly painted in fresco. At one end of
+the house a door opened into a little latticed balcony, into which we
+stepped, finding ourselves in an adjoining church, high up on the wall
+at one side of the altar. Here the Sisters came to pray, and as we
+departed, one of them glided in and knelt down in the dusky corner.
+
+"Perhaps she is going to pray for us," said Inness.
+
+"I am sure we need it," replied Janet, seriously.
+
+In the garret was a Sedan-chair, once elaborately gilded.
+
+"I suppose they went down to Ventimiglia in that," said Baker--"those
+fine old dames below."
+
+From one of the rooms on the second floor opened a little cell or
+closet, part of whose flooring had been removed, showing a hollow space
+beneath following the massive exterior wall.
+
+[Illustration: PIFFERARI]
+
+"Here," said the Mother Superior, "the papers of the family were
+concealed at the approach of the first Napoleon, and not taken out for a
+number of years. The flooring has never been replaced."
+
+The Mother Superior spoke only Italian, which Verney translated, much to
+the envy of the younger men. The Professor was not with us, for as soon
+as he learned that the place was "papist" he departed, although Inness
+suggested that the street was papist also, and likewise the very air
+must be redolent of Rome. But the Professor was an example of "coelum,
+non animum, mutant, qui trans mare currunt," and quite determined to be
+as Protestant in Italy as he was in Connecticut. He would not desert his
+colors because under a foreign sky, as so many Americans desert them.
+
+The Mother now conducted us to a little square parlor, with south
+windows opening upon a balcony full of pots of flowers; the walls and
+ceiling of this little room were glowing with color--paintings in fresco
+more suited to the Dorias, I fancy, than to the "Sisters of the Snow,"
+for this was the poetical name of the little black-robed band. In this
+worldly little room we found wine waiting for us, and grapes which were
+almost raisins: we had never seen them in transition before. The wine
+was excellent, and Mrs. Trescott partook with much graciousness. After
+partaking, she employed Verney in translating to the Mother a number of
+her own characteristic sentences. But Verney must have altered them
+somewhat en route, for I hardly think the Mother would have remained so
+calmly placid if she had comprehended that "this whole scene--the
+grapes, the wine, and the frescos"--reminded Mrs. Trescott of
+"Cleopatra, and of Sardanapalus and his golden flagons." Presently two
+of the Sisters entered with coffee which they had prepared for us; after
+serving it, they retired to a corner, where they stood gently regarding
+us. Then another entered, and then another, unobtrusively taking their
+places beside the others. It was interesting to notice the simplicity of
+their mild gaze; although brown and middle-aged, their expression was
+like that of little children. When they learned that some of us were
+from America they were much impressed, and looked at each other
+silently.
+
+"I suppose it does not seem to them but a little while since Columbus
+discovered us," said Baker.
+
+At last it was time for us to go: we bade the little group farewell, and
+left some coins "for their poor."
+
+"Though we may not meet on earth, we shall see you all again in heaven,"
+said the Mother, and all the Sisters bowed assent. They accompanied us
+down to the outer door, and waved their hands in adieu as we crossed the
+little square. When, at the other side, we turned to look back, we saw
+their black skirts retiring up the stairway to their little school.
+
+"Farewell, Sisters of the Snow," said Janet. "May we all so live as to
+keep that rendezvous you have given us!"
+
+The carriages were now ordered, and Margaret and Lloyd summoned from the
+castle tower. We were standing at the door of the Desired Inn,
+collecting our baskets and wraps, when the Professor appeared with a
+long narrow parcel in his hand. This he stowed away carefully in one of
+the carriages, changing its position several times, as if anxious it
+should be carried safely. While he was thus engaged in his absorbed,
+near-sighted way, Inness came down the stone stairs from the upper
+chamber, and going across to Janet, who was leaning on the parapet
+looking at the river, he was on the point of presenting something to
+her, when his little speech was stopped by the appearance of Baker
+coming around the corner from the front of the house, with a parcel
+exactly like his own.
+
+[Illustration: MONACO--THE PALACE AND PORT]
+
+"Two!" cried Inness, bursting into a peal of laughter; and then we
+saw, as he tore off the paper, that he had the old brass lamp which
+Janet had admired. Meanwhile Baker had another, the Desired Inn having
+been evidently equal to the occasion, and to driving a good bargain. Our
+laughter aroused the Professor, who turned and gazed at our group from
+the step of the carriage. But having no idea of losing the credit of his
+unusual gallantry simply because some one else had had the same thought,
+he now extracted his own parcel and silently extended it.
+
+"A third!" cried Inness. And then we all gave way again.
+
+"I am so much obliged to you," said Janet, sweetly, when there was a
+pause, "but I am sorry you took the trouble. Because--because Mr. Verney
+has already kindly given me one, which is packed in one of the baskets."
+
+At this we laughed again, more irresistibly than before--all, I mean,
+save Miss Elaine, who merely said, in the most unamused voice, "How
+_very_ amusing!" As we had all admired the ancient lamp (although no one
+thought of offering it to _us_), the superfluous gifts easily found
+places among us, and were not the less thankfully received because
+obtained in that roundabout way.
+
+We now left the "Sweet Waters" behind us, and went down the valley
+towards the sea.
+
+"There is another town as picturesque as Dolce Acqua some miles farther
+up the valley," said Verney. "I have a sketch of it. It is called
+Pigna."
+
+"Oh, let us go there!" said Janet.
+
+"We cannot, my daughter, spend the entire remainder of our earthly
+existence among the Maritime Alps," said Mrs. Trescott.
+
+Inness had the place beside Janet all the way home.
+
+On the Cornice, a few miles from Mentone, we came upon a boy and girl
+sitting by the road-side; they had a flageolet and a sort of bagpipe,
+and wore the costume of Italian peasants, their foot-coverings being the
+complicated bands and strings which are, in American eyes (the strings
+transmuted into ribbons), indelibly associated with bandits. "They are
+pifferari," said Verney; and we stopped the carriages and asked them to
+play for us. The boy played on his flageolet, and the girl sang. As she
+stood beside us in the dust, her brown hands clasped before her, her
+great dark eyes never once stopped gazing at Janet, who, clad that day
+in a soft cream-white walking costume, with gloves, round hat, and plume
+of the same tint, looked not unlike a lily on its stem. The Italian girl
+was of nearly the same age in years, and of fully the same age in
+womanhood, and it seemed as if she could not remove her fascinated gaze
+from the fair white stranger. Inness and Verney both tried to attract
+her attention; but the boy gathered up the coins they dropped, and the
+girl gazed on. As the Professor was tired, and did not care for music,
+we drove onward; but, as far as we could see, the Italian girl still
+stood in the centre of the road, gazing after the carriages.
+
+"What do you suppose is in her mind?" I said. "Envy?"
+
+"Hardly," said Verney. "To her, probably, Miss Trescott is like a being
+from another world--a saint or Madonna."
+
+"Ah, Mr. Verney, what exaggerated comparisons!" said Miss Elaine, in
+soft reproach. "Besides, it is irreligious, and you _promised_ me you
+would not be irreligious."
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE PALACE, MONACO]
+
+Verney looked somewhat aghast at this revelation, of course overheard by
+Mrs. Clary and myself. It was rather hard upon him to have his misdeeds
+brought up in this way--the little sentimental speeches he had made
+to Miss Elaine in the remote past--i.e., before Janet arrived. But he
+was obliged to bear it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I suppose," said Inness, one morning, "that you are not all going away
+from Mentone without even _seeing_ Mon--Monaco?"
+
+"It can be _seen_ from Turbia," answered the Professor, grimly. "And
+that view is near enough."
+
+Inness made a grimace, and the subject was dropped. But it ended in our
+seeing Turbia from Monaco, and not Monaco from Turbia.
+
+"There is no use in fighting against it," said Mrs. Clary, shrugging her
+shoulders. "You will have to go once. Every one does. There is a fate
+that drives you."
+
+"And the joke is," said Baker, in high glee, "that the Professor is
+going too. It seems that the view from Turbia was not near enough for
+him, after all."
+
+"I am not surprised," said Mrs. Clary. "I thought he would go: they all
+do. I have seen English deans, Swiss pastors, and American Presbyterian
+ministers looking on in the gambling-rooms, under the principle, I
+suppose, of knowing something of the evil they oppose. They do not go
+but once; but that once they are very apt to allow themselves."
+
+The views along the Cornice west of Mentone are very beautiful. As we
+came in sight of Monaco, lying below in the blue sea, we caught its
+alleged resemblance to a vessel at anchor.
+
+"Monaco, or Portus Herculis Monoeci, was well known to the ancients,"
+said the Professor. "Its name appears in Virgil, Tacitus, Pliny, Strabo,
+and other classical writers. Before the invention of gunpowder its
+situation made it impregnable. It was one of the places of refuge in the
+long struggle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines" (we were rather
+discouraged by the appearance of these names so early in the day), "and
+it is mentioned by an Italian historian as having become in the
+fourteenth century a 'home for criminals' and a 'gathering-place for
+pirates'--terms equally applicable at the present day." The Professor's
+voice was very sonorous.
+
+Inness, the Professor, Janet, and myself were in a carriage together. As
+Mrs. Clary and Miss Graves did not accompany us that day, we had two
+carriages and a phaeton, the latter occupied by Lloyd and Verney.
+
+"As to Monaco history," remarked Inness, carelessly, when the Professor
+ceased, "I happen to remember a few items. The Grimaldis came next to
+Hercules, and have had possession here since A.D. 980. Marshal
+Boucicault, who was extremely devout, and never missed hearing two
+masses a day, besieged the place and took it before Columbus and the
+other Boucicault discovered America. In the reign of Louis the
+Fourteenth a Prince of Monaco was sent as ambassador to Rome, and
+entered that city with horses shod in silver, the shoes held by one nail
+only, so that they might drop the sooner. Another Prince of Monaco went
+against the Turks with his galleys, and brought back to this shore the
+inestimable gift of the prickly-pear, for which we all bless his memory
+whenever we brush against its cheerful thorns. _Three_ Princes of Monaco
+were murdered in their own palace, which of course was much more
+home-like than being murdered elsewhere. The Duke of York died there
+also: not murdered, I believe, although there is a ghost in the story.
+The principality is now three miles long, and the present prince retains
+authority under the jurisdiction of France. To preserve this authority
+he maintains a strictly disciplined standing army (they never sit down)
+of ten able-bodied men."
+
+These sentences were rolled out by Inness with such rapidity that I was
+quite bewildered; as for the Professor, he was hopelessly stranded
+half-way down the list, and never came any farther.
+
+Passing Monte Carlo, we drove over to the palace.
+
+"Certainly there is no town on the Riviera so beautifully situated as
+Monaco," I said, as the road swept around the little port and ascended
+the opposite slope. "The high rock on which it stands, jutting out
+boldly into the sea, gives it all the isolation of an island, and yet
+protects by its peninsula this clear deep little harbor within."
+
+The old town of Monaco proper is on the top of this rocky presqu'ile,
+three hundred feet above the sea, and west of Monte Carlo, the suburb of
+Condamine, and the chapel of St. Devote. Leaving the carriages, we
+entered the portal of the palace, conducted by a tenth of the standing
+army.
+
+"My first living and roofed palace," said Janet, as we ascended the
+broad flight of marble steps leading to the "Court of Honor," which was
+glowing with recently renewed frescos. A solemn man in black received
+us, and conducted us with much dignity through thirteen broad, long
+rooms, with ceilings thirty feet high--a procession of stately
+apartments which left upon our minds a blurred general impression of
+gilded vases, crimson curtains, slippery floors, ormolu clocks, wreaths
+of painted roses, fat Cupids, and uninhabitableness. The only trace of
+home life in all the shining vista was a little picture of the present
+Prince, taken when he was a baby, a life-like, chubby little fellow,
+smiling unconcernedly out on all this cold splendor. It was amusing to
+see how we women gathered around this little face, with a sort of
+involuntary comfort.
+
+In the Salle Grimaldi there was a vast chimney-piece of one block of
+marble covered with carved devices.
+
+In the room where the Duke of York died there was a broad bed on a
+platform, curtained and canopied with heavy damask, and surrounded by a
+gilded railing. We stood looking at this structure in silence.
+
+"It is very impressive," murmured Mrs. Trescott at last. Then, with a
+long reminiscent sigh, as if she had been present and chief mourner on
+the occasion, she added: "There is nothing more inscrutable than the
+feet of the flying hours: they are winged!--winged!"
+
+[Illustration: THE SALLE GRIMALDI, IN THE PALACE, MONACO]
+
+"On the whole," said Janet, as we went down the marble steps towards
+the army--"on the whole, taking it as a _palace_, I am disappointed."
+
+"What did you expect?" said Verney.
+
+"Oh, all the age of chivalry," she answered, smiling.
+
+"The so-called age of chivalry--" began the Professor; but he never
+finished; because, by some unexpected adjustment of places, he found
+himself in the phaeton with Baker, and that adventurous youth drove him
+over to Monte Carlo at such a speed that he could only close his eyes
+and hold on.
+
+The Casino of Monte Carlo is now the most important part of the
+principality of Monaco; instead of being subordinate to the palace, the
+latter has become but an appendage to the modern splendor across the
+bay. Monte Carlo occupies a site as beautiful as any in the world. In
+front the blue sea laves its lovely garden; on the east the soft
+coast-line of Italy stretches away in the distance; on the west is the
+bold curving rock of Monaco, with its castle and port, and the great
+cliff of the Dog's Head. Behind rises the near mountain high above; and
+on its top, outlined against the sky, stands the old tower of Turbia in
+its lonely ruined majesty, looking towards Rome.
+
+"That tower is nineteen hundred feet above the sea," said the Professor.
+"It was built by the Romans, on the boundary between Liguria and Gaul,
+to commemorate a victory gained by Augustus C�sar over the Ligurians. It
+was called Trop�um Augusti, from which it has degenerated into Turbia.
+Fragments of the inscription it once bore have been found on stones
+built into the houses of the present village. The inscription itself is,
+fortunately, fully preserved in Pliny, as follows: 'To C�sar, son of the
+divine C�sar Augustus, Emperor for the fourteenth time, in the
+seventeenth year of his reign, the Senate and the Roman people have
+decreed this monument, in token that under his orders and auspices all
+the Alpine races have been subdued by Roman arms. Names of the
+vanquished:' and here follow the names of forty-five Alpine races."
+
+At first we thought that the Professor was going to repeat them all; but
+although no doubt he knew them, he abstained.
+
+"The village behind the tower--we cannot see it from here--seems to be
+principally built of fragments of the old Roman stone-work," said Lloyd.
+"I have been up there several times."
+
+"Then we do not see the Trophy as it was?" I said.
+
+"No; it is but a ruin, although it looks imposing from here. It was used
+as a fortress during the Middle Ages, and partially destroyed by the
+French at the beginning of the last century."
+
+"It must have been majestic indeed, since, after all its dismemberment,
+it still remains so majestic now," said Margaret.
+
+We were standing on the steps of the Casino during this conversation; I
+think we all rather made ourselves stand there, and talk about Turbia
+and the Middle Ages, because the evil and temptation we had come to see
+were so near us, and we knew that they were. We all had a sentence ready
+which we delivered impartially and carelessly; but none the less we knew
+that we were going in, and that nothing would induce us to remain
+without.
+
+[Illustration: THE RIDE TO SANT' AGNESE]
+
+From a spacious, richly decorated entrance-hall, the gambling-rooms
+opened by noiseless swinging doors. Entering, we saw the tables
+surrounded by a close circle of seated players, with a second circle
+standing behind, playing over their shoulders, and sometimes even a
+third behind these. Although so many persons were present, it was very
+still, the only sounds being the chink, chink, of the gold and silver
+coins, and the dull, mechanical voices of the officials announcing
+the winning numbers. There were tables for both roulette and trente et
+quarante, the playing beginning each day at eleven in the morning and
+continuing without intermission until eleven at night. Everywhere was
+lavished the luxury of flowers, paintings, marbles, and the costliest
+decoration of all kinds; beyond, in a superb hall, the finest orchestra
+on the Continent was playing the divine music of Beethoven; outside, one
+of the loveliest gardens in the world offered itself to those who wished
+to stroll awhile. And all of this was given freely, without restriction
+and without price, upon a site and under a sky as beautiful as earth can
+produce. But one sober look at the faces of the steady players around
+those tables betrayed, under all this luxury and beauty, the real horror
+of the place; for men and women, young and old alike, had the gambler's
+strange fever in the expression of the eye, all the more intense
+because, in almost every case, so governed, so stonily repressed, so
+deadly cold! After a half-hour of observation, we left the rooms, and I
+was glad to breathe the outside air once more. The place had so struck
+to my heart, with its intensity, its richness, its stillness, and its
+terror, that I had not been able even to smile at the Professor's
+demeanor; he had signified his disapprobation (while looking at
+everything quite closely, however) by buttoning his coat up to the chin
+and keeping his hat on. I almost expected to see him open his umbrella.
+
+"To me, they seemed all mad," I said, with a shudder, looking up at the
+calm mountains with a sense of relief.
+
+"It is a species of madness," said Verney. Miss Elaine was with him; she
+had taken his arm while in the gambling-room; she said she felt "so
+timid." Margaret and Lloyd meanwhile had only looked on for a moment or
+two, and had then disappeared; we learned afterwards that they had gone
+to the concert-room, where music beautiful enough for paradise was
+filling the perfumed air.
+
+"For those who care nothing for gambling, that music is one of the
+baits," said Lloyd. "When you really love music, it is very hard to keep
+away from it; and here, where there is no other music to compete with
+it, it is offered to you in its divinest perfection, at an agreeable
+distance from Nice and Mentone, along one of the most beautiful
+driveways in the world, with a Parisian hotel at its best to give you,
+besides, what other refreshment you need. Hundreds of persons come here
+sincerely 'only to hear the music.' But few go away without 'one look'
+at the gambling tables; and it is upon that 'one look' that the
+proprietors of the Casino, knowing human nature, quietly and securely
+rely."
+
+The Professor, having seen it all, had no words to express his feeling,
+but walked across to call the carriages with the air of a man who shook
+off perdition from every finger. And yet I felt sure, from what I knew
+of him, that he had appreciated the attractions of the place less than
+any one of us--had not, in fact, been reached by them at all. Those who
+do not feel the allurements of a temptation are not tempted. Not a grain
+in the Professor's composition responded to the invitation of the siren
+Chance; they were not allurements to him; they were but the fantastic
+phantasmagoria of a dream. The lovely garden he appreciated only
+botanically; the view he could not see; abstemious by nature, he cared
+nothing for the choice rarities of the hotel; while the music, the
+heavenly music, was to him no more than the housewife's clatter of tin
+pans. Yet I might have explained this to him all the way home, he would
+never have comprehended it, but would have gone on thinking that it was
+simply, on his part, superior virtue and self-control.
+
+But I had no opportunity to explain, since I was not in the carriage
+with him, but with Janet, Inness, and Baker. Margaret and Lloyd drove
+homewards together in the phaeton; and as they did not reach the hotel
+until dusk--long after our own arrival--I asked Margaret where they had
+been.
+
+"We stopped at the cemetery to watch the sunset beside my statue, aunt."
+
+"Why do you care so much for that marble figure?"
+
+"I do not think she is quite marble," answered Margaret, smiling. "When
+I look at her, after a while she becomes, in a certain sense,
+responsive. To me she is like a dear friend."
+
+Another week passed, and another. And now the blossoms of the
+fruit-trees--a cloud of pink and snowy white--were gone, and the winter
+loiterers on the sunny shore began to talk of home; or, if they were
+travellers who had but stopped awhile on the way to Italy, they knew now
+that the winds of the Apennines no longer chilled the beautiful streets
+of Florence, and that all the lilies were out.
+
+"Why could it not go on and on forever? Why must there always come that
+last good-bye?" quoted Mrs. Clary.
+
+"Because life is so sad," said Margaret.
+
+"But I like to look forward," said Janet.
+
+"We shall meet again," said Lloyd.
+
+"The world," I remarked, sagely, "is composed of three classes of
+persons--those who live in the present, those who live in the past, and
+those who live in the future. The first class is the wisest."
+
+[Illustration: VIEW FROM SANT' AGNESE]
+
+Our last excursion was to Sant' Agnese. This little mountain village was
+the highest point we attained on our donkeys, being two thousand two
+hundred feet above the sea. Its one rugged little street, cut in the
+side of the cliff, had an ancient weather-beaten little church at one
+end and a lonely chapel at the other, with the village green in the
+centre--a "green" which was but a smooth rock amphitheatre, with a
+parapet protecting it from the precipice below. From this "green" there
+was a grand view of the mountains, with the sharp point of the Aiguille
+towering above them all. It was a village f�te day, and we met the
+little procession at the church door. First came the priests and
+choir-boys, chanting; then the village girls, dressed in white, and
+bearing upon a little platform an image of Saint Agnes; then youths with
+streamers of colored ribbons on their arms; and, last, all the
+villagers, two and two, dressed in their best, and carrying bunches of
+flowers. Through the winding rocky street they marched, singing as they
+went. When they arrived at the lonely chapel, Saint Agnes was borne in,
+and prayers were offered, in which the village people joined, kneeling
+on the ground outside, since there was not place for them within. Then
+forth came Saint Agnes again, a hymn was started, in which all took
+part, the little church bell pealed, and an old man touched off small
+heaps of gunpowder placed at equal distances along the parapet, their
+nearest approach, I suppose, to cannon. When the saint had reached her
+shrine again in safety, her journeyings over until the next year, the
+procession dissolved, and feasting began, the simple feasting of Italy,
+in which we joined so far as to partake of a lunch in the little inn,
+which had a green bush as a sign over the narrow door--the "wine of the
+country" proving very good, however, in spite of the old proverb. Then,
+refreshed, we climbed up the steep path leading to the peak where was
+perched the ruin of the old castle which is so conspicuous from Mentone,
+high in the air. This castle, the so-called "Saracen stronghold" of
+Sant' Agnese, pronounced, as Baker said, "either Frenchy to rhyme with
+lace, or Italianly to rhyme with lazy," seemed to me higher up in the
+sky than I had ever expected to be in the flesh.
+
+"As our interesting friend" (she meant the Professor) "is not here,"
+said Mrs. Trescott, sinking in a breathless condition upon a Saracen
+block, "there is no one to tell us its history."
+
+"There is no history," said Verney, "or, rather, no one knows it; and to
+me that is its chief attraction. There are, of course, legends in
+stacks, but nothing authentic. The Saracens undoubtedly occupied it for
+a time, and kept the whole coast below cowering under their cruel sway.
+But it is hardly probable that they built it; they did not build so far
+inland; they preferred the shore."
+
+Our specified object, of course, in climbing that breathless path was
+"the view."
+
+Now there are various ways of seeing views. I have known "views" which
+required long gazing at points where there was nothing earthly to be
+seen: in such cases there was probably something heavenly. Other "views"
+reveal themselves only to two persons at a time; if a third appears,
+immediately there is nothing to be seen. As to our own manner of looking
+at the Sant' Agnese view, I will mention that Mrs. Trescott looked at it
+from a snug corner, on a soft shawl, with her eyes closed. Mrs. Clary
+looked at it retrospectively, as it were; she began phrases like these:
+"When I was here three years ago--" pause, sigh, full stop. "Once I was
+here at sunset--" ditto. Janet, on a remote rock, looked at it, I think,
+amid a little tragedy from Inness, interrupted and made more tragic by
+the incursions of Baker, who would not be frowned away. Verney looked at
+it from a high niche in which he had incautiously seated himself for a
+moment, and now remained imprisoned, because Miss Elaine had placed
+herself across the entrance so that he could not emerge without asking
+her to rise; from this niche, like the tenor of _Trovatore_ in his
+tower, he occasionally sent across a Miserere to Janet in the distance,
+like this: "Do you ob--serve, Miss Trescott, the col--ors of the
+lem--ons below?" And Janet would gesture an assent. Lloyd and Margaret
+had found a place on a little projecting plateau, where, with the warm
+sunshine flooding over them, they sat contentedly talking. Meanwhile
+having neither sleep, retrospect, tragedy, Miserere, nor conversation
+with which to entertain myself, I really looked at the view, and
+probably was the only person who did. I had time enough for it. We
+remained there nearly two hours.
+
+[Illustration: F�TE, VILLAGE OF SANT' AGNESE]
+
+At last our donkey-driver came up to tell us that dancing was going on
+below, and that there was not much time if we wished to see it, since
+the long homeward journey still lay before us. So we elders began to
+call: "Janet!" "Janet!" "Margaret!" "Mr. Verney!" And presently from the
+rock, the niche, and the plateau they came slowly in, Janet flushed, and
+Inness very pale, Baker like a thunder-cloud, Miss Elaine smiling and
+conscious, Verney annoyed, Lloyd just as usual, and Margaret with a
+younger look in her face than I had seen there for months. In the little
+rock amphitheatre below we found the villagers merrily dancing; and some
+strangers like ourselves, who had come out from Mentone later, were
+amusing themselves by dancing also. Janet joined the circle with Baker,
+and Inness, after leaning on the parapet awhile, with his back to the
+dancers, gazing into space, disappeared. I think he went homeward by
+another path across the mountains. Miss Elaine admired "so much" Miss
+Trescott's courage in dancing before "so many strangers." She (Miss
+Elaine) was far "too shy to attempt it." But I did not notice that she
+was violently urged to the attempt. In the meantime Lloyd was looking at
+an English girl belonging to the other party, who was dancing near us.
+She was tall and shapely, with the beautiful English rose-pink
+complexion, and abundant light hair which had the glint of bronze where
+the sun shone across it. After a while, as the others came near, he
+recognized in one of them an acquaintance, who turned out to be the
+brother of the young lady who had been dancing.
+
+When, as we returned, we reached the main street of Mentone, Margaret
+and I, who were behind, stopped a moment and looked back. The far peak
+of Sant' Agnese was flushed with rose-light, although where we were it
+was already night.
+
+"It does not seem as if we could have been there," I said. "It looks so
+far away."
+
+"Yes, we have been there," said Margaret; "we _have_ been there. But
+already it _is_ far, far away."
+
+[Illustration: VESTIGES OF ROMAN MONUMENTS]
+
+Mrs. Trescott found a letter awaiting her which made her decide to go
+forward to Florence on the following day. A great deal can happen in a
+short time when there is the pressure of a near departure. That evening
+Janet, who was dressed in white, had a great bunch of the sweet wild
+narcissus at her belt. I do not know anything certainly, of course, but
+I _did_ meet Inness in the hall, about eleven o'clock, with a radiant,
+happy face, and some of that same narcissus in his button-hole. He went
+with the Trescott's to Florence the next day. And Baker, with disgust,
+went to Nice. Soon afterwards Verney said that he felt that he required
+"a closer acquaintance with early art," and departed without saying
+exactly whither. "Etruscan art, I believe, is considered extremely
+'early,'" remarked Mrs. Clary.
+
+The Professor was to join the Trescotts later; at present he was much
+engaged with some cinerary urns. Miss Elaine, who was to remain a month
+longer with her mother, remarked to me, on one of the last mornings,
+that "really, for his age," he was a "very well preserved man."
+
+Margaret and I remained for two weeks after Mrs. Trescott's departure.
+We saw Mr. Lloyd now and then; but he was more frequently off with the
+English party.
+
+One afternoon I went with Margaret to watch the sunset from her favorite
+post beside the statue. She sought the place almost every evening now,
+and occasionally I went with her. We had never found any one there at
+that hour; but this evening we heard voices, and came upon Lloyd and the
+English girl of Sant' Agnese, strolling to and fro.
+
+"I have brought Miss Read to see the view here, Miss Severin," he said;
+and then introductions followed, and we stood there together watching
+the beautiful tints of sky and sea. The English girl talked in her
+English voice with its little rising and falling inflections, so
+different from our monotonous American key. Margaret answered
+pleasantly, and, indeed, talked more than usual; I was glad to see her
+interested.
+
+After a while Lloyd happened to stroll forward where he could see the
+face of the statue. Then, suddenly, "Wonderful!" he exclaimed. "Strange
+that I never thought of it before! Do come here, please, and see for
+yourselves. There is the most extraordinary resemblance between this
+statue and Miss Read."
+
+Then, as we all went forward, "Wonderful!" he repeated.
+
+Margaret said not a word. The English girl only laughed. "Surely you
+_see_ it?" he said.
+
+"There may be a little something about the mouth--" I began.
+
+But he interrupted me. "Why, it is perfect! The statue is her portrait
+in marble. Miss Read, will you not let me place you in the same
+position, just for an instant?" And, leading her to a little mound, he
+placed her in the required pose; she had thrown off her hat to oblige
+him, and now clasped her hands and turned her eyes over the sea towards
+the eastern horizon. What was the result?
+
+The only resemblance, as I had said, was about the mouth; for the
+beautifully cut lips of the statue turned downward at the corners, and
+the curve of Miss Read's sweet baby-like mouth was the same. But that
+was all. Above was the woman's face in marble, beautiful, sad, full of
+the knowledge and the grief of life; below was the face of a young girl,
+lovely, fresh, and bright, and knowing no more of sorrow than a
+blush-rose upon its stem.
+
+"Exact!" said Lloyd.
+
+Miss Read laughed, rose, and resumed her straw hat; presently they went
+away.
+
+[Illustration: THE STATUE IN THE CEMETERY]
+
+"There was not the slightest resemblance," I said, almost with
+indignation.
+
+"People see resemblances differently," answered Margaret. Then, after a
+pause, she added, "She is, at least, much more like the statue than I
+am."
+
+"Not in the spirit, dear," I said, much touched; for I saw that as she
+spoke the rare tears had filled her eyes. But they did not fall;
+Margaret had a great deal of self-control; perhaps too much.
+
+Then there was a silence. "Shall we go now, aunt?" she said, after a
+time. And we never spoke of the subject again.
+
+"Look, look, Margaret! the palms of Bordighera!" I said, as our train
+rushed past. It was our last of Mentone.
+
+
+
+
+CAIRO IN 1890
+
+
+I
+
+[Illustration: CONTEMPORARY PORTRAIT OF CLEOPATRA
+
+On the wall of the Temple at Denderah.--From a photograph by Sebah,
+Cairo.]
+
+"The way to Egypt is long and vexatious"--so Homer sings; and so also
+have sung other persons more modern. A chopping sea prevails off Crete,
+and whether one leaves Europe at Naples, Brindisi, or Athens, one's
+steamer soon reaches that beautiful island, and consumes in passing it
+an amount of time which is an ever-fresh surprise. Crete, with its long
+coast-line and soaring mountain-tops, appears to fill all that part of
+the sea. However, as the island is the half-way point between Europe and
+Africa, one can at least feel, after finally leaving it behind, that the
+Egyptian coast is not far distant. This coast is as indolent as that of
+Crete is aggressive; it does not raise its head. You are there before
+you see it or know it; and then, if you like, in something over three
+hours more you can be in Cairo.
+
+The Cairo street of the last Paris Exhibition, familiar to many
+Americans, was a clever imitation. But imitations of the Orient are
+melancholy; you cannot transplant the sky and the light.
+
+The real Cairo has been sacrificed to the Nile. Comparatively few among
+travellers in the East see the place under the best conditions; for upon
+their arrival they are preoccupied with the magical river voyage which
+beckons them southward, with the dahabeeyah or the steamer which is to
+carry them; and upon their return from that wonderful journey they are
+planning for the more difficult expedition to the Holy Land. It is safe
+to say that to many Americans Cairo is only a confused memory of donkeys
+and dragomans, mosquitoes and dervishes, and mosques, mosques, mosques!
+This hard season probably must be gone through by all. The wise are
+those who stay on after it is over, or who return; for the true
+impression of a place does not come when the mind is overcrowded and
+confused; it does not come when the body is wearied; for the descent of
+the vision, serenity of soul is necessary--one might even call it
+idleness. It is during those days when one does nothing that the reality
+steals noiselessly into one's comprehension, to remain there forever.
+
+But is Cairo worth this? is asked. That depends upon the temperament. If
+one must have in his nature somewhere a trace of the poet to love
+Venice, so one must be at heart something of a painter to love Cairo.
+Her colors are so softly rich, the Saracenic part of her architecture is
+so fantastically beautiful, the figures in her streets are so
+picturesque, that one who has an eye for such effects seems to himself
+to be living in a gallery of paintings without frames, which stretch off
+in vistas, melting into each other as they go. If, therefore, one loves
+color, if pictures are precious to him, are important, let him go to
+Cairo; he will find pleasure awaiting him. Flaubert said that one could
+imagine the pyramids, and perhaps the Sphinx, without an actual sight of
+them, but that what one could not in the least imagine was the
+expression on the face of an Oriental barber as he sits cross-legged
+before his door. That is Cairo exactly. You must see her with the actual
+eyes, and you must see her without haste. She does not reveal herself to
+the Cook tourist nor even to Gaze's, nor to the man who is hurrying off
+to Athens on a fixed day which nothing can alter.
+
+
+THE NEW QUARTER
+
+(One must begin with this, and have it over.) Cairo has a population of
+four hundred thousand souls. The new part of the town, called Isma�lia,
+has been persistently abused by almost all writers, who describe it as
+dusty, as shadeless, as dreary, as glaring, as hideous, as blankly and
+broadly empty, as adorned with half-built houses which are falling into
+ruin--one has read all this before arriving. But what does one find in
+the year of grace 1890? Streets shaded by innumerable trees; streets
+broad indeed, but which, instead of being dusty, are wet (and over-wet)
+with the constant watering; well-kept, bright-faced houses, many of them
+having beautiful gardens, which in January are glowing with giant
+poinsettas, crimson hibiscus, and purple bougainvillea--flowers which
+give place to richer blooms, to an almost over-luxuriance of color and
+perfumes, as the early spring comes on. If the streets were paved, it
+would be like the outlying quarters of Paris, for most of the houses are
+French as regards their architecture. Shadeless? It is nothing but
+shade. And the principal drives, too, beyond the town--the Ghezireh
+road, the Choubra and Gizeh roads, and the long avenue which leads to
+the pyramids--are deeply embowered, the great arms of the trees which
+border them meeting and interlacing overhead. Consider the stony streets
+of Italian cities (which no one abuses), and then talk of "shadeless
+Cairo"!
+
+
+THE CLIMATE
+
+If one wishes to spend a part of each day in the house, engaged in
+reading, writing, or resting; if the comfortable feeling produced by a
+brightly burning little fire in the cool of the evening is necessary to
+him for his health or his pleasure--then he should not attempt to spend
+the entire winter in the city of the Khedive. The mean temperature there
+during the cold season--that is, six weeks in January and February--is
+said to be 58� Fahrenheit. But this is in the open air; in the houses
+the temperature is not more than 54� or 52�, and often in the evening
+lower. The absence of fires makes all the difficulty; for out-of-doors
+the air may be and often is charming; but upon coming in from the bright
+sunshine the atmosphere of one's sitting-room and bedroom seems chilly
+and prison-like. There are, generally speaking, no chimneys in Cairo,
+even in the modern quarter. Each of the hotels has one or two open
+grates, but only one or two. Southern countries, however, are banded
+together--so it seems to the shivering Northerner--to keep up the
+delusion that they have no cold weather; as they have it not, why
+provide for it? In Italy in the winter the Italians spread rugs over
+their floors, hang tapestries upon their walls, pile cushions
+everywhere, and carpet their sofas with long-haired skins; this they
+call warmth. But a fireless room, with the thermometer on its walls
+standing at 35�, is not warm, no matter how many cushions you may put
+into it; and one hates to believe, too, that necessary accompaniments
+of health are roughened faces and frost-bitten noses, and the extreme
+ugliness of hands swollen and red. "Perhaps if one could have in Cairo
+an open hearth and three sticks, it would, with all the other pleasures
+which one finds here, be too much--would reach wickedness!" was a remark
+we heard last winter. A still more forcible exclamation issued from the
+lips of a pilgrim from New York one evening in January. Looking round
+her sitting-room upon the roses gathered that day in the open air, upon
+the fly-brushes and fans and Oriental decorations, this misguided person
+moaned, in an almost tearful voice: "Oh, for a blizzard and a _fire_!"
+The reasonable traveller, of course, ought to remember that with a
+climate which has seven months of debilitating heat, and three and a
+half additional months of summer weather, the attention of the natives
+is not strongly turned towards devices for warmth. This consideration,
+however, does not make the fireless rooms agreeable during the few weeks
+that remain.
+
+[Illustration: THE NILE BRIDGE, CAIRO
+
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
+
+Another surprise is the rain. "In our time it rained in Egypt," writes
+Strabo, as though chronicling a miracle. Either the climate has changed,
+or Strabo was not a disciple of the realistic school, for in the January
+of this truthful record the rain descended in such a deluge in Cairo
+that the water came above the knees of the horses, and a ferry-boat was
+established for two days in one of the principal streets. Later the rain
+descended a second time with almost equal violence, and showers were by
+no means infrequent. (It may be mentioned in parenthesis that there was
+heavy rain at Luxor, four hundred and fifty miles south of Cairo, on the
+19th of February.) One does not object to these rains; they are in
+themselves agreeable; one wishes simply to note the impudence of the
+widely diffused statement that Egypt is a rainless land. So far nothing
+has been said against the winter climate of Cairo; objection has been
+made merely to the fireless condition of the houses--a fault which can
+be remedied. But now a real enemy must be mentioned--namely, the kamsin.
+This is a hot wind from the south, which parches the skin and takes the
+life out of one; it fills the air with a thick grayness, which you
+cannot call mist, because it is perfectly dry, and through which the sun
+goes on steadily shining, with a light so weird that one can think of
+nothing but the feelings of the last man, or the opening of the sixth
+seal. The regular kamsin season does not begin before May; the
+occasional days of it that bring suffering to travellers occur in
+February, March, and April. But what are five or six days of kamsin amid
+four winter months whose average temperature is 58� Fahrenheit? It is
+human nature to detect faults in climates which have been greatly
+praised, just as one counts every freckle on a fair face that is
+celebrated for its beauty. Give Cairo a few hearth fires, and its winter
+climate will seem delightful; although not so perfect as that of
+Florida, in our country, because in Florida there are no January
+mosquitoes.
+
+
+MOSQUES
+
+It must be remembered that Cairo is Arabian. "The Nile is Egypt," says a
+proverb. The Nile is mythical, Pharaonic, Ptolemaic; but Cairo owes its
+existence solely to the Arabian conquerors of the country, who built a
+fortress and palace here in A.D. 969.
+
+Very Arabian is still the call to prayer which is chanted by the
+muezzins from the minarets of the mosques several times during the day.
+We were passing through a crowded quarter near the Mooski one afternoon
+in January, when there was wafted across the consciousness a faint,
+sweet sound. It was far away, and one heard it half impatiently at
+first, unwilling to lift one's attention even for an instant from the
+motley scenes nearer at hand. But at length, teased into it by the very
+sweetness, we raised our eyes, and then it was seen that it came from a
+half-ruined minaret far above us. Round the narrow outer gallery of this
+slender tower a man in dark robes was pacing slowly, his arms
+outstretched, his face upturned to heaven. Not once did he look below as
+he continued his aerial round, his voice giving forth the chant which we
+had heard--"Allah akbar; Allah akbar; la Allah ill' Allah. Heyya
+alas-salah!" (God is great; God is great; there is no God but God, and
+Mohammed is his prophet. Come to prayer.) Again, another day, in the old
+Touloun quarter, we heard the sound, but it was much nearer. It came
+from a window but little above our heads, the small mosque within the
+quadrangle having no minaret. This time I could note the muezzin
+himself. As he could not see the sky from where he stood, his eyes were
+closed. I have never beheld a more concentrated expression of devotion
+than his quiet face expressed; he might have been miles away from the
+throng below, instead of three feet, as his voice gave forth the same
+strange, sweet chant. The muezzins are often selected from the ranks of
+the blind, as the duties of the office are within their powers; but this
+singer at the low window had closed his eyes voluntarily. The last time
+I saw the muezzin was towards the end of the season, when the spring was
+far advanced. Cairo gayety was at its height, the streets were crowded
+with Europeans returning from the races, the new quarter was as modern
+as Paris. But there are minarets even in the new quarter, or near it;
+and on one of the highest of these turrets, outlined against the glow of
+the sunset, I saw the slowly pacing figure, with its arms outstretched
+over the city--"Allah akbar; Allah akbar; come, come to prayer."
+
+There are over four hundred mosques in Cairo, and many of them are in a
+dilapidated condition. Some of these were erected by private means to
+perpetuate the name and good deeds of the founder and his family; then,
+in the course of time, owing to the extinction or to the poverty of the
+descendants, the endowment fund has been absorbed or turned into another
+channel, and the ensuing neglect has ended in ruin. When a pious Muslim
+of to-day wishes to perform a good work, he builds a new mosque. It
+would never occur to him to repair the old one near at hand, which
+commemorates the generosity of another man. It must be remembered that
+a mosque has no established congregation, whose duty it is to take care
+of it. A mosque, in fact, to Muslims has not an exclusively religious
+character. It is a place prepared for prayer, with the fountain which is
+necessary for the preceding ablutions required by Mohammed, and the
+niche towards Mecca which indicates the position which the suppliant
+must take; but it is also a place for meditation and repose. The poorest
+and most ragged Muslim has the right to enter whenever he pleases; he
+can say his prayers, or he can simply rest; he can quench his thirst; he
+can eat the food which he has brought with him; if he is tired, he can
+sleep. In mosques not often visited by travellers I have seen men
+engaged in mending their clothes, and others cooking food with a
+portable furnace. In the church-yard of Charlton Kings, England, there
+is a tombstone of the last century with an inscription which concludes
+as follows: "And his dieing request to his Sons and Daughters was, Never
+forsake the Charitys until the Poor had got their Rites." In the Cairo
+mosques the poor have their rites--both with the _gh_ and without. The
+sacred character of a mosque is, in truth, only made conspicuous when
+unbelievers wish to enter. Then the big shuffling slippers are brought
+out to cover the shoes of the Christian infidels, so that they may not
+touch and defile the mattings reserved for the faithful.
+
+[Illustration: BEFORE THE LITTLE MOSQUE
+
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
+
+After long neglect, something is being done at last to arrest the ruin
+of the more ancient of these temples. A commission has been appointed by
+the present government whose duty is the preservation of the monuments
+of Arabian art; occasionally, therefore, in a mosque one finds
+scaffolding in place and a general dismantlement. One can only hope for
+the best--in much the same spirit in which one hopes when one sees the
+beautiful old front of St. Mark's, Venice, gradually encroached upon by
+the new raw timbers. But in Cairo, at least, the work of repairing goes
+on very slowly; three hundred mosques, probably, out of the four hundred
+still remain untouched, and many of these are adorned with a delicate
+beauty which is unrivalled. I know no quest so enchanting as a search
+through the winding lanes of the old quarters for these gems of
+Saracenic taste, which no guide-book has as yet chronicled, no dragoman
+discovered. The street is so narrow that your donkey fills almost all
+the space; passers-by are obliged to flatten themselves against the
+walls in response to the Oriental adjurations of your donkey-boy behind:
+"Take heed, O maid!" "Your foot, O chief!" Presently you see a
+minaret--there is always a minaret somewhere; but it is not always easy
+to find the mosque to which it belongs, hidden, perhaps, as it is,
+behind other buildings in the crowded labyrinth. At length you observe a
+door with a dab or two of the well-known Saracenic honeycomb-work above
+it; instantly you dismount, climb the steps, and look in. You are almost
+sure to find treasures, either fragments of the pearly Cairo mosaic, or
+a wonderful ceiling, or gilded Kufic (old Arabian text) inscriptions and
+arabesques, or remains of the ancient colored glass which changes its
+tint hour by hour. Best of all, sometimes you find a space open to the
+sky, with a fountain in the centre, the whole surrounded by arcades of
+marble columns adorned with hanging lamps (or, rather, with the bronze
+chains which once carried the lamps), and with suspended ostrich
+eggs--the emblems of good-luck. One day, when my donkey was making his
+way through a dilapidated region, I came upon a mosque so small that it
+seemed hardly more than a base for its exquisite minaret, which towered
+to an unusual height above it. Of course I dismounted. The little mosque
+was open; but as it was never visited by strangers, it possessed no
+slippers, and without coverings of some kind it was impossible that
+unsanctified shoes, such as mine, should touch its matted floor; the
+bent, ancient guardian glared at me fiercely for the mere suggestion.
+One sees sometimes (even in 1890) in the eyes of old men sitting in the
+mosques the original spirit of Islam shining still. Once their religion
+commanded the sword; they would like to grasp it again, if they could.
+It was suggested that the matting might, for a backsheesh, be rolled up
+and put away, as the place was small. But the stern old keeper remained
+inflexible. Then the offer was made that so many piasters--ten (that is,
+fifty cents)--would be given to the blind. Now the blind are sacred in
+Cairo; this offer, therefore, was successful; all the matting was
+carefully rolled and stacked in a corner, the three or four Muslims
+present withdrew to the door, and the unbeliever was allowed to enter.
+She found herself in a temple of color which was incredibly rich. The
+floor was of delicate marble, and every inch of the walls was covered
+with a mosaic of porphyry and jasper, adorned with gilded inscriptions
+and bands of Kufic text; the tall pulpit, made of mahogany-colored wood,
+was carved from top to bottom in intricate designs, and ornamented with
+odd little plaques of fretted bronze; the sacred niche was lined with
+alabaster, turquoise, and gleaming mother-of-pearl; the only light came
+through the thick glass of the small windows far above, in
+downward-falling rays of crimson, violet, and gold. The old mosaic-work
+of the Cairo mosques is composed of small plates of marble and of
+mother-of-pearl arranged in geometrical designs; the delicacy of the
+minute cubes employed, and the intricacy of the patterns, are
+marvellous; the color is faint, unless turquoise has been added; but the
+glitter of the mother-of-pearl gives the whole an appearance like that
+of jewelry. Upon our departure five blind men were found drawn up in a
+line at the door. It would not have been difficult to collect fifty.
+
+[Illustration: TOMB-MOSQUE OF KAIT BEY]
+
+Another day, as my donkey was taking me under a stone arch, I saw on one
+side a flight of steps which seemed to say "Come!" At the top of the
+steps I found a picture. It was a mosque of the early pattern, with a
+large square court open to the sky. In the centre of this court was a
+well, under a marble dome, and here grew half a dozen palm-trees. Across
+the far end extended the sanctuary, which was approached through arcades
+of massive pillars painted in dark red bands. The pulpit was so old that
+it had lost its beauty; but the entire back wall of this Mecca side
+was covered with beautiful tiles of the old Cairo tints (turquoise-blue
+and dark blue), in designs of foliage, with here and there an entire
+tree. This splendid wall was in itself worth a journey. A few single
+tiles had been inserted at random in the great red columns, reminding
+one of the majolica plates which tease the eyes of those who care for
+such things--set impossibly high as they are--in the campaniles of old
+Italian churches along the Pisan coast.
+
+It may be asked, What is the shape of a mosque--its exterior? What is it
+like? You are more sure about this shape before you reach the Khedive's
+city than you are when you have arrived there; and after you have
+visited three or four mosques each day for a week, the clearness of your
+original idea, such as it was, has vanished forever. The mosques of
+Cairo are so embedded in other structures, so surrounded and pushed and
+elbowed by them, that you can see but little of their external form;
+sometimes a fa�ade painted in stripes is visible, but often a doorway is
+all. One must except the mosque of Sultan Hassan (which, to some of us,
+is dangerously like Aristides the Just). This mosque stands by itself,
+so that you can, if you please, walk round it. The chief interest of the
+walk (for the exterior, save for the deep porch, which can hardly be
+called exterior, is not beautiful) lies in the thought that as the walls
+were constructed of stones brought from the pyramids, perhaps among
+them, with faces turned inward, there may be blocks of that lost outer
+coating of the giant tombs--a coating which was covered with
+hieroglyphics. Now that hieroglyphics can be read, we may some day learn
+the true history of these monuments by pulling down a dozen of the Cairo
+mosques. But unless the commission bestirs itself, that task will not be
+needed for the edifice of Sultan Hassan; it is coming down, piece by
+piece, unaided. The mosques of Cairo are not beautiful as a Greek temple
+or an early English cathedral is beautiful; the charm of Saracenic
+architecture lies more in decoration than in the management of massive
+forms. The genius of the Arabian builders manifested itself in ornament,
+in rich effects of color; they had endless caprices, endless fancies,
+and expressed them all--as well they might, for all were beautiful. The
+same free spirit carved the grotesques of the old churches of France and
+Germany. But the Arabians had no love for grotesques; they displayed
+their liberty in lovely fantasies. Their one boldness as architects was
+the minaret.
+
+It is probably the most graceful tower that has ever been devised. In
+Cairo the rich fretwork of its decorations and the soft yellow hue of
+the stone of which it is constructed add to this beauty. Invariably
+slender, it decreases in size as it springs towards heaven, carrying
+lightly with it two or three external galleries, which are supported by
+stalactites, and ending in a miniature cupola and crescent. These
+stalactites (variously named, also, pendentives, recessed clusters, and
+honey-combed work) may be called the distinctive feature of Saracenic
+architecture. They were used originally as ornaments to mask the
+transition from a square court to the dome. But they soon took flight
+from that one service, and now they fill Arabian corners and angles and
+support Arabian curves so universally that for many of us the mere
+outline of one scribbled on paper brings up the whole pageant of the
+crescent-topped domes and towers of the East.
+
+The Cairo mosques are said to show the purest existing forms of
+Saracenic architecture. One hopes that this saying is true, for a
+dogmatic superlative of this sort is a rock of comfort, and one can
+remember it and repeat it. With the best of memories, however, one
+cannot intelligently see all these specimens of purity, unless, indeed,
+one takes up his residence in Cairo (and it is well known that when one
+lives in a place one never pays visits to those lions which other
+persons journey thousands of miles to see). Travellers, therefore, very
+soon choose a favorite and abide by it, vaunting it above all others, so
+that you hear of El Ghouri, with its striking fa�ade and magnificent
+ceiling, as "the finest," and of Kalaoon as "the finest," and of Moaiyud
+as ditto; not to speak of those who prefer the venerable Touloun and
+Amer, and the undiscriminating crowd that is satisfied, and rightly,
+with Aristides the Just--that is, the mosque of Sultan Hassan. For
+myself, after acknowledging to a weakness for the mosques which are not
+in the guide-books, which possess no slippers, I confess that I admire
+most the tomb-mosque of Kait Bey. It is outside of Cairo proper, among
+those splendid half-ruined structures the so-called tombs of the
+Khalifs. It stands by itself, its chiselled dome and minaret, a
+lace-work in stone, clearly revealed. It would take pages to describe
+the fanciful beauty of every detail, both without and within, and there
+must, in any case, come an end of repeating the words "elegance,"
+"mosaic," "minaret," "arabesque," "jasper," and "mother-of-pearl." The
+chief treasures of this mosque are two blocks of rose granite which bear
+the so-called impressions of the feet of Mohammed; the legend is that he
+rests here for a moment or two at sunset every Thursday. "How well I
+understand this fancy of the prophet!" exclaimed an imaginative visitor.
+"How I wish I could do the same!"
+
+
+THE GIZEH MUSEUM
+
+One of the great events of the winter of 1890 was the opening of the new
+Museum of Egyptian Antiquities at Gizeh. This magnificent collection,
+which until recently has been ill-housed at Boulak, is now installed in
+another suburb, Gizeh, in one of the large summer palaces built by the
+former Khedive, Ismail. To reach it one passes through the new quarter
+and crosses the handsome Nile bridge. Not only are all these streets
+watered, but the pedestrian also can have water if he likes. Large
+earthen jars, propped by framework of wood, stand here and there, with
+the drinking-bottle, or kulleh, attached; these jars are replenished by
+the sakkahs, who carry the much-loved Nile water about the streets for
+sale. One passes at regular intervals the light stands, made of split
+sticks, upon which is offered for sale, in flat loaves like pancakes,
+the Cairo bread. There are also the open-air cook shops--small furnaces,
+like a tin pan with legs; spread out on a board before them are saucers
+containing mysterious compounds, and the cook is in attendance, wearing
+a white apron. These cooks never lack custom; a large majority of the
+poorer class in Cairo obtains its hot food, when it obtains it at all,
+at these impromptu tables. Before long one is sure to meet a file of
+camels. The camel ought to appreciate travellers; there is always a
+tourist murmuring "Oh!" whenever one of these supercilious beasts shows
+himself near the Ezbekiyeh Gardens. The American, indeed, cannot keep
+back the exclamation; perhaps when he was a child he attended (oh, happy
+day!) the circus, and watched with ecstasy the "Grande Orientale Rentr�e
+of the Lights of the Harem"--two of these strange steeds, ridden by
+dazzling houris in veils of glittering gauze. The camel has remained in
+his mind ever since as the attendant of sultanas; though this impression
+may have become mixed in later years with the constantly recurring
+painting (in a dead-gold frame and red mat) of a camel and an Arab in
+the desert, outlined against a sunset sky. In either case, however,
+the animal represents something which is as far as possible from an
+American street traversed by horse-cars, and when the inhabitant of this
+street sees the identical creature passing him, engaged not in making
+rentr�es or posing against the sunset, but diligently at work carrying
+stones and mortar for his living, no wonder he feels that he has reached
+a land of dreams.
+
+[Illustration: A SELLER OF WATER-JUGS, CAIRO. From a photograph by
+Sebah, Cairo]
+
+Most of us do not lose our admiration for the Orientalness of the camel.
+But we learn in time that he has been praised for qualities which he
+does not possess. He is industrious, but he continually scolds about his
+industry; he may not trouble one with his thirst, but he revenges
+himself by his sneer. The smile of a camel is the most disdainful thing
+I know. On the other side of the Nile bridge one comes sometimes upon an
+acre of these beasts, all kneeling down in the extraordinary way
+peculiar to them, with their hind-legs turned up; here they chew as they
+rest, and put out their long necks to look at the passers-by. But the
+way to appreciate the neck of a camel is to be on a donkey; then, when
+the creature comes up behind and lopes past you, his neck seems to be
+the highest thing in Cairo--higher than a mosque.
+
+Beyond the bridge the road to Gizeh follows the river. Gizeh itself is
+the typical Nile village, with the low, clustered houses built of Nile
+mud (which looks like yellow-brown stucco), and beautiful feathery palms
+with a minaret or two rising above. The palace stands apart from the
+village, and is surrounded by large gardens. Opposite the central
+portico is the tomb of Mariette Pasha, the founder of the museum--a high
+sarcophagus designed from an antique model. Mariette Pasha (it may be
+mentioned here that the title Pasha means General, and that of Bey,
+Colonel) was a native of Boulogne. A mummy case in the museum of that
+town of schools first attracted his attention towards Egyptian
+antiquities, and in 1850 he came to Egypt. Khedive Said authorized him
+to found a museum; and Said's successor, Ismail, conferred upon him the
+exclusive right to make excavations, placing in his charge all the
+antiquities of Egypt. Mariette used these powers with intelligence and
+energy, giving the rest of his life to the task--a period of thirty
+years. He died in Cairo, at the age of sixty-one, in January, 1882. This
+Frenchman made many important discoveries, and he preserved to Egypt her
+remaining antiquities; before his time her treasures had been stolen and
+bought by all the world. A thought which haunts all travellers in this
+strange country is, how many more rich stores must still remain hidden!
+The most generally interesting among the recent discoveries was the
+finding of the Pharaohs, in 1881. The story has been given to the world
+in print, therefore it will be only outlined here. But by far the most
+fortunate way is to hear it directly from the lips of the keeper of the
+museum, Emil Brugsch Bey himself, his vivid, briefly direct narration
+adding the last charm to the striking facts. By the museum authorities
+it had been for several years suspected that some one at Luxor (Thebes)
+had discovered a hitherto unopened tomb; for funeral statuettes, papyri,
+and other objects, all of importance, were offered for sale there, one
+by one, and bought by travellers, who, upon their return to Cairo,
+displayed the treasures, without comprehending their value. Watch was
+kept, and suspicion finally centred upon a family of brothers; these
+Arabs at last confessed, and one of them led the way to a place not far
+from the temple called Deir-el-Bahari, which all visitors to Thebes will
+remember. Here, filled with sand, there was a shaft not unlike a well,
+which the man had discovered by chance. When the sand was removed, the
+opening of a lateral tunnel was visible below, and this tunnel led into
+the heart of the hill, where, in a rude chamber twenty feet high, were
+piled thirty or more mummy cases, most of them decorated with the royal
+asp. The mummies proved to be those of Sethi the First, the conqueror
+who carried his armies as far into Asia as the Orontes; and of Rameses
+the Great (called Sesostris by the Greeks), the Pharaoh who oppressed
+the Israelites; and of Sethi the Second, the Pharaoh of the Exodus,
+together with other sovereigns and members of their families, princes,
+princesses, and priests. At some unknown period these mummies had been
+taken from the magnificent rock tombs in that terrible Apocalyptic
+Valley of the Kings, not far distant, and hidden in this rough chamber.
+No one knows why this was done; a record of it may yet be discovered.
+But in time all knowledge of the hiding-place was lost, and here the
+Pharaohs remained until that July day in 1881. They were all transported
+across the burning plain and down the Nile to Cairo. Now at last they
+repose in state in an apartment which might well be called a
+throne-room. You reach this great cruciform hall by a handsome double
+stairway; upon entering, you see the Pharaohs ranged in a majestic
+circle, and careless though you may be, unhistorical, practical, you are
+impressed. The features are distinct. Some of the dark faces have
+dignity; others show marked resolution and power. Curiously enough, one
+of them closely resembles Voltaire. This, however, is probably due to
+the fact that Voltaire closely resembled a mummy while living. How would
+it seem, the thought that beings who are to come into existence A.D.
+5000 should be able, in the land which we now call the United States of
+America (what will it be called then?), to gaze upon the features of
+some of our Presidents--for instance, George Washington and Abraham
+Lincoln? I am afraid that the fancy is not as striking as it should be,
+for New World ambition grasps without difficulty all futures, even A.D.
+25,000; it is only when our eyes are turned towards the past, where we
+have no importance and represent nothing, that an enumeration of
+centuries overpowers us--a little. But in any case, after visiting
+Egypt, we all learn to hate the art of the embalmer; those who have been
+up the Nile, and beheld the poor relics of mortality offered for sale on
+the shores, become, as it were by force, advocates of cremation.
+
+[Illustration: STATUE OF PRINCE RAHOTEP'S WIFE
+
+Gizeh Museum.--Discovered in 1870 in a tomb near Meydoom.--According to
+the chronological table of Mariette, it is 5800 years old.--From a
+photograph by Sebah, Cairo.
+
+]
+
+The Gizeh Museum is vast; days are required to see all its treasures.
+Among the best of these are two colored statues, the size of life,
+representing Prince Rahotep and his wife; these were discovered in 1870
+in a tomb near Meydoom. Their rock-crystal eyes are so bright that the
+Arabs employed in the excavation fled in terror when they came upon the
+long-hidden chamber. They said that two afreets were sitting there,
+ready to spring out and devour all intruders. Railed in from his
+admirers is the intelligent, well-fed, highly popular wooden man, whose
+life-like expression raises a smile upon the faces of all who approach
+him. This figure is not in the least like the Egyptian statues of
+conventional type, with unnaturally placed eyes. As regards the head, it
+might be the likeness of a Berlin merchant of to-day, or it might be a
+successful American bank president after a series of dinners at
+Delmonico's. Yet, strange to say, this, and the wonderful diorite statue
+of Chafra, are the oldest sculptured figures in the world.
+
+One is tempted to describe some of the other treasures of this precious
+and unrivalled collection, as well as to note in detail the odd
+contrasts between Ismail's gayly flowered walls and the solemn
+antiquities ranged below them. "But here is no space," as Lady Mary
+Wortley Montagu would have expressed it. And one of the curious facts
+concerning description is that those who have with their own eyes seen
+the statue, for instance, which is the subject of a writer's pen (and it
+is the same with regard to a landscape, or a country, or whatever you
+please)--such persons sometimes like to read an account of it, though
+the words are not needed to bring up the true image of the thing
+delineated, whereas those who have never seen the statue--that is, the
+vast majority--are, as a general rule, not in the least interested in
+any description of it, long or short, and, indeed, consider all such
+descriptions a bore.
+
+At present the one fault of Gizeh is the absence of a catalogue. But
+catalogues are a mysterious subject, comprehended only by the elect.
+
+[Illustration: THE WOODEN MAN
+
+Gizeh Museum, near Cairo.--According to the chronological table of
+Marlette, this statue is over 6000 years old.--From a photograph by
+Brugsch Bey]
+
+One day when I was passing the hot hours in the shaded rooms of the
+museum, surrounded by seated granite figures with their hands on their
+knees (the coolest companions I know), I heard chattering and laughter.
+These are unusual sounds in those echoing halls, where unconsciously
+everybody whispers, partly because of the echo, and partly also, I
+think, on account of the mystic mummy cases which stand on end and look
+at one so queerly with their oblique eyes. Presently there came into
+view ten or twelve Cairo ladies, followed by eunuchs, and preceded by a
+guide. The eunuchs were (as eunuchs generally are) hideous, though they
+represented all ages, from a tall lank boy of seventeen to a withered
+old creature well beyond sixty. The Cairo eunuchs are negroes; one
+distinguishes them always by the extreme care with which they are
+dressed. They wear coats and trousers of black broadcloth made in the
+latest European style, with patent-leather shoes, and they are decorated
+with gold chains, seal rings, and scarf-pins; they have one merit as
+regards their appearance--I know of but one--they do look clean. The
+ladies were taking their ease; the muffling black silk outer cloaks,
+which all Egyptian women of the upper class wear when they leave the
+house, had been thrown aside; the white face veils had been loosened so
+that they dropped below the chin. It was the hareem of the Minister for
+Foreign Affairs; their carriages were waiting below. The most modest of
+men--a missionary, for instance, or an entomologist--would, I suppose,
+have put them to flight; but as the tourist season was over, and as it
+was luncheon-time for Europeans, no one appeared but myself, and the
+ladies strayed hither and thither as they chose, occasionally stopping
+to hear a few words of the explanations which the guide (a woman also)
+was vainly trying to give before each important statue. With one
+exception, these Cairo dames were, to say the least, extremely plump;
+their bare hands were deeply dimpled, their cheeks round. They all
+had the same very white complexion without rose tints; their features
+were fairly good, though rather thick; the eyes in each case were
+beautiful--large, dark, lustrous, with sweeping lashes. Their figures,
+under their loose garments, looked like feather pillows. They were
+awkward in bearing and gait, but this might have been owing to the fact
+that their small plump feet (in white open-work cotton stockings) were
+squeezed into very tight French slippers with abnormally high heels,
+upon which it must have been difficult to balance so many dimples. The
+one exception to the rule of billowy beauty was a slender, even meagrely
+formed girl, who in America would pass perhaps for seventeen; probably
+she was three years younger. Her thin, dark, restless face, with its
+beautiful inquiring eyes, was several times close beside mine as we both
+inspected the golden bracelets and ear-rings, the necklaces and fan, of
+Queen Ahhotpu, our sister in vanity of three thousand five hundred years
+ago. I looked more at her than I did at the jewels, and she returned my
+gaze; we might have had a conversation. What would I not have given to
+have been able to talk with her in her own tongue! After a while they
+all assembled in what is called the winter garden, an up-stairs
+apartment, where grass grows over the floor in formal little plots.
+Chairs were brought, and they seated themselves amid this aerial verdure
+to partake of sherbet, which the youngest eunuch handed about with a
+business-like air. While they were still here, much relaxed as regards
+attire and attitude, my attention was attracted by the rush through the
+outer room (where I myself was seated) of the four older eunuchs. They
+had been idling about; they had even gone down the stairs, leaving to
+the youngest of their number the task of serving the sherbet; but now
+they all appeared again, and the swiftness with which they crossed the
+outer room and dashed into the winter-garden created a breeze. They
+called to their charges as they came, and there was a general smoothing
+down of draperies. The eunuchs, however, stood upon no ceremony; they
+themselves attired the ladies in the muffling cloaks, and refastened
+their veils securely, as a nurse dresses children, and with quite as
+much authority. I noticed that the handsomer faces showed no especial
+haste to disappear from view; but there was no real resistance; there
+was only a good deal of laughter.
+
+I dare say that there was more laughter still (under the veils) when the
+cause of all this haste appeared, coming slowly up the stairs. It was a
+small man of sixty-five or seventy, one of my own countrymen, attired in
+a linen duster and a travel-worn high hat; his silver-haired head was
+bent over his guide-book, and he wore blue spectacles. I don't think he
+saw anything but blue antiquities, safely made of stone.
+
+Hareem carriages (that is, ladies' carriages) in Cairo are large,
+heavily built broughams. The occupants wear thin white muslin or white
+tulle veils tied across the face under the eyes, with an upper band of
+the same material across the forehead; but these veils do not in reality
+hide the features much more closely than do the dotted black or white
+lace veils worn by Europeans. The muffling outer draperies, however,
+completely conceal the figure, and this makes the marked difference
+between them and their English, French, and American sisters in the
+other carriages near at hand. On the box of the brougham, with the
+coachman, the eunuch takes his place. To go out without a eunuch would
+be a humiliation for a Cairo wife; to her view, it would seem to say
+that she is not sufficiently attractive to require a guardian. The
+hareem carriage of a man of importance has not only its eunuch, but also
+its sais, or running footman; often two of them. These winged creatures
+precede the carriage; no matter how rapid the pace of the horses, they
+are always in advance, carrying, lightly poised in one hand, high in the
+air, a long lance-like wand. Their gait is the most beautiful motion I
+have ever seen. The Mercury of John of Bologna; the younger gods of
+Olympus--will these do for comparisons? One calls the sais winged not
+only because of his speed, but also on account of his large white
+sleeves (in English, angel sleeves), which, though lightly caught
+together behind, float out on each side as he runs, like actual wings.
+His costume is rich--a short velvet jacket thickly embroidered with
+gold; a red cap with long silken tassel; full white trousers which end
+at the knee, leaving the legs and feet bare; and a brilliant scarf
+encircling the small waist. These men are Nubians, and are admirably
+formed; often they are very handsome. Naturally one never sees an old
+one, and it is said that they die young. Their original office was to
+clear a passage for the carriage through the narrow, crowded streets;
+now that the streets are broader, they are not so frequently seen,
+though Egyptians of rank still employ them, not only for their hareem
+carriages, but for their own. They are occasionally seen, also, before
+the victoria or the landau of European residents; but in this case their
+Oriental dress accords ill with the stiff, tight Parisian costumes
+behind them. Now and then one sees them perched on the back seat of an
+English dog-cart, and here they look well; they always sit sidewise,
+with one hand on the back of the seat, as though ready at a moment's
+notice to spring out and begin flying again.
+
+If the figures of the Cairo ladies are always well muffled, one has at
+least abundant opportunity to admire the grace and strength of the women
+of the working classes. When young they have a noble bearing. Their
+usual dress is a long gown of very dark blue cotton, a black head veil,
+and a thick black face veil that is kept in its place below the eyes by
+a gilded ornament which looks like an empty spool. Often their
+beautifully shaped slender feet are bare; but even the poorest are
+decked with anklets, bracelets, and necklaces of beads, imitation silver
+or brass. The men of the working classes wear blue gowns also, but the
+blue is of a much lighter hue; many of them, especially the farmers and
+farm laborers (called fellaheen), have wonderfully straight flat backs
+and broad, strong shoulders. Europeans, when walking, appear at a great
+disadvantage beside these loosely robed people; all their movements seem
+cramped when compared with the free, effortless step of the Arab beside
+them.
+
+
+THE BAZAARS
+
+One spends half one's time in the bazaars, perhaps. One admires them and
+adores them; but one feels that their attraction cannot be made clear to
+others by words. Nor can it be by the camera. There are a thousand
+photographic views of Cairo offered for sale, but, with the exception of
+an attempt at the gateway of the Khan Khaleel, not one copy of these
+labyrinths, which is a significant fact. Their charm comes from color,
+and this can be represented by the painter's brush alone. But even the
+painter can render it only in bits. From a selfish point of view we
+might perhaps be glad that there is one spot left on this earth whose
+characteristic aspect cannot be reproduced, either upon the wall or the
+pictured page, whose shimmering vistas must remain a purely personal
+memory. We can say to those who have in their minds the same fantastic
+vision, "Ah, _you_ know!" But we cannot make others know. For what is
+the use of declaring that a collection of winding lanes, some of them
+not more than three feet broad, opening into and leading out of each
+other, unpaved, dirty, roofed far above, where the high stone houses
+end, with a lattice-work of old mats--what is the use of declaring that
+this maze is one of the most delightful places in the world? There is no
+use; one must see it to believe it.
+
+[Illustration: AN EGYPTIAN WOMAN
+
+From a photograph by Abdullah Fr�res, Cairo]
+
+We approach the bazaars by the Mooski, a street which has lost all its
+ancient attraction--which is, in fact, one of the most commonplace
+avenues I know. But near its end the enchantment begins, and whether we
+enter the flag bazaar, the lemon-colored-slipper bazaar, the
+gold-and-silver bazaar, the bazaar of the Soudan, the bazaar of silks
+and embroideries, the bazaar of Turkish carpets, or the lane of perfumes
+felicitously named by the donkey-boys the smell bazaar, we are soon in
+the condition of children before a magician's table. I defy any one to
+resist it. The most tired American business man looks about him with
+awakened interest, the lines of his face relax and turn into the
+wrinkles we associate with laughter, as he sees the small, frontless
+shops, the long-skirted merchants, and the sewing, embroidering,
+cross-legged crowd. The best way, indeed, to view the bazaars is to
+relax--to relax your ideas of time as well as of pace, and not be in a
+hurry about anything. Accompany some one who is buying, but do not buy
+yourself; then you can have a seat on the divan, and even (as a friend
+of the purchaser) one of those wee cups of black coffee which the
+merchant offers, and which, whether you like it or not, you take,
+because it belongs to the scene. Thus seated, you can look about at your
+ease.
+
+In these days, when every one is rereading the _Arabian Nights_, the
+learned in Burton's translation, the outside public in Lady Burton's,
+even the most unmethodical of writers feels himself, in connection with
+Cairo, forced towards the inevitable allusion to Haroun. But once within
+the precincts of the Khan Khaleel, he does not need to have his fancy
+jogged by Burton or any one else; he thinks of the _Arabian Nights_
+instinctively, and "it's a poor tale," indeed, to quote Mrs. Poyser, if
+he does not meet the one-eyed calendar in the very first booth. But, as
+has already been said, it is useless to describe. All one can do is to
+set down a few impressions. One of the first of these is the charming
+light. The sunshine of Egypt has a great radiance, but it has also--and
+this is especially visible when one looks across any breadth of
+landscape--a pleasant quality of softness; it is a radiance which is
+slightly hazy and slightly golden brown, being in these respects quite
+unlike the pellucid white light of Greece. The Greeks frown; even the
+youngest of the handsome men who go about in ballet-like white
+petticoats and the brimless cap, has the ugly little perpendicular line
+between the eyes, produced by a constant knitting of the brows. Like the
+Greek, the Egyptian also is without protection for his eyes; the
+dragoman wears a small shawl over the fez, which covers the back of the
+neck and sides of the face, the Bedouins have a hood, but the large
+majority of the natives are unprotected. It is said that a Mohammedan
+can have no brim to his turban or tarboosh, because he must place his
+bare forehead upon the ground when he says his prayers, and this without
+removing his head-gear (which would be irreverent). However this may be,
+he goes about in Egypt with the sun in his eyes, though, owing to the
+softer quality of the light, he does not frown as the Greek frowns. For
+those who are not Egyptians, however, the light in Cairo sometimes seems
+too omnipresent; then, for refuge, they can go to the bazaars. The
+sunshine is here cut off horizontally by thick walls, and from above it
+is filtered through mats, whose many interstices cause a checker of
+light and shade in an infinite variety of unexpected patterns on the
+ground. This ground is watered. Somehow the air is cool; coming in from
+the bright streets outside is like entering an arbor. The little shops
+resemble cupboards; their floors are about three feet above the street.
+They have no doors at the back. When the merchant wishes to close his
+establishment, he comes out, pulls down the lid, locks it, and goes
+home. A picturesque characteristic is that in many cases the wares are
+simply sold here; they are also made, one by one, upon the spot. You can
+see the brass-workers incising the arabesques of their trays; you can
+see the armorers making arms, the ribbon-makers making ribbons, the
+jewellers blowing their forges, the ivory-carvers bending over their
+delicate task. As soon as each article is finished, it is dusted and
+placed upon the little shelf above, and then the apprentice sets to work
+upon a new one. In addition to the light, another thing one notices is
+the amazing way in which the feet are used. In Cairo one soon becomes as
+familiar with feet as one is elsewhere with hands; it is not merely that
+they are bare; it is that the toes appear to be prehensile, like
+fingers. In the bazaars the embroiderers hold their cloth with their
+toes; the slipper-makers, the flag-cutters, the brass-workers, the
+goldsmiths, employ their second set of fingers almost as much as they
+employ the first. Both the hands and feet of these men are well formed,
+slender, and delicate, and, by the rules of their religion, they are
+bathed five times each day.
+
+Mosques are near where they can get water for this duty. For the bazaars
+are not continuous rows of shops: one comes not infrequently upon the
+ornamental portal of an old Arabian dwelling-house, upon the forgotten
+tomb of a sheykh, with its low dome; one passes under stone arches;
+often one sees the doorway of a mosque. Humble-minded dogs, who look
+like jackals, prowl about. The populace trudges through the narrow
+lanes, munching sugar-cane whenever it can get it. Another favorite food
+is the lettuce-plant; but the leaves, which we use for salad, the
+Egyptians throw away; it is the stalk that attracts them.
+
+Lettuce-stalks are not rich food, but the bazaars of the people who eat
+them convey, on the whole, an impression of richness; this is owing to
+the sumptuousness of the prayer carpets, the gold embroideries, the
+gleaming silks, the Oriental brass-work with sentences from the Koran,
+the ivory, the ostrich plumes, the little silver bottles for kohl, the
+inlaid daggers, the turquoises and pearls, and the beautiful gauzes, a
+few of them embroidered with the motto, "I do this work for you," and on
+the reverse side, "And this I do for God." To some persons, the
+far-penetrating mystic sweetness from the perfume bazaar adds an element
+also. Here sit the Persian merchants in their delicate silken robes;
+they weigh incense on tiny scales; they sort the gold-embossed vials of
+attar of roses; their taper fingers move about amid whimsically small
+cabinets and chests of drawers filled with ambrosial mysteries. There is
+magic in names; these merchants are doubly interesting because they come
+from Ispahan! Scanderoun--there is another; how it rolls off the tongue!
+We do not wish for exact geographical descriptions of these places; that
+would spoil all. We wish to chant, like Kit Marlowe's Tamburlaine (and
+with similar indefiniteness):
+
+    "Is it not passing brave to be a king,
+    And march in triumph through Persepolis?"
+
+    "So will I ride through Samarcanda streets,
+    ... to Babylon, my lords; to Babylon!"
+
+[Illustration: THE NILE--COMING DOWN TO GET WATER
+
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
+
+When we leave Cairo we cannot take with us the light of these
+labyrinths; we cannot take their colors; but one traveller, last May,
+having found in an antiquity-shop an ancient perfume-burner, had the
+inspiration of bargaining with these Persians, seated cross-legged in
+their aromatic niches (said traveller on a white donkey outside), for
+small packages of sandal and aloes wood, of myrrh, of frankincense and
+ambergris, of benzoin, of dried rose leaves, and of other Oriental twigs
+and sticks, for the purpose of summing up, later, and in less congenial
+climes perhaps, the spicy atmosphere, at least, of the Cairo bazaars.
+What would be the effect of breathing always this fragrant air? Would it
+give a richer life, would it tinge the cheek with warmer hues? These
+merchants have complexions like cream-tinted tea-roses; their dark eyes
+are clear, and all their movements graceful; they are very tranquil, but
+not in the least sleepy; they look as if they could take part in subtle
+arguments, and pursue the finest chains of reasoning. Would an
+atmosphere perfumed by these Eastern woods clarify and rarefy our denser
+Occidental minds?
+
+
+THE NILE
+
+As every one who comes to Cairo goes up the Nile, the river is seldom
+thought of as it appears during its course past the Khedive's city. This
+simple vision of it is overshadowed by memories of Abydos, of Karnak and
+Thebes, and Phil�--the great temples on its banks which have impressed
+one so profoundly. Perhaps they have over-impressed; possibly the
+tension of continuous gazing has been kept up too long. In this case the
+victim, with his head in his hands, is ready to echo the (extremely
+true) exclamation of Dudley Warner, "There is nothing on earth so
+tiresome as a row of stone gods standing to receive the offerings of a
+Turveydrop of a king!" This was the mental condition of a lady who last
+winter, on a Nile boat, suddenly began to sew. "I have spent nine long
+days on this boat, staring from morning till night. One cannot stare at
+a river forever, even if it _is_ the Nile! Give me my thimble."
+
+One is not obliged to leave Cairo in order to see examples of the
+smaller silhouettes of the great river--the shadoofs or irrigating
+machines, the rows of palm-trees, the lateen yards clustered near a
+port, and always and forever the women coming down the bank to get water
+from the yellow tide. These processions of women are the most
+characteristic "Nile scene with figures" of the present day. I am not
+sure but that one of their jars, or the smaller gray kulleh (which by
+evaporation keeps the water deliciously cool), would evoke "Egypt" more
+quickly in the minds of most of us than even the portrait of Cleopatra
+herself on the back wall at Denderah. If one is staying in Cairo after
+the tremendous voyage is over, one wanders to the banks every now and
+then to gaze anew at the broad, monotonous stream. It comes from the
+last remaining unknown territory of our star, and this very year has
+seen that space grow smaller. Round about it stand to-day five or six of
+the civilized nations, who have formed a battue, and are driving in the
+game. The old river had a secret, one of the three secrets of the world;
+but though the North and South Poles still remain unmapped, the annual
+rise of its waters will be strange no longer when Lado is a second
+Birmingham. How will it seem when we can telephone to Sennaar (perhaps
+to that ambassador beloved by readers of the Easy Chair), or when there
+is early closing in Darfur?
+
+[Illustration: THE DOCK AT OLD CAIRO
+
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
+
+At Cairo, when one rides or drives, one almost always crosses the Nile;
+but Cairo herself does not cross. Her more closely built quarters do not
+even come down to the shore. The Nile and Cairo are two distinct
+personalities; they are not one and indivisible, as the Nile and Thebes
+are one, the Nile and Phil�.
+
+The river at Cairo has a dull appearance. Its only beauty comes from the
+towering snow-white sails of the dahabeeyahs and trading craft that
+crowd the stream. It is true that these have a great charm.
+
+
+DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE
+
+In the old quarters this is Arabian. The beauty lies largely in the
+latticed balconies called mouchrabiyehs, which overhang the narrow
+roadways. These bay-windows sometimes stud the fa�ades thickly, now
+large, now small, but always a fretwork of delicate wood-carving. Often
+from the bay projects a second and smaller oriel, also latticed. This is
+the place for the water jar, the current of air through the lattices
+keeping the water cool. An Arabian house has no windows on the
+ground-floor in its outer wall save small air-holes placed very high,
+but above are these mouchrabiyehs, which are made of bits of cedar
+elaborately carved in geometrical designs. The small size of the pieces
+is due to the climate, the heats of the long summer would warp larger
+surfaces of wood; but the delicacy and intricacy of the carving are a
+work of supererogation due to Arabian taste. From the mouchrabiyehs the
+inmates can see the passers-by, but the passers-by cannot see the
+inmates, an essential condition for the carefully guarded privacy of the
+family.
+
+There is in Cairo a personage unconnected with the government who, among
+the native population, is almost as important as the Khedive himself;
+this is the Sheykh Ahmed Mohammed es Sadat, the only descendant in the
+direct line of the Prophet Mohammed now living. He has the right to many
+native titles, though he does not put them on his quiet little
+visiting-card, which bears only his name and a mysterious monogram in
+Arabic. By Europeans he is called simply the Sheykh (the word means
+chief) es Sadat. The ancestral dwelling of the sheykh shares in its
+master's distinction. It is pointed out, and, when permission can be
+obtained, visited. It is a typical specimen of Saracenic domestic
+architecture, and has always remained in the possession of the family,
+for whom it was first erected eight hundred years ago. There are in
+Cairo other Arabian houses as beautiful and as ancient as this. By
+diplomatic (and mercenary) arts I gained admittance to three, one of
+which has walls studded with jasper and mother-of-pearl. But these
+exquisite chambers, being half ruined, fill the mind with wicked
+temptations. One longs to lay hands upon the tiles, to bargain for an
+inscription or for a small oriel with the furtive occupants, who have no
+right to sell, the real owners being Arabs of ancient race, who would
+refuse to strip their walls, however crumbling, for unbelievers from
+contemptible, paltry lands beyond the sea. The house of the Sheykh es
+Sadat may not leave one tranquil, for it is tantalizingly picturesque,
+but at least it does not inspire larceny; the presence of many servitors
+prevents that. To reach this residence one leaves (gladly) the Boulevard
+Mohammed Ali, and takes a narrower thoroughfare, the Street of the
+Sycamores, which bends towards the south. This lane winds as it goes,
+following the course of the old canal, the Khaleeg, and one passes many
+of the public fountains, or sebeels, which are almost as numerous in
+Cairo as the mosques. A fountain in Arab signification does not mean a
+jet of water, but simply a place where water can be obtained. The
+sebeels are beautiful structures, often having marble walls, a dome, and
+the richest kind of ornament. The water is either dipped with a cup from
+the basin within, or drawn from the brass mouth-pieces placed
+outside. Nothing could represent better, I think, the difference between
+the East and the West than one of these elaborate fountains, covering,
+in a crowded quarter, the space which might have been occupied by two or
+three small houses, adorned with carved stone-work, slabs of porphyry,
+and long inscriptions in gilt, and an iron town pump, its erect
+slenderness taking up no space at all, and its excellent if unbeautiful
+handle standing straight out against the sky.
+
+[Illustration: MOUCHRABIYEHS IN THE OLD QUARTER]
+
+A narrow lane, leaving the Street of the Sycamores, burrows still more
+deeply into the heart of the quarter, and at last brings us to a porch
+which juts into the roadway, masking, as is usual in Cairo, the real
+doorway, which is within. Upon entering, one finds himself in a
+quadrilateral court, which is open to the sky. An old sycamore shades
+several latticed windows, among them one which contains three of the
+smaller oriels; this portion of the second story rests upon an antique
+marble column. On one side of the column is the low, rough archway
+leading to the porch; on the other, the high decorated marble entrance
+of the reception-hall. For in Arabian houses all the magnificence is
+kept for the interior. In the streets one sees only plain stone walls,
+which are often hidden under a stucco of mud, more or less peeled off,
+so that they look half ruined. In the old quarters of Cairo, among the
+private houses, one obtains, indeed (unless one has an invitation to
+enter), a general impression of ruin. At the back of the sheykh's court
+is the stairway to the hareem, the entrance masked by a gayly colored
+curtain. Across another side extends the private mosque, only half
+hidden by an ornamented grating. One can see the interior and the high
+pulpit decked with the green flag of the Prophet. The walls which
+encircle the court, and which are embellished here and there with Arabic
+inscriptions, are of differing heights, as they form parts of separate
+structures which have been erected at various periods through the eight
+centuries. The place is, in fact, an agglomeration of houses, and some
+of the older chambers are crumbling and roofless. The central court
+(which shows its age only in a picturesque trace or two) is adorned with
+at least twenty beautiful mouchrabiyehs, some large, some small, and no
+two on the same level. A charm of Saracenic architecture is that you can
+always make discoveries, nothing is stereotyped; of a dozen delicate
+rosettes standing side by side under a balcony, no two are carved in the
+same design.
+
+[Illustration: INTERIOR COURT OF A NATIVE HOUSE, CAIRO
+
+From a photograph by Abdullah Fr�res, Cairo]
+
+In a room which stretches back to the garden--and which at the time of
+our visit was empty, save for a row of antique silver-gilt coffee-pots
+standing on the marble floor--there is a long, low window, like a band
+in the wall, formed of small carved lattices. The hand of Abbey only, I
+think, could reproduce the beauty of this casement; but instead of the
+charming seventeenth-century English girls whom he would wish to place
+there, realism would demand the hideous eunuchs, with their gold chains
+and scarf-pins; or else (and this would be better) the dignified old
+Arab in a white turban who sat cross-legged in the court with his long
+pipe, his half-closed eyes expressing his disdain for the American
+visitors. The courtesy of the master of the house, however, made up for
+his servitor's scorn. The sheykh is a tall man, somewhat too portly,
+with amiable dark eyes, and a gleam of humor in his face. One scans his
+features with interest, as if to catch some reflection of the Prophet;
+but the rays from an ancestor who walked the earth twelve hundred years
+ago are presumably faint. There is nothing modern in the sheykh's
+attire; his handsome flowing gown is of silk; he wears a turban,
+slippers, and an India shawl wound round his waist like a sash. When the
+air is cool, he shrouds himself in a large outer cloak of fine dark
+blue cloth, which is lined with white fur. Sometimes Signor Ahmed
+carries in his hand the Mohammedan rosary. This string of beads appears
+to be used as Madame de Sta�l used her "little stick," as the English
+called it (in Italy, more poetically, they named it "a twig of laurel").
+Corrinne must always have this beside her plate at dinner to play with
+before she conversed, or rather declaimed. Her maid, in confidence,
+explained that it was necessary to madame "to stimulate her ideas." One
+often sees the rosary on duty when two Turks are conversing. After a
+while, their subjects failing them, they fall into silence. Then each
+draws out his string from a pocket, and they play with their beads for a
+moment or two, until, inspiration reviving, they begin talking again.
+One hopes that poor Ahmed Mohammed has not been driven to his string too
+often as mental support during dumb visits from Anglo-Saxon tourists,
+who can do nothing but stare at him. The sheykh's reception-hall is
+forty feet wide and sixty feet long. The ceiling, which has the
+Saracenic pendentives in the corners and under the beams, is of wood,
+gilded and painted and carved in the characteristic style which one
+vainly tries to describe. Travellers have likened it to an India shawl;
+to me it seemed to approach more nearly the wrong side of a Persian
+scarf, which shows the many-hued silken ravellings. The effect, as a
+whole, though extraordinarily rich, is yet subdued. The walls are
+encrusted with old blue tiles which mount to the top. At one end of the
+room there is a beautiful wall-fountain. And now comes the other side of
+the story. To enjoy all this beauty, you must not look down; for, alas!
+the marble floor is tightly covered with a modern French carpet; chairs
+and tables of the most ordinary modern designs have taken the place of
+the old divans; and these tables, furthermore, are ornamented with
+hideous bouquets of artificial flowers under glass. Finally, the tiles
+which have fallen from the lower part of the walls have not been
+replaced by others; a coarse fresco has been substituted. What would not
+one give to see the sheykh, who is himself a purely Oriental figure,
+seated in this splendid hall of his fathers as it once was, on one of
+the now superseded divans, the marbles of his floor uncovered save for
+his discarded Turkish rugs, the fountain sending forth its rose-water
+spray, perfume burning in the silver receivers, and no encumbering
+furniture save piles of brocaded cushions and a jar or two on the gilded
+shelf.
+
+But we shall never see this. In 1889, 180,594 travellers crossed Egypt
+by way of the Suez Canal. In this item of statistics we have the reason.
+
+
+THE PYRAMIDS
+
+For those who have fair eyesight the pyramids of Gizeh are a part of
+Cairo; their gray triangles against the sky are visible from so many
+points that they soon become as familiar as a neighboring hill. In
+addition, they have been pictured to us so constantly in paintings,
+drawings, engravings, and photographs that one views them at first more
+with recognition than surprise. "There they are! How natural!" And this
+long familiarity makes one shrink from arranging phrases about them.
+
+One thing, however, can be said: when we are in actual fact under them,
+when we can touch them, our easy acquaintance vanishes, and we suddenly
+perceive that we have never comprehended them in the least. The strange
+geometrical walls effect a spiritual change in us; they free us from
+ourselves for a moment, and unconsciously we look back across the past
+to which they belong, and into the future, of which they are a part
+much more than we are, as unmindful of our own little cares and
+occupations, and even our own small lives, as though we had never been
+chained to them. It is but a fleeting second, perhaps, that this mental
+emancipation lasts, but it is a second worth having!
+
+One drives to the pyramids in an hour, over a macadamized road. The
+perennial stories about trouble with the Bedouins belong to the past.
+Soldiers and policemen guard the sands as they guard the Cairo streets,
+and the proffer of false antiquities is not more pressing, perhaps, than
+the demands of the beggars in town. These three pyramids of Gizeh are
+those we think of before we have visited Egypt. But there are others;
+including the small ones and those which are ruined, seventy have been
+counted in twenty-five miles from Cairo to Meydoom, and pyramids are to
+be seen in other parts of Egypt. The stories concerning Gizeh and the
+travellers who, from Herodotus down, have visited the colossal tombs,
+are innumerable. I do not know why the one about Lepsius should seem to
+me amusing. This learned man and his party, who were sent to Egypt by
+King Frederick William of Prussia in 1842, celebrated that king's
+birthday by singing in chorus the Prussian national anthem in the centre
+of Cheops. The Bedouins in attendance reported outside that they had
+"prayed all together a loud general prayer."
+
+In connection with the pyramids, the English may be said to have devoted
+themselves principally to measurements. The genius of the French, which
+is ever that of expression, has invented the one great sentence about
+them. So far, the Americans have done nothing by which to distinguish
+themselves; but their time will come, perhaps. One fancies that Edison
+will have something to do with it. In the meanwhile modernity is already
+there. There is a hotel at the foot of Cheops, and one hardly knows
+whether to laugh or to cry when one sees lawn-tennis going on there
+daily.
+
+But no matter what lies before us--even if they should pave the desert,
+and establish an English tramway (or a line of American horse-cars) to
+the Sphinx--these mighty masses cannot be belittled. There is something
+in the pyramids which overawes our boasted civilization. In their
+presence this seems trivial; it seems an impertinence.
+
+
+THE COPTS
+
+The most interesting of the Coptic churches are at Old Cairo, a mother
+suburb, where the first city was founded by the conquering Arabian army.
+Here, ensconced amid hill-like mounds of rubbish, concealed behind mud
+walls, hidden at the end of blind alleys, one finds the temples of these
+native Christians, who are the descendants of the converts of St. Mark.
+The exterior walls have no importance. In truth, one seldom sees them,
+for the churches are within other structures. Some of them form part of
+old fortified convents; one is reached by passing through the
+dwelling-rooms of an inhabited house; another is up-stairs in a Roman
+tower. You arrive somehow at a door. When this is opened, you find
+yourself in a church whose general aspect is rough, and whose aisles are
+adorned with dust and sometimes with dirt. But these temples have their
+treasures. Chief among them are the high choir screens of dark wood,
+elaborately carved in panels, and decorated with morsels of ivory which
+have grown yellow from age. The sculpture is not open-work; it does not
+go through the panel; it is done in relief. The designs are Saracenic,
+but these geometrical patterns are interrupted every now and then by
+Christian emblems and by the Coptic cross. The style of this
+wood-carving is unique; no other sculpture resembles it. If it does not
+quite attain beauty, it is at least very odd and rich. There are also
+carved doors representing Scriptural subjects, marble pulpits, singular
+bronze candlesticks, brass censers adorned with little bells,
+silver-gilt gospel-cases, embroidered vestments, silver marriage-diadems,
+ostrich eggs in metal cases, and old Byzantine paintings, often
+representing St. George, for St. George is the patron saint of the
+Copts.
+
+[Illustration: A DONKEY RIDE]
+
+These people esteem themselves to be the true descendants of the ancient
+Egyptians, as distinguished from the conquering race of Arabians who
+have now overrun their land. It is a comical idea, but they call upon
+us to note their close resemblance to the mummies. Early converts to
+Christianity, they have remained faithful to their belief amid the
+Mohammedan population all about them. It must be mentioned, however,
+that they had been pronounced heretics by the Council of Chalcedon
+before the Arabian conquest; for they had refused to worship the human
+nature of Christ, revering His divine nature alone. They are the
+guardians of the Christian legends of Egypt. In a crypt under one of
+their churches they show two niches. One, they say, was the
+sleeping-place of Joseph, and the other of the Virgin and Child, during
+the flight into Egypt. Near Heliopolis is an ancient tree, under whose
+branches the Holy Family are supposed to have rested when the sunshine
+was too hot for further travelling.
+
+There are between four and five hundred thousand Copts in Egypt. It may
+be mentioned here that the Christians of the country, including all
+branches of the faith, number to-day about six hundred thousand, or
+one-tenth of the population. The Copts are the book-keepers and scribes;
+they are also the jewellers and embroiderers. Their ancient tongue has
+fallen into disuse, and is practically a dead language. They now use
+Arabic, like all the rest of the nation; but the speech survives in
+their church service, a part of which is still given in the old tongue,
+though it is said that even the priests themselves do not always
+understand what they are saying, having merely learned the sentences by
+heart, so that they can repeat them as a matter of form. Copts have been
+converted to Protestantism during these latter days by the American
+missionaries.
+
+They are not, in appearance, an attractive people. Their convents and
+churches, at least in Cairo and its neighborhood, are so hidden away,
+inaccessible, and dirty that they are but slightly appreciated by the
+majority of travellers, who spend far more of their time among the
+mosques of Mohammed. But both the people and their ancient language are
+full of interest from an historical point of view. They form a field for
+research which will give some day rich results. A little has been done,
+and well done; but much still remains hidden. It has yet to be dug out
+by the learned. Then it must be translated by the middle-men into those
+agreeable little histories which, with agreeable little tunes, agreeable
+little stories, and agreeable little pictures, are the delight of the
+many.
+
+
+KIEF
+
+The large modern caf�s of Cairo are imitations of the caf�s of Paris.
+They are uninteresting, save that one sees under their awnings, or at
+the little tables within, the stambouline in all its glory and
+ugliness--that is, the heavy black frock-coat with stiff collar, which,
+with the fez or tarboosh, is the appointed costume for all persons who
+are employed by the government. The stranger, observing the large number
+of men of all ages in this attire, is led to the conclusion that the
+government must employ many thousands of persons in Cairo alone; but
+probably there is a permitted usage in connection with it, like that
+mysterious legend--"By especial appointment to the Queen"--which one
+sees so often in England inscribed over the doors of little shops in
+provincial High Streets, where the inns have names which to Americans
+are as fantastic as anything in "Tartarin;" the "White Horse;" the "Crab
+and Lobster;" the "Three Choughs;" and the "Five Alls."
+
+The native caf�s have much more local color than the homes of the
+stambouline. Outside are rows of high wooden settees, upon which the
+patrons of the establishment sit cross-legged, their slippers left on
+the ground below. One often sees a row of Arabs squatting here, holding
+no communication with each other, hearing nothing, seeing nothing,
+enjoying for the moment an absolute rest. This period of daily repose,
+called kief, is a necessity for Egyptians. It has its overweight, its
+excess, in the smoking of hasheesh, which is one of the curses of the
+land; but thousands of the people who never touch hasheesh would
+understand as little how to get through their day without this
+interregnum as without eating; in fact, eating is less important to
+them.
+
+The Egyptian often takes his rest at the caf�. When the American sees
+Achmet and Ibrahim, who have attended to some of his errands for
+infinitesimal wages--men whose sole possessions are the old cotton gowns
+on their backs--when he sees them squatted in broad daylight at the
+caf�, smoking the long pipes and slowly drinking the Mocha coffee, it
+appears to him an inexplicable idleness, an incurable self-indulgence.
+It is idleness, no doubt, but associations should not be mixed with the
+subject. To the American the little cup of after-dinner coffee seems a
+luxury. He does not always stop to remember that Achmet's coffee is,
+very possibly, all the dinner he is to have; that it has been preceded
+by nothing since daylight but a small piece of Egyptian bread, and that
+it will be followed by nothing before bedtime but a mouthful of beans or
+a lettuce-stalk. The daily rest is by no means taken always at the caf�.
+Egyptians also take it at the baths, where, after the final douche, they
+spend half an hour in motionless ease. For those who have not the paras
+for the caf� or the bath, the mosques offer their shaded courts. When
+there is no time to seek another place, the men take their rest wherever
+they are. One often sees them lying asleep, or apparently asleep, in
+their booths at the bazaars. The very beggars draw their rags round
+them, cover their faces, and lie down close to a wall in the crowded
+lanes.
+
+[Illustration: AN ARAB CAF�
+
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
+
+At the caf�s, during another stage of the rest, games are played, the
+favorites being dominos, backgammon, and chess. Sometimes a story-teller
+entertains the circle. He narrates the deeds of Antar and legends of
+adventure; he also tells stories from the Bible, such as the tale of the
+flood, or of Daniel in the den of lions. Sometimes he recites, in
+Arabic, the poems of Omar Khayyam.
+
+    "I sent my soul through the invisible,
+      Some letter of that after-life to spell;
+    And by-and-by my soul returned to me,
+      And answered, 'I myself am heaven and hell!'"
+
+This verse of the Persian poet might be taken as the motto of kief; for
+if the heaven or hell of each person is simply the condition of his own
+mind, then if he is able every day to reduce his mind, even for a
+half-hour only, to a happy tranquillity which has forgotten all its
+troubles, has he not gained that amount of paradise?
+
+
+II
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: arabic]
+
+"I love the Arabian language for three reasons: because I am an Arab
+myself; because the Koran is in Arabic; because Arabic is the language
+of Paradise." This hadith, or saying, of Mohammed might be put upon the
+banner of the old university of Cairo, El Azhar; that is, the Splendid.
+El Azhar was founded in the tenth century, when Cairo itself was hardly
+more than a name. In its unmoved attachment to the beliefs of its
+founders, to their old enthusiasms, their methods and hates, El Azhar
+has opposed an inflexible front to the advance of European ideas,
+sending out year after year its hundreds of pupils to all parts of Egypt
+and to Nubia, to the Soudan and to Morocco, to Turkey, Arabia, and
+Syria, to India and Ceylon, and to the borders of Persia, believing that
+so long as it could keep the education of the young in its grasp the
+reign of the Prophet was secure. It is to-day the most important
+Mohammedan college in the world; for though it has no longer the twenty
+thousand students who crowded its courts in the thirteenth and
+fourteenth centuries, there is still an annual attendance of from seven
+to ten thousand; by some authorities the number is given as twelve
+thousand. The twelve thousand have no academic groves; they have not
+even one tree. There is nothing sequestered about El Azhar; it is near
+the bazaars in the old part of the town, where the houses are crowded
+together like wasps' nests. One sees nothing of it as one approaches
+save the minarets above, and in the narrow, crowded lane an outer
+portal. Here the visitor must show his permit and put on the
+mosque-shoes, for El Azhar was once a mosque, and is now mosque and
+university combined. After the shoes are on he steps over the low bar,
+and finds himself within the porch, which is a marvel as it stands, with
+its fretwork, carved stones, faded reds, and those old plaques of
+inscription which excite one's curiosity so desperately, and which no
+dragoman can ever translate, no matter in how many languages he can
+complacently ask, "You satisfi?" One soon learns something of the older
+tongue; hieroglyphics are not difficult; any one with eyes can discover
+after a while that the A of the ancient Egyptians is, often, a bird who
+bears a strong resemblance to a pigeon; that their L is a lion; and that
+the name of the builder of the Great Pyramid, for instance, is
+represented by a design which looks like two freshly hatched chickens, a
+football, and a horned lizard (speaking, of course, respectfully of them
+all). But one can never find out the meaning of the tantalizing
+characters, so many thousand years nearer our own day, which confront
+us, surrounded by arabesques, over old Cairo gateways, across the fronts
+of the street fountains, or inscribed in faded gilt on the crumbling
+walls of mosques. It is probable that they are Kufic, and one would
+hardly demand, I suppose, that an English guide should read
+black-letter? But who can be reasonable in the land of Aladdin's Lamp?
+
+The porch leads to the large central court, which is open to the sky,
+the breeze, and the birds; and this last is not merely a possibility,
+for birds of all kinds are numerous in Egypt, and unmolested. On the
+pavement of this court, squatting in groups, are hundreds of the
+turbaned students, some studying aloud, some reading aloud (it is always
+aloud), some listening to a professor (who also squats), some eating
+their frugal meals, some mending their clothes, and some merely
+chatting. These groups are so many and so close together that often the
+visitor can only make the circuit of the place on its outskirts; he
+cannot cross. There is generally a carrier of drinking-water making his
+rounds amid the serried ranks. "For whoever is thirsty, here is water
+from God," he chants. One is almost afraid to put down the melodious
+phrase, for the street cries of Cairo have become as trite as the _Ranz
+des Vaches_ of Switzerland. Still, some of them are so imaginative and
+quaint that they should be rescued from triteness and made classic. Here
+is one which is chanted by the seller of vegetables--the best beans, it
+should be explained, come from Embebeh, beyond Boulak--"Help, O Embebeh,
+help! The beans of Embebeh are better than almonds. Oh-h, how _sweet_
+are the little sons of the river!" (This last phrase makes poetical
+allusion to the soaking in Nile water, which is required before the
+beans can be cooked.) Certain famous baked beans nearer home also
+require preliminary soaking. Let us imagine a huckster calling out in
+Boston streets, as he pursues his way: "Help, O Beverly, help! The beans
+of Beverly are better than peaches. Oh-h, how _sweet_ are the little
+sons of Cochituate!"
+
+[Illustration: PORCH OF EL AZHAR
+
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
+
+The central court of the Splendid is surrounded by colonnades, whose
+walls are now undergoing repairs; but the propping beams do not appear
+to disturb either the pupils or teachers. On the east side is the
+sanctuary, which is also a school-room, but a covered one; it is a
+large, low-ceilinged hall, covering an area of thirty-six hundred square
+yards; by day its light is dusky; by night it is illuminated by twelve
+hundred twinkling little lamps suspended from the ceiling by bronze
+chains. The roof is supported by three hundred and eighty antique
+columns of marble and granite placed in irregular ranges; there are so
+many of these pillars that to be among them is like standing in a grove.
+The pavement is smoothly covered with straw matting; and here also are
+assembled throngs of pupils--some studying, some reciting, some asleep.
+I paid many visits to El Azhar, moving about quietly with my venerable
+little dragoman, whom I had selected for an unusual accomplishment--silence.
+One day I came upon an arithmetic class; the professor, a thin,
+ardent-eyed man of forty, was squatted upon a beautiful Turkish rug at
+the base of a granite column; his class of boys, numbering thirty, were
+squatted in a half-circle facing him, their slates on the matting before
+them. The professor had a small black-board which he had propped up so
+that all could see it, and there on its surface I saw inscribed that
+enemy of my own youth, a sum in fractions--three-eighths of seven-ninths
+of twelve-twentieths of ten-thirty-fifths, and so on; evidently the
+terrible thing is as savage as ever! The professor grew excited; he
+harangued his pupils; he did the sum over and over, rubbing out and
+rewriting his ferocious conundrum with a bit of chalk. Slender Arabian
+hands tried the sum furtively on the little slates; but no one had
+accomplished the task when, afraid of being remarked, I at last turned
+away.
+
+The outfit of a well-provided student at El Azhar consists of a rug, a
+low desk like a small portfolio-easel, a Koran, a slate, an inkstand,
+and an earthen dish. Instruction is free, and boys are admitted at the
+early age of eight years. The majority of the pupils do not remain after
+their twelfth or fourteenth year; a large number, however, pursue their
+studies much longer, and old students return from time to time to obtain
+further instruction, so that it is not uncommon to see a gray-bearded
+pupil studying by the side of a child who might be his grandson. To me
+it seemed that two-thirds of the students were men between thirty and
+forty years of age; but this may have been because one noticed them
+more, as collegians so mature are an unusual sight for American eyes.
+
+All the pupils bow as they study, with a motion like that of the bowing
+porcelain mandarins. The custom is attributed to the necessity for
+bending the head whenever the name of Allah is encountered; as the first
+text-book is always the Koran, children have found it easier to bow at
+regular intervals with an even motion than to watch for the numerous
+repetitions of the name. The habit thus formed in childhood remains, and
+one often sees old merchants in the bazaars reading for their own
+entertainment, and bowing to and fro as they read. I have even beheld
+young men, smartly dressed in full European attire, who, lost in the
+interest of a newspaper, had forgotten themselves for the moment, and
+were bending to and fro unconsciously at the door of a French caf�. A
+nation that enjoys the rocking-chair ought to understand this. Some of
+the students of El Azhar have rooms outside, but many of them possess no
+other shelter than these two courts, where they sleep upon their rugs
+spread over the matting or pavement. Food can be brought in at pleasure,
+but those two Oriental time-consumers, pipes and coffee, are not allowed
+within the precincts. In one of the porches barbers are established;
+there is generally a row of students undergoing the process of
+head-shaving. The fierce, fanatical blind pupils, so often described in
+the past by travellers, are no longer there; the porter can show only
+their empty school-room. Blindness is prevalent in Egypt; no doubt the
+sunshine of the long summer has something to do with it, but another
+cause is the neglected condition of young children. There is no belief
+so firmly established in the minds of Egyptian mothers as the
+superstition that the child who is clean and well-dressed will
+inevitably attract the dreaded evil-eye, and suffer ever afterwards from
+the effects of the malign glance. I have seen women who evidently
+belonged to the upper ranks of the middle class--women dressed in silk,
+with gold ornaments, and a following servant--who were accompanied by a
+poor baby of two or three years of age, so dirty, so squalid and
+neglected, that any one unacquainted with the country would have
+supposed it to be the child of a beggar.
+
+In addition to the bowing motion, instruction at El Azhar is aided by a
+mnemonic system, the rules of grammar, and other lessons also, being
+given in rhyme. I suppose our public schools are above devices of this
+sort; but there are some of us among the elders who still fly mentally,
+when the subject of English history comes up, to that useful poem
+beginning "First, William the Norman;" and I have heard of the rules for
+the use of "shall" and "will" being properly remembered only when set to
+the tune of "Scotland's burning!" Surely any tune--even "Man the
+Life-boat"--would become valuable if it could clear up the bogs of the
+subjunctive.
+
+It must be mentioned that El Azhar did not invent its mnemonics; it has
+inherited them from the past. All the medi�val universities made use of
+the system.
+
+The central court is surrounded on three sides by chambers, one of which
+belongs to each country and to each Egyptian province represented at the
+college. These sombre apartments are filled with oddly-shaped wardrobes,
+which are assigned to the students for their clothes. There is a legend
+connected with these rooms: At dusk a man whose heart is pure is
+sometimes permitted to see the elves who come at that hour to play
+games in the inner court under the columns; here they run races, they
+chase each other over the matting, they climb the pillars, and indulge
+in a thousand antics. The little creatures are said to live in the
+wardrobes, and each student occasionally places a few flowers within, to
+avert from himself the danger that comes from their too great love of
+tricks. There are other inhabitants of these rooms who also indulge in
+tricks. These are little animals which I took to be ferrets; twice I had
+a glimpse of a disappearing tail, like a dark flash, as I passed over a
+threshold. Probably they are kept as mouse-hunters, for pets are not
+allowed; if they were, it would be entertaining to note those which
+would be brought hither by homesick pupils from the Somali coast, or
+Yemen.
+
+In beginning his education the first task for a boy is to commit the
+Koran to memory. As he learns a portion he is taught to read and to
+write those paragraphs; in this way he goes through the entire volume.
+Grammar comes next; at El Azhar the word includes logic, rhetoric,
+composition, versification, elocution, and other branches. Then follows
+law, secular and religious. But the law, like the logic, like all the
+instruction, is founded exclusively upon the Koran. As there is no
+inquiry into anything new, the precepts have naturally taken a fixed
+shape; the rules were long ago established, and they have never been
+altered; the student of 1890 receives the information given to the
+student of 1490, and no more. But it is this very fact which makes El
+Azhar interesting to the looker-on; it is a living relic, a survival in
+the nineteenth century of the university of the fourteenth and
+fifteenth. It is true that when we think of those great colleges of the
+past, the picture which rises in the mind is not one of turbaned, seated
+figures in flowing robes; it is rather of aggressively agile youths,
+with small braggadocio caps perched on their long locks, their
+slender waists outlined in the shortest of jackets, and their long legs
+incased in the tightest of party-colored hose. But this is because the
+great painters of the past have given immortality to these astonishing
+scholars of their own lands by putting them upon their canvases. They
+confined themselves to their own lands too, unfortunately for us; they
+did not set sail, with their colors and brushes, upon Homer's "misty
+deep." It would be interesting to see what Pinturicchio would have made
+of El Azhar; or how Gentile da Fabriano would have copied the crowded
+outer court.
+
+[Illustration: STUDENTS IN THE OUTER COURT, EL AZHAR From a photograph
+by Abdullah Fr�res, Cairo]
+
+The president of El Azhar occupies, in native estimation, a position of
+the highest authority. Napoleon, recognizing this power, requested the
+aid of his influence in inducing Cairo to surrender in 1798. The sheykh
+complied; and a month later the wonderful Frenchman, in full Oriental
+costume, visited the university in state, and listened to a recitation
+from the Koran.
+
+Now that modern schools have been established by the government in
+addition to the excellent and energetic mission seminaries maintained by
+the English, the Americans, the Germans, and the French, one wonders
+whether this venerable Arabian college will modify its tenets or shrink
+to a shadow and disappear. There are hopeful souls who prophesy the
+former; but I do not agree with them. Let us aid the American schools by
+all the means in our power. But as for El Azhar, may it fade (as fade it
+must) with its ancient legends draped untouched about it.
+
+All who visit Cairo see the Assiout ware--pottery made of red and black
+earth, and turned on a wheel; it comes from Assiout, two hundred and
+thirty miles up the Nile, and the simple forms of the vases and jugs,
+the rose-water stoups and narrow-necked perfume-throwers, are often
+very graceful. Assiout ware is offered for sale in the streets; but the
+itinerant venders are sent out by a dealer in the bazaars, and the
+fatality which makes it happen that the vender has two black stoups and
+one red jug when you wish for one black stoup and two red jugs sent us
+to headquarters. But the crowded booth did not contain our heart's
+desire, and as we still lingered, making ourselves, I dare say, too
+pressing for the Oriental ease of the proprietor, it was at last
+suggested that Mustapha might perhaps go to the store-room for more--?
+(the interrogation-point meaning backsheesh). Seizing the opportunity,
+we asked permission to accompany the messenger. No one objecting--as the
+natives consider all strangers more or less mad--we were soon following
+our guide through a dusky passageway behind the shop, the darkness lit
+by the gleam of his white teeth as he turned, every now and then, to
+give us an encouraging smile and a wink of his one eye, over his
+shoulder. At length--still in the dark--we arrived at a stairway, and,
+ascending, found ourselves in a second-story court, which was roofed
+over with matting. This court was surrounded by chambers fitted with
+rough, sliding fronts: almost all of the fronts were at the moment
+thrown up, as a window is thrown up and held by its pulleys. In one of
+these rooms we found Assiout ware in all its varieties; but we made a
+slow choice. We were evidently in a lodging-house of native Cairo; all
+the chambers save this one store-room appeared to be occupied as
+bachelors' apartments. The two rooms nearest us belonged to El Azhar
+students, so Mustapha said: he could speak no English, but he imparted
+the information in Arabic to our dragoman. Seeing that we were more
+interested in the general scene than in his red jugs, Mustapha left the
+Assiout ware to its fate, and, lighting a cigarette, seated himself on
+the railing with a disengaged air, as much as to say: "Two more mad
+women! But it's nothing to me." One of the students was evidently an
+ascetic; his room contained piles of books and pamphlets, and almost
+nothing else; his one rug was spread out close to the front in order to
+get the light, and placed upon it we saw his open inkstand, his pens,
+and a page of freshly copied manuscript. When we asked where he was,
+Mustapha replied that he had gone down to the fountain to wash himself,
+so that he could say his prayers. The second chamber belonged to a
+student of another disposition; this extravagant young man had three
+rugs; clothes hung from pegs upon his walls, and he possessed an extra
+pair of lemon-colored slippers; in addition we saw cups and saucers upon
+a shelf. Only two books were visible, and these were put away in a
+corner; instead of books he had flowers; the whole place was adorned
+with them; pots containing plants in full bloom were standing on the
+floor round the walls of his largely exposed abode, and were also drawn
+up in two rows in the passageway outside, where he himself, sitting on a
+mat, was sewing. His blossoms were so gay that involuntarily we smiled.
+Whereupon he smiled too, and gave us a salam. Opposite the rooms of the
+students there was a large chamber, almost entirely filled with white
+bales, like small cotton bales; in a niche between these high piles, an
+old man, kneeling at the threshold, was washing something in a large
+earthen-ware tub of a pink tint. His body was bare from the waist
+upward, and, as he bent over his task, his short chest, with all the
+ribs clearly visible, his long brown back with the vertebr� of the spine
+standing out, and his lean, seesawing arms, looked skeleton-like, while
+his head, supported on a small wizened throat, was adorned with such an
+enormous bobbing turban, dark green in hue, that it resembled vegetation
+of some sort--a colossal cabbage. Directly behind him, also on the
+threshold, squatted a large gray baboon, whose countenance expressed a
+fixed misanthropy. Every now and then this creature, who was secured by
+a long, loose cord, ascended slowly to the top of the bales and came
+down on the other side, facing his master. He then looked deeply into
+the tub for several minutes, touched the water carefully with his small
+black hand, withdrew it, and inspected the palm, and then returned
+gravely, and by the same roundabout way over the bales, to resume his
+position at the doorsill, looking as if he could not understand the
+folly of such unnecessary and silly toil.
+
+In another chamber a large, very black negro, dressed in pure white, was
+seated upon the floor, with his feet stretched out in front of him, his
+hands placed stiffly on his knees, his eyes staring straight before him.
+He was motionless; he seemed hardly to breathe.
+
+"What is he doing?" I said to the dragoman.
+
+"He? Oh, he _berry_ good man; he pray."
+
+In a chamber next to the negro two grave old Arabs were playing chess.
+They were perched upon one of those Cairo settees which look like square
+chicken-coops. One often sees these seats in the streets, placed for
+messengers and porters, and for some time I took them for actual
+chicken-coops, and wondered why they were always empty. Chickens might
+well have inhabited the one used by the chess-players, for the central
+court upon which all these chambers opened was covered with a layer of
+rubbish and dirt several inches thick, which contained many of their
+feathers. It was upon this same day that we made our search for the Khan
+of Kait Bey. No dragoman knows where it is. The best way, indeed, to see
+the old quarters is to select from a map the name of a street as remote
+as possible from the usual thoroughfares beloved by these tasselled
+guides, and then demand to be conducted thither.
+
+[Illustration: BEFORE THE SACRED NICHE
+
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
+
+We did this in connection with the Khan of Kait Bey. But when we had
+achieved the distinction of finding it, we discovered that it was
+impossible to see it. The winding street is so narrow, and so constantly
+crowded with two opposed streams of traffic, that your donkey cannot
+pause to give you a chance to inspect the portion which is close to your
+eyes, and there is no spot where you can get a view in perspective of
+the whole. So you pass up the lane, turn, and come down again; and, if
+conscientious, you repeat the process, obtaining for all your pains only
+a confused impression of horizontal plaques and panels, with ruined
+walls tottering above them, and squalid shops below. There is a fine
+arched gateway adorned with pendentives; that, on account of its size,
+you can see; it leads into the khan proper, where were once the chambers
+for the travelling merchants and the stalls for their beasts; but all
+this is now a ruin. One of the best authorities on Saracenic art has
+announced that this khan is adorned with more varieties of exquisite
+arabesques than any single building in Cairo. This may be true. But to
+appreciate the truth of the statement one needs wings or a ladder. The
+word ladder opens the subject of the two ways of looking at
+architecture--in detail or as a whole. The natural power of the eye has
+more to do with this than is acknowledged. If one can distinctly see,
+without effort and aid, a whole fa�ade at a glance, with the general
+effect of its proportions, the style of its ornament, the lights and
+shadows, the outline of the top against the sky, one is more interested
+in this than in the small traceries, for instance, over one especial
+window. There are those of us who remember the English cathedrals by
+their great towers rising in the gray air, with the birds flying about
+them. There are others who, never having clearly seen this vision--for
+no opera-glass can give the whole--recall, for their share of the
+pleasure, the details of the carvings over the porches, or of the old
+tombs within. It is simply the far-sighted and the near-sighted view.
+Another authority, a master who has had many disciples, has (of late
+years, at least) devoted himself principally to the near-sighted view.
+In his maroon-colored Tracts on Venice he has given us a minute account
+of the features of the small faces of the capitals of the columns of the
+Doge's palace (all these ofs express the minuteness of it); but when we
+stand on the pavement below the palace--and naturally we cannot stand in
+mid-air--we find that it is impossible to follow him: I speak of the old
+capitals, some of which are still untouched. The solution lies in the
+ladder. And Ruskin, as regards his later writings, may be called the
+ladder critic. The poet Longfellow, arriving in Verona during one of his
+Italian journeys, learned that Ruskin was also there, and not finding
+him at the hotel, went out in search of his friend. After a while he
+came upon him at the Tombs of the Scaligers. Here high in the air, at
+the top of a long ladder, with a servant keeping watch below, was a
+small figure. It was Ruskin, who, nose to nose with them, was making a
+careful drawing of some of the delicate terminal ornaments of those
+splendid Gothic structures. One does not object to the careful drawings
+any more than to the descriptions of the little faces at Venice. They
+are good in their way. But one wishes to put upon record the suggestion
+that architectural beauty as viewed from a ladder, inch by inch, is not
+the only aspect of that beauty; nor is it, for a large number of us, the
+most important aspect. A man who is somewhat deaf, if talking about a
+symphony, will naturally dwell upon the strains which he has heard--that
+is, the louder portions; but he ought not therefore to assume that the
+softer notes are insignificant.
+
+
+THE DERVISHES
+
+On the 31st of January, 1890, we took part in a horse-race. It was a
+long race of great violence, and the horses engaged in it were
+disgracefully thin and weak. "Very Mohammedan--that," some one comments.
+The race was Mohammedan from one point of view, for it was connected
+with the dervishes, Mohammedans of fanatical creed. The dervishes,
+however, remained in their monasteries--with their fanaticism; the race
+was made by Christians, who, crowded into rattling carriages, flew in a
+body from the square of Sultan Hassan through the long, winding lanes
+that lead towards Old Cairo at a speed which endangered everybody's
+life, with wheels grating against each other, coachmen standing up and
+yelling like demons, whiplashes curling round the ribs of the wretched,
+ill-fed, galloping horses, and natives darting into their houses on each
+side to save themselves from death, as the furious procession, in clouds
+of dust, rushed by. The cause of this sudden madness is found in the
+fact that the two best-known orders of these Mohammedan monks (one calls
+them monks for want of a better name; they have some resemblance to
+monks, and some to Freemasons) go through their rites once a week only,
+and upon the same afternoon; by making this desperate haste it is
+possible to see both services; and as travellers, for the most part,
+make but a short stay in Cairo, they find themselves taking part,
+_nolens volens_, in this frantic progress, led by their ambitious
+dragomans, who appear to enjoy it. The service of the Dancing Dervishes
+takes place in their mosque, which is near the square of Sultan Hassan.
+Here they have a small circular hall; round this arena, and elevated
+slightly above it, is an aisle where spectators are allowed to stand;
+over the aisle is the gallery. This January day brought a crowd of
+visitors who filled the aisle completely. Presently a dervish made the
+circuit of the empty arena, warning, by a solemn gesture, those who had
+seated or half-seated themselves upon the balustrade that the attitude
+was not allowed. As soon as he had passed, some of the warned took their
+places again. Naturally, these were spectators of the gentler sex. I am
+even afraid that they were pilgrims from the land where the gentler sex
+is accustomed from its earliest years to a profound deference. Two of
+these pretty pilgrims transgressed in this way four times, and at last
+the dervish came and stood before them. They remained seated, returning
+his gaze with amiable tranquillity. What he thought I do not know--this
+lean Egyptian in his old brown cloak and conical hat. I fancied,
+however, that it had something to do with the great advantages of the
+Mohammedan system regarding the seclusion of women. He did not conquer.
+
+At length began the music. The band of the dervishes is placed in one of
+the galleries; we could see the performers squatting on their rugs, the
+instruments being flutes or long pipes, and small drums like tambourines
+without the rattles. Egyptian music has a marked time, but no melody; no
+matter how good an ear one has, it is impossible to catch and resing its
+notes, even though one hears them daily. Pierre Loti writes: "The
+strains of the little flutes of Africa charm me more than the most
+perfect orchestral harmonies of other lands." If by this he means that
+the flutes recall to his memory the magic scenes of Oriental life, that
+is one thing; but if he means that he really loves the sounds for
+themselves, I am afraid we must conclude that this prince of verbal
+expression has not an ear for music (which is only fair; a man cannot
+have everything). The band of the dervishes sends forth a high wail,
+accompanied by a rumble. Neither, however, is distressingly loud.
+
+[Illustration: OUTER ENTRANCE OF THE CITADEL, CAIRO
+
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
+
+Meanwhile the dervishes have entered, and, muffled in their cloaks, are
+standing, a silent band, round the edge of the arena; their sheykh--a
+very old man, much bent, but with a noble countenance--takes his place
+upon the sacred rug, and receives with dignity their obeisances. All
+remain motionless for a while. Then the sheykh rises, heads the
+procession, and, with a very slow step, they all move round the arena,
+bowing towards the sacred carpet as they pass it. This opening ceremony
+concluded, the sheykh again takes his seat, and the dervishes, divesting
+themselves of their cloaks, step one by one into the open space, where,
+after a prayer, each begins whirling slowly, with closed eyes. They are
+all attired in long, full white skirts, whose edges have weights
+attached to them; as the speed of the music increases, their whirl
+becomes more rapid, but it remains always even; though their eyes are
+closed, they never touch each other. From the description alone, it is
+difficult to imagine that this rite (for such it is) is solemn. But
+looked at with the actual eyes, it seemed to me an impressive ceremony;
+the absorbed appearance of the participants, their unconsciousness of
+all outward things, the earnestness of the aspiration visible on their
+faces--all these were striking. The zikr, as this species of religious
+effort is named, is an attempt to reach a state of ecstasy
+(hallucination, we should call it), during which the human being, having
+forgotten the existence of its body, becomes for the moment spirit only,
+and can then mingle with the spirit world. The Dancing Dervishes
+endeavor to bring on this trance by the physical dizziness which is
+produced by whirling; the Howling Dervishes try to effect the same by
+swinging their heads rapidly up and down, and from side to side, with a
+constant shout of "Allah!" "Allah!". The latter soon reach a state of
+temporary frenzy. For this reason the dancers are more interesting;
+their ecstasy, being silent, seems more earnest. The religion of the
+Hindoos has a similar idea in another form--namely, that the highest
+happiness is a mingling with God, and an utter unconsciousness of one's
+humanity. Christian hermits, in retiring from the world, have sought, as
+far as possible, the same mental condition; but for a lifetime, not,
+like the dervishes, for an hour. These enthusiasts marry, if they
+please; many of them are artisans, tradesmen, and farm laborers, and
+only go at certain times to the monasteries to take part in the zikrs.
+There are many different orders, and several other kinds of zikr besides
+the two most commonly seen by travellers.
+
+[Illustration: A MECCA DOOR]
+
+Travellers see also the Mohammedan prayers. These prayers, with
+alms-giving, fasting during the month Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to
+Mecca, are the important religious duties of all Muslims. The excellent
+new hotel, the Continental, where we had our quarters, a hotel whose
+quiet and comfort are a blessing to Cairo, overlooked a house which was
+undergoing alteration; every afternoon at a certain hour a plasterer
+came from his work within, and, standing in a corner under our windows,
+divested himself of his soiled outer gown; then, going to a wall-faucet,
+he turned on the water, and rapidly but carefully washed his face, his
+hands and arms, his feet, and his legs as far as his knees, according to
+Mohammed's rule; this done, he took down from a tree a clean board which
+he kept there for the purpose, and, placing it upon the ground, he
+kneeled down upon it, with his face towards Mecca, and went through his
+worship, many times touching the ground with his forehead in token of
+self-humiliation. His devotions occupied five or six minutes. As soon as
+they were over, the board was quickly replaced in the tree, the soiled
+gown put on again, and the man hurried back to his work with an
+alertness which showed that he was no idler. On the Nile, at the
+appointed hour, our pilot gave the wheel to a subordinate, spread out
+his prayer-carpet on the deck, and said his prayers with as much
+indifference to the eyes watching him as though they did not exist. In
+the bazaars the merchants pray in their shops; the public cook prays in
+the street beside his little furnace; on the shores of the river at
+sunset the kneeling figures outlined against the sky are one of the
+pictures which all travellers remember. The official pilgrimage to Mecca
+takes place each year, the departure and return of the pilgrim train
+being celebrated with great pomp; the most ardent desire of every
+Mohammedan is to make this journey before he dies. When a returning
+Cairo pilgrim reaches home, it is a common custom to decorate his
+doorway with figures, painted in brilliant hues, representing his
+supposed adventures. The designs, which are very primitive in outline,
+usually show the train of camels, the escort of soldiers, wonderful wild
+beasts in fighting attitudes, nondescript birds and trees, and garlands
+of flowers. One comes upon these Mecca doorways very frequently in the
+old quarters. Sometimes the gay tints show that the journey was a recent
+one; often the faded outlines speak of the zeal of an ancestor.
+
+
+THE REIGNING DYNASTY
+
+[Illustration: THE ROAD TO CHOUBRA.
+
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
+
+While in the city of the Khedive, if one has a wish for the benediction
+of a far-stretching view, he must go to the Citadel. The prospect from
+this hill has been described many times. One sees all Cairo, with her
+minarets; the vivid green of the plain, with the Nile winding through
+it; the desert meeting the verdure and stretching back to the red hills;
+lastly, the pyramids, beginning with those of Gizeh, near at hand, and
+ending, far in the distance, with the hazy outlines of those of Abouseer
+and Sakkarah. The Citadel was built by Saladin in the twelfth century.
+Saladin's palace, which formed part of it, was demolished in 1824 to
+make room for the modern mosque, whose large dome and attenuated
+minarets are now the last objects which fade away when the traveller
+leaves Cairo behind him. This rich Mohammedan temple was the work of
+Mehemet Ali, the founder of the present dynasty. It is not beautiful, in
+spite of its alabaster, but Mehemet himself would probably admire it,
+could he return to earth (the mosque was not completed until after
+his death), as he had to the full that bad taste in architecture and art
+which, for unexplained reasons, so often accompanies a new birth of
+progress in an old country. Mehemet was born in Roumelia; he entered the
+Turkish army, and after attaining the rank of colonel he was sent to
+Egypt. Here he soon usurped all power, and had it not been for the
+intervention of Russia and France, and later of England and Austria, it
+is probable that he would have succeeded in freeing himself and the
+country whose leadership he had grasped from the domination of Turkey.
+Every one has heard something of the terrible massacre of the Memlooks
+by his order, in this Citadel, in 1811. The Memlooks were opposed to all
+progress, and Mehemet was bent upon progress. Freed from their power,
+this ferocious liberator built canals; he did his best to improve
+agriculture; he established a printing-office and founded schools; he
+sent three hundred boys to Europe to be educated as civil engineers, as
+machinists, as printers, as naval officers, and as physicians; his idea
+was that, upon their return, they could instruct others. When the first
+class came back, he filled his public schools by the simple method of
+force. The translators of the French text-books which had been selected
+for the use of the schools were taken from the ranks of the returned
+students. A text-book was given to each, and all were kept closely
+imprisoned in the Citadel a period of four months, until they had
+completed their task. Mehemet had a dream of an Arabian kingdom in Egypt
+which should in time rival the European nations without joining them. It
+is this dream which makes him interesting. He was the first modern. A
+Turk by birth, and remaining a Turk as regards his private life, he had
+great ideas. Undoubtedly he possessed genius of a high order.
+
+As to his private life, one comes across a trace of it at Choubra. This
+was Mehemet's summer residence, and the place remains much as it was
+during his lifetime. The road to Choubra, which was until recently the
+favorite drive of the Cairenes, is now deserted. The palace stands on
+the banks of the Nile, three miles from town, and its gardens, which
+cover nine acres, are beautiful even in their present neglected
+condition; in the spring the fragrance from the mass of blossoms is
+intoxicatingly sweet. But the wonder of Choubra is a richly decorated
+garden-house, containing, in a marble basin, a lake which is large
+enough for skiffs. Here Mehemet often spent his evenings. Upon these
+occasions the whole place was brilliantly lighted, and the hareem
+disported itself in little boats on the fairy-like pool, and in
+strolling up and down the marble colonnades, unveiled (as Mehemet was
+the only man present), and in their richest attire. The marbles have
+grown dim, the fountains are choked, the colonnades are dusty, and the
+lake has a melancholy air. But even in its decay Choubra presents to the
+man of fancy--a few such men still exist--a picture of Oriental scenes
+which he has all his life imagined, perhaps, but whose actual traces he
+no more expected to see with his own eyes in 1890 than to behold the
+silken sails of Cleopatra furled among Cook's steamers on the Nile.
+Mehemet's last years were spent at Choubra, and here he died, in 1849,
+at the age of eighty-one. As he had forced from Turkey a firman
+assigning the throne to his own family, he was succeeded by one of his
+sons.
+
+
+ISMAIL
+
+In 1863 (after the short reign of Ibrahim, five years of Abbas, and
+eight of Said), Ismail, Mehemet's grandson, ascended the throne. He had
+received his education in Paris.
+
+[Illustration: GARDEN-HOUSE AT CHOUBRA, SHOWING PART OF THE LAKE NEAR
+CAIRO
+
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
+
+Much has been written about this man. The opening, in 1869, of the Suez
+Canal turned the eyes of the entire civilized world upon Egypt. The
+writers swooped down upon the ancient country in a flock, and the canal,
+the land, and its ruler were described again and again. The ruler was
+remarkable. Ismail was short (one speaks of him in the past tense,
+although he is not dead), with very broad shoulders; his hands were
+singularly thick; his ears also were thick, and oddly placed; his feet
+were small, and he always wore finically fine French shoes. There was
+nothing of the Arab in his face, and little of the Turk. One of his
+eyelids had a natural droop, and vexed diplomatists have left it upon
+record that he had the power of causing the other to droop also, thus
+making it possible for him to study the faces of his antagonists at his
+leisure, he, meanwhile, presenting to them in return a blind mask. The
+mask, however, was amiable; it was adorned almost constantly with a
+smile. The man must have had marked powers of fascination. At the
+present day, when some of the secrets of his reign are known--though by
+no means all--it is easy to paint him in the darkest colors; but during
+the time of his power his great schemes dazzled the world, and people
+liked him--it is impossible to doubt the testimony of so many pens;
+European and American visitors always left his presence pleased.
+
+There are in Cairo black stories of cruelty connected with his name.
+These for the most part are unwritten; they are told in the native caf�s
+and in the bazaars. It does not appear that he loved cruelty for its own
+sake, as some of the Roman emperors loved it; but if any one rebelled
+against his power or his pleasure, that person was sacrificed without
+scruple. In some cases it took the form of a disappearance in the night,
+without a sound or a trace left behind. This is the sort of thing we
+associate with the old despotic ages. But 1869 is not a remote date,
+and at that time the present Emperor of Austria, the late Emperor
+Frederick (then Crown-Prince of Prussia), the Empress Eug�nie, Prince
+Oscar of Sweden, Prince Louis of Hesse, the Princess of the Netherlands,
+the Duke and Duchess of Aosta, and other distinguished Europeans, were
+the guests of this enigmatic host, eating his sumptuous dinners and
+attending his magnificent balls. The festivities in connection with the
+opening of the canal are said to have cost Ismail twenty-one millions of
+dollars. The sum seems large; but it included the furnishing of palaces,
+lavish hospitality to an army of guests besides the sovereigns and their
+suites, and an opera to order--namely, Verdi's _A�da_, which was given
+with great brilliancy in Cairo, in an opera-house erected for the
+occasion. Ismail, like Mehemet, had his splendid dream. He, too, wished
+to free Egypt from the power of Turkey; but, unlike his grandfather, he
+wished to take her bodily into the circle of the civilized nations, not
+as a rival, but as an ally and friend. An Egyptian kingdom, under his
+rule, was to extend from the Mediterranean to the equator; from the Red
+Sea westward beyond Darfur. His bold ambition ended in disaster. His
+railways, telegraphs, schools, harbors, and postal-service, together
+with his personal extravagance, brought Egypt to the verge of
+bankruptcy. All Europe now had a vital interest in the Suez Canal, and
+the powers therefore united in a demand that the Sultan should stop the
+career of his audacious Egyptian Viceroy. The Viceroy might perhaps have
+resisted the Porte; he could not resist the united powers. In 1879 he
+was deposed, and his son Tufik appointed in his place. Ismail left
+Egypt. For several years he travelled, residing for a time in Naples; at
+present he is living in a villa near Constantinople. There is a rumor in
+Cairo that he is more of a prisoner there than he supposes. But this may
+be only one of the legends that are always attached to Turkish
+affairs. His dream has come true in one respect at least: Egypt has
+indeed joined the circle of the European nations, but not in the manner
+which Ismail intended; she is only a bondwoman--if the pun can be
+permitted.
+
+[Illustration: THE KHEDIVE. From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
+
+
+THE HAUNTED PALACE
+
+The Gezireh road is to-day the favorite afternoon drive of the Cairenes.
+It is a broad avenue, raised above the plain, and overarched by trees
+throughout its course. At many points it commands an uninterrupted view
+of the pyramids. Two miles from town the Gezireh Palace rises on the
+right, surrounded by gardens, which, unlike those of Choubra, are
+carefully tended. It was built by Ismail. Of all these Cairo palaces it
+must be explained that they have none of the characteristics of castles
+or strongholds; they are merely lightly built residences, designed for a
+climate which has ten months of summer. The central hall and grand
+staircase of Gezireh are superb; alabaster, onyx, and malachite adorn
+like jewels the beautiful marbles, which came from Carrara. The
+drawing-rooms and audience-chambers have a splendid spaciousness: the
+state apartments of many a royal palace in Europe sink into
+insignificance in this respect when compared with them. Much of the
+furniture is rich, but again (as in the old house of the Sheykh es
+Sadat) one finds it difficult to forgive the tawdry French carpets and
+curtains, when the bazaars close at hand could have contributed fabrics
+of so much greater beauty. But Ismail's taste was French--that is, the
+lowest shade of French--as French is still the taste of modern Egypt
+among the upper classes. It remains to be seen whether the English
+occupation will change this. During the festivities at the time of the
+opening of the canal, Ismail's royal guests were entertained at
+Gezireh. On the upper floor are the rooms which were occupied by the
+Empress Eug�nie, the walls and ceilings covered with thick satin, tufted
+like the back of an arm-chair, its tint the shade of blue which is most
+becoming to a blond complexion--Ismail's compliment to his beautiful
+guest. During these days there were state dinners and balls at Gezireh,
+with banks of orchids, myriads of wax-lights, and orchestras playing
+strains from _La Belle H�l�ne_ and _La Grande Duchesse_. During one of
+these balls the Emperor of Austria made a progress through the rooms
+with Ismail, band after band taking up the Austrian national anthem as
+the imperial guest entered. The vision of the stately, grave Franz Josef
+advancing through these glittering halls by the side of the waddling
+little hippopotamus of the Nile, to the martial notes of that fine hymn
+(which we have appropriated for our churches under another name, and
+without saying "By your leave"), is one of the sinister apparitions with
+which this rococo palace, a palace half splendid, half shabby, is
+haunted.
+
+[Illustration: CHIEF WIFE OF EX-KHEDIVE ISMAIL, WITH HER PRIVATE BAND
+
+From a photograph by Schoefft, Cairo]
+
+In the garden there is a kiosk whose proportions charm the eye. The
+guide-books inform us that this ornamentation is of cast-iron; that it
+is an imitation of the Alhambra; that it is "considered the finest
+modern Arabian building in the world"--all of which is against it.
+Nevertheless, viewed from any point across the gardens, its outlines are
+exquisite. Within there are more festal chambers, and a gilded
+dining-room, which was the scene of the suppers (they were often orgies)
+that were given by Ismail upon the occasion of his private masked balls.
+At some distance from the palace, behind a screen of trees, are the
+apartments reserved for the hareem. This smaller palace has no beauty,
+unless one includes its enchanting little garden; such attraction as it
+has comes from the light it sheds upon the daily life of Eastern
+women. Occidental travellers are always curious about the hareem. The
+word means simply the ladies, or women, of the family, and the term is
+made to include also the rooms which they occupy, as our word "school"
+might mean the building or the pupils within it. At Gezireh the hareem,
+save that its appointments are more costly, is much like those
+caravansaries which abound at our inland summer resorts. There are long
+rows of small chambers opening from each side of narrow halls, with a
+few sitting-rooms, which were held in common. The carpets, curtains, and
+such articles of furniture as still remain are all flowery, glaring, and
+in the worst possible modern taste, save that they do not exhibit those
+horrible hues, surely the most hideous with which this world has been
+cursed--the so-called solferinos and magentas. Besides their private
+garden, the women and children of the hareem had for their entertainment
+a small menagerie, an aviery, and a confectionery establishment, where
+fresh bonbons were made for them every day, especially the sugared rose
+leaves so dear to the Oriental heart. The chief of Ismail's four wives
+had a passion for jewels. She possessed rubies and diamonds of unusual
+size, and so many precious stones of all kinds that her satin dresses
+were embroidered with them. She had her private band of female
+musicians, who played for her, when she wished for music, upon the
+violin, the flute, the zither, and the mandolin. The princesses of the
+royal house, Ismail's wives and his sisters-in-law, could not bring
+themselves to admire the Empress of the French. They were lost in wonder
+over what they called her "pinched stiffness." It is true that the
+uncorseted forms of Oriental beauties have nothing in common with the
+rigid back and martial elbows of modern attire. Dimples, polished limbs,
+dark, long-lashed eyes, and an indolent step are the ideals of the
+hareem.
+
+The legends of these jewelled sultanas, of the masked balls, of the long
+train of royal visitors, of the orchids, the orchestras, and the
+wax-lights, are followed at Gezireh by a tale of murder which is
+singularly ghastly. Ismail's Minister of Finance was his foster-brother
+Sadyk, with whom he had lived upon terms of closest intimacy all his
+life. The two were often together; frequently they drove out to Gezireh
+to spend the night. One afternoon in 1878 Ismail's carriage stopped at
+the doorway of the palace in Cairo occupied by his minister. Sadyk came
+out. "Get in," Ismail was heard to say. "We will go to Gezireh. There
+are business matters about which I must talk with you." The two men went
+away together. Sadyk never came back. When the carriage reached Gezireh,
+Ismail gave orders that it should stop at the palace, instead of going
+on to the kiosk, where they generally alighted. He himself led the way
+within, crossing the reception-room to the small private salon which
+overlooks the Nile. Here he seated himself upon a sofa, drawing up his
+feet in the Oriental fashion, which was not his usual custom. Sadyk was
+about to follow his example, when he found himself seized suddenly from
+behind. The doors were now locked from the outside, leaving within only
+the two foster-brothers and the man who had seized Sadyk. This was a
+Nubian named Ishak, a creature celebrated for his strength. He now
+proceeded to murder Sadyk after a fashion of his own country, a process
+of breaking the bones of the chest and neck in a manner which leaves on
+the skin no sign. Sadyk fought for his life; he dragged the Nubian over
+the white velvet carpet, and finally bit off two of his fingers. But he
+was not a young man, and in the end he was conquered. During this
+struggle Ismail remained motionless on the sofa, with his feet drawn up
+and his arms folded. A steamer lay at anchor outside, and during the
+night Sadyk's body was placed on board; at dawn the boat started up the
+river. At the same hour Ismail drove back to Cairo, where, in the course
+of the morning, it was officially announced that the Minister of
+Finance, having been detected in colossal peculations, had been banished
+to the White Nile, and was already on his way thither. Sadyk's body
+rests somewhere at the bottom of the river. But Ismail's little drama of
+banishment and the steamer were set at naught when, after he had left
+Cairo, Ishak the Nubian returned, with his mutilated hand and his story.
+Such is the tale as it is told in the bazaars. Ismail's motive in
+murdering a man he liked (he was incapable of true affection for any
+one) is found in the fact that he could place upon the shoulders of the
+missing minister the worst of the financial irregularities which were
+trying the patience of the European powers. It did him no good. He was
+deposed the next year.
+
+During the spring of 1890 Gezireh awoke to new life for a time. A French
+company had purchased the place, with the intention of opening it as an
+Egyptian Monte Carlo. But Khedive Tufik, who has prohibited gambling
+throughout his domain, forbade the execution of this plan. So the
+tarnished silks remain where they were, and the faded gilded ceilings
+have not been renewed. When we made our last visit, during the heats of
+early summer, the blossoms were as beautiful as ever, and the ghosts
+were all there--we met them on the marble stairs: the European princes,
+led by poor Eug�nie; the sultanas, with their jewels and their band;
+Ismail, with his drooping eyelids; and Sadyk, followed by the Nubian.
+
+
+TUFIK
+
+The present Khedive (or Viceroy) is thirty-eight years of age. Well
+proportioned, with fine dark eyes, he may be called a handsome man; but
+his face is made heavy by its expression of settled melancholy. It is
+said in Cairo that he has never been known to laugh. But this must apply
+to his public life only, for he is much attached to his family--to his
+wife and his four children; in this respect he lives strictly in the
+European manner, never having had but this one wife. He is a devoted
+father. Determined that the education of his sons should not be
+neglected as his own education was neglected by Ismail, he had for them,
+at an early age, an accomplished English tutor. Later he sent them to
+Geneva, Switzerland; they are now in Vienna. Tufik's chief interest, if
+one may judge by his acts, is in education. In this direction his
+strongest efforts have been made; he has improved the public schools of
+Egypt, and established new ones; he has given all the support possible
+to that greatest of modern innovations in a Mohammedan country, the
+education of women. With all this, he is a devout Mohammedan; he is not
+a fanatic; but he may be called, I think, a Mohammedan Puritan. He
+receives his many European and American visitors with courtesy. But they
+do not talk about him as they talked about Ismail; he excites no
+curiosity. This is partly owing to his position, his opinions and
+actions having naturally small importance while an English army is
+taking charge of his realm; but it is also owing, in a measure, to the
+character of the man himself. One often sees him driving. On Sunday
+afternoons his carriage in semi-state leads the procession along the
+Gezireh Avenue. First appear the outriders, six mounted soldiers; four
+brilliantly dressed saises follow, rushing along with their wands high
+in the air; then comes the open carriage, with the dark-eyed, melancholy
+Khedive on the back seat, returning mechanically the many salutations
+offered by strangers and by his own people. Behind his carriage are four
+more of the flying runners; then the remainder of the mounted escort,
+two and two. At a little distance follows the brougham of the
+Vice-reine; according to Oriental etiquette, she never appears in public
+beside her husband. Her brougham is preceded and followed by saises, but
+there is no mounted escort. The Vice-reine is pretty, intelligent, and
+accomplished; in addition, she is brave. Several years ago, when the
+cholera was raging in Cairo, and the Khedive, almost alone among the
+upper classes, remained there in order to do what he could for the
+suffering people, his wife also refused to flee. She stayed in the
+plague-stricken town until the pestilence had disappeared, exerting her
+influence to persuade the frightened women of the lower classes to
+follow her example regarding sanitary precautions. Tufik is accused of
+being always undecided; he was not undecided upon this occasion at
+least. It is probable that some of his moments of indecision have been
+caused by real hesitations. And this brings us to Arabi.
+
+Arabi (he is probably indifferent to the musical sound of his name) was
+the leader of the military revolt which broke out in Egypt in 1881--a
+revolt with which all the world is familiar, because it was followed by
+the bombardment of Alexandria by the English fleet. Arabi had studied at
+El Azhar; he knew the Koran by heart. To the native population he seemed
+a wonderful orator; he excited their enthusiasm; he roused their
+courage; he almost made them patriotic. The story of Arabi is
+interesting; there were many intrigues mixed with the revolt, and a
+dramatic element throughout. But these slight impressions--the idle
+notes merely of one winter--are not the place for serious history. Nor
+is the page completed so that it can be described as a whole. Egypt at
+this moment is the scene of history in the actual process of making, if
+the term may be so used--making day by day and hour by hour. Arabi has
+been called the modern Masaniello. The watchword of his revolt was,
+"Egypt for the Egyptians"; and there is always something touching in
+this cry when the invaded country is weak and the incoming power is
+strong. But it may be answered that the Egyptians at present are
+incapable of governing themselves; that the country, if left to its own
+devices, would revert to anarchy in a month, and to famine, desolation,
+and barbarism in five years. Americans are not concerned with these
+questions of the Eastern world. But if a similar cry had been
+successfully raised about two hundred years ago on another
+coast--"America for the Americans"--would the Western continent have
+profited thereby? Doubtless the original Americans--those of the red
+skins--raised it as loudly as they could. But there was not much
+listening. The comparison is stretched, for the poor Egyptian fellah is
+at least not a savage; but there is a grain of resemblance large enough
+to call for reflection, when the question of occupation and improvement
+of a half-civilized land elsewhere is under discussion. The English put
+down the revolt, and sent Arabi to Ceylon, a small Napoleon at St.
+Helena. The rebel colonel and his fellow-exiles are at present enjoying
+those spicy breezes which are associated in our minds with foreign
+missions and a whole congregation singing (and dragging them fearfully)
+the celebrated verses. Arabi has complained of the climate in spite of
+the perfumes, and it is said that he is to be transferred to some other
+point in the ocean; there are, indeed, many of them well adapted for the
+purpose. The English newspapers of to-day are dotted with the word
+"shadowed," which signifies, apparently, that certain persons in Ireland
+are followed so closely by a policeman that the official might be the
+shadow. Possibly the melancholy Khedive is shadowed by the memory of the
+exile of Ceylon. For Tufik did not cast his lot with Arabi. He turned
+towards the English. To use the word again, though with another
+signification, though ruler still, he has but a shadowy power.
+
+[Illustration: AN EGYPTIAN DANCING-GIRL]
+
+
+THE ARAB MUSEUM
+
+Near the city gate named the Help of God, on the northeastern border of
+Cairo, is the old mosque El Hakim. Save its outer walls, which enclose,
+like the mosques of Touloun and Amer, a large open square, there is not
+much left of it; but within this square, housed in a temporary building,
+one finds the collection of Saracenic antiquities which is called the
+Arab Museum.
+
+This museum is interesting, and it ought to be beautiful. But somehow it
+is not. The barrack-like walls, sparsely ornamented with relics from the
+mosques, the straight aisles and glass show-cases, are not inspiring;
+the fragments of Arabian wood-carving seem to be lamenting their fate;
+and the only room which is not desolate is the one where old tiles lie
+in disorder upon the floor, much as they lie on broken marble pavements
+of the ancient houses which, half ruined and buried in rubbish, still
+exist in the old quarters. Why one should be so inconsistent as to find
+no fault with Gizeh, where rows of antiquities torn from their proper
+places confront us, where show-cases abound, and yet at the same time
+make an outcry over this poor little morsel at El Hakim, remains a
+mystery. Possibly it is because the massive statues and the solid little
+gods of ancient Egypt do not require an appropriate background, as do
+the delicate fancies of Saracenic taste. However this may be, to some of
+us the Arab Museum looks as if a New England farmer's wife had tried her
+best to make things orderly within its borders, poor soul, in spite of
+the strangeness of the articles with which she was obliged to deal. It
+must, however, be added that the museum will not make this impression
+upon persons who are indifferent to the general aspect of an aisle, or
+of a series of walls--persons who care only for the articles which adorn
+them--the lovers of detail, in short. And it is well for all of us to
+join this class as soon as our feet have crossed the threshold. For we
+shall be repaid for it. The details are exquisite.
+
+The Arab Museum has been established recently. Every one is grateful to
+the zeal which has rescued from further injury so many specimens of a
+vanishing art. One covets a little chest for the Koran which is made of
+sandal-wood. It is incrusted with arabesques carved in ivory, and has
+broad hasps and locks of embossed silver. There are many koursis, or
+small, stool-like tables; one of these has panels of silver filigree,
+and fretted medallions bearing the name of the Sultan Mohammed ebn
+Kalaoon, thus showing that it once belonged to the mosque at the Citadel
+which was built by that Memlook ruler--the mosque whose minarets are
+ornamented with picturesque bands of emerald-hued porcelain. The
+illuminated Korans are not here; they are kept in the Public Library in
+the Street of the Sycamores. Perhaps the most beautiful of the museum's
+treasures are the old lamps of Arabian glass. In shape they are vases,
+as they were simply filled with perfumed oil which carried a floating
+wick; the colors are usually a pearly background, faintly tinged
+sometimes by the hue we call ashes of roses; upon this background are
+ornaments of blue, gold, and red; occasionally these ornaments are
+Arabic letters forming a name or text. These lamps were made in the
+thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; the glass, which has as marked
+characteristics of its own as Palissy ware, so that once seen it can
+never be confounded with any other, has a delicate beauty which is
+unrivalled.
+
+
+HELIOPOLIS
+
+Like the pyramids, Heliopolis belongs to Cairo. On the way thither, one
+first traverses the pleasant suburb of Abbasieh. How one traverses it
+depends upon his taste. The most enthusiastic pedestrian soon gives up
+walking in the city of the Khedive save in the broad streets of the new
+quarter. The English ride, one meets every day their gallant mounted
+bands; but these are generally residents and their visitors, and the
+horses are their own; for the traveller there are only the street
+carriages and the donkeys. The carriages are dubiously loose-jointed,
+and the horses (whose misery has already been described) have but two
+gaits--the walk of a dying creature and the gallop of despair; unless,
+therefore, one wishes to mount a dromedary, he must take a donkey. But
+the "must" is not a disparagement; the white and gray donkeys of
+Cairo--the best of them--are good-natured, gay-hearted, strong, and even
+handsome. They have a coquettish way of arching their necks and holding
+their chins (if a donkey can be said to have a chin), which always
+reminded me of George Eliot's description of Gwendolen's manner of
+poising her head in _Daniel Deronda_. George Eliot goes on to warn other
+young ladies that it is useless to try to imitate this proud little air,
+unless one has a throat like Gwendolen's. And, in the same spirit, one
+must warn other donkeys that they must be born in Cairo to be beautiful.
+Upon several occasions I recognized vanity in my donkey. He knew
+perfectly when he was adorned with his holiday necklaces--one of
+imitation sequins, the other of turquoise-hued beads. I am sure that he
+would have felt much depressed if deprived of his charm against
+magic--the morsel of parchment inscribed with Arabic characters which
+decorated his breast. His tail and his short mane were dyed fashionably
+with henna, but his legs had not been shaved in the pattern which
+represents filigree garters, and whenever a comrade who had this
+additional glory passed him, he became distinctly melancholy, and
+brooded about it for several minutes. There is nothing in the world so
+deprecating as the profile of one of these Cairo donkeys when he finds
+himself obliged, by the pressure of the crowd, to push against a
+European; his long nose and his polite eye as he passes are full of
+friendly apologies. The donkey-boy, in his skull-cap and single garment,
+runs behind his beast. These lads are very quick-witted. They have ready
+for their donkeys five or six names, and they seldom make a mistake in
+applying them according to the supposed nationality of their patrons of
+the moment, so that the Englishman learns that he has Annie Laurie; the
+Frenchman, Napoleon; the German, Bismarck; the Italian, Garibaldi; and
+the Americans, indiscriminately, Hail Columbia, Yankee Doodle, and
+General Grant.
+
+In passing through the Abbasieh quarter, we always came, sooner or
+later, upon a wedding. The different stages of a native marriage
+require, indeed, so many days for their accomplishment that nuptial
+festivities are a permanent institution in Cairo, like the policemen and
+the water-carts, rather than an occasional event, as in other places.
+One day, upon turning into a narrow street, we discovered that a long
+portion of it had been roofed over with red cloth; from the centre of
+this awning four large chandeliers were suspended by cords, and at each
+end of the improvised tent were hoops adorned with the little red
+Egyptian banners which look like fringed napkins. In the roadway, placed
+against the walls of the houses on each side, were rows of wooden
+settees; one of these seats was occupied by the band, which kept up a
+constant piping and droning, and upon the others were squatted the
+invited guests. Every now and then a man came from a gayly adorned door
+on the left, which was that of the bridegroom, bringing with him a tray
+covered with the tiny cups of coffee set in their filigree stands; he
+offered coffee to all. In the meanwhile, in the centre of the roadway
+between the settees, an Egyptian, in his long blue gown, was dancing.
+The expression of responsibility on his face amounted to anxiety as he
+took his steps with great care, now lifting one bare foot as high as he
+could, and turning it sidewise, as if to show us the sole; now putting
+it down and hopping upon it, while he displayed to us in the same way
+the sole of the other. This formal dancing is done by the guests when no
+public performers are employed. Some one must dance to express the
+revelry of the occasion; those who are invited, therefore, undertake the
+duty one by one. When at last we went on our way we were obliged to ride
+directly through the reception, our donkeys brushing the band on one
+side and the guests on the other; the dancer on duty paused for a
+moment, wiping his face with the tail of his gown.
+
+The road leading to Heliopolis has a charm which it shares with no other
+in the neighborhood of Cairo: at a certain point the desert--the real
+desert--comes rolling up to its very edge; one can look across the sand
+for miles. The desert is not a plain, the sand lies in ridges and
+hillocks; and this sand in many places is not so much like the sand of
+the sea-shore as it is like the dust of one of our country roads in
+August. The contrast between the bright green of the cultivated fields
+(the land which is reached by the inundation) and those silvery,
+arrested waves is striking, the line of their meeting being as sharply
+defined as that between sea and shore. I have called the color silvery,
+but that is only one of the tints which the sand assumes. An artist has
+jotted down the names of the colors used in an effort to copy the hues
+on an expanse of desert before him; beginning with the foreground, these
+were brown, dark red, violet, blue, gold, rose, crimson, pale green,
+orange, indigo blue, and sky blue. Colors supply the place of shadows,
+for there is no shade anywhere; all is wide open and light; and yet the
+expanse does not strike one in the least as bare. For myself, I can say
+that of all the marvels which one sees in Egypt, the desert produced the
+most profound impression; and I fancy that, as regards this feeling, I
+am but one of many. The cause of the attraction is a mystery. It cannot
+be found in the roving tendencies of our ancestor, since he was
+arboreal, and there are no trees in the strange-tinted waste. The old
+legend says that Adam's first wife, Lilith, fled to Egypt, where she was
+permitted to live in the desert, and where she still exists:
+
+    "It was Lilith, the wife of Adam;
+    Not a drop of her blood was human."
+
+Perhaps it is Lilith's magic that we feel.
+
+[Illustration: THE INUNDATION NEAR CAIRO]
+
+Heliopolis, the City of the Sun, the On of the forty-first chapter of
+Genesis, is five miles from Cairo. Nothing of it is now left above
+ground save an obelisk and a few ruined walls. The obelisk, which is the
+oldest yet discovered, bears the name of the king in whose reign it was
+erected; this gives us the date--5000 years ago; that is, more than a
+millennium before the days of Moses. At Heliopolis was the Temple of the
+Sun, and the schools which Herodotus visited "because the teachers are
+considered the most accomplished men in Egypt." When Strabo came hither,
+four hundred years later, he saw the house which Plato had occupied;
+Moses here learned "all the wisdom of the Egyptians." Papyri describe
+Heliopolis as "full of obelisks." Two of these columns were carried to
+Alexandria 1937 years ago, and set up before the Temple of C�sar.
+According to one authority, this temple was built by Cleopatra; in
+any case, the two obelisks acquired the name of Cleopatra's Needles, and
+though the temple itself in time disappeared, they remained where they
+had been placed--one erect, one prostrate--until, in recent years, one
+was given to London and the other to New York. One recites all this in a
+breath in order to bring up, if possible, the associations which rush
+confusedly through the mind as one stands beside this red granite column
+rising alone in the green fields at Heliopolis. No myth itself, it was
+erected in days which are to us mythical--days which are the jumping-off
+place of our human history; yet they were not savages who polished this
+granite, who sculptured this inscription; ages of civilization of a
+certain sort must have preceded them. Beginning with the Central Park,
+we force our minds backward in an endeavor to make these dates real.
+"Homer was a modern compared with the designers of this pillar," we say
+to ourselves. "The Mycen� relics were _articles de Paris_ of centuries
+and centuries later." But repeating the words (and even rolling the
+_r's_) are useless efforts; the imagination will not rise; it is crushed
+into stupidity by such a vista of years. As reaction, perhaps as
+revenge, we flee to geology and Darwin; here, at least, one can take
+breath.
+
+Near Heliopolis there is an ostrich yard. The giant birds are very
+amusing; they walk about with long steps, and stretch their necks. If
+allowed, they would tap us all on the head, I think, after the fashion
+of the ostriches in that vivid book, _The Story of an African Farm_.
+
+
+FRENCH AND ENGLISH
+
+Gerard de Nerval begins his volume on Egypt by announcing that the women
+of Cairo are so thickly veiled that the European (_i.e._, the
+Frenchman?) becomes discouraged after a very few days, and, in
+consequence, goes up the Nile. This, at least, is one effort to explain
+why strangers spend so short a time in Cairo. The French, as a nation,
+are not travellers; they have small interest in any country beyond their
+own borders. A few of their writers have cherished a liking for the
+East; but it has been what we may call a home-liking. They give us the
+impression of having sincerely believed that they could, owing to their
+extreme intelligence, imagine for themselves (and reproduce for others)
+the entire Orient from one fez, one Turkish pipe, and a picture of the
+desert. Gautier, for instance, has described many Eastern landscapes
+which his eyes have never beheld. Pictures are, indeed, much to
+Frenchmen. The acme of this feeling is reached by one of the Goncourt
+brothers, who writes, in their recently published journal, that the true
+way to enjoy a summer in the country is to fill one's town-house during
+the summer months with beautiful paintings of green fields, wild
+forests, and purling brooks, and then stay at home, and look at the
+lovely pictured scenes in comfort. French volumes of travels in the East
+are written as much with exclamation-points as with the letters of the
+alphabet. Lamartine and his disciples frequently paused "to drop a
+tear." Later Gallic voyagers divided all scenery into two classes; the
+cities "laugh," the plains are "amiable," or they "smile"; if they do
+not do this, immediately they are set down as "sad." One must be bold
+indeed to call Edmond About, the distinguished author of _Tolla_,
+ridiculous. The present writer, not being bold, is careful to abstain
+from it. But the last scene of his volume on Egypt (_Le Fellah_,
+published in 1883), describing the hero, with all his clothes rolled
+into a gigantic turban round his head, swimming after the yacht which
+bears away the heroine--a certain impossible Miss Grace--from the
+harbor of Port Said, must have caused, I think, some amused reflection
+in the minds of English and American readers. It is but just to add that
+among the younger French writers are several who have abandoned these
+methods. Gabriel Charmes's volume on Cairo contains an excellent account
+of the place. Pierre Loti and Maupassant have this year (1890) given to
+the world pages about northwestern Africa which are marvels of actuality
+as well as of unsurpassed description.
+
+The French at present are greatly angered by the continuance of the
+English occupation of Egypt. Since Napoleon's day they have looked upon
+the Nile country as sure to be theirs some time. They built the Suez
+Canal when the English were opposed to the scheme. They remember when
+their influence was dominant. The French tradesmen, the French milliners
+and dressmakers in Cairo, still oppose a stubborn resistance to the
+English way of counting. They give the prices of their goods and render
+their accounts in Egyptian piasters, or in napoleons and francs; they
+refuse to comprehend shillings and pounds. And here, by-the-way,
+Americans would gladly join their side of the controversy. England
+alone, among the important countries of the world, has a currency which
+is not based upon the decimal system. The collected number of sixpences
+lost each year in England, by American travellers who mistake the
+half-crown piece for two shillings, would make a large sum. The
+bewilderment over English prices given in a coin which has no existence
+is like that felt by serious-minded persons who read _Alice in
+Wonderland_ from a sense of duty. Talk of the English as having no
+imagination when the guinea exists!
+
+France lost her opportunity in Egypt when her fleet sailed away from
+Alexandria Harbor in July, 1882. Her ships were asked to remain and take
+part in the bombardment; they refused, and departed. The English, thus
+being left alone, quieted the country later by means of an army of
+occupation. An English army of occupation has been there ever since.
+
+At present it is not a large army. The number of British soldiers in
+1890 is given as three thousand; the remaining troops are Egyptians,
+with English regimental officers. During the winter months the
+short-waisted red coat of Tommy Atkins enlivens with its cheerful blaze
+the streets of Cairo at every turn. The East and the West may be said to
+be personified by the slender, supple Arabs in their flowing draperies,
+and by these lusty youths of light complexion, with straight backs and
+stiff shoulders, who walk, armed with a rattan, in the centre of the
+pavement, wearing over one ear the cloth-covered saucer which passes for
+a head-covering. Tommy Atkins patronizes the donkeys with all his heart.
+One of the most frequently seen groups is a party of laughing
+scarlet-backed youths mounted on the smallest beasts they can find, and
+careering down the avenues at the donkey's swiftest speed, followed by
+the donkey-boys, delighted and panting. As the spring comes on, Atkins
+changes his scarlet for lighter garments, and dons the summer helmet.
+This species of hat is not confined to the sons of Mars; it is worn in
+warm weather by Europeans of all nationalities who are living or
+travelling in the East. It may be cool. Without doubt, �sthetically
+considered, it is the most unbecoming head-covering known to the
+civilized world. It has a peculiar power of causing its wearer to appear
+both ignoble and pulmonic; for, viewed in front, the most distinguished
+features, under its tin-pan-like visor, become plebeian; and, viewed
+behind, the strongest masculine throat looks wizened and consumptive.
+
+[Illustration: A MOHAMMEDAN CEMETERY, CAIRO]
+
+The English have benefited Egypt. They have put an end to the open
+knavery in high places which flourished unchecked; they have taught
+honesty; they have so greatly improved the methods of irrigation that a
+bad Nile (_i.e._, a deficient inundation) no longer means starvation;
+finally, they have taken hold of the mismanaged finances, disentangled
+them, set them in order, and given them at least a start in the right
+direction. The natives fret over some of their restrictions. And they
+say that the English have, first of all, taken care of their own
+interests. In addition, they greatly dislike seeing so many Englishmen
+holding office over them. But this last objection is simply the other
+side of the story. If the English are to help the country, they must be
+on the spot in order to do it; and it appears to be a fixed rule in all
+British colonies that the representatives of the government, whether
+high or low, shall be made, as regards material things, extremely
+comfortable. Egypt is not yet a British colony; she is a viceroyalty
+under the suzerainty of the Porte. But practically she is to-day
+governed by the English; and, to the American traveller at least
+(whatever the French may think), it appears probable that English
+authority will soon be as absolute in the Khedive's country as it is now
+in India.
+
+In Cairo, in 1890, the English colony played lawn-tennis; it attended
+the races; when Stanley returned to civilization it welcomed him with
+enthusiasm; and when, later, Prince Eddie came, it attended a gala
+performance of _A�da_ at the opera-house--a resurrection from the time
+of Ismail ordered by Ismail's son for the entertainment of the
+heir-presumptive (one wonders whether Tufik himself found entertainment
+in it).
+
+In the little English church, which stands amid its roses and vines in
+the new quarter, is a wall tablet of red and white marble--the memorial
+of a great Englishman. It bears the following inscription: "In memory of
+Major-General Charles George Gordon, C.B. Born at Woolwich, Jan. 28,
+1833. Killed at the defence of Khartoum, Jan. 26, 1885." Above is a
+sentence from Gordon's last letter: "I have done my best for the honor
+of our country."
+
+St. George of Khartoum, as he has been called. If objection is made to
+the bestowal of this title, it might be answered that the saints of old
+lived before the age of the telegraph, the printer, the newspaper, and
+the reporter; possibly they too would not have seemed to us faultless if
+every one of their small decisions and all their trivial utterances had
+been subjected to the electric-light publicity of to-day. Perhaps Gordon
+was a fanatic, and his discernment was not accurate. But he was
+single-hearted, devoted to what he considered to be his duty, and brave
+to a striking degree. When we remember how he faced death through those
+weary days we cannot criticise him. The story of that rescuing army
+which came so near him and yet failed, and of his long hoping in vain,
+only to be shot down at the last, must always remain one of the most
+pathetic tales of history.
+
+
+SOUVENIRS
+
+As the warm spring closes, every one selects something to carry
+homeward. Leaving aside those fortunate persons who can purchase the
+ancient carved woodwork of an entire house, or Turkish carpets by the
+dozen, the rest of us keep watch of the selections of our friends while
+we make our own. Among these we find the jackets embroidered in silver
+and gold; the inevitable fez; two or three blue tiles of the thirteenth
+century; a water-jug, or kulleh; a fly-brush with ivory handle; attar of
+roses and essence of sandal-wood; Assiout ware in vases and stoups; a
+narghileh; the gauze scarfs embroidered with Persian benedictions; a
+koursi inlaid with mother-of-pearl; Arabian inkstands--long cases of
+silver or brass, to be worn like a dagger in the belt; a keffiyeh, or
+delicate silken head-shawl with white knotted fringe; the Arabian
+finger-bowls; the little coffee-cups; images of Osiris from the tombs; a
+native bracelet and anklet; and, finally, a scarab or two, whose
+authenticity is always exciting, like an unsolved riddle. A picture of
+these mementos of Cairo would not be complete for some of us without two
+of those constant companions of so many long mornings--the dusty,
+shuffling, dragging, slipping, venerable, abominable mosque shoes.
+
+HOMEWARD-BOUND
+
+              "We who pursue
+    Our business with unslackening stride,
+      Traverse in troops, with care-fill'd breast,
+    The soft Mediterranean side,
+              The Nile, the East,
+    And see all sights from pole to pole,
+      And glance and nod and bustle by,
+    And never once possess our soul
+              Before we die."
+
+So chanted Matthew Arnold of the English of to-day. And if we are to
+believe what is preached to us and hurled at us, it is a reproach even
+more applicable to Americans than to the English themselves. One
+American traveller, however, wishes to record modestly a disbelief in
+the universal truth of this idea. Many of us are, indeed, haunted by our
+business; many of us do glance and nod and bustle by; it is a class, and
+a large class. But these hurried people are not all; an equal number of
+us, who, being less in haste, may be less conspicuous perhaps, are the
+most admiring travellers in the world. American are the bands who
+journey to Stratford-upon-Avon, and go down upon their knees--almost--when
+they reach the sacred spot; American are the pilgrims who pay reverent
+visits to all the English cathedrals, one after the other, from Carlisle
+to Exeter, from Durham to Canterbury. In the East, likewise, it is the
+transatlantic travellers who are so deeply impressed by the strangeness
+and beauty of the scenes about them that they forget to talk about their
+personal comforts (or, rather, the lack of them).
+
+There is another matter upon which a word may be said, and this is the
+habit of judging the East from the stand-point of one's home customs,
+whether the home be American or English. It is, of course, easy to find
+faults in the social systems of the Oriental nations; they have laws and
+usages which are repugnant to all our feelings, which seem to us
+horrible. But it is well to remember that it is impossible to comprehend
+any nation not our own unless one has lived a long time among its
+people, and made one's self familiar with their traditions, their
+temperament, their history, and, above all, with the language which they
+speak. Anything less than this is observation from the outside alone,
+which is sure to be founded upon misapprehension. The French and the
+English are separated by merely the few miles of the Channel, and they
+have, to a certain extent, a common language; for though the French do
+not often understand English, the English very generally understand
+something of French. Yet it is said that these two nations have never
+thoroughly comprehended each other either as nations or individuals; and
+it is even added that, owing to their differing temperaments, they will
+never reach a clear appreciation of each other's merits; demerits, of
+course, are easier. Our own country has a language which is, on the
+whole, nearer the English tongue perhaps than is the speech of France;
+yet have we not felt now and then that English travellers have
+misunderstood us? If this is the case among people who are all
+Occidentals together, how much more difficult must be a thorough
+comprehension by us of those ancient nations who were old before we were
+born?
+
+[Illustration: SOUVENIRS OF CAIRO]
+
+The East is the land of mystery. If one cares for it at all, one loves
+it; there is no half-way. If one does not love it, one really (though
+perhaps not avowedly) hates it--hates it and all its ways. But for those
+who love it the charm is so strong that no surprise is felt in reading
+or hearing of Europeans who have left all to take up a wandering
+existence there for long years or for life--the spirit of Browning's
+"What's become of Waring?"
+
+All of us cannot be Warings, however, and the time comes at last when we
+must take leave. The streets of Cairo have been for some time adorned
+with placards whose announcements begin, in large type, "Travellers
+returning to Europe." We are indeed far away when returning to Europe is
+a step towards home. We wait for the last festival--the Shem-en-Neseem,
+or Smelling of the Zephyr--the annual picnic day, when the people go
+into the country to gather flowers and breathe the soft air before the
+opening of the regular season for the Khamsin. Then comes the journey by
+railway to Alexandria. We wave a handkerchief (now fringed on all four
+sides by the colored threads of the laundresses) to the few friends
+still left behind. They respond; and so do all the Mustaphas, Achmets,
+and Ibrahims who have carried our parcels and trotted after our donkeys.
+Then we take a seat by the window, to watch for the last time the flying
+Egyptian landscape--the green plain, the tawny Nile, the camels on the
+bank, the villages, and the palm-trees, and behind them the solemn line
+of the desert.
+
+At sunset the steamer passes down the harbor, and, pushing out to sea,
+turns westward. A faint crescent moon becomes visible over the
+Ras-et-Teen palace. It is the moon of Ramadan. Presently a cannon on the
+shore ushers in, with its distant sound, the great Mohammedan fast.
+
+
+
+
+CORFU AND THE IONIAN SEA
+
+[Illustration]
+
+    Sad eyes! the blue sea laughs, as heretofore.
+    Ah, singing birds, your happy music pour;
+        Ah, poets, leave the sordid earth awhile;
+    Flit to these ancient gods we still adore:
+        "It may be we shall touch the happy isle!"
+
+    --_Translated by Andrew Lang._
+
+
+Not long before Christmas, last year, I found myself travelling from
+Ancona down the Adriatic coast of Italy by the fast train called the
+Indian Mail. There was excitement in the very name, and more in the
+conversation of the people who sat beside me at the table of a queer
+little eating-house on the shore, before whose portal the Indian Mail
+stopped late in the evening. We all descended and went in. A dusky
+apartment was our discovery, and a table illuminated by guttering
+candles that flared in the strong currents of air. Roast chickens were
+stacked on this table in a high pile, and loaves of dark-colored bread
+were placed here and there, with portly straw-covered flasks of the wine
+of the country. No one came to serve us; we were expected to serve
+ourselves. A landlord who looked like an obese Don Juan was established
+behind a bench in a distant corner, where he made coffee with
+amiability and enthusiasm for those who desired it. It was supposed
+that we were to go to him, before we returned to the train, and pay for
+what we had consumed; and I hope that his trust in us was not misplaced,
+for with his objection to exercise, and his dim little lamp which
+illuminated only his smiles, there was nothing for him but trust. The
+Indian Mail carries passengers who are outward-bound for Constantinople,
+Egypt, and India; his confidence rested perhaps in the belief that
+persons about to embark on such dangerous seas would hardly begin the
+enterprise by crime. To other minds, however, it might have seemed the
+very moment to perpetrate enormities. As we attacked the chickens, I
+perceived in the flickering glare that all my companions were English.
+Everybody talked, and the thrill of the one American increased as the
+names of the steamers waiting at Brindisi were mentioned--the
+_Hydaspes_, the _Coromandel_, the _Cathay_, the _Mirzapore_: towards
+what lands of sandal-wood, what pleasure-domes of Kubla-Khan, might not
+one sail on ships bearing those titles! The present voyagers, however,
+were all old travellers; they took a purely practical view of the
+Orient. Nevertheless, their careless "Cairo," "Port Said," "Bombay,"
+"Ceylon," "Java," were as fascinating as the shining balls of a juggler
+when a dozen are in the air at the same moment. My right-hand neighbor,
+upon learning that my destination was Corfu, good-naturedly offered the
+information that the voyage was an easy one. "Corfu, however, is _not_
+what it has been!"
+
+"But, Polly, it is looking up a little, now that the Empress of Austria
+is building a villa there," suggested a sister correctively.
+
+After this outburst of talk, we all climbed back into the waiting train,
+and went flying on towards the south, following the lonely, wild-looking
+coast, with the wind from the Adriatic crying over our heads like a
+banshee. It was midnight when we reached Brindisi. At present this, the
+ancient Brundusium, is the jumping-off place for the traveller on his
+way to the East; here he must leave the land and trust himself to an
+enigmatical deep. But if he wishes to have the sensation in full force,
+he must not delay his journey; for, presently, the Indian Mail will rush
+through Greece and meet the steamers at Cape Colonna; and then, before
+long, there will be another spurt, and Pullman trains will go through to
+Calcutta, with a ferry over the Bosporus.
+
+At Brindisi I became the prey of five barelegged boatmen, who, owing to
+the noise of the wind and the water, communicated with each other by
+yells. The Austrian-Lloyd steamer from Trieste, outward-bound for
+Constantinople, which carried the friends I was expecting to meet, was
+said to be lying out in the stream, and I enjoyed the adventure of
+setting forth alone on the dark sea in search of her, in a small boat
+rowed by my Otranto crew. During the transit there was not much time to
+think of Brundusium, with its memories of Horace and Virgil. But there
+was another opportunity to reflect upon the question, perplexing to the
+unskilled mind--namely, Why it is that an American abroad is constantly
+called upon to praise the wharves, piers, and landing-stages, and with
+the same breath to condemn as disgraces to civilization the like
+nautical platforms of his own country, when he is so often obliged, on
+foreign shores, to embark and disembark by means of a tossing small boat
+or a crowded tender, whereas at home, with the aid of those same
+makeshift constructions for whose short-comings he is supposed to blush,
+he walks on board of his steamship with no trouble whatever?
+
+Early the next morning, awakening on a shelf in a red velvet cupboard, I
+was explaining to myself vaguely that the cupboard was a dream, when
+there appeared through the port-hole a picture of such fairy-tale beauty
+that the dream became lyrical--it began to sing:
+
+    "Far and few, far and few,
+      Are the lands where the Jumblies live!"
+
+At last those famous lines were actualities, for surely this was the sea
+of the Jumblies, and those heights without doubt were "the hills of
+Chankly Bore." (There are people, I believe, who do not care for the
+Jumblies. There are persons who do not care for Alice in Wonderland, nor
+for Brer Rabbit, when he played on his triangle down by the brook.)
+
+The sea which I saw was of a miraculously blue tint; in the distance the
+cliffs of a mountainous island rose boldly from the water, their color
+that of a violet pansy; a fishing-boat with red sails was crossing the
+foreground; over all glittered an atmosphere so golden that it was like
+that of sunset in other lands, though the sky, at the same time, had
+unmistakably the purity of early morning. Later, on the deck, during the
+broadly practical time of after breakfast, this view, instead of
+diminishing in attraction, grew constantly more fair. The French
+novelist of to-day, Paul Bourget, describes Corfu as "so lovely that one
+wants to take it in one's arms!" Another Frenchman, who was not given to
+the making of phrases, no less a personage than Napoleon Bonaparte, has
+left upon record his belief that Corfu has "the most beautiful situation
+in the world." What, then, is this beauty? What is this situation?
+
+[Illustration: PART OF THE TOWN OF CORFU]
+
+First, there is the long and charming approach, with the snow-capped
+mountains of Albania, in European Turkey, looming up against the sky at
+the end; then comes the landlocked harbor; then the picturesque old
+town, its high stone houses, all of creamy hue, crowded together on the
+hill-side above the sea-wall, with here and there a bell-tower shooting
+into the blue. Below is the busy, many-colored port. Above towers the
+dark double fortress on its rock. And, finally, the dense, grove-like
+vegetation of the island encircles all, and its own mountain-peaks rise
+behind, one of them attaining a height of three thousand feet. There are
+other islands of which all this, or almost all, can be said--Capri, for
+instance. But at Corfu there are two attributes peculiar to the region;
+these are: first, the color; second, the transparency. Although the
+voyage from Brindisi hardly occupies twelve hours, the atmosphere is
+utterly unlike that of Italy; there is no haze; all is clear. Some of us
+love the Italian haze (which is not in the least a mist), that soft veil
+which makes the mountains look as if they were covered with velvet. But
+a love of this softness need not, I hope, make us hate everything that
+is different. Greece (and Corfu is a Greek island) seemed to me all
+light--the lightest country in the world. In other lands, if we climb a
+high mountain and stand on its bald summit at noon, we feel as if we
+were taking a bath in light; in Greece we have this feeling everywhere,
+even in the valleys. Euripides described his countrymen as "forever
+delicately tripping through the pellucid air," and so their modern
+descendants trip to this day. This dry atmosphere has an exciting effect
+upon the nervous energy, and the faces of the people show it. It has
+also, I believe, the defect of this good quality--namely, an
+over-stimulation, which sometimes produces neuralgia. In some respects
+Americans recognize this clearness of the atmosphere, and its influence,
+good and bad; the air of northern New England in the summer, and of
+California at the same season, is not unlike it. But in America the
+transparency is more white, more blank; we have little of the coloring
+that exists in Greece, tints whose intensity must be seen to be
+believed. The mountains, the hills, the fields, are sometimes bathed in
+lilac. Then comes violet for the plains, while the mountains are rose
+that deepens into crimson. At other times salmon, pink, and purple
+tinges are seen, and ochre, saffron, and cinnamon brown. This
+description applies to the whole of Greece, but among the Ionian Islands
+the effect of the color is doubled by the wonderful tint of the
+surrounding sea. I promise not to mention this hue again; hereafter it
+can be taken for granted, for it is always present; but for this once I
+must say that you may imagine the bluest blue you know--the sky, lapis
+lazuli, sapphires, the eyes of some children, the Bay of Naples--and the
+Ionian Sea is bluer than any of these. And nowhere else have I seen such
+dear, queer little foam sprays. They are so small and so very white on
+the blue, and they curl over the surface of the water even when the sea
+is perfectly calm, which makes me call them queer. You meet them miles
+from land. And all the shores are whitened with their never-ceasing
+play. It is a pygmy surf.
+
+It was eleven o'clock in the morning when our steamer reached her
+anchorage before the island town. Immediately she was surrounded by
+small boats, whose crews were perfectly lawless, demanding from
+strangers whatever they thought they could get, and obtaining their
+demands, because there was no way to escape them except by building a
+raft. Upon reaching land one forgets the extortion, for the windows of
+the hotel overlook the esplanade, and this open space amiably offers to
+persons who are interested in first impressions a panoramic history of
+two thousand five hundred years in a series of striking mementos. Let me
+premise that as regards any solid knowledge of these islands, only a
+contemptible smattering can be obtained in a stay so short as mine.
+Corfu and her sisters have borne a conspicuous part in what we used to
+call ancient history. Through the Roman days they appear and reappear.
+In the times of the Crusaders their position made them extremely
+important. Years of study could not exhaust their records, nor months of
+research their antiquities. To comprehend them rightfully one must
+indeed be an historian, an arch�ologist, and a painter at one and the
+same time, and one must also be good-natured. Few of us can hope to
+unite all these. The next best thing, therefore, is to go and see them
+with whatever eyes and mind we happen to possess. Good-nature will
+perhaps return after the opening encounter with the boatmen is over.
+
+From our windows, then, we could note, first, the Citadel, high on its
+rock, three hundred feet above the town. The oldest part of the present
+fortress was erected in 1550; but the site has always been the
+stronghold. Corinthians, Athenians, Spartans, Macedonians, and Romans
+have in turn held the island, and this rock is the obvious keep. Later
+came four hundred years of Venetian control, and I am ashamed to add
+that the tokens of this last-named period were to me more delightful
+than any of the other memorials. I say "ashamed," for why should one be
+haunted by Venice in Greece? With the Parthenon to look forward to, why
+should the lion of St. Mark, sculptured on Corfu fa�ades, be a thing to
+greet with joy? Many of us are familiar with the disconsolate figures of
+some of our fellow-countrymen and countrywomen in the galleries of
+Europe, tired and dejected tourists wandering from picture to picture,
+but finding nothing half so interesting as the memory of No. 4699
+Columbus Avenue at home. I am afraid it is equally narrow to be scanning
+Corfu, Athens, Cairo, and the sands of the desert itself for something
+that reminds one of another place, even though that place be the
+enchanting pageant of a town at the head of the Adriatic. History,
+however, as related by the esplanade, pays no attention to these
+aberrations of the looker-on; its story goes steadily forward. The lions
+of St. Mark on the fa�ades, and another memento of the Doges--namely,
+the statue of Count von der Schulenburg, who commanded the Venetian
+forces in the great defence of Corfu in 1716--these memorials have as
+companions various tokens of the English occupation, which, following
+that of Venice, continued through forty-nine years--that is, from 1815
+to 1863. Before this there had been a short period of French dominion;
+but the esplanade, so far as I could discover, contains no memorial of
+it, unless Napoleon's phrase can stand for one--and I think it can. The
+souvenirs of the British rule are conspicuous. The first is the palace
+built for the English Governor, a functionary who bore the sonorous
+official name of Lord High Commissioner, a title which was soon
+shortened to the odd abbreviation "the Lord High." This palace is an
+uninteresting construction stretching stiffly across the water-side of
+the esplanade, and cutting off the view of the harbor. It is now the
+property of the King of Greece, but at present it is seldom occupied.
+While we were at Corfu its ghostliness was enlivened for a while; Prince
+Henry of Prussia was there with his wife. They had left their yacht (if
+so large a vessel as the _Irene_ can be called a yacht), and were
+spending a week at the palace. An hour after their departure entrance
+was again permitted, and an old man, still trembling from the excitement
+of the royal sojourn, conducted us from room to room. All was ugly.
+Fading flowers in the vases showed that an attempt had been made to
+brighten the place; but the visitors must have been endowed with a
+strong natural cheerfulness to withstand with success such a mixture of
+the commonplace and the dreary as the palace presents. They had the
+magnificent view to look at, and there was always the graceful
+silhouette of the _Irene_ out on the water. She could come up at any
+time and take them away; it was this, probably, that kept them alive.
+
+[Illustration: THE PALACE]
+
+[Illustration: UNIVERSITY OF THE IONIAN ISLANDS]
+
+If the palace is ordinary, what shall be said of another memento which
+adorns the esplanade? This is a high, narrow building, so uncouth that
+it causes a smile. It looks raw, bare, and so primitive that if it had a
+pulley at the top it might be taken for a warehouse erected on the bank
+of a canal in one of our Western towns; one sees in imagination
+canal-boats lying beneath, and bulging sacks going up or down. Yet this
+is nothing less than that University of the Ionian Islands which was
+founded by the Earl of Guildford early in this century, the epoch of
+English enthusiasm for Greece, the days of the Philhellenes. Lord
+Guildford, who was one of the distinguished North family, gave largely
+of his fortune and of his time to establish this university.
+Contemporary records speak of him as "an amiable nobleman." But after
+seeing his touchingly ugly academy and his bust (which is not ugly) in
+the hall of the extinct Ionian Senate at the palace, one feels sure that
+he was more than amiable--he must have been original also. The English
+are called cold; but as individuals they are capable sometimes of
+extraordinary enthusiasms for distant causes and distant people.
+Adventurous travellers as they are, does the charm lie in the word
+"distant"? The defunct academy now shelters a school where vigorous
+young Greeks sit on benches, opposite each other, in narrow, doorless
+compartments which resemble the interior of a large omnibus; this, at
+least, was the arrangement of the ground-floor on the day of our visit.
+Although it was December, the boys looked heated. The teachers, who
+walked up and down, had a relentless aspect. Even the porter,
+white-haired and bent, had a will untouched by the least decay; he would
+not show us the remains of the university library, nor the Roman
+antiquities which are said to be stored somewhere in a lumber-room,
+among them "fifty-nine frames of mosaic representing a bustard in
+various attitudes." He had not the power, apparently, to exhibit these
+treasures while the school exercises were going on, and as soon as they
+were ended--instantly, that very minute--he intended to eat his dinner,
+and nothing could alter this determination; his face grew ferocious at
+the mere suggestion. So we were obliged to depart without seeing the
+souvenirs of Lord Guildford's enthusiasm; and owing to the glamour which
+always hangs over the place one has failed to see, I have been sure ever
+since that we should have found them the most fascinating objects in
+Corfu.
+
+At the present school the teaching is done, no doubt, in a tongue which
+would have made the old university shudder. In a letter written by Sir
+George Bowen in 1856, from one of the Ionian Islands, there is the
+following anecdote: "Bishop Wilberforce told me that he recently had, as
+a candidate at one of his ordinations, Mr. M., the son of an English
+merchant settled in Greece. 'I examined him myself,' said the bishop,
+'when he gave what was to me an unknown pronunciation.' 'Oh, Mr. M.,' I
+said, 'where _did_ you learn Greek?' 'In Athens, my lord,' replied the
+trembling man." Classical scholars who visit Greece to-day are not able
+to ask the simplest questions; or, rather, they may ask, but no one will
+understand them. Several of these gentlemen have announced to the world
+that the modern speech of Athens is a barbarous decadence. It is not for
+an American, I suppose, to pass judgment upon matters of this sort. But
+when these authorities continue as follows: "And even in pronunciation
+modern Greek is hopelessly fallen; the ancients never pronounced in this
+way," may we not ask how they can be so sure? They are not, I take it,
+inspired, and the phonograph is a modern invention. The voice of Robert
+Browning is stored for coming generations; the people A.D. 3000 may hear
+him recite "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix." Possibly
+the tones of Lord Salisbury and of Mr. Balfour are already garnered and
+arranged in cylinders for the future orators of the South Seas. But we
+cannot know how Pindar spoke any more than we can know the song the
+Sirens sang; the most learned scholar cannot, alas! summon from the past
+the articulation of Plato.
+
+[Illustration: SMALL TEMPLE, MEMORIAL TO SIR THOMAS MAITLAND]
+
+In the esplanade the period of English rule is further kept in mind by
+monuments to the memory of three of the Lords High--a statue, an
+obelisk, and (of all things in the world) an imitation of a Greek
+temple. This temple--it is so small that they might call it a
+templette--was erected in honor of Sir Thomas Maitland, a Governor whose
+arbitrary rule gained for him the title of King Tom. The three memorials
+are officially protected, an agreement to that effect having been made
+between the governments of Great Britain and Greece. They were never in
+danger, probably, as the English protection was a friendly one. In spite
+of its friendliness, the Corfiotes voted as follows with enthusiasm
+when an opportunity was offered to them: "The single and unanimous will
+of the Ionian people has been and is for their reunion with the Kingdom
+of Greece." England yielded to this wish and withdrew--a disinterested
+act which ought to have gained for her universal applause. Since 1864
+Corfu and her sister islands, happily freed at last from foreign
+control, have filled with patriotic pride and contentment their proper
+place as part of the Hellenic kingdom.
+
+The esplanade also contains the one modern monument erected by the
+Corfiotes themselves--a statue of Capo d'Istria. John Capo d'Istria, a
+native of Corfu, was the political leader of Greece when she succeeded
+in freeing herself from the Turkish yoke. The story of his life is a
+part of the exciting tale of the Greek revolution. His measures, after
+he had attained supreme power, were thought to be high-handed, and he
+was accused also of looking too often towards that great empire in the
+North whose boundaries are stretching slowly towards Constantinople; he
+was resisted, disliked; finally he was assassinated. Time has softened
+the remembrance of his faults, whatever they were, and brought his
+services to the nation into the proper relief; hence this statue,
+erected in 1887, fifty-six years after his death, by young Greece. It is
+a sufficiently imposing figure of white marble, the face turned towards
+the bay with a musing expression. Capo d'Istria--a name which might have
+been invented for a Greek patriot! The Eastern question is a complicated
+one, and I have no knowledge of its intricacies. But a personal
+observation of the hatred of Turkey which exists in every Greek heart,
+and a glance at the map of Europe, lead an American mind towards one
+general idea or fancy--namely, that Capo d'Istria was merely in advance
+of his time, and that an alliance between Russia and Greece is now one
+of the probabilities of the near future. It is unexpected--at least, to
+the non-political observer--that Hellas should be left to turn for help
+and comfort to the Muscovites, a race to whom, probably, her ancient art
+and literature appeal less strongly than they do to any other European
+people. But she has so turned. "Wait till _Russia_ comes down here!" she
+appears to be saying, with deferred menace, to Turkey to-day.
+
+These various monuments of the esplanade do not, however, make Corfu in
+the least modern. They are unimportant, they are inconspicuous, when
+compared with the old streets which meander over the slopes behind them,
+fringed with a net-work of stone lanes that lead down to the water's
+edge. It has been said that the general aspect of the place is Italian.
+It is true that there are arcades like those of Bologna and Padua; that
+some of the byways have the look of a Venetian calle, without its canal;
+and that the neighborhood of the gay little port resembles, on a small
+scale, the streets which border the harbor of Genoa. In spite of this,
+we have only to look up and see the sky, we have only to breathe and
+note the quality of the air, to perceive that we are not in Italy. Corfu
+is Greek, with a coating of Italian manners. And it has also caught a
+strong tinge from Asia. Many of the houses have the low door and masked
+entrance which are so characteristic of the East; at the top of the
+neglected stairway, as far as possible from public view, there may be
+handsome, richly furnished apartments; but if such rooms exist, the
+jealous love of privacy keeps them hidden. This inconspicuous entrance
+is as universal in the Orient as the high wall, shutting off all view of
+the garden or park, is universal in England.
+
+[Illustration: STATUE OF CAPO D'ISTRIA]
+
+The town of Corfu has 26,000 inhabitants. Among the population are
+Dalmatians, Maltese, Levantines, and others; but the Greeks are the
+dominant race. There is a Jews' quarter, and Jews abound, or did
+abound at the time of my visit. Since then fanaticism has raised its
+head again, and there have been wild scenes at Corfu. Face to face with
+the revival of persecution for religious opinions which is now visible
+in Russia, and not in Russia alone, are we forced to acknowledge that
+our century is not so enlightened as we have hoped that it was. I
+remember when I believed that in no civilized country to-day could there
+be found, among the educated, a single person who would wish to
+persecute or coerce his fellow-beings solely on account of their
+religious opinions; but I am obliged to confess that, without going to
+Russia or Corfu, I have encountered within the last dozen years
+individuals not a few whose flashing eyes and crimson cheeks, when they
+spoke of a mental attitude in such matters which differed from their
+own, made me realize with a thrill that if it were still the day of the
+stake and the torch they would come bringing fagots to the pile with
+their own hands.
+
+In spite of these survivals, ceremonial martyrdom for so-called
+religion's sake is, we may hope, at an end among the civilized nations;
+we have only its relics left. Corfu has one of these relics, a martyr
+who is sincerely honored--St. Spiridion, or, as he is called in loving
+diminutive, Spiro. Spiro, who died fifteen hundred years ago, was bishop
+of a see in Cyprus, I believe. He was tortured during the persecution of
+the Christians under Diocletian. His embalmed body was taken to
+Constantinople, and afterwards, in 1489, it was brought to Corfu by a
+man named George Colochieretry. Some authorities say that Colochieretry
+was a monk; in any case, what is certain is that the heirs of this man
+still own the saint--surely a strange piece of property--and derive
+large revenues from him. St. Spiro reposes in a small dim chapel of the
+church which is called by his name; his superb silver coffin is lighted
+by the rays from a hanging lamp which is suspended above it. When we
+paid our visit, people in an unbroken stream were pressing into this
+chapel, and kissing the sarcophagus repeatedly with passionate fervor.
+The nave, too, was thronged; families were seated on the pavement in
+groups, with an air of having been there all day: probably Christmas is
+one of the seasons set apart for an especial pilgrimage to the martyr.
+Three times a year the body is taken from its coffin and borne round the
+esplanade, followed by a long train of Greek clergy, and by the public
+officers of the town; upon these occasions the sick are brought forth
+and laid where the shadow of the saint can pass over them. "Yes, he's
+out to-day, I believe," said a resident, to whom we had mentioned this
+procession. He spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. After seeing it three
+times a year for twenty years, the issuing forth of the old bishop into
+the brilliant sunshine to make a solemn circuit round the esplanade did
+not, I suppose, seem so remarkable to him as it seemed to us. There is
+another saint, a woman (her name I have forgotten), who also reposes in
+a silver coffin in one of the Corfu churches. At first we supposed that
+this was Spiro. But the absence of worshippers showed us our mistake.
+This lonely witness to the faith was also a martyr; she suffered
+decapitation. "They don't think much of _her_," said the same resident.
+Then, explanatorily, "You see--she has no head." This practically minded
+critic, however, was not a native of Corfu. The true Corfiotes are very
+reverent, and no doubt they honor their second martyr upon her appointed
+day. But Spiro is the one they love. The country people believe that he
+visits their fields once a year to bless their olives and grain, and the
+Corfu sailors are sure that he comes to them, walking on the water in
+the darkness, when a storm is approaching. Mr. Tuckerman, in his
+delightful volume, _The Greeks of To-Day_, says, in connection with this
+last legend, that it is believed by the devout that seaweed is often
+found about the legs of the good bishop in his silver coffin, after his
+return from these marine promenades. There is something charming in this
+story, and I shall have to hold back my hand to keep myself from
+alluding (and yet I do allude) to a shrine I know at Venice; it is far
+out on the lagoon, and its name is Our Lady of the Seaweed. The last
+time my gondola passed it I saw that by a happy chance the high tide had
+left seaweed twined about it in long, floating wreaths, like an
+offering.
+
+The name of the national religion of Greece is the Orthodox Church of
+the East, or, more briefly, the Orthodox Church. Western nations call it
+the Greek Church, but they have invented that name themselves. The
+Orthodox Church has rites and ceremonies which are striking and
+sometimes magnificent. I have many memories of the churches of Corfu.
+The temples are so numerous that they seem innumerable; one was always
+coming upon a fresh one; sometimes there is only a fa�ade visible, and
+occasionally nothing but a door, the church being behind, masked by
+other buildings. My impressions are of a series of magnified
+jewel-boxes. There was not much daylight; no matter how radiant the
+sunshine outside, within all was richly dim, owing to the dark tints of
+the stained glass. The ornamentation was never paltry or tawdry. The
+soft light from the wax candles drew dull gleams from the singular
+metal-incrusted pictures. These pictures, or icons, are placed in large
+numbers along the walls and upon the screen which divides the nave from
+the apse. They are generally representations of the Madonna and Child in
+repouss�-work of silver, silvered copper, or gilt. Often the face and
+hands of the Madonna are painted on panel; in that case the portrait
+rises from metal shoulders, and the head is surrounded by metal hair.
+The painting is always of the stiff Byzantine school, following an
+ancient model, for any other style would be considered irreverent, and
+nothing can exceed the strange effect produced by these long-eyed,
+small-mouthed, rigid, sourly sweet virgin faces coming out from their
+silver-gilt necks, while below, painted taper fingers of unearthly
+length encircle a silver Child, who in His turn has a countenance of
+panel, often all out of drawing, but hauntingly sweet. These curious
+pictures have great dignity. The churches have no seats. I generally
+took my stand in one of the pew-like stalls which project from the wall,
+and here, unobserved, I could watch the people coming in and kissing the
+icons. This adoration, commemoration, reverence, or whatever the proper
+word for it may be, is much more conspicuous in the Greek places of
+worship than it is in Roman Catholic churches. Those who come in make
+the round of the walls, kissing every picture, and they do it fervently,
+not formally. The service is chanted by the priests very rapidly in a
+peculiar kind of intoning. The Corfu priests did not look as if they
+were learned men, but their faces have a natural and humane expression
+which is agreeable. In the street, with their flowing robes, long hair
+and beards, and high black caps, they are striking figures. The parish
+priest must be a married man, and he does not live apart from his
+people, but closely mingles with them upon all occasions. He is the
+papas, or pope, as it is translated, and a lover of Tourguenieff who
+meets a pope for the first time at Corfu is haunted anew by those
+masterpieces of the great Russian--the village tales across whose pages
+the pope and the popess come and go, and seem, to American readers, such
+strange figures.
+
+[Illustration: THE TOMB OF MENEKRATES]
+
+In the suburb of Castrades is the oldest church of the island. It is
+dedicated to St. Jason, the kinsman of St. Paul. St. Jason's appeared to
+be deserted. Here, as elsewhere, it is not the church most interesting
+from the historical point of view which is the favorite of the people,
+or which they find, apparently, the most friendly. But when I paid my
+visit, there were so many vines and flowers outside, and such a blue sky
+above, that the little Byzantine temple had a cheerful, irresponsible
+air, as if it were saying: "It's not my fault that people won't come
+here. But if they won't, I'm not unhappy about it; the sunshine, the
+vines, and I--we do very well together." The interior was bare, flooded
+also with white daylight--so white that one blinked. And in this
+whiteness my mind suddenly returned to Hellas. For Hellas had been
+forgotten for the moment, owing to the haunting icons in the dark
+churches of the town. Those silver-incrusted images had brought up a
+vision of the uncounted millions to-day in Turkey, Greece, and Russia
+who bow before them, the Christians of whom we know and think
+comparatively so little. But now all these Eastern people vanished as
+silently as they had come, and the past returned--the past, whose spell
+summons us to Greece. For conspicuous in the white daylight of St.
+Jason's were three antique columns, which, with other sculptured
+fragments set in the walls, had been taken from an earlier pagan temple
+to build this later church. And the spell does not break again in this
+part of the island. Not far from St. Jason's is the tomb of Menekrates.
+This monument was discovered in 1843, when one of the Venetian forts was
+demolished. Beneath the foundations the workmen came upon funeral vases,
+and upon digging deeper an ancient Greek cemetery was uncovered, with
+many graves, various relics, and this tomb. It is circular, formed of
+large blocks of stone closely joined without cement, and at present one
+stands and looks down upon it, as though it were in a roofless cellar.
+It bears round its low dome a metrical inscription in Greek, to the
+effect that Menekrates, who was the representative at Corcyra (the old
+name for Corfu) of his native town Eanthus, lost his life accidentally
+by drowning; that this was a great sorrow to the community, for he was a
+friend of the people; that his brother came from Eanthus, and, with the
+aid of the Corcyreans, erected the monument. There is something
+impressive to us in this simple memorial of grief set up before the days
+of �schylus, before the battle of Marathon--the commemoration of a
+family sorrow in Corfu two thousand five hundred years ago. The
+following is a Latin translation of the inscription:
+
+    "Tlasiadis memor ecce Menecrates hoc monumentum,
+     Ortum OEantheus, populus statuebat at illi,
+     Quippe benignus erat populo patronus, in alto
+     Sed periit ponto, totam et dolor obruit urbem.
+     Praximenes autem patriis huc venit ab oris
+     Cum populo et fratris monumentum hoc struxit adempti."
+
+Two thousand five hundred years ago! That is far back. But it is not the
+oldest date "in the world." Americans are accused of cherishing an
+inordinate love for the superlative--the longest river, the highest
+mountain, the deepest mine in the world, the largest diamond in the
+world; there must always be that tag "in the world" to interest us. When
+ancient objects are in question we are said to rush from one to the
+next, applying our sole test; and we drop at any time a tomb or a
+temple, no matter how beautiful, if there comes a rumor that another has
+been discovered a little farther on which is thought to be a trifle more
+venerable. Thus they chaff us--pilgrims from a land where Nature herself
+works in superlatives, and where there is no antiquity at all. In Italy
+our mania, exercising itself upon smaller objects than temples, brings
+us nearer the comprehension (or non-comprehension) of the contemptuous
+natives. "What hideous" (she called it hee-dee us) "things you _do_
+buy!" I heard an Italian lady exclaim with conviction some years ago, as
+she happened to meet three of her American acquaintances returning from
+a hunt through the antiquity-shops of Naples, loaded with a battered
+lamp, a square of moth-eaten tapestry with an indecipherable
+inscription, and a nondescript broken animal in bronze, without head,
+tail, or legs, who might have been intended for a dragon, or possibly
+for a cow. After a while we pass this stage of antiquity-shops. But we
+never pass the Etruscans, or, rather, I should speak for myself, and say
+that I never passed them; I was perpetually haunted by them. There was
+one road in particular, a lonely track which led from Bellosguardo (at
+Florence) up a steep hill, and I was forever climbing this stony ascent
+because, forsooth, it was set down on an Italian map as "the old
+Etruscan way between Fiesole and Volterra," two strongholds of this
+mysterious people. I was sure that there were tombs with strangely
+painted walls close at hand, and when there was no one in sight I made
+furtive arch�ological pokes with my parasol. In Italy an Etruscan tomb
+seems the oldest thing "in the world." And at Corfu the unearthed Greek
+cemetery became doubly interesting when I learned that among the relics
+discovered there was a lioness couchant, concerning which the highest
+authorities have said, "After the lions of the gates of Mycen�, there is
+no Greek sculpture older than this." (The lioness is now in the
+vestibule of the palace in the esplanade.) This was exciting, for Mycen�
+is a name to conjure with still, in spite of the refusal of the learned
+to accept, in all their extent, Dr. Schliemann's splendidly romantic
+theories and dreams. But when one goes on to Egypt, to have searched at
+all for that enticing "oldest" in Greece appears to have been a mistake.
+For what is B.C. 1000, which the German authorities say is an
+approximate date for the Mycen� relics--what is that compared with King
+Menes of the Nile, with his B.C. 4400 according to Brugsch-Bey, and B.C.
+5000 according to Mariette? And there are rumors of civilized times far
+older. But if we can bring ourselves to cease our chase after age and
+turn to beauty, then it is not in the sands of Egypt that we must dig.
+For beauty we must come to the clear light country of the gods.
+
+But leaving history, some of us suffer greatly nowadays from mental
+dislocations of another sort. The Mycen� lions and the grim lioness of
+Corfu are ascribed with a calmness which seems brutal to "pre-Homeric
+times." Surely there were no pre-Homeric times except chaos. Surely
+those were the first days of the world when all the men were
+sure-footed, and all the women white-armed; when the sea was hollow (it
+has remained that to this day), and when the heavenly powers interested
+themselves in human affairs upon the slightest occasion. Leave us our
+faith in them. It can be preserved, if you like, in the purely poetical
+compartment of the mind. For there are all sorts of compartments: I have
+met a learned geologist who turned pale when a mirror was broken by
+accident in his house; I know a disciple of Darwin who always deprecates
+instantly any reference to his good health, lest in some mysterious way
+it should attract ill-luck. It seems to me, therefore, that the dear
+belief that Homer's heroes began the world may coexist even with the
+bicycle. (Not that I myself have much knowledge of this excellent
+vehicle. But, its tandem wheels, swift and business-like, personify the
+spirit of the age.)
+
+[Illustration: THE ISLET CALLED "THE SHIP OF ULYSSES"]
+
+At Corfu one is over one's head in the Odyssey. "The island is not what
+it has been," said the English lady of the Indian Mail. It is not,
+indeed! She referred to the days of the Lords High. But the rest of us
+refer to Nausicaa; for Corfu is the Scheria of the Odyssey, the home of
+King Alcinous. Not far beyond the tomb of Menekrates, at the point
+called Canone, we have a view of a deep bay. On the opposite shore of
+this bay enters the stream upon whose bank Ulysses first met the
+delightful little maiden--"the beautiful stream of the river, where were
+the pools unfailing, and clear and abundant water." And also (but this
+is a work of supererogation, like feminine testimony in a court of
+justice) we have a view of the Ph�acian ship which was turned into stone
+by Neptune: "Neptune s'en approcha, et, le frappant du plat de la main,
+le changea en un rocher qu'il enracina dans le sol," as my copy of the
+Odyssey, which happens rather absurdly to be a French one, translates
+the passage. The ship, therefore, is now an island; its deck is a
+chapel; its masts are trees. Of late the belief that Corfu is the
+Scheria of the Odyssey has been attacked. Appended to the musical
+translation of the episode of Nausicaa, which was published in 1890,
+there is the following note: "It will be seen that the writer declines
+to accept the identification of Corcyra, the modern Corfu, with Scheria.
+In this skepticism he is emboldened by the protecting shield of the Ajax
+among English-speaking Hellenists. See Jebb's Homer." It is not possible
+to contest a point with Ajax. But any one who has seen the gardens and
+groves of this lovely isle, who has watched the crystalline water dash
+against the rocks at Pal�okastrizza, who has strolled down the hill-side
+at Pelleka, or floated in a skiff off the coast at Ipso--any such person
+will say that Corfu is at least an ideal home for the charming girl who
+played ball and washed the clothes on the shore, king's daughter though
+she was. To quote the translation:
+
+    "Father dear, would you make ready for me a wagon, a high one,
+    Strong in the wheels, that I may carry our beautiful garments
+                           ... to be washed in the river?"
+
+One wishes that this primitive princess could have had another name.
+Nausicaa; no matter how one pronounces the syllables, they are not
+melodious. Why could she not have been Aglaia, Daphne, or Artemidora?
+Standing at Canone and looking across at her shore, one is vexed anew
+that she should have given her heart, or even her fancy, to Ulysses--a
+man who was always eating. Instead of Ulysses, we should say Odysseus,
+no doubt. That may pass. But the sentimental, inaccurate persons who
+read Homer in English (or French) will not so easily consent to
+Alkinoos. No; Alcinous (which reminds them vaguely of halcyon) will
+remain in their minds as the name of the king who lived "far removed
+from the trafficking nations," among his blossoming gardens in the
+billowy sea; and to this faith will they cling. The clinging evidently
+exists at Corfu. One of the most comical sights there is a modern
+"detached villa," of course English, which might have come from
+Cheltenham; it is planted close to the glaring road, and over its dusty
+gate is inscribed imperturbably, "Alcinous Lodge."
+
+[Illustration: VILLAGE OF PELLEKA]
+
+One wonders whether the princesses of to-day (who no longer dry clothes
+upon the shore) amuse their leisure hours with Homer's recitals
+concerning their predecessors? One of them, at any rate, has chosen
+Corfu as a place of sojourn; the Empress of Austria, after paying many
+visits to the island, has now built for herself a country residence, or
+villino, at a distance from the town, not far from Nausicaa's stream.
+The house is surrounded by gardens, and from the terrace there is a
+magnificent view in all directions; here she enjoys the solitude which
+she is said to love, and the Corfiotes see only the coming and going
+of her yacht. I don't know why there should be something so delightful,
+to one mind at least, in the selection of this distant Greek island as
+the resting-place of a queen, who takes the long journey down the
+Adriatic year after year to reach her retreat. The preference is perhaps
+due simply to fondness for a sea-voyage, and to the fact that a yacht
+lying at Trieste lies practically at Vienna's door. Lovers of Corfu,
+however, will not be turned aside by any of these reasons; they will
+continue to believe that the choice is made for beauty's sake; they will
+extol this perfect appreciation; they will praise this modern Nausicaa;
+they will purchase her portrait in photographed copies. When they have
+one of these representations, they can note with satisfaction the
+accordance between its outlines and a taste in islands which is surely
+the best in the world.
+
+[Illustration: KING GEORGE OF GREECE]
+
+The casino of the Empress is not the only royal residence at Corfu.
+About a mile from the town is the country-house called "Mon Repos," the
+property of the King of Greece. King George and Queen Olga, with their
+children, have frequently spent summers here. The mansion is ordinary as
+regards its architecture--it was built by one of the Lords High. The
+situation is altogether admirable, with a view of the harbor and town.
+But the especial loveliness of Mon Repos is to be found in its gardens;
+their foliage is tropical, with superb magnolias, palms, bananas, aloes,
+and orange and lemon trees. There are flowers of all kinds, with roses
+clambering everywhere, and blossoming vines. The royal family who rule,
+or rather preside over, the kingdom of the Hellenes are much respected
+and beloved at Corfu. The King, who was Prince William of Denmark--the
+brother of the Czarina of Russia and of the Princess of Wales--took the
+name of George when he ascended the throne in 1863. He was elected by
+the National Assembly. Now that he has been reigning nearly thirty
+years, and has a grandson as well as a son to succeed him, it is amusing
+to turn back to the original candidates and the votes; for it was an
+election (within certain limits) by the people, and all sorts of tastes
+were represented. Prince Alfred of England, the Duke of Edinburgh, was
+at the head of the list; but as it had been stipulated that no member of
+the reigning families of England, France, or Russia should have the
+crown, his name was struck off. There were votes for Prince Jerome
+Napoleon. There were votes for the Prince Imperial. There were even
+votes for "A Republic." But Greece, as she stands, is as near a republic
+as a country with a sovereign can be. Suffrage is universal; there is no
+aristocracy; there are no hereditary titles, no entailed estates; the
+liberty of the press is untrammelled; education is free. Everywhere the
+people are ardently patriotic; they are actively, and one may say almost
+dangerously, interested in everything that pertains to the political
+condition of their country. This interest is quickened by their acute
+intellects. I have never seen faces more sharply intelligent than those
+of the Greek men of to-day. I speak of men who have had some advantages
+in the way of education. But as all are intensely eager to obtain these
+advantages, and as schools are now numerous, education to a certain
+extent is widely diffused. The men are, as a general rule, handsome. But
+they are not in the least after the model of the Greek god, as he exists
+in art and fiction. This model has an ideal height and strength, massive
+shoulders, a statuesque head with closely curling hair, and an unruffled
+repose. The actual Greek possesses a meagre frame, thin face, with high
+cheek-bones, a dry, dark complexion, straight hair, small eyes, and as
+for repose, he has never heard of it; he is overwhelmingly,
+never-endingly restless. With this enumeration my statement that he
+is handsome may not appear to accord. Nevertheless, he is a good-looking
+fellow; his spare form is often tall, the quickly turning eyes are
+wonderfully brilliant, the dark face is lighted by the gleam of white
+teeth, the gait is very graceful, the step light. The Albanian costume,
+which was adopted after the revolution as the national dress for the
+whole country, is amazing. We have all seen it in paintings and
+photographs, where it is merely picturesque. But when you meet it in the
+streets every day, when you see the wearer of it engaged in cooking his
+dinner, in cleaning fish, in driving a cart, in carrying a hod, or
+hanging out clothes on a line, then it becomes perfectly fantastic. The
+climax of my own impressions about it was reached, I think, a little
+later, at Athens, when I beheld the guards walking their beats before
+the King's palace, and before the simple house of the Crown Prince
+opposite; they are soldiers of the regular army, and they held their
+muskets with military precision as they marched to and fro, attired in
+ordinary overcoats (it happened to be a rainy day) over the puffed-out
+white skirts of a ballet-dancer. Robert Louis Stevenson, in one of his
+recent letters from the South Seas, writes that "the mind of the female
+missionary" (British) "tends to be constantly busied about dress; she
+can be taught with extreme difficulty to think any costume decent but
+that to which she grew accustomed on Clapham Common, and, to gratify
+this prejudice, the native is put to useless expense." And here it
+occurs to me that it is high time to explore this Clapham Common. We go
+as worshippers to Shakespeare's Avon; we go to the land of Scott and
+Burns; we know the "stripling Thames at Bablockhithe," where "the punt's
+rope chops round"; but to Clapham Common we make, I think, no
+pilgrimages, although it has as clearly marked a place in English
+literature as the Land of Beulah or the Slough of Despond. I fancy that
+Americans are not so closely tied to a fixed standard in dress as are
+the missionaries who excite Mr. Stevenson's wrath. A half of our
+population seeks its ideal in Paris, but as a whole we are easy-going.
+We accept the Chinese attire in our streets without demur; the lack of
+attire of the Sioux does not disconcert us; when abroad we admire
+impartially the Egyptian gown and the Cossack uniform, and we adorn
+ourselves liberally with the fez. But the Greek costume makes us pause;
+it seems a bravado in whimsicality. One can describe it in detail: one
+can say that it consists of a cap with a long tassel, a full white
+shirt, an embroidered jacket with open sleeves, a tight girdle, the
+white kilt or fustanella, long leggings with bright-colored garters,
+and, usually, shoes with turned-up toes. The enumeration, however, does
+not do away with the one general impression of men striding about in
+short white ballet petticoats.
+
+[Illustration: QUEEN OLGA OF GREECE]
+
+In spite of their skirts, the Greeks have as martial an air as possible;
+an old Greek who is vain, and they are all vain, is even a
+fierce-looking figure. All the men have small waists, and are proud of
+them; their belts are drawn as tightly as those of young girls in other
+countries. From this girdle, or from the embroidered pouch below it,
+comes a gleam which means probably a pistol, though sometimes it is only
+the long, narrow inkhorn of brass or silver. Besides the Albanian, there
+are other costumes. One, which is frequently seen, is partly Turkish,
+with baggy trousers. The Greek men are vain, and with cause; if the
+women are vain, it must be without it; we did not see a single handsome
+face among them. It was not merely that we failed to find the beautiful
+low forehead, full temple, straight nose, and small head of classic
+days; we could not discover any marked type, good or bad; the
+features were those that pass unnoticed everywhere. I speak, of
+course, generally, and from a superficial observation, for I saw only
+the people one meets in the streets, in the churches, in the fields,
+olive groves, and vineyards, on the steamers, and at the house doors.
+But after noting this population for two weeks and more, the result
+remained the same--the men who came under our notice were handsome, and
+the women were not. The dress of the women varies greatly. The Albanian
+costume, which ranks with the fustanellas or petticoats of the men, is
+as flat, narrow, and elongated as the latter are short and protruding.
+It consists of a sheath-like skirt of a woollen material, and over this
+a long, narrow white coat, which sometimes has black sleeves; the head
+is wrapped in loose folds of white. This was the attire worn by the
+girls who were at work in the fields. On Christmas Day I met a number of
+Corfiote women walking about the esplanade arrayed in light-colored
+dresses, with large aprons of white lace or white muslin, and upon their
+heads white veils with bunches of artificial flowers; in addition, they
+wore so many necklaces, pins, clasps, buckles, rings, lockets,
+bracelets, pendants, and other adornments of silver and silver-gilt that
+they clanked as they walked. This was a gala costume of some sort. We
+did not see it again.
+
+The island of Corfu is about forty miles long. Its breadth in the widest
+part is twenty miles. The English, who have a genius for road-making
+which is almost equal to that of the Romans, have left excellent
+highways behind them; it is easy, therefore, to cross the island from
+end to end. In arranging such an expedition, that exhaustive dialogue
+about buying a carriage, which (to one's bewilderment) occupies by far
+the most important place in all the Manuals of Conversation for the
+Traveller, might at last be of some service.
+
+"Have you a carriage?" it begins (in six languages).
+
+"Yes; I have berlins, vis-�-vis, gigs, calashes, and cabriolets." (What
+vehicles are these?)
+
+"Are the axle-trees, the nave, the spokes, the tires, the felloes, and
+the splinter-bars in good condition?" it goes on in its painstaking
+polyglot. Possibly one might be called upon to purchase splinter-bars in
+a remote island of the Ionian Sea.
+
+Seated, then, in a berlin, or perhaps in a calash, one goes out at least
+to visit the olive groves, if not to cross the island. These groves are
+not the ranks of severely pruned, almost maimed, trees which greet the
+traveller in parts of southern Europe--groves without shade, without
+luxuriance; viewed from a distance, their gray-green foliage forms a
+characteristic part of the landscape, but at close quarters they have
+but one expression--namely, how many coins are to be squeezed out of
+each poor tree, whose every bud appears to have been counted. At Corfu
+one strolls through miles of wood whose foliage is magnificent; it is
+possible to lounge in the shade, for there is shade, and to draw a free
+breath. No doubt the Corfiotes keep guard over their leafy domain; but
+the occasional visitor, at least, is not harassed by warnings to
+trespassers set up everywhere, by children following him with suspicious
+eyes, by patrols, dogs, stone walls, and sometimes by stones of another
+kind which do not stay in the walls, but come flying through the air to
+teach him to keep his distance. It is difficult, probably, for people
+from the New World to look upon a forest as something sacred, guarded,
+private; we have taken our pleasure "in the woods" all our lives
+whenever we have felt so inclined; we do not intend to do any harm
+there, but we do wish to be free. In the olive groves of Corfu the wish
+can be gratified. Their aisles are wonderful in every respect: in the
+size of the trees (some of them are sixty feet high), in the
+picturesque shapes of the gnarled trunks, in the extent of the long
+vistas where the light has the color which some of us know at home--that
+silvery green under the great live-oaks at the South, when their
+branches are veiled in the long moss.
+
+[Illustration: "MON REPOS," SUMMER RESIDENCE OF THE KING OF GREECE]
+
+[Illustration: IN THE GROUNDS OF THE NEW VILLA OF THE EMPRESS OF GREECE]
+
+But Athens was before us; we must leave the groves; we must leave
+Nausicaa's shore. We did so at last in the wake of a departing storm.
+For several days the wind had been tempestuous. The signal, which is
+displayed from the Citadel, had become a riddle; it is an arrangement of
+flags by day and of lanterns by night, and no two of us ever deciphered
+it alike. If the order was thus and so, it meant that something
+belonging to the Austrian-Lloyd company was in sight; if so and thus, it
+meant the Florio line; if neither of these, then it might possibly be
+our boat--that is, the Greek coasting steamer which we had decided to
+take because we had been told that it was the best. I have never
+fathomed the mystery as to why our informant told us this. If he had
+been a Greek, it would have been at least a patriotic misrepresentation.
+We were dismayed when we reached the rough tub. But, after all, in one
+sense she was the best, for she dawdled in and out among the islands,
+never in the least hurry, and stopping to gossip with them all; this
+gave us a good chance to see them, if it gave us nothing else. I have
+said "when we reached her," for there were several false starts. We rose
+in the morning in a mood of regretful good-bye, expecting to be far away
+at night. And at night, with our good-bye on our hands, we were still in
+our hotel. But it is only fair to add that with its garlands of flowers
+and myrtle for the Christmas season; with its queer assemblage of
+Levantines in the dining-room; with its bath-room in the depths of the
+earth, to which one descended by stairway leading down underground; with
+its group of petticoated Greeks in the hall, and, in its rooms of honor
+above, a young Austrian princess of historic name and extraordinary
+beauty--with all this, and its cheerful lies, its smiling, gay-hearted
+irresponsibility, the Corfu inn was an entertaining place. The Greek
+steamer came at last. She had been driven out of her course by the gale,
+so said the pirate, ostensibly retired from business, who superintended
+the embarkations from the hotel. This lithe freebooter had presented
+himself at frequent intervals during the baffling days when we watched
+the signal, and he always entered without knocking. He could not grasp
+the idea, probably, that ceremonies would be required by persons who
+intended to sail by the coaster. When we reached this bark ourselves,
+later, we forgave him--a little. Her deck was the most democratic place
+I have ever seen. We think that we approve of equality in the United
+States. But the Greeks carry their approval further than we do. On this
+deck there were no reserved portions, no prohibitions; the persons who
+had paid for a first-class ticket had the same rights as those which
+were accorded to the steerage travellers, and no more; and as the latter
+were numerous, they obtained by far the larger share, eating the
+provisions which they had brought with them, sleeping on their
+coverlids, playing games, and smoking in the best places. There was no
+system, and little discipline; the sailors came up and washed the deck
+(a process which was very necessary) whenever and however they pleased,
+and we had to jump for our lives and mount a bench to escape the stream
+from the hose, as it suddenly appeared without warning from an
+unlooked-for quarter. The passengers, who came on board at various
+points during a cruise of several days, brought with them light personal
+luggage, which consisted of hens tied together by the legs, a live
+sheep, kitchen utensils, and bedding, all of which they placed
+everywhere and anywhere, according to their pleasure. A Greek dressed
+in the full national costume accompanied us all the way to Missolonghi
+so closely that he was closer than a brother; save when we were locked
+in our small sleeping-cabins below (the one extra possession which a
+first-class ticket bestows), we were literally elbow to elbow with him.
+And his elbows were a weapon, like the closed umbrella held under the
+arm in a crowded street--that pleasant habit of persons who are not
+Greeks. The Greek elbow was clothed in a handsome sleeve covered with
+gold embroidery, for our friend was a dandy of dandies. His petticoats
+and his shirt were of fine linen, snowy in its whiteness; his small
+waist was encircled by a magnificent Syrian scarf; his cream-colored
+leggings were spotless; and his conspicuous garters new and brilliantly
+scarlet. He was an athletic young man of thirty, his good looks marred
+only by his over-eager eyes and his restlessness. It was his back which
+he presented to us, for his attention was given entirely to a party of
+his own friends, men and women. He talked to them; he read aloud to them
+from a small newspaper (they all had newspapers, and read them often);
+he stood up and argued; he grew excited and harangued; then he sat down,
+his inflated skirts puffing out over his chair, and went on with his
+argument, if argument it was, until, worn out by the hours of his
+eloquence, some of his companions fell asleep where they sat. His meals
+were astonishingly small. As everything went on under our eyes, we saw
+what they all ate, and it was unmistakable testimony to the Greek
+frugality. Our companion had brought with him from Corfu, by way of
+provisions for several days, a loaf of bread about as large as three
+muffins in one, a vial containing capers, a grapeleaf folded into a
+cornucopia and filled with olives, and a pint bottle of the light wine
+of the country. The only addition which he made to this store was a
+salted fish about four inches long, which he purchased daily from the
+steward. There was always a discussion before he went in search of this
+morsel, which represented, I suppose, the roast meat of his dinner, and
+when he returned after a long absence, bearing it triumphantly on the
+palm of his hand, it was passed from one to the next, turned over,
+inspected, and measured by each member of the group, amid the most
+animated, eager discussion. When comment was at last exhausted, the
+superb orator seated himself (always with his chair against our knees),
+and placed before him, on a newspaper spread over the bench, his
+precious fishlette divided into small slices, with a few capers and
+olives arranged in as many wee heaps as there were portions of fish, so
+that all should come out even. Then, with the diminutive loaf of bread
+by his side and the bottle of wine at his feet, he began his repast,
+using the point of his pocketknife as a fork, eating slowly and
+meditatively, and intently watched by all his friends, who sat in
+silence, following with their eyes each mouthful on its way from the
+newspaper to his lips. They had previously made their own repasts in the
+same meagre fashion, but perhaps they derived some small additional
+nourishment from watching the mastication of their friend. When his fish
+had disappeared, accompanied by one slender little slice of bread, our
+neighbor lifted the wine-bottle, and gave himself a swallow of wine;
+then, after a pause of a minute or two, another. This was all. The
+bottle was recorked, and with the remaining provisions put carefully
+away. All foreign residents in Greece, whether they like the people or
+dislike them, agree in pronouncing them extraordinarily abstemious.
+Drunkenness hardly exists among them.
+
+[Illustration: ALBANIAN MALE COSTUME]
+
+At one of the islands a prisoner was brought on board by two policemen.
+He was a slender youth--an apprentice to a mason, probably, for his poor
+clothes were stained with mortar and lime. He held himself stiffly
+erect, making a determined effort to present a brave countenance to the
+world. He was led to a place in the centre of the deck, and then one of
+his guardians departed, leaving the second in charge. The steamer lay in
+the harbor for an hour or more, and four times skiffs put out from the
+shore, each bringing two or three young men--or, rather, boys--who came
+up the ladder furtively. Reaching the deck, they edged their way along,
+first to the right, then to the left, until they perceived their
+comrade. Even then they did not approach him directly; they assumed an
+air of indifference, and walked about a little among the other
+passengers. But after a while, one by one, they came to him, and, taking
+bread from under their jackets, they put it hastily and silently into
+his pockets, the policeman watching them, but not interfering. Then,
+moving off quickly, they disappeared down the ladder in the same
+stealthy way, and returned to the shore. Through all their manoeuvres
+the prisoner did not once look at them; he kept his eyes fixed upon a
+distant point in the bay, as though there was something out there which
+he was obliged to watch without an instant's cessation. All his pockets
+meanwhile, and the space under his jacket, grew so full that he was
+swathed in bread. Finally came the whistle, and the steamer started.
+Then, as the island began to recede, the set young face quivered, and
+the arm in its ragged sleeve went up to cover the eyes--a touching
+gesture, because it is the child's when in trouble, the instinctive
+movement of the grief-stricken little boy.
+
+Ten miles south of Corfu one meets the second of the Ionian Islands,
+Paxo, with the tiny, severe Anti-Paxo lying off its southern point, like
+a summary period set to any romantic legend which the larger isle may
+wish to tell. As it happens, the legend is a striking one, and we all
+know it without going to Paxo. But it is impossible to pass the actual
+scene without relating it once more, and, for the telling, no modern
+words can possibly approach those of the old annotator. "Here at the
+coast of Paxo, about the time that our Lord suffered His most bitter
+Passion, certain persons sailing from Italy at night heard a voice
+calling aloud: 'Thamus?' 'Thamus?' Who, giving ear to the cry (for he
+was the pilot of the ship), was bidden when he came near to Portus
+Pelodes" (the Bay of Butrinto) "to tell that the great god Pan was dead.
+Which he, doubting to do, yet when he came to Portus Pelodes there was
+such a calm of wind that the ship stood still in the sea, unmoored, and
+he was forced to cry aloud that Pan was dead. Whereupon there were such
+piteous outcries and dreadful shrieking as hath not been the like. By
+the which Pan, of some is understood the great Sathanas, whose kingdom
+was at that time by Christ conquered; for at that moment all oracles
+surceased, and enchanted spirits, that were wont to delude the people,
+henceforth held their peace."
+
+Those of us who read Milton's Ode on Christmas Eve will recall his
+allusion to this Paxo legend:
+
+    "The lonely mountains o'er,
+    And the enchanted shore,
+      A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament;
+    From haunted spring and dale,
+    Edged with poplar pale,
+      The parting Genius is with sighing sent."
+
+[Illustration: ALBANIAN FEMALE COSTUME]
+
+Anti-Paxo is one of the oddest spots I have seen. It is a small, bare,
+stone plain, elevated but slightly above the surface of the water. The
+rock is of a tawny hue, and there is a queer odor of asphaltum. At
+certain seasons of the year it is covered so thickly with quail that
+"you could not put a paper-cutter between them." There were no quail
+when we passed the rock. The sun shone on the flat surface, bringing out
+its rich tint against the azure of the sea, and in its strange
+desolation it looked like a picture which might have been painted by a
+man of genius who had gone mad in his passion for color. Though I
+mention the Ionian group only, it must not be supposed that there were
+no other islands. Those of us who like to turn over maps, to search out
+routes though we may never follow them except on paper--innocent
+stay-at-home geographers of this sort have supposed that it was a simple
+matter to learn the names of the islands which one meets in any
+well-known track across well-known seas. This is a mistake. From Corfu
+to Patras, and, later, on the way to Egypt and Syria, and back through
+the Strait of Messina to Genoa, I saw many islands--it seemed to me that
+they could have been counted by hundreds--which are not indicated in the
+ordinary guide-books, and whose names no one on the steamers appeared to
+know, not even the captains. The captains, the pilots, and all the
+officers were of course aware of the exact position in the sea of each
+one; that was part of their business. But as to names, these mariners,
+whether Englishmen, Germans, Italians, Turks, or Greeks (and we sailed
+with all), appeared to share the common opinion that they had none;
+their manner was that they deserved none. But I have never met a steamer
+captain who felt anything but profound contempt for small islands; he
+appears to regard them simply as interruptions--as some Ohio farmers of
+my acquaintance regard the occasional single tree in their broad, level
+fields.
+
+Abreast of Paxo, on the mainland, is the small village of Parga. The
+place has its own tragic history connected with its cession to the Turks
+in 1815. But I am afraid that its principal association in my mind is
+the frivolous one of a roaring chorus, "Robbers all at Parga!" This song
+may be as much of a libel as that bold ballad concerning the beautiful
+town at the eastern end of Lake Erie; the ladies of that place are not
+in the habit of "coming out to-night, to dance by the light of the
+moon," and in the same way there may never have been any robbers worth
+speaking of at Parga. It is Hobhouse who tells the story. "In the
+evening preparations were made for feeding our Albanians. After eating,
+they began to dance round the fire to their own singing with an
+astonishing energy. One of their songs begins, 'When we set out from
+Parga, there were sixty of us.' Then comes the chorus: 'Robbers all at
+Parga! Robbers all at Parga!' As they roared out this stave, they
+whirled round the fire, dropped to and rebounded from their knees, and
+again whirled round in a wild circle, repeating it at the top of their
+voices:
+
+    "'Robbers all at Parga!
+    Robbers all at Parga!'"
+
+At Parga we met the Byronic legend, which from this point hangs over the
+whole Ionian Sea. Parga is not far from the castle of Suli, and with the
+word "Suliote" we are launched aloft into the resplendent realm of
+Byron's poetry, which seems as beautiful and apparition-like as the
+Oberland peaks viewed from Berne--shining cliffs, so celestially and
+impossibly fair, far up in the sky. (We may note, however, in passing,
+that these lofty limits are, after all, as real as a barn-yard, or as an
+afternoon sewing society.) The country near Parga is described at length
+in the second canto of "Childe Harold."
+
+[Illustration: GALA COSTUME, CORFU]
+
+The third island of the Ionian group is Santa Maura, the Leucadia of the
+ancients. It looks like a chain of mountains set in the sea. Here there
+are earthquakes, as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu would have expressed
+it. The story is that at Santa Maura and at Zante there is a severe
+shock once in twenty years, and a "small roll" twice in every three
+months. It is at least true that slight earthquakes are not uncommon,
+and that the houses are built to resist them, with strong beams crossing
+from side to side to hold the walls together, so that the interiors look
+like the cabins of a ship. The rolling motion, when it comes, must make
+this resemblance very vivid. The impression of Santa Maura which remains
+in my own mind, however, does not concern itself with earthquakes,
+unless, indeed, one means moral ones. I see a long, lofty promontory
+ending in a silvery headland. I see it flushed with the rose-tints of
+sunset, high above a violet sea. Of course I was looking for it; every
+one looks for the rock from which dark Sappho flung herself in her
+despair. But even without Sappho it is a striking cliff; it rises
+perpendicularly from deep water, and it is so white that one fancies
+that it must be visible even upon the darkest night. All day its
+towering opaline crest serves as a beacon from afar. The temple of
+Apollo which once crowned its summit can still be traced in sculptured
+fragments, though there are no marble columns like those that gleam
+across the waves from Sunium. "Leucadia's far-projecting rock of woe,"
+Byron calls it. But it does not look woful. One fancies that exaltation
+must flood the soul of the human creature who springs to meet Death from
+such a place. The memory of the Greek poetess has nothing to do with
+these reflections, unless one refers to the ladies who are announced to
+the public from time to time as "the modern Sappho," in which case one
+might suggest to them the excellent facilities the rock affords. As to
+the greatest of women of letters, I do not know that there is anything
+more to say about her in the language of the United States. If she had
+flourished and perished last year, M. Jules Lema�tre (her name would
+have been L�ocadie, probably) would doubtless have written an article
+about her: "The career, literary and other, of Mademoiselle L�ocadie, a
+�t� des plus distingu�es, bien qu'un peu tapageuse."
+
+As the steamer crossed from Santa Maura to Cephalonia we had a clear
+view of little Ithaca, the Ithaca which Ulysses loved, "not because it
+was broad, but because it was his own." Except Paxo, Ithaca is the
+smallest of the sister islands. The guide-book declares "No steamer
+touches at Ithaca, but there is frequent communication by caique." This
+announcement, like others from the same authority, is false, though it
+may have been true thirty years ago. The very steamer that carried us
+stopped regularly at the suitors' island upon her return voyage to
+Corfu. We could not take this voyage; therefore we were free to wish
+(selfishly) that this particular one, among the many deceptive
+statements which we had read, might have been veracious. For
+"communication by caique" is surely a phrase of delight. It brings up
+not only the Ionian, but the �gean Sea; it carries the imagination
+onward to the Bosporus itself.
+
+Sir William Gell and Dr. Schliemann between them have discovered at
+Ithaca all the sites of the Odyssey, even to the stone looms of the
+nymphs. Other explorers, with colder minds, have decided that at least
+the author of the poem must have had a close acquaintance with the
+island, for many of his descriptions are very accurate. We need no guide
+for Penelope; we can materialize her, as the spiritualists say, for
+ourselves. Hers is a very modern character. One knows without the
+telling that she had much to say, day by day, about her sufferings, her
+feelings, her duty, and her conscience--above all things, her
+conscience. Her confidantes in that upper room were probably extremely
+familiar with her point of view, which was that if she should choose
+any one of her suitors, or if she should cruelly drive the whole throng
+away, suicide on an overwhelming scale would inevitably be the result.
+It would amount to a depopulation of the entire archipelago! Would any
+woman be justified in causing such widespread despair as that?
+
+The next island, Cephalonia, is the largest of the Ionian group. There
+is much to say about it. But I must not say it here. The truth is that
+one sails past these sisters as slippery Ulysses sailed past the sirens;
+they are so beautiful that one must tie one's hands to the mast (or the
+bench) to keep them from writing a volume on the subject. But I must
+permit myself a word about Sir Charles Napier. Sir Charles was Governor
+of Cephalonia during the period of the British Protectorate, and
+officially he was a subordinate of the Lord High at Corfu. One of these
+temporary kings appears to have felt some jealousy regarding the
+vigorous administration of his Cephalonian lieutenant. It was not
+possible to censure his acts; they were all admirable. It was
+permissible, however, to censure a mustache, which at that time was
+considered a wayward appendage, not strictly in accordance with the
+regulations. Ludicrous as it may appear, it is nevertheless true that
+this sapient Lord High actually issued an order saying that the
+offending ornament must be shaved off. The witty lieutenant's answer was
+conveyed in four words: "Obeyed--to a hair." Napier constructed good
+roads throughout his rough, mountainous domain. "I wish I could be
+buried at the little chapel on the top of the mountain," he said to one
+of his friends. "At the last day many a poor mule's soul will say a good
+word for me, I know, when they remember what the old road was." One
+regrets that this wish was not carried out. But as for the souls of the
+poor mules, I for one am sure that they will remember him.
+
+At Zante, for some unexplained cause, the classic associations suddenly
+vanished: Homer faded, Theocritus followed him; Pliny and Strabo
+disappeared. The later memories, too: Lord Guildford and his university,
+Byron and his Suliotes, Napier and his mules--all these left us. We were
+back in the present; we must have some Zante flowers and Zante trinkets;
+we thought of nothing but going ashore. By pushing a bench, with
+semi-unconscious violence, against the Greek, we succeeded in making him
+move a little, so that we could rise. Then we landed (but not in a
+caique), and went roaming through the yellow town. Zante is the most
+cheerful-looking place I have ever seen. The bay ripples and smirks; it
+is so pretty that it knows it is pretty, and it smirks accordingly. The
+town, stretching, with its gayly tinted houses, round a level semicircle
+at the edge of the water, smiles, as one may say, from ear to ear. And
+this joyful expression is carried up the hill, by charming gardens,
+orange groves, and vineyards, to the Venetian fort at the top, which, as
+we saw it in the brilliant sunshine, with the birds flying about it,
+seemed to be throwing its cap into the sky with a huzza.
+
+    "O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!
+    Isola d'oro! Fior di Levante!"
+
+sang Poe, borrowing his chimes this time, however, from an Italian
+song--"Zante, Zante, fior di Levante!" This flower of the Levant exports
+not flowers, but fruit. The currants, which had vaguely presented
+themselves at Santa Maura and Cephalonia, came now decisively to the
+front. One does not think of these little berrylettes (I am certainly
+hunted by "ette") as ponderous. But when one beholds tons of them,
+cargoes for ships, one regards them with a new respect. It was probably
+the brisk commercial aspect of the currants which made the port look so
+modern. All the Ionian Islands except Corfu export currants, but Zante
+throws them out to the world with both hands. I must confess that I have
+always blindly supposed (when I thought of it at all) that the currant
+of the plum-pudding was the same fruit as the currant of our
+gardens--that slightly acrid red berry which grows on bushes that follow
+the lines of back fences--bushes that have patches of weedy ground under
+them where hens congregate. I fancied that by some process unknown to
+me, at the hands of persons equally unknown (perhaps those who bring
+flattened raisins from grapes), these berries were dried, and that they
+then became the well-known ornament of the Christmas-cake. It was at
+Zante that my shameful ignorance was made clear to me. Here I learned
+that the dried fruit of commerce is a dwarf grape, which has nothing in
+common with currant jelly. Its English name, currant, is taken from the
+French "raisin de Corinthe," or Corinth grape, a title bestowed because
+the fruit was first brought into notice at Corinth. We have stolen this
+name in the most unreasonable way for our red berry. Then, to make the
+confusion worse, as soon as we have put the genuine currants into our
+puddings and cakes, we turn round and call them "plums"! The real
+currant, the dwarf grape of Corinth, is about as large as a gooseberry
+when ripe, and its color is a deep violet-black; the vintage takes place
+in August. It is not a hardy vine. It attains luxuriance, I was told,
+only in Greece; and even there it is restricted to the northern
+Peloponnesus, the shores of the Gulf of Corinth, and the Ionian Islands.
+M. About, confronted with the 195,000,000 pounds of currants which were
+exported in 1876, dipped his French pen afresh, and wrote: "Plum-pudding
+and plum-cake are typical pleasures of the English nation, pleasures
+whose charms the Gaul cannot appreciate." He adds that if other
+countries should in time be converted to "these two pure delights,"
+Greece would not need to cultivate anything else; she would become rich
+"enorm�ment."
+
+Zante is the sixth of the islands, and as the steamer leaves her, still
+smiling gayly over her dimpling bay, it seems proper to cast at least
+one thought in the direction of the seventh sister, upon whom we are now
+turning our backs. For "We are seven" the islands declare as
+persistently as the little cottage girl, though the seventh has gone
+away, if not to heaven, at least to the very end of the Peloponnesus.
+Why Cerigo should have been included in the Ionian group I do not know;
+it lies off the southernmost point of Greece, near Cape Malea, and might
+more reasonably be classed with the Cyclades, or with Crete. Birthplace
+of Aphrodite, Cythera of the ancients, though it is, I have never met
+any one who has landed there in actual fact (I do not include dreams).
+People going by sea to Athens from Naples, or from Brindisi, pass it in
+their course, and if they read their Murray or their Baedeker, to say
+nothing of other literature, no doubt their thoughts dwell upon the
+goddess of love for a moment as they pass her favorite shore. A
+photograph of the minds of travellers, as their eyes rest upon this
+celebrated isle, would be interesting. To mention (with due respect)
+typical names only, what would be the vision of Mr. Herbert Spencer, or
+of Prince Bismarck? of the Archbishop of Canterbury, or of Ibsen? of
+General Booth, Tolsto�, or Miss Yonge? We can each of us think of a list
+which would rouse our curiosity in an acute degree. To come down to an
+unexciting level, I know what the apparition in my own mind would
+be--that picture in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence: Botticelli's "Birth
+of Venus." I should inevitably behold the fifteenth-century goddess
+coming over the waves in her very small shell; I should see her high
+cheek-bones, her sad eyes, her discontented mouth, her lank form with
+the lovely slender feet, and her long, thick hair; and at last I should
+know (what I do not know now) whether she is beautiful or ugly. On the
+shore, too, would appear that galloping woman, who, clothed in copiously
+gathered garments which are caught up and tied in the wrong places,
+brings in haste a flowered robe to cover her melancholy mistress. Such
+are the idle fancies that come as one watches the track of churned
+water, like a broad ribbon, stretching from the steamer's stern--water
+forever fleeing backward as the boat advances. Scallops of foam sweep
+out on each side; their cool fringe dips under a little as the wavelet
+which comes from the opposite direction lifts its miniature crest and
+curls over in a graceful sweep.
+
+[Illustration: OLIVE GROVE, CORFU]
+
+The voyage northward to Missolonghi is beautiful. The sea was dotted
+with white wings. The Greeks are bold sailors; one never observes here
+the timidity, the haste to seek refuge anywhere and everywhere, which is
+so conspicuous along the Riviera and the western coast of Italy.
+Throughout the Ionian archipelago, and it was the same later among the
+islands of the �gean, it was inspiring to note the smallest craft, far
+from land, dashing along under full sail, leaning far over as they flew.
+
+Missolonghi is a small abortive Venice, without the gondolas; it is
+situated on a lagoon, and a causeway nearly two miles long leads to it,
+across the shallow water. Vague and unimportant as it is upon its muddy
+shore, it was the soul of the Greek revolution. It has been through
+terrible sieges. During one of these Marco Botzaris was in command, and
+his grave is outside the western gate. A few years ago all the
+school-boys in America could chant his requiem; perhaps they chant it
+still. After the death of Botzaris, Byron took five hundred of the
+chieftain's needy Suliotes, and formed them into a body-guard, giving
+them generous pay. This is but one of many instances. It is the fashion
+of the day to paint Byron in the darkest colors. But when you stand in
+the squalid, unhealthy little street where he drew his last breath you
+realize that he came here voluntarily; that he offered his life if need
+be, and, in the end, gave it, to the cause which appealed to him; he did
+not stay safely at home and write about it. He died nearly seventy years
+ago, but at Missolonghi he is very real and very present still--with his
+red coat, and his bravery and penetration. Napier said that, of all the
+Englishmen who came to assist the Greek revolution, Byron was the one
+who comprehended best the character of the modern Greek--"all the rest
+expected to find Plutarch's men." It is another fashion of the moment to
+put aside as of small account the glittering cantos which stirred the
+English-speaking world in the early days of this century. But it is not
+while the wild, beautiful Albanian mountains are rising above your head
+that you think meanly of them. "Remember all the splendid things he said
+of Greece," says some one. When you are in Greece, you do remember.
+
+The only brigands we saw we met at Patras. Missolonghi is on the
+northern shore of the bay; to reach Patras the steamer crosses to the
+Peloponnesus side. It was a dark night, and I don't know where we
+stopped, but it must have been far out from land. The barges which came
+to meet us were rough craft, with loose boards for seats and water in
+the bottom. We obtained places in one of them, and after twenty minutes
+of pitching up and down, shouting, tumbling about, and splashing, the
+crew bent to their big oars, and we started. Swaying lights glimmered
+through the darkness here and there; they came from vessels at anchor in
+the roadstead. We plunged and rolled, apparently making no progress; but
+at last a long, wet breakwater, dimly seen, appeared on the right, and
+finally we perceived the lights of the landing-place, which is the
+water-side of one of the squares of the town. Our crew jumped out in the
+surf, and drew the heavy boat up to the steps of the embankment. Here
+were assembled the brigands. There were a hundred of them at least, all
+yelling. Probably they were astonished to see ladies landing from the
+Greek coaster. This was part of our original misconception in the
+selection of that steamer (a mistake, however, which had turned out to
+be such a picturesque success); but it was part also of a general error
+which came from our nationality. For we were natives of the one land on
+earth where to women is always accorded, without question, a first
+place. It had never occurred to us that we could be jostled. After
+Patras we were more careful (and more proud of our country than ever).
+But at the moment, as we were pulled first to the right by men who
+wished to carry us and our travelling-bags in that direction, and then
+to the left by others who had attacked the first party, felled them, and
+captured their prey--at the moment when we were closely pressed by a
+throng of wild-looking, dancing, shrieking figures, dressed in strange
+attire, and carrying pistols, it was not a little alarming. The fray had
+lasted six or seven minutes, and there were no signs of cessation, when
+there appeared on the edge of the throng a neatly dressed little man in
+spectacles. He made his way within, and rescued us by the simple process
+of repeating something that sounded like "La, la, la, _la_! La, la, la,
+_la_!" Breathless, freed, we stood, saved, in the square, while our
+preserver went back and captured our bags, bringing them out and
+depositing them gently, one after the other, on the ground by our side.
+We then waited until a handcart, trundled by a petticoated porter,
+appeared, when the little man led us quietly to the custom-house near
+by, where, after some delay, we obtained our luggage, which was piled
+upon the cart. Followed by this cart, we walked across the square to the
+hotel. Throughout the whole of this process, which lasted twenty
+minutes, the brigands surrounded us in a close, scowling circle that
+moved as we moved. When its line drew too near us the little man walked
+round the ring--"La, la, la, _la_! La, la, la, _la_!"--and it widened
+slightly, but only slightly. We reached refuge at last, and escaped into
+a lighted hall. It was a real escape, and the hotel seemed a paradise.
+It was not until the next day that we recognized it as a mortal inn,
+with the appearance of the well-known tepid soup in the dining-room; but
+the coffee was excellent. And this showed that there was a German
+influence somewhere in the house; it proved to emanate from our
+preserver, who was also the landlord, and an exile from the Rhine. I
+think he was homesick. But at least he had learned the dialect of his
+temporary abode, and also the way to treat the last remnants of the
+pirate and brigand days, as its spirit reappears now and then, though
+faintly, among the hangers-on of a Greek port town.
+
+Though I have talked of brigands, for Greece as a whole, for the young
+nation, I have but one feeling--namely, admiration. The country,
+escaping at last from its bondage to Turkey, after a long and exhausting
+war, had everything to do and nothing to do it with. There was no
+agriculture, no commerce, no money, and only a small population; there
+were no roads, no schools, no industries or trades, and few men of
+education. (I quote the words of Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, written in 1891.) The
+Greeks have done much, and under the most unfavorable conditions. They
+will do more. The struggle upward of an intelligent and ambitious people
+is deeply interesting, and the effort in Greece appeals especially to
+Americans, because the country, in spite of its form of government, is a
+democracy.
+
+When we left Patras we left the Ionian Sea, and I ought therefore to
+bring these slight records to a close. But it was the same blue water,
+after all, that was washing the shores of the long, lake-like gulf
+beyond, and the impression produced by its pure, early-world tint, lasts
+as far as Corinth; here one turns inland, and the next crested waves
+which one meets are �gean. They rouse other sensations.
+
+There is now a railroad from Patras to Athens. On the morning when we
+made the transit there was given to us for our sole use a saloon on
+wheels, which was much larger than the compartments of an English
+railway carriage, and smaller than an American parlor car. In its centre
+was a long table, and a cushioned bench ran round its four sides; broad
+windows gave us a wide view of the landscape as we rolled (rather
+slowly) along. The track follows the gulf all the way to Corinth, and we
+passed through miles of vineyards. But I did not think of currants here;
+they had been left behind at Zante. There is, indeed, only one thing to
+think of, and the heart beats quickly as Parnassus lifts its head above
+the other snow-clad summits. "The prophetess of Delphi was hypnotized,
+of course." This sudden incursion of modernity was due no doubt to the
+mode of our progress through this sacred country. We ought to have been
+crossing the gulf in a Ph�acian boat, which needs no pilot, or, at the
+very least, in a bark with an azure prow. But even upon an iron track,
+through utilitarian currant fields, the spell descends again when the
+second peak becomes visible at the eastern end of the bay.
+
+    "Not here, O Apollo!
+      Are haunts meet for thee,
+    But where Helicon breaks down
+      In cliff to the sea--"
+
+How many times, in lands far from here, had I read these lines for their
+mere beauty, without hope of more!
+
+And now before my eyes was Helicon itself.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
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+  <head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+<title>
+  The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mentone, Cairo, and Corfu, by Constance Fenimore Woolson.
+</title>
+<style type="text/css">
+ p {margin-top:.75em;text-align:justify;margin-bottom:.75em;text-indent:2%;}
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Mentone, Cairo, and Corfu, by Constance Fenimore Woolson
+
+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
+
+
+Title: Mentone, Cairo, and Corfu
+
+Author: Constance Fenimore Woolson
+
+Release Date: August 7, 2010 [EBook #33367]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MENTONE, CAIRO, AND CORFU ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
+produced from scanned images of public domain material
+from the Internet Archive.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 348px;">
+<a href="images/cover_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg"
+style="margin:10% auto 10% auto;"
+id="coverpage"
+width="348" height="550" alt="bookcover" title="bookcover" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;"><a name="front" id="front"></a>
+<a href="images/ill_006_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_006_sml.jpg" width="550" height="370" alt="STREET IN THE NEW QUARTER OF CAIRO Page 151" title="STREET IN THE NEW QUARTER OF CAIRO Page 151" /></a>
+<span class="caption">STREET IN THE NEW QUARTER OF CAIRO Page 151</span>
+</div>
+
+<h2>MENTONE, CAIRO, AND CORFU</h2>
+
+<h3>BY<br /><br />
+CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON</h3>
+
+<p class="c"><b>AUTHOR OF<br />
+"ANNE" "EAST ANGELS" "HORACE CHASE" ETC.</b></p>
+
+<p class="c">ILLUSTRATED</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;">
+<img src="images/ill_007.jpg" width="100" height="119" alt="logo" title="logo" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="c">NEW YORK<br />
+HARPER &amp; BROTHERS PUBLISHERS<br />
+1896</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="works"
+style="border:1px solid black;padding:1%;font-size:small;margin:10% auto 10% auto;">
+<tr valign="top"><td colspan="2" align="center"><span class="smcap">By</span> CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON.</td></tr>
+<tr valign="top"><td colspan="2" align="center">&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr valign="top"><td align="left">THE FRONT YARD, Etc. Illustrated. $1&nbsp;25. &nbsp;</td><td align="left" style="border-left:1px solid black;padding-left:1%;">HORACE CHASE. $1&nbsp;25.</td></tr>
+<tr valign="top"><td align="left">ANNE. Illustrated. $1&nbsp;25.</td><td align="left" style="border-left:1px solid black;padding-left:1%;">CASTLE NOWHERE. $1&nbsp;00.</td></tr>
+<tr valign="top"><td align="left">EAST ANGELS. $1&nbsp;25.</td><td align="left" style="border-left:1px solid black;padding-left:1%;">RODMAN THE KEEPER. $1&nbsp;00.</td></tr>
+<tr valign="top"><td align="left">JUPITER LIGHTS. $1&nbsp;25.</td><td align="left" style="border-left:1px solid black;padding-left:1%;">FOR THE MAJOR. Illustrated. $1&nbsp;00</td></tr>
+<tr valign="top"><td colspan="2" align="center">&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr valign="top"><td align="center" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Published by HARPER &amp; BROTHERS, New York.</span></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="c">Copyright, 1895, by <span class="smcap">Harper &amp; Brothers</span>.<br />
+<i>All rights reserved.</i></p>
+
+<div class="bloque">
+
+<h3>PUBLISHERS' NOTE.</h3>
+
+<p>T<span class="smcap">he</span> substance of this collection of Miss Woolson's sketches of travel in
+the Mediterranean originally appeared in <span class="smcap">Harper's Magazine</span>. "At Mentone"
+was published in that periodical in 1884; "Cairo in 1890," and "Corfu
+and the Ionian Sea," appeared in 1891 and 1892. As presented in this
+volume, the two sketches last mentioned contain much interesting
+material not included in their original form as magazine articles.</p>
+</div>
+
+<h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" summary="contents" style="font-size:small;">
+<tr><td align="right" colspan="2" style="font-size:small;">PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#AT_MENTONE">AT MENTONE</a></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_003">3</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CAIRO_IN_1890">CAIRO IN 1890</a></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_149">149</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CORFU_AND_THE_IONIAN_SEA">CORFU AND THE IONIAN SEA</a> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_283">283</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<h3>ILLUSTRATIONS</h3>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="illustrations" style="font-size:small;">
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="right" style="font-size:70%;" colspan="2">PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">STREET IN THE NEW QUARTER OF CAIRO</td><td align="left"><a href="#front"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">AT MENTONE</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_005">5</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">THE OLD TOWN</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_009">9</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">A STREET IN THE OLD TOWN</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_013">13</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">RUE LONGUE BLOCKADED BY AN ARTIST</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_019">19</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">THE CORNICE ROAD, MENTONE</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_023">23</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">"TO ITALY"&mdash;PONT ST. LOUIS</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_027">27</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">THE PALMS OF BORDIGHERA</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_031">31</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">THE BONE CAVERNS</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_037">37</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">THE PROFESSOR DISCOURSES</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_043">43</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">THE WASHER-WOMEN</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_049">49</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">OIL MILL</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_055">55</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">A MEDITERRANEAN BOAT</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_060">60</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">BRINGING LEMONS FROM THE TERRACE</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_063">63</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">ON THE WAY TO L'ANNUNZIATA</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_069">69</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">THE MONASTERY OF L'ANNUNZIATA</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_074">74</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">CAPUCHIN MONKS</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_077">77</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">MONACO</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_083">83</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">STREET IN ROCCABRUNA</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_091">91</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">THE KING OF THE OLIVES</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_097">97</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">FEUDAL TOWER NEAR VENTIMIGLIA</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_102">102</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">DOLCE ACQUA</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_107">107</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">PIFFERARI</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_113">113</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">MONACO&mdash;THE PALACE AND PORT</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_117">117</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">ENTRANCE TO THE PALACE, MONACO</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_121">121</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">THE SALLE GRIMALDI, IN THE PALACE, MONACO</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_126">126</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">THE RIDE TO SANT' AGNESE</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_129">129</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">VIEW FROM SANT' AGNESE</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_134">134</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">F�TE, VILLAGE OF SANT' AGNESE</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_137">137</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">VESTIGES OF ROMAN MONUMENTS</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_140">140</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">THE STATUE IN THE CEMETERY</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_143">143</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">CONTEMPORARY PORTRAIT OF CLEOPATRA</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_149">149</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">THE NILE BRIDGE, CAIRO</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_154">154</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">BEFORE THE LITTLE MOSQUE</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_158">158</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">TOMB-MOSQUE OF KAIT BEY</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_161">161</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">A SELLER OF WATER-JUGS, CAIRO</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_167">167</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">STATUE OF PRINCE RAHOTEP'S WIFE</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_172">172</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">THE WOODEN MAN</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_175">175</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">AN EGYPTIAN WOMAN</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_181">181</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">THE NILE&mdash;COMING DOWN TO GET WATER</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_187">187</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">THE DOCK AT OLD CAIRO</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_191">191</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">MOUCHRABIYEHS IN THE OLD QUARTER</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_195">195</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">INTERIOR COURT OF A NATIVE HOUSE, CAIRO</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_199">199</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">A DONKEY RIDE</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_205">205</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">AN ARAB CAF�</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_209">209</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">HEAD-PIECE</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_212">212</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">PORCH OF EL AZHAR</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_215">215</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">STUDENTS IN THE OUTER COURT, EL AZHAR</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_221">221</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">BEFORE THE SACRED NICHE</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_227">227</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">OUTER ENTRANCE OF THE CITADEL, CAIRO</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_233">233</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">A MECCA DOOR</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_237">237</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">THE ROAD TO CHOUBRA</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_239">239</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">GARDEN-HOUSE AT CHOUBRA, SHOWING PART OF THE LAKE NEAR</td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">CAIRO</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_243">243</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">THE KHEDIVE</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_247">247</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">CHIEF WIFE OF EX-KHEDIVE ISMAIL, WITH HER PRIVATE BAND</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_251">251</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">AN EGYPTIAN DANCING-GIRL</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_259">259</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">THE INUNDATION NEAR CAIRO</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_267">267</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">A MOHAMMEDAN CEMETERY, CAIRO</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_273">273</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">SOUVENIRS OF CAIRO</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_279">279</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">HEAD-PIECE</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_283">283</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">PART OF THE TOWN OF CORFU</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_287">287</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">THE PALACE</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_293">293</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">UNIVERSITY OF THE IONIAN ISLANDS</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_294">294</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">SMALL TEMPLE, MEMORIAL TO SIR THOMAS MAITLAND</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_296">296</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">STATUE OF CAPO D'ISTRIA</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_299">299</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">THE TOMB OF MENEKRATES</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_305">305</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">THE ISLET CALLED "THE SHIP OF ULYSSES"</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_311">311</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">VILLAGE OF PELLEKA</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_315">315</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">KING GEORGE OF GREECE</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_319">319</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">QUEEN OLGA OF GREECE</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_323">323</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">"MON REPOS," SUMMER RESIDENCE OF THE KING OF GREECE</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_327">327</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">IN THE GROUNDS OF THE NEW VILLA OF THE EMPRESS OF AUSTRIA</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_331">331</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">ALBANIAN MALE COSTUME</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_335">335</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">ALBANIAN FEMALE COSTUME</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_339">339</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">GALA COSTUME, CORFU</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_343">343</a></td></tr>
+<tr valign="bottom"><td align="left">OLIVE GROVE, CORFU</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_351">351</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a></p>
+
+<p><a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a></p>
+
+<h3><a name="AT_MENTONE" id="AT_MENTONE"></a>AT MENTONE<a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a></h3>
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align="left">"<i>Kennst du das Land wo die Citronen bl�hen?</i>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">&mdash;<span class="smcap">GOETHE</span></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>I<span class="smcap">t</span> is of no consequence why or how we came to Mentone. The vast subject
+of health and health resorts, of balancings between Torquay and Madeira,
+Algeria and Sicily, and, in a smaller sphere, between Cannes, Nice,
+Mentone, and San Remo, may as well be left at one side while we happily
+imitate the Happy-thought Man's trains in Bradshaw, which never "start,"
+but "arrive." We therefore arrived. Our party, formed not by selection,
+or even by the survival of the fittest (after the ocean and Channel),
+but simply by chance aggregation, was now composed of Mrs. Trescott and
+her daughter Janet, Professor Mackenzie, Miss Graves, the two youths
+Inness and Baker, my niece, and myself, myself being Jane Jefferson,
+aged fifty, and my niece Margaret Severin, aged twenty-eight.</p>
+
+<p>As I said above, we were an aggregation. The Trescotts had started
+alone, but had "accumulated" (so Mrs. Trescott informed me) the
+Professor. The Professor had started alone, and had accumulated the
+Trescotts. Inness and Baker had started singly, but had first
+accumulated each other, and then ourselves; while Margaret and I, having
+accumulated Miss Graves,<a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a> found ourselves, with her, imbedded in the
+aggregation, partly by chance and partly by that powerful force
+propinquity. Arriving at Mentone, our aggregation went unbroken to the
+H�tel des Anglais, in the East Bay&mdash;the East Bay, the Professor said,
+being warmer than the West: the Professor had been at Mentone before.
+"The East Bay," he explained, "is warmer because more closely encircled
+by the mountains, which rise directly behind the house. The West Bay has
+more level space, and there are several little valleys opening into it,
+through which currents of air can pass; it is therefore cooler, but only
+a matter of two or three degrees." It was evening, and our omnibus
+proceeded at a pace adapted to the "Dead March" from <i>Saul</i> through a
+street so narrow and walled in that it was like going through catacombs.
+Only, as Janet remarked, they did not crack whips in the catacombs, and
+here the atmosphere seemed to be principally cracks. But the Professor
+brought up the flagellants who might have been there, and they remained
+up until we reached our destination. We decided that the cracking of
+whips and the wash of the sea were the especial sounds of Mentone; but
+the whips ceased at nightfall, and the waves kept on, making a soft
+murmurous sound which lulled us all to restful slumber. We learned later
+that all vehicles are obliged, by orders from the town authorities, to
+proceed at a snail's pace through the narrow street of the "old town,"
+the city treasury not being rich enough to pay for the number of wooden
+legs and arms which would be required were this rule disregarded.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning when we opened our windows there entered the
+Mediterranean Sea. It is the bluest water in the world; not a clear cold
+blue like that of the Swiss lakes, but a soft warm tint like that of
+June sky, shading off on the horizon, not into darker blue or<a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a><a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a><a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a> gray,
+but into the white of opal and mother-of-pearl. With the sea came in
+also the sunshine. The sunshine of Mentone is its glory, its riches, its
+especial endowment. Day follows day, month follows month, without a
+cloud; the air is pure and dry, fog is unknown. "The sun never stops
+shining;" and to show that this idea, which soon takes possession of one
+there, is not without some foundation, it can be stated that the average
+number of days upon which the sun does shine, as the phrase is, all day
+long is two hundred and fifty-nine; that is, almost nine months out of
+the twelve. "All the world is cheered by the sun," writes Shakespeare;
+and certainly "cheer" is the word that best expresses the effect of the
+constant sunshine of Mentone.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_021_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_021_sml.jpg" width="550" height="383" alt="AT MENTONE" title="AT MENTONE" /></a>
+<span class="caption">AT MENTONE</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>We all came to breakfast with unclouded foreheads; even the three fixed
+wrinkles which crossed Mrs. Trescott's brow (she always alluded to them
+as "midnight oil") were not so deep as usual, and her little countenance
+looked as though it had been, if not ironed, at least smoothed out by
+the long sleep in the soft air. She floated into the sunny
+breakfast-room in an aureola of white lace, with Janet beside her, and
+followed by Inness and Baker. Margaret and I had entered a moment before
+with Miss Graves, and presently Professor Mackenzie joined us, radiating
+intelligence through his shining spectacles to that extent that I
+immediately prepared myself for the "Indeeds?" "Is it possibles?" "You
+surprise me," with which I was accustomed to assist him, when, after
+going all around the circle in vain for an attentive eye, he came at
+last to mine, which are not beautiful, but always, I trust, friendly to
+the friendless. Yet so self-deceived is man that I have no doubt but
+that if at this moment interrogated as to his best listener during that
+journey and sojourn at Mentone, he would immediately reply, "Miss
+Trescott."</p>
+
+<p>People were coming in and out of the room while<a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a> we were there, the
+light Continental "first breakfast" of rolls and coffee or tea not
+detaining them long. Two, however, were evidently loitering, under a
+flimsy pretext of reading the unflimsy London <i>Times</i>, in order to have
+a longer look at Janet; these two were Englishmen. Was Janet, then,
+beautiful? That is a question hard to answer. She was a slender,
+graceful girl with a delicate American face, small, well-poised head,
+sweet voice, quiet manner, and eyes&mdash;well, yes, the expression in
+Janet's eyes was certainly a remarkable endowment. It could never be
+fixed in colors; it cannot be described in ink; it may perhaps be
+faintly indicated as each gazing man's ideal promised land. And this
+centre was surrounded by such a blue and childlike unconsciousness that
+every new-comer tumbled in immediately, as into a blue lake, and never
+emerged.</p>
+
+<p>"You have been roaming, Professor," said Mrs. Trescott, as he took his
+seat; "you have a fine breezy look of the sea. I heard the wa-ash,
+wa-ash, upon the beach all night. But <i>you</i> have been out early,
+communing with Aurora. Do not deny it."</p>
+
+<p>The Professor had no idea of denying it. "I have been as far as the West
+Bay," he said, taking a roll. "Mentone has two bays, the East, where we
+are, and the West, the two being separated by the port and the 'old
+town.' Behind us, on the north, extends the double chain of mountains,
+the first rising almost directly from the sea, the second and higher
+chain behind, so that the two together form a screen, which completely
+protects this coast. Thus sheltered, and opening only towards the south,
+the bays of Mentone are like a conservatory, and <i>we</i> like the plants
+growing within." (This, for the Professor, was quite poetical.)</p>
+
+<p>"I have often thought that to be a flower in a conservatory would be a
+happy lot," observed Janet. "One<a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a><a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a><a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a> could have of the perfumes, sit
+still all the time, and never be out in the rain."</p>
+
+<p>"I trust, Miss Trescott, you have not often been exposed to inclement
+weather?" said the Professor, looking up.</p>
+
+<p><i>He</i> meant rain; but Mrs. Trescott, who took it upon herself to answer
+him, always meant metaphor. "Not yet," she answered; "no inclement
+weather yet for my child, because I have stood between. But the time may
+come when, <i>that</i> barrier removed&mdash;" Here she waved her little claw-like
+hand, heavy with gems, in a sort of sepulchral suggestiveness, and took
+refuge in coffee.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_025_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_025_sml.jpg" width="550" height="397" alt="THE OLD TOWN" title="THE OLD TOWN" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Professor, who supposed the conversation still concerned the
+weather, said a word or two about the excellent English umbrella he had
+purchased in London, and then returned to his discourse. "The first
+mountains behind us," he remarked, "are between three and four thousand
+feet high; the second chain attains a height of eight and nine thousand
+feet, and, stretching back, mingles with the Swiss Alps. <i>Our</i> name is
+Alpes Maritimes; we run along the coast in this direction" (indicating
+it on the table-cloth with his spoon), "and at Genoa we become the
+Apennines. The winter climate of Mentone is due, therefore, to its
+protected situation; cold winds from the north and northeast, coming
+over these mountains behind us, pass far above our heads, and advance
+several miles over the sea before they fall into the water. The mistral,
+too, that scourge of Southern France, that wind, cold, dry, and sharp,
+bringing with it a yellow haze, is unknown here, kept off by a
+fortunately placed shoulder of mountain running down into the sea on the
+west."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed?" I said, seeing the search for a listener beginning.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he replied, starting on anew, encouraged, but, as usual, not
+noticing from whom the encouragement<a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a> came&mdash;"yes; and the sirocco is
+even pleasant here, because it comes to us over a wide expanse of water.
+The characteristics of a Mentone winter are therefore sunshine,
+protection from the winds, and dryness. It is, in truth, remarkably
+dry."</p>
+
+<p>"Very," said Inness.</p>
+
+<p>"I have scarcely ever seen it equalled," remarked Baker.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret smiled, but I looked at the two youths reprovingly. Mrs.
+Trescott said, "Dry? Do you find it so? But you are young, whereas <i>I</i>
+have reminiscences. <i>Tears</i> are not dry."</p>
+
+<p>They certainly are not; but why she should have alluded to them at that
+moment, no one but herself knew. There was a mystery about some of Mrs.
+Trescott's moods which made her society interesting: no one could ever
+tell what she would say next.</p>
+
+<p>After breakfast we sat awhile in the garden, where there were palm,
+lemon, and orange trees, high woody bushes of heliotrope, grotesque
+growth of cactus, and the great gray-blue swords of the century-plant.
+Before us stretched the sea. Even if we had not known it, we should have
+felt sure that its waters laved tropical shores somewhere, and that it
+was the reflection of those far skies which we caught here.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Graves now joined us, with an acquaintance she had discovered, a
+Mrs. Clary, who had "spent several winters at Mentone," and who adored
+"every stone of it." This phrase, which no doubt sounded well coming
+from Mrs. Clary, who was an impulsive person, with fine dark eyes and
+expressive mobile face, assumed a comical aspect when repeated by the
+sober voice of Miss Graves. Mrs. Clary, laughing, hastened to explain;
+and Miss Graves, noticing Mrs. Trescott on a bench in the shade, where
+she and her laces had floated down, said, warningly, "I should advise
+you to rise; I have<a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a><a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a><a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a> just learned that the shade of Mentone is of the
+most deadly nature, and to be avoided like a scorpion."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 235px;">
+<a href="images/ill_029_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_029_sml.jpg" width="235" height="550" alt="A STREET IN THE OLD TOWN" title="A STREET IN THE OLD TOWN" /></a>
+<span class="caption">A STREET IN THE OLD TOWN</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mrs. Trescott and her laces floated up. "Is it damp?" she asked,
+alarmed.</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Miss Graves, "it is not damp. It does not know how to be
+damp at Mentone. But the shade is deadly, all the same. Now in Florida
+it was otherwise." And she went into the house to get a white umbrella.</p>
+
+<p>"Matilda's temperament is really Alpine," said Mrs. Clary, smiling. "I
+have always felt that she would be cold even in heaven."</p>
+
+<p>"In that case," said Baker, "she might try&mdash;" But he had the grace to
+stop.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it about the shade?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Only this," said Mrs. Clary: "as the warmth is due to the heat of the
+sun, and not to the air, which is cool, there is more difference between
+the sunshine and shade here than we are accustomed to elsewhere. But
+surely it is a small thing to remember. The treasure of Mentone is its
+sunshine: in it, safety; out of it, danger."</p>
+
+<p>"Like Mr. Micawber's income," said Margaret, smiling. "Amount, twenty
+shillings; you spend nineteen shillings and sixpence&mdash;riches; twenty
+shillings and sixpence&mdash;bankruptcy."</p>
+
+<p>A little later we went down to the "old town," as the closely built
+village of the Middle Ages, clinging to the side hill, and hardly
+changed in the long lapse of centuries, is called. The "old town" lies
+between the East Bay and the West Bay, as the body of a bird lies
+between the two long, slender wings.</p>
+
+<p>"The West Bay has its Promenade du Midi, and the East Bay has its
+sea-wall," said Mrs. Clary. "I like a sea-wall."</p>
+
+<p>"This one does not <i>approach</i> that at St. Augustine," said Miss Graves.<a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Here is one of the fountains or wells," said Mrs. Clary. "You will soon
+see that going for water and gossiping at the well are two occupations
+of the women everywhere in this region. It comes, I suppose, from the
+scarcity of water, which is brought in pipes from long distances to
+these wells, to which the women must go for all the water needed by
+their households. Notice the classic shapes of the jugs and jars they
+bear on their heads. Those green ones might be majolica."</p>
+
+<p>We now turned up a paved ascent, and passing under a broad stone
+archway, entered the "old town," through whose narrow, lane-like streets
+no vehicle could be driven, through some of them hardly a donkey. The
+principal avenue, the Rue Longue, but a few feet in width, was smoothly
+paved and clean; but walking there was like being at the bottom of a
+well, so far above and so narrow was the little ribbon of blue sky at
+the top. Unbroken stone walls rose on each side, directly upon the
+street, five and six stories in height, shutting out the sunshine; and
+these tall gray walls were often joined above our heads also by arches,
+"like uncelebrated bridges of sighs," Janet said. These closely built
+continuous blocks were the homes of the native population, "old
+Mentone," unspoiled by progress and strangers. The low doorways showed
+stone steps ascending somewhere in the darkness, showed low-ceilinged
+rooms, whose only light was from the door, where were mothers and
+babies, men mending shoes, women sewing and occupied with household
+tasks, as calmly as though daylight was not the natural atmosphere of
+mankind, but rather their own dusky gloom. Outside the doors little
+black-eyed children sat on the pavement, eating the dark sour bread of
+the country, and here and there old women in circular white hats like
+large dinner plates were spinning thread with distaff and spindle. Above
+were some bits of color:<a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a> pots of flowers on high window-sills,
+bright-hued rags hung out to dry, or a dark-eyed girl, with red kerchief
+tied over her black braids, looking down.</p>
+
+<p>"It is all like a scene from an opera," said Janet.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no," said Mrs. Clary; "say rather that it is like a scene from the
+Middle Ages."</p>
+
+<p>"That is what I mean," said Janet. "The scenes in the operas are
+generally from the Middle Ages."</p>
+
+<p>"The chorus <i>always</i>," said Baker.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a pity you cannot see the old mansion of the Princes," said Mrs.
+Clary. "But I see the street is blockaded just now by the artist."</p>
+
+<p>"By the artist?" said Janet.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; this one, a Frenchman, is rather broad-shouldered, and when he is
+at work he blockades the street. However, the mansion is not especially
+interesting; it was built by one of the later Princes with the stones of
+the ruined castle above, and has, I believe, only a vaulted hallway and
+one or two marble pillars. It is now a lodging-house. I saw dancing-dogs
+going up the stairway yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>From the Rue Longue we had turned into a labyrinth of crooked,
+staircase-like lanes, winding here and there from side to side, but
+constantly ascending, the whole net-work, owing to the number of arches
+thrown across above, seeming to be half underground, but in reality a
+honey-combed erection clinging to the steep hill-side.</p>
+
+<p>"Dancing-dogs!" said Janet, pausing in the darkest of these turnings.
+"Let us go back and see them."</p>
+
+<p>But we all exclaimed against this; Mrs. Trescott's little old feet were
+wearied with curling over the round stones, and Margaret was tired.
+Inness and Baker offered to make dancing-dogs of themselves for the
+remainder of the morning, and dogs, too, of a very superior quality, if
+she would only go on.</p>
+
+<p>The Professor, who, in his "winnowing progress,"<a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a> as Mrs. Trescott
+called it, had fallen behind, now joined us, followed by Miss Graves.</p>
+
+<p>"I have just witnessed a remarkably interesting little ceremony," he
+began, "quite medi�val&mdash;a herald, with his trumpet, making an
+announcement through the streets. I could not comprehend all he said,
+but no doubt it was something of importance to the community."</p>
+
+<p>"It was," said Miss Graves's monotonous voice. "He was telling them that
+excellent sausage-meat was now to be obtained at a certain shop for a
+price much lower than before."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," said the Professor. Then, rallying, he added, "But the ceremony
+was the same."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," I said, with my usual unappreciated benevolence.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder what induced these people to build their houses upon such a
+crag as this, when they had the whole sunny coast to choose from?" said
+Janet.</p>
+
+<p>The Professor, charmed with this idle little speech (which he took for a
+thirst for knowledge), hastened by several of us as we walked in single
+file, in order to be nearer to the questioner.</p>
+
+<p>"You may not be aware, Miss Trescott," he began (she was still in
+advance, but he hoped to make up the distance), "that this whole shore,
+called the Riviera&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Let us begin fairly," I said. "What <i>is</i> the Riviera?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is heaven," said Mrs. Clary.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the coast of the Gulf of Genoa," said the Professor, "extending
+both eastward and westward from the city of that name. On the west it
+extends geographically to Nice; but Cannes and Antibes are generally
+included. This shore-line, then, has been subject from a very early date
+to attacks from the pirates of the Mediterranean, who swept down upon
+the coast and<a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a><a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a><a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a> carried off as slaves all who came in their way. To
+escape the horrors of this slavery the inhabitants chose situations like
+this steep hill-side, and crowded their stone dwellings closely together
+so that they formed continuous walls, which were often joined also by
+arched bridges, like these above us now, and connected by dark and
+winding passageways below, so that escape was easy and pursuit
+impossible. It was a veritable&mdash;"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 401px;">
+<a href="images/ill_035_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_035_sml.jpg" width="401" height="550" alt="RUE LONGUE BLOCKADED BY AN ARTIST" title="RUE LONGUE BLOCKADED BY AN ARTIST" /></a>
+<span class="caption">RUE LONGUE BLOCKADED BY AN ARTIST</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Rabbit-warren," suggested Baker.</p>
+
+<p>Inness made no suggestions; he was next to the Professor, and fully
+occupied in blocking, with apparent entire unconsciousness, all his
+efforts to pass and join Janet.</p>
+
+<p>The Professor, not accepting, however, the rabbit-warren, continued: "As
+recently as 1830, Miss Trescott, when the French took possession of
+Algiers, they found there thousands of miserable Christian slaves,
+natives of this northern shore, who had been seized on the coast or
+taken from their fishing-boats at sea. There are men now living in
+Mentone who in their youth spent years as slaves in Tunis and Algiers.
+These pirates, these scourges of the Mediterranean, were Saracens,
+and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Saracens!" said Janet, with an accent of admiration; "what a lovely
+word it is! What visions of romance and adventure it brings up,
+especially when spelled with two r's, so as to be Sarrasins! It is even
+better than Paynim."</p>
+
+<p>I could not see how the Professor took this, because we were now all
+entirely in the dark, groping our way along a passage which apparently
+led through cellars.</p>
+
+<p>"We are in an <i>impasse</i>, or blind passage," called Mrs. Clary from
+behind; "we had better go back."</p>
+
+<p>Hearing this, we all retraced our steps&mdash;at least, we supposed we did.
+But when we reached comparative daylight again we found that Janet,
+Inness, and Baker<a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a> were not with us; they had found a way through that
+<i>impasse</i>, although we could not, and were sitting high above us on a
+white wall in the sunshine, when, breathless, we at last emerged from
+the labyrinth and discovered them.</p>
+
+<p>"That looks like a cemetery," said Mrs. Trescott, disapprovingly,
+disentangling her lace shawl from a bush. "You <i>said</i> it was a castle."
+She addressed the Professor, and with some asperity; she did not like
+cemeteries.</p>
+
+<p>"It was the castle," explained our learned guide; "the castle erected in
+1502, by one of the Princes, upon the site of a still earlier one, built
+in 1250."</p>
+
+<p>"That Prince used the ruins of his ancestors as his descendants
+afterwards used his," observed Margaret, referring to the mansion in the
+street below.</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly," said the Professor. He never gave Margaret more than a
+possibility; although a man of hyphens and semicolons, he generally
+dismissed her with an early period. "These old arches and buttresses,"
+he continued, turning to Mrs. Trescott, "were once part of the castle.
+Turreted walls extended from here down to the sea."</p>
+
+<p>"What they did once, of course I do not know," said Mrs. Trescott,
+implacably, "but now they plainly enclose a cemetery. Janet! Janet! come
+down! we are going back." And she turned to descend.</p>
+
+<p>"The cemetery is a lovely spot," said Mrs. Clary, as we lingered a
+moment looking at the white marble crosses gleaming above us, outlined
+against the blue sky.</p>
+
+<p>"Some other time," I answered, following Mrs. Trescott. For the quiet,
+lovely gardens where we lay our dead had too strong an attraction for
+Margaret already. She was fond of lingering amid their perfume and their
+silence, and she sought this one the next day, and after<a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a><a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a><a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a>wards often
+went there. It was a peculiar little cemetery, alone on the height, and
+walled like a fortress; but it was beautiful in its way, lifted up
+against the sky and overlooking the sea. On the eastern edge was a
+monument, the seated figure of a woman with her hands gently clasped,
+her eyes gazing over the water; the face was lovely, and not
+idealized&mdash;the face of a woman, not an angel. Margaret took a fancy to
+this white watcher on the height, and often stole away to look at the
+sunset, seated near it. I think she identified its loneliness somewhat
+with herself.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 399px;">
+<a href="images/ill_039_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_039_sml.jpg" width="399" height="550" alt="THE CORNICE ROAD, MENTONE" title="THE CORNICE ROAD, MENTONE" /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE CORNICE ROAD, MENTONE</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>We went through the labyrinth again, but by another route, not quite so
+dark and piratical, although equally narrow. Miss Graves liked nothing
+she saw, but walked on unmoved, save that at intervals she observed that
+it was "deathly cold" in these "stony lanes," and "<i>must</i> be unhealthy."
+Mrs. Clary's assertion that the people looked remarkably vigorous only
+called out a shake of the head; Miss Graves was set upon "fever." It was
+amusing to see how carefully all the houses were numbered, up and down
+these break-neck little streets, through the narrowest burrows, and
+under the darkest arches. Here and there some citizen wealthier than his
+neighbors had painted his section of front in bright pink or yellow, and
+perhaps adorned his Madonna in her little shrine over the door with new
+robes, those broadly contrasted blues and reds of Italy, which American
+eyes must learn by gradual education to admire; or, if not by education,
+then by residence; for he will find himself liking them naturally after
+a while, as a relief from the unchanging white light of the Italian day.
+We came down by way of the square or piazza on the hill-side, to and
+from which broad flights of steps ascend and descend. Here are the two
+churches of St. Michael and the White Penitents, whose campaniles, with
+that of the Black Penitents beyond, make the "three spires<a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a> of Mentone,"
+which stand out so picturesquely one above the other, visible in profile
+far to the east and the west on the sharp angle of the hill.</p>
+
+<p>"The different use of the same word in different languages is droll,"
+said Margaret. "French writers almost always speak of these little
+country church-spires as 'coquettes.'"</p>
+
+<p>"There is a Turkish lance here somewhere," said Inness, emerging
+unexpectedly from what I had thought was a cellar. "It is in one of
+these churches. It was taken at the battle of Lepanto, and is a
+'glorious relic.' We must see it."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Janet, appearing with Baker at the top of a flight of steps
+which I had supposed was the back entrance of a private house, "we will
+not see it, but imagine it. I want to go homeward by the Rue Longue."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Janet, if you mean those dancing-dogs&mdash;" began Mrs. Trescott.</p>
+
+<p>"I had forgotten their very existence, mamma. I was thinking of
+something quite different." Here she turned towards the Professor. "I
+was hoping that Professor Mackenzie would feel like telling me something
+of Mentone in the past, as we walk through that quaint old street."</p>
+
+<p>"He feels like it&mdash;feels like it day and night," said Baker to Inness,
+behind me. "He's a perfect statistics Niagara."</p>
+
+<p>"Look at him now, gorged with joy!" said Inness, indignantly. "But I'll
+floor him yet, and on his own ground, too. I'll study up, and <i>then</i>
+we'll see!"</p>
+
+<p>But the Professor, not hearing this threat, had already begun, and begun
+(for him) quite gayly. "The origin of Mentone, Miss Trescott, has been
+attributed to the pirates, and also to Hercules."</p>
+
+<p>"I have always been <i>so</i> interested in Hercules," replied that young
+person.<a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 332px;">
+<a href="images/ill_043_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_043_sml.jpg" width="332" height="550" alt="&quot;TO ITALY&quot;&mdash;PONT ST. LOUIS" title="&quot;TO ITALY&quot;&mdash;PONT ST. LOUIS" /></a>
+<span class="caption">&quot;TO ITALY&quot;&mdash;PONT ST. LOUIS</span>
+</div><p><a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a><a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Mythical&mdash;mythical," said the Professor. "I merely mentioned it as one
+of the legends. To come down to facts&mdash;always much more impressive to a
+rightly disposed mind&mdash;the first mention of Mentone, <i>per se</i>, on the
+authentic page of history, occurs in the eighth century. In <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 975 it
+belonged to the Lascaris, Counts of Ventimiglia, a family of royal
+origin and Greek descent."</p>
+
+<p>"Are there any of them left?" inquired Janet.</p>
+
+<p>"I really do not know," replied the Professor, who was not interested in
+that branch of the subject. "In the fourteenth century the village
+passed into the possession of the Grimaldi family, Princes of Monaco,
+and they held it, legally at least, until 1860, when it was attached to
+France."</p>
+
+<p>"He is really quite Cyclopean in his information," murmured Mrs.
+Trescott.</p>
+
+<p>But the Professor had now discovered Inness, who, with an expression of
+deepest interest on his face, was walking close at his heels, and
+writing as he walked in a note-book.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing, sir?" said the Professor, in his college tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Taking notes," replied Inness, respectfully. "Miss Trescott may feel
+willing to trust her memory, but <i>I</i> wish to preserve your remarks for
+future reference," and he went on with his writing.</p>
+
+<p>The Professor looked at him sharply, but the youth's face remained
+immovable, and he went on.</p>
+
+<p>"These three little towns, then, Mentone, Roccabruna, and Monaco, have
+belonged to the Princes of Monaco since the early Middle Ages."</p>
+
+<p>"Those dear Middle Ages!" said Mrs. Clary.</p>
+
+<p>The Professor gravely looked at her, and then repeated his phrase, as if
+linking together his remarks over her unimportant head. "As I
+observed&mdash;the early<a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a> Middle Ages. But in 1848 Mentone and Roccabruna,
+unable longer to endure the tyranny of their rulers, revolted and
+declared their independence. The Prince at that time lived in Paris,
+knew little of his subjects, and apparently cared less, save to get from
+them through agents as much income as possible for his Parisian
+luxuries." (Impossible to describe the accent which our Puritan
+Professor gave to those two words.) "His little territory produced only
+olives, oranges, and lemons. By his order the oranges and lemons were
+taxed so heavily that the poor peasant owner made nothing from his toil;
+his olives, also, must be ground at the 'Prince's mill,' where a higher
+price was demanded than elsewhere. Finally an even more odious monopoly
+was established: all subjects were compelled to purchase the 'Prince's
+bread,' which, made from cheap grain bought on the docks of Marseilles
+and Genoa, was often unfit to eat. So severe were the laws that any
+traveller entering the principality must throw away at the boundary line
+all bread he might have with him, and the captain of a vessel having on
+board a single slice upon arrival in port was heavily fined. This state
+of things lasted twenty-five years, during which period the Prince in
+Paris spent annually his eighty thousand dollars, gained from this poor
+little domain of eight or nine thousand souls." The Professor in his
+heat stood still, and we all stood still with him. The Mentonnais,
+looking down from their high windows and up from their dark little
+doors, no doubt wondered what we were talking about; they little knew it
+was their own story.</p>
+
+<p>"A revolution made by bread. And ours was made by tea," observed Janet,
+thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"We need now only one made by butter, to be complete," said Inness.</p>
+
+<p>Again the Professor scrutinized him, but discovered nothing.<a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 388px;">
+<a href="images/ill_047_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_047_sml.jpg" width="388" height="550" alt="THE PALMS OF BORDIGHERA" title="THE PALMS OF BORDIGHERA" /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE PALMS OF BORDIGHERA</span>
+</div><p><a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a><a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a></p>
+
+<p><i>I</i>, however, discovered something, although not from Inness; I
+discovered why Janet had wished to pass a second time through that Rue
+Longue. For here was the French artist sketching the old mansion, and
+with him (she could not have known this, of course; but chance always
+favored Janet) were the two Englishmen, the respectful gazers of the
+breakfast-table, sketching also. There were therefore six artistic eyes
+instead of two to dwell upon her as she approached, passed, and went
+onward, her slender figure outlined against the light coming through the
+archway beyond, old St. Julian's Gate, a remnant of feudal
+fortification. Artists are not slack in the use of their eyes; an
+"artistic gaze" is not considered a stare. I was obliged to repeat this
+axiom to Baker, who did not appreciate it, but looked as though he would
+like to go back and artistically demolish those gazers. He contented
+himself, however, with the remark that water-color sketches were "weak,
+puling daubs," and then he went on through the old archway as
+majestically as he could.</p>
+
+<p>"One of the features of Mentone seems to be the number of false windows
+carefully painted on the outside of the houses, windows adorned with
+blinds, muslin curtains, pots of flowers, and even gay rugs hanging over
+the sill," said Margaret.</p>
+
+<p>"And then the frescos," I added&mdash;"landscapes, trees, gods and goddesses,
+in the most brilliant colors, on the side of the house."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> like it," said Mrs. Clary; "it is so tropical."</p>
+
+<p>"You commend falsity, then," said Miss Graves. "<i>What</i> can be more false
+than a false rug?"</p>
+
+<p>We went homeward by the sea-wall, and saw some boys coming up from the
+beach with a basket of sea-urchins. "They eat them, you know," said Mrs.
+Clary.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that tropical too?" said Janet, shuddering.<a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a></p>
+
+<p>"It is, after all, but a difference in custom," observed the Professor.
+"I myself have eaten puppies in China, and found them not unpalatable."</p>
+
+<p>Janet surveyed him; then fell behind and joined Inness and Baker.</p>
+
+<p>Some fishermen on the beach were talking to two women with red
+handkerchiefs on their heads, who were leaning over the sea-wall. "Their
+language is a strange patois," said the Professor; "it is composed of a
+mixture of Italian, French, Spanish, and even Arabic."</p>
+
+<p>"But the people themselves are thoroughly Italian, I think, in spite of
+the French boundary line," said Margaret. "They are a handsome race,
+with their dark eyes, thick hair, and rich coloring."</p>
+
+<p>"I have never bestowed much thought upon beauty <i>per se</i>," responded the
+Professor. "The imperishable mind has far more interest."</p>
+
+<p>"How much of the imperishable M. do you possess, Miss Trescott?" I heard
+Inness murmur.</p>
+
+<p>"Breakfast" was served at one o'clock in the large dining-room, and we
+found ourselves opposite the two English artists, and a young lady whom
+they called "Miss Elaine."</p>
+
+<p>"Elaine is bad enough; but 'Miss Elaine'!" said Margaret aside to me.</p>
+
+<p>However, Miss Elaine seemed very well satisfied with herself and her
+Tennysonian title. She was a short, plump blonde, with a high color, and
+I could see that she regarded Janet with pity as she noted her slender
+proportions and delicate complexion in the one exhaustive glance with
+which girls survey each other when they first meet. We were some time at
+the table, but during the first five minutes both of the artists
+succeeded in offering some slight service to Mrs. Trescott which gave an
+opportunity for opening a conversation.<a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a> The taller of the two, called
+"Verney" by his friend, advised for the afternoon an expedition up the
+Cornice Road to the "Pont St. Louis," and on "to Italy."</p>
+
+<p>"But that will be too far, will it not?" said Mrs. Trescott.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no; to Italy! to Italy!" said Janet, with enthusiasm. Verney now
+explained that Italy was but ten minutes' walk from the hotel, and Janet
+was, of course, duly astonished. But not more astonished than the
+Professor, who, having told her the same fact not a half-hour before,
+could not comprehend how she should so soon have forgotten it.</p>
+
+<p>"And if we <i>are</i> but 'ten minutes' walk from Italy'&mdash;a phrase so often
+repeated&mdash;what of it?" said Miss Graves to Margaret. "We are simply ten
+minutes' walk from a most uncleanly land." Miss Graves always wore a
+gray worsted shawl, and took no wine; in spite of the sunshine,
+therefore, she preserved a frosty appearance.</p>
+
+<p>After breakfast Miss Elaine introduced herself to Mrs. Trescott. She had
+met some Americans the year before; they were charming; they were from
+Brazil; perhaps we knew them? She had always felt ever since that all
+Americans were her dear, dear friends. She had an invalid mother
+up-stairs (sharing her good opinion of Americans) who would be "very
+pleased" to make our acquaintance; and hearing Pont St. Louis mentioned,
+she assured Janet that it was a "very jolly place&mdash;very jolly indeed."
+It ended in our going to the "jolly place," accompanied by the two
+artists and Miss Elaine herself, who smiled upon us all, upon the rocks,
+the sky, and the sea, in the most amiable and continuous manner. This
+time we were not all on foot; one of the loose-jointed little Mentone
+phaetons, with a great deal of driver and whip and very little horse,
+had been engaged for Mrs. Trescott and Margaret. This<a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a> left Mrs. Clary
+and myself together (Miss Graves having remained at home), and Inness,
+Baker, the Professor, Verney, and the other artist, whose name was
+Lloyd, all trying to walk with Janet, while Miss Elaine devoted herself
+in turn to the unsuccessful ones, and never from first to last perceived
+the real situation.</p>
+
+<p>We went eastward. Presently we passed a small house bearing the
+following na�ve inscription in French on the side towards the road: "The
+first villa built at Mentone, in 1855, to attract hither the strangers.
+The sun, the sea, and the soft air combined are benefactions bestowed
+upon us by the good God. Thanks be to Him, therefore, for His mercies in
+thus favoring us."</p>
+
+<p>"Mentone is said to have been 'discovered by the English' in 1857," said
+Mrs. Clary. "Dr. Bennet, the London physician, may be called its real
+discoverer, as Lord Brougham was the discoverer of Cannes. From a
+sleepy, unknown little Riviera village it has grown into the winter
+resort we now see, with fifty hotels and two hundred villas full of
+strangers from all parts of the world."</p>
+
+<p>The Professor was discoursing upon the climate. "It is very beneficial
+to all whose lungs are delicate," he said. "Also" (checking off the
+different classes on his fingers) "to the aged, to those who need
+general renovating, to the rheumatic, and to those afflicted with gout."</p>
+
+<p>"Where, then, do I come in?" said Janet, sweetly, as he finished the
+left hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Nowhere," answered the Professor, meaning to be gallant, but not quite
+succeeding. Perceiving this, he added, slowly, and with solemnity, "But
+the fair and healthy flower should be willing to shine upon the less
+endowed for the pure beneficence of the act."</p>
+
+<p>Baker and Inness sat down on the sea-wall behind him to recover from
+this. The two Englishmen were<a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a><a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a><a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a> equally amused, although Miss Elaine,
+who was walking with them, did not discover it. However, Miss Elaine
+seldom discovered anything save herself. We now began to ascend, passing
+between the high walls of villa gardens along a smooth, broad, white
+road.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_053_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_053_sml.jpg" width="550" height="347" alt="THE BONE CAVERNS" title="THE BONE CAVERNS" /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE BONE CAVERNS</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"This is the Cornice," said Mrs. Clary; "it winds along this coast from
+Marseilles to Genoa."</p>
+
+<p>"From Nice to Genoa," said the Professor, turning to correct her. But by
+turning he lost his place. Inness slipped into it, and not only that,
+but into his information also. In the leisure hour or two before and
+after "breakfast," Inness had carried out his threat of "studying up,"
+and we soon became aware of it.</p>
+
+<p>"The genius of Napoleon, Miss Trescott," he began, "caused this
+wonderful road to spring from the bosom of the mighty rock."</p>
+
+<p>"Before it there was no road, only a mule track," said the Professor
+from behind.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," said Inness, suavely, "but there was a road, the
+old Roman way, called Via Julia Augusta, traces of which are still to be
+seen at more than one point in this neighborhood."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said the Professor, surprised by this unexpected antiquity, "you
+are going back to the Roman period. I have omitted that."</p>
+
+<p>"But I have not," replied Inness. "The Romans were a remarkable people,
+and all their relics are penetrated with the profoundest interest for
+me. I am aware, however, that other minds are more modern," he added,
+carelessly, with an air of patronage, which so delighted Baker that he
+fell behind to conceal it.</p>
+
+<p>"The Cornichy, Miss Trescott, as we pronounce the Italian word (Corniche
+in French), is almost our own word cornice," pursued Inness, "meaning a
+shelf or ledge along the side of the mountain. It was begun by Napoleon,
+and has been finished by the energy of successive<a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a> governments since the
+death of that wonderful man, who was all governments in one."</p>
+
+<p>"You surprise me," said Janet, breaking into laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Not more than you do me," I said, joining her.</p>
+
+<p>The Professor (who had rather neglected the Cornice in his Cyclopean
+information) gazed at us inquiringly, surprised at our merriment.</p>
+
+<p>"The best description of the Cornice, I think, is the one in Ruffini's
+novel called <i>Doctor Antonio</i>" said Mrs. Clary. "The scene is laid at
+Bordighera, you know, that little white town on the eastern point so
+conspicuous from Mentone. Of course you all remember <i>Doctor Antonio</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>Presently our road wound around a curve, and we came upon a wild gorge,
+spanned by a bridge with a sentinel's box at each end; one side was
+France and the other Italy. The bridge, the official boundary line
+between the two countries, is a single arch thrown across the gorge,
+which is singularly stern, great masses of bare gray rock rising
+perpendicularly hundreds of feet into the air, with a little rill of
+water trickling down on one side, trying to create a tiny line of
+verdure. Below was an old aqueduct on arches, which the Professor
+hastened to say was "Roman."</p>
+
+<p>"The Romans must have been enormous drinkers of water," observed Baker,
+as we looked down. "The first thing they made in every conquered country
+was an aqueduct. What could have given the name to Roman punch?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see that narrow track cut in the face of the rock?" said Mrs.
+Clary, pointing out a line crossing one side of the gorge at a dizzy
+height. "It is a little path beside a watercourse, and so narrow that in
+some places there is not room for one's two feet. The wall of rock
+rises, as you see, perpendicularly hundreds of feet on<a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a> one side, and
+falls away hundreds of feet perpendicularly on the other; there is
+nothing to hold on by, and in addition the glancing motion of the little
+stream, running rapidly downhill along the edge, makes the path still
+more dizzy. Yet the peasants coming down from Ciotti&mdash;a village above
+us&mdash;use it, as it shortens the distance to town. And there are those
+among the strangers too who try it, generally, I must confess, of our
+race. The French and Italians say, with a shrug, 'It is only the English
+and Americans who enjoy such risks.'"</p>
+
+<p>"It does not look so narrow," said Janet. Then, as we exclaimed, she
+added, "I mean, not wide enough for one's two feet."</p>
+
+<p>"Feet," remarked Inness, in a general way, as if addressing the gorge,
+"are not all of the same size."</p>
+
+<p>We happened to be standing in a row, with our backs against the southern
+parapet of the bridge, looking up at the little path; the result was
+that eighteen feet were plainly visible on the white dust of the bridge,
+and, naturally enough, at Inness's speech eighteen eyes looked downward
+and noted them. There were the Professor's boots, the laced shoes of the
+younger men, the comfortable foot-gear of Mrs. Clary and myself, the
+broad substantial soles of Miss Elaine, and a certain dainty little pair
+of high-arched, high-heeled boots, which, small as they were, were yet
+quite large enough for the pretty feet they contained. I thought Miss
+Elaine would be vexed; but no, not at all. It never occurred to Miss
+Elaine to doubt the perfection of any of her attributes. But now Mrs.
+Trescott's phaeton, which had started later, reached the bridge, and the
+gorge, path, and aqueduct had to be explained to her. Lloyd undertook
+this.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder how many girls have thrown themselves off that rock?" said
+Janet, gazing at an isolated peak,<a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a> shaped like a sugar-loaf, which
+stood alone within the ravine.</p>
+
+<p>"What a holocaust you imagine, Miss Trescott!" said Verney. "How could
+they climb up there, to begin with?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know. But they always do. I have never known a rock of that
+kind which has succeeded in evading them," answered Janet. "They
+generally call them 'Lovers' Leaps.'"</p>
+
+<p>After a while we went on "to Italy," passing the square Italian
+custom-house perched on its cliff, and following the road by the little
+Garibaldi inn, and on towards the point of Mortola.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the Italian frontier," said Verney. "In old times, during the
+Prince's reign, no one could leave the domain without buying a passport;
+any one, therefore, who wished to take an afternoon walk was obliged to
+have one. But things are altered now in Menton."</p>
+
+<p>"Are we to call the place Menton or Mentone?" asked Janet. "We might as
+well come to some decision."</p>
+
+<p>"Menton is correct," said the Professor; "it is now a French town."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no! let us keep to the dear old names, and say Men-to-ne," said Mrs.
+Clary.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> have even heard it pronounced to rhyme with bone," said Verney,
+smiling. Inness and Baker now looked at each other, and fell behind, but
+after a few minutes they came forward again, and, advancing to the
+front, faced us, and delivered the following epic:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Inness:</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="conversation">
+<tr><td align="left">"What shall we call thee? Shall we give our own</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; Plain English vowels to thee, fair Mentone?"</td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 422px;">
+<a href="images/ill_059_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_059_sml.jpg" width="422" height="550" alt="THE PROFESSOR DISCOURSES" title="THE PROFESSOR DISCOURSES" /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE PROFESSOR DISCOURSES</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a></p>
+<p><a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Baker:</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="conversation">
+<tr><td align="left">"Or shall we yield thee back thy patrimony,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; The lost Italian sweetness of Mentone?"</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Inness:</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="conversation">
+<tr><td align="left">"Or, with French accent, and the n's half gone,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; Try the Parisian syllables&mdash;Men-ton?"</td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>We all applauded their impromptu. The Professor, seeing that poetry held
+the field, walked apart musingly. I think he was trying to recall, but
+without success, an appropriate Latin quotation.</p>
+
+<p>The view from the point above Mortola is very beautiful. On the west,
+Mentone with its three spires, the green of Cap Martin; and beyond, the
+bold dark forehead of the Dog's Head rising above Monaco.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see that blue line of coast?" said Verney. "That is the island
+where lived the Man with the Iron Mask."</p>
+
+<p>"Bazaine was confined there also," said the Professor.</p>
+
+<p>But none of us cared for Bazaine. We began to talk about the Mask, and
+then diverged to Kaspar Hauser, finally ending with Eleazer Williams, of
+"Have we a Bourbon among us?" who had to be explained to the Englishmen.
+It was some time before we came back to the view; but all the while
+there it was before us, and we were unconsciously enjoying it. On the
+east was, first, the little village of Mortola at our feet; then
+fortified Ventimiglia; and beyond, Bordighera, gleaming whitely on its
+low point out in the blue sea.</p>
+
+<p>"Blanche Bordighera," said Mrs. Clary; "it is to me like
+paradise&mdash;always silvery and fair. No matter where you go, there it is;
+whether you look from Cap Martin or St. Agnese, from Ciotti or
+Roccabruna, you can always see Bordighera shining in the sunlight.<a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a> Even
+when there is a mist, so that Mentone itself is veiled and Ventimiglia
+lost, Bordighera can be seen gleaming whitely through. And finally you
+end by not wanting to go there; you dread spoiling the vision by a less
+fair reality, and you go away, leaving it unvisited, but carrying with
+you the remembrance of its shining and its feathery palms."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it palmy?" asked Janet.</p>
+
+<p>"There are probably now more palms at Bordighera than in the Holy Land
+itself," said Verney, who had wound himself into a place beside her. I
+say "wound," because Verney was so long and lithe that he could slip
+gracefully into places which other men could not obtain. Lloyd was not
+with us. He had not left his post of duty beside the phaeton, which was
+coming slowly up the hill behind us; but I noticed that he had selected
+Margaret's side of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Palms would grow at Mentone, or at any other sheltered spot on this
+coast," said the Professor, at last abandoning the obstinate quotation,
+and coming back to the present. "But the cultivation is not remunerative
+save at Bordighera, where they own the monopoly of supplying the palm
+branches used on Palm-Sunday at Rome."</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me," said Inness; "but I think you did not mention the origin of
+that monopoly?"</p>
+
+<p>"A monkish legend," said the Professor, contemptuously.</p>
+
+<p>"In those days everything was monkish," replied Inness; "architecture,
+knowledge, and religion. If we had lived then, no doubt we should all
+have been monks."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes!" said Miss Elaine, fervently. "Do tell us the legend, Mr.
+Inness. I adore legends, especially if ecclesiastical."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Inness, "a good while ago&mdash;in 1586&mdash;<a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a>the Pope decided to
+raise and place upon a pedestal an Egyptian obelisk, which, transported
+to Rome by Caligula, had been left lying neglected upon the ground. An
+apparatus was constructed to lift the huge block, and with the aid of
+one hundred and fifty horses and nine hundred men it was raised, poised,
+and then let down slowly towards its position, amid the breathless
+silence of a multitude, when suddenly it was seen that the ropes on one
+side failed to bring it into place. All, including the engineer in
+charge, stood stupefied with alarm, when a voice from the crowd called
+out, 'Wet the ropes!' It was done; the ropes shortened; the obelisk
+reached its place in safety. The Pope sent for the man whose timely
+advice had saved the lives of many, and asked him what reward would
+please him most. He was a simple countryman, and with much timidity he
+answered that he lived at Bordighera, and that if the palms of
+Bordighera could be used in Rome on Holy Palm-Sunday he should die
+happy. His wish was granted," concluded Inness, "and&mdash;he died."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not immediately," I said, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>On our way back, Verney showed us a path leading up the cliff. "Let me
+give you a glimpse of a lovely garden," he said. We looked up, and there
+it was on the cliff above us, like the hanging gardens of Babylon, green
+terraces clothing the bare gray rock with beautiful verdure. Margaret
+left the phaeton and went up the winding path with us, Mrs. Trescott and
+Mrs. Clary remaining below. The gate of the garden, which bore the
+inscription "Salvete Amici," opened upon a long columned walk; from
+pillar to pillar over our heads ran climbing vines, and on each side
+were ranks of rare and curious plants, the lovely wild flowers of the
+country having their place also among the costlier blossoms. "Before you
+go farther turn and look at the tower," said Verney. "It has been made
+habitable<a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a> within, but otherwise it is unchanged. It was built either as
+a lookout in which to keep watch for the Saracens, or else by the
+Saracens themselves when they held the coast."</p>
+
+<p>"By the Sarrasins themselves, of course&mdash;always with two r's," said
+Janet. "Think of it&mdash;a Sarrasin tower! I would rather own it than
+anything else in the whole world."</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon Verney, Inness, the Professor, Lloyd, and Baker all wished to
+know what she would do with it.</p>
+
+<p>"Do with it?" repeated Janet. "Live in it, of course. I have always had
+the greatest desire to live in a tower; even light-houses tempt me."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall tell Dr. Bennet," said Verney, laughing. "This is his garden,
+you know."</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the columned walk we went around a curve by a smaller
+tower, and descended to a lower path bordered with miniature groves of
+hyacinth, whose dense sweetness, mingled with that of heliotrope, filled
+the air. Here Margaret seated herself to enjoy the fragrance and
+sunshine, while we went onward, coming to a magnificent array of
+primulas, rank upon rank, in every shade of delicate and gorgeous
+coloring, a pomp of tints against a background of ferns. Below was a
+little vine-covered terrace with thick, soft, English grass for its
+velvet flooring; here was another paradisiacal little seat, like the one
+where we had left Margaret, overlooking the blue sea. On terraces above
+were camellias, roses, and numberless other blossoms, mingled with
+tropical plants and curious growths of cacti; behind was a lemon grove
+rising a little higher; then the background of gray rocks from which all
+this beauty had been won inch by inch; then the great peaks of the
+mountain amphitheatre against the sky&mdash;in all, beauty enough for a
+thousand gardens here concentrated in one enchanting spot.<a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_065_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_065_sml.jpg" width="550" height="377" alt="THE WASHER-WOMEN" title="THE WASHER-WOMEN" /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE WASHER-WOMEN</span>
+</div><p><a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a><a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a></p>
+
+<p>"That picturesque village on the height is Grimaldi," said Verney.</p>
+
+<p>"The original home of the clowns, I suppose," said Baker.</p>
+
+<p>"English and Americans always say that; they can never think of anything
+but the great circus Hamlet," replied Verney. "In reality, however,
+Grimaldi is one of the oldest of the noble names on this coast&mdash;the
+family name of the Princes of Monaco."</p>
+
+<p>"Who are worse than clowns," said the Professor, sternly. "The Grimaldi
+who was a clown at least honestly earned his bread, but the Grimaldis of
+the present day live by the worst dishonesty. Monaco, formerly called
+the Port of Hercules, may now well be called the Port of Hell."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Inness, "if Monaco, on one side of us, represents
+l'Inferno, Bordighera, on the other, represents Paradiso, and so we are
+saved."</p>
+
+<p>"It depends upon which way you go, young man," said the Professor, still
+sternly.</p>
+
+<p>After a while we came back to the bench among the hyacinths where we had
+left Margaret, and found Lloyd with her, looking at the sea; the lovely
+garden overhangs the sea, whose beautiful near blue closes every
+blossoming vista. It had been decided that we were to go homeward by way
+of the Bone Caverns, and as Mrs. Trescott was fond of bones, and wished
+to see their abode, I offered to remain and drive home with Margaret.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me accompany Miss Severin," said Lloyd. "I have seen the caverns,
+and do not care to see them again."</p>
+
+<p>I looked at Margaret, thinking she would object; she seldom cared for
+the society of strangers. But in some way Mr. Lloyd no longer seemed a
+stranger; he had crossed the numerous little barriers which she kept<a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a>
+erected between herself and the outside world, crossed them probably
+without even seeing them. But none the less were they crossed.</p>
+
+<p>So we left them in the sunny garden to return homeward at their leisure,
+and, descending to the road, went eastward a short distance, and turned
+down a narrow path leading to the beach. It brought us under the
+enormous mass of the Red Rocks, rising perpendicularly three hundred
+feet from the water. Inness, who was in advance, had paused on a little
+bridge of one arch over a hollow, and was holding it, as it were, when
+we came up. "Behold a fragment of the ancient Roman way, Via Julia
+Augusta," he began, introducing the bridge with a wave of his cane.
+"When we think of this road in the past, what visions rise in the
+mind&mdash;visions like&mdash;like mists on the mountain-tops floating away,
+which&mdash;which merge in each other at dawning of day! In comparison with
+the ancient Romans, the builders of this bridge, Hercules, the Lascaris,
+even the Sarrasins (always with two r's), are <i>nowhere</i>. Roman feet
+touched this very archway upon which my own unworthy shoes now stand."</p>
+
+<p>We looked at his shoes with respect, the Professor (who had gone onward
+to the Bone Caverns) not being there to contradict.</p>
+
+<p>"The Romans," continued Inness, "never stayed long. They dropped here a
+tomb, there an aqueduct, and then moved on. They were the first great
+pedestrians. We cannot <i>see</i> them, but we can imagine them. As Pope well
+says,</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry">
+<tr><td align="left">"'While fancy brings the vanished piles to view,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">And builds imaginary Rome anew.'"</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes," said Mrs. Trescott, "the Romans, the Romans, how dreamy they
+were! They always remind me of those lines:<a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a></p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry">
+<tr><td align="left">"'Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">And let the young lambs bound</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">As to the tabor's sound,</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The primal sympathy,</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Which, having been, must ever be!'"</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>This finished the bridge. As we had no idea what she meant, even Inness
+deserted it, and we all went onward to the Bone Caverns. The caverns
+were dark hollows in the cliff some distance above the road. From the
+entrance of one of them issued a cloud of dust; the Professor was in
+there digging.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us ascend at once," said Mrs. Trescott, enthusiastically. "I wish
+to stand in the very abode of the primitive man."</p>
+
+<p>But it was something of a task to get her up; there was always a great
+deal of loose drapery about Mrs. Trescott, which had a way of catching
+on everything far and near. With her veil, her plumes, her lace shawl,
+her long watch-chain, her dangling fan, her belt bag and scent bottle,
+her parasol and basket, it was difficult to get her safely through any
+narrow or bushy place. But to-day Verney gallantly undertook the feat:
+he knew the advantages of propitiating the higher powers.</p>
+
+<p>Men were quarrying the face of the Red Rocks at a dizzy height, hanging
+suspended in mid-air by ropes in order to direct the blasting; below,
+the patient horses were waiting to convey the great blocks of stone to
+the town, and destroy, by their daily procession, the last traces of the
+Julia Augusta.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope these rocks are porphyry," said Janet, gazing upward; "it is
+such a lovely name."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they are," said the unblushing Inness. "The Troglodytes, whose
+homes are beneath, were fond of porphyry. They were very �sthetic, you
+know."<a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a></p>
+
+<p>We now reached the entrance of one of the caverns and looked in.</p>
+
+<p>"The Troglodytes," continued Inness, "were the original, <i>really</i>
+original, proprietors of Mentone. They lived here, clad in bear-skins,
+and their voices are said to have been not sweet. See Pliny and Strabo.
+The bones of their dinners left here, and a few of their own (untimely
+deaths from fighting with each other for more), have now become the most
+precious treasures of the scientific world, equalling in richness the
+never-to-be-sufficiently-prized-and-investigated kitchen refuse of the
+Swiss lakes."</p>
+
+<p>But the Professor, overhearing something of this frivolity at the sacred
+door, emerged from the hole in which he had been digging, and, covered
+with dust, but rich in the possession of a ball and socket joint of some
+primeval animal, came to the entrance, and forcibly, if not by force,
+addressed us:</p>
+
+<p>"At a recent period it has been discovered that these five caverns in
+this limestone rock&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Alas, my porphyry!" murmured Janet.</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;contain bones of animals mixed with flint instruments imbedded in
+sand. The animals were the food and the flint instruments the weapons of
+a race of men who must have existed far back in prehistoric times. This
+was a rich discovery; but a richer was to come. In 1872 a human
+skeleton, all but perfect, a skeleton of a tall man, was discovered in
+the fourth cavern, surrounded by bones which prove its great
+antiquity&mdash;which prove, in fact, almost beyond a doubt, that it belonged
+to&mdash;the&mdash;<i>Paleolithic epoch</i>!" And the Professor paused, really overcome
+by the tremendous power of his own words.</p>
+
+<p>But I am afraid we all gazed stupidly enough, first at him, then into
+the cave, then at him again, with only the vaguest idea of
+"Paleolithic's" importance. I<a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a><a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a><a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a> must except Verney; he knew more. But
+he had gone inside, and was now digging in the hole in his turn to find
+flints for Janet.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Trescott, who was our bone-master (she had studied anatomy, and
+highly admired "form"), asked if the skeleton had been "painted in
+oils."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_071_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_071_sml.jpg" width="550" height="400" alt="OIL MILL" title="OIL MILL" /></a>
+<span class="caption">OIL MILL</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Miss Elaine hoped that they buried it again "reverently," and "in
+consecrated ground."</p>
+
+<p>The Professor gazed at them in turn; he literally could not find a word
+for reply.</p>
+
+<p>Then I, coming to the rescue, said: "I am very dull, I know, but pity my
+dulness, and tell me why the skeleton was so important, and how they
+knew it was so old."</p>
+
+<p>The poor man, overcome by such crass ignorance, gazed at his ball and
+socket joint and at our group in silence. Then, in a spiritless voice,
+he said, "The bones surrounding the skeleton were those of animals now
+extinct&mdash;animals that existed at a period heretofore supposed to have
+been before that of man; but by their presence here they prove a
+contemporary, and we therefore know that he existed at a much earlier
+age of the world's history than we had imagined."</p>
+
+<p>Verney now gave Janet the treasures he had found&mdash;some pieces of flint
+about an inch long, rudely pointed at one end. "These," he said, "are
+the knives of the primitive man."</p>
+
+<p>"They are very disappointing," said Janet, surveying them as they lay in
+the palm of her slender gray glove, buttoned half-way to the elbow.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you expect carved handles and steel blades?" I said, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"And here are some nummulites," pursued Verney, taking a quantity of the
+round coin-like shells from his pocket. "You might have a necklace made,
+with the nummulites above and the flints below as pendants."<a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a></p>
+
+<p>"And label it prehistoric; it would be quite as attractive as
+preraphaelite," said Inness. "I don't know what <i>you</i> think," he
+continued, turning to Verney, "but to me there is nothing so ugly as the
+way some of the girls&mdash;generally the tall ones&mdash;are getting themselves
+up nowadays in what they call the preraphaelite style&mdash;a general effect
+of awkward lankness as to shape and gown, a classic fillet, hair to the
+eyebrows, and a gait not unlike that which would be produced by having
+the arms tied together behind at the elbows. If your Botticelli is
+responsible for this, his canvases should be demolished."</p>
+
+<p>Verney laughed; he was at heart, I think, a strong preraphaelite both of
+the present and the past; but how could he avow it when a reality so
+charming and at the same time so unlike that type stood beside him?
+Janet's costumes were not at all preraphaelite; they were
+American-French.</p>
+
+<p>We left the Red Rocks, and went slowly onward along the sea-shore
+towards home. Miss Elaine, having first taken me aside to ask if I
+thought it "quite proper," had challenged Inness to a rapid walk, and
+soon carried him away from us and out of sight. On our way we passed the
+St. Louis brook, where the laundresses were at work in two rows along
+the stream, each kneeling at the edge in a broad open basket like a
+boat, and bending over the low pool, alternately soaping and beating her
+clothes with a flat wooden mallet. It was a picturesque sight&mdash;the long
+rows of figures in baskets, the heads decked with bright-colored
+handkerchiefs. But to a housewifely mind like my own the idea which most
+forcibly presented itself was the small amount of water. Of a celebrated
+trout fisherman it was once said that all he required was a little damp
+spot, and forthwith he caught a trout; and the Mentone laundresses seem
+to consider that<a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a> only a little damp spot is needed for their daily
+labors.</p>
+
+<p>But in truth they cannot help themselves; the crying fault of Mentone is
+the want of water. A spring is more precious than the land itself, and
+is divided between different proprietors for stated periods of each day.
+The poor little rills do a dozen tasks before they reach the laundresses
+and the beach. The beautiful terrace vegetation which clothes the sides
+of the mountains is supported by an elaborate and costly system of tanks
+and watercourses which would dishearten an American proprietor at the
+outset. The Mentone laundresses work for wages which a New World
+laundress would scorn; but there is one marked difference between them
+and between all the French and Italian working-people and those of
+America, and that is that among these foreigners there seems to be not
+one too poor to have his daily bottle of wine. We saw the necks of these
+bottles peeping from the rough dinner-baskets of the laundresses, and
+afterwards from those also of the quarry-men, vine-dressers,
+olive-pickers, and lemon-gatherers. It was an inexpensive "wine of the
+country"; still, it was wine.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was now sinking into the water, and exquisite hues were stealing
+over the soft sea. The picturesque Mediterranean boats with lateen-sails
+were coming towards home, and one whose little sail was crimson made a
+lovely picture on the water. At the sea-wall we met Miss Graves gloomily
+taking a walk, and presently the phaeton with Margaret and Lloyd stopped
+near us as we stood looking at the hues. Two ships in the distance
+sailed first on blue water, then on rose, on lilac, on purple, violet,
+and gold. Over the sea fell a pink flush, met on the horizon by salmon
+in a broad band, then next above it amber, then violet edged with rose,
+and higher still a zone of clear pale green bordered<a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a> with gold. At the
+same moment the Red Rocks were flooded with rose light which extended in
+a lovely flush up the high gray peaks behind far in the sky, lingering
+there when all the lower splendor was gone, and the sea and shore veiled
+in dusky twilight gray.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 545px;">
+<a href="images/ill_076_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_076_sml.jpg" width="545" height="550" alt="A MEDITERRANEAN BOAT" title="A MEDITERRANEAN BOAT" /></a>
+<span class="caption">A MEDITERRANEAN BOAT</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"It is almost as beautiful at sunrise," said Mrs. Clary; "and then, too,
+you can see the Fairy Island."</p>
+
+<p>"What is that?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind what it is in reality," answered Mrs. Clary. "I consider it
+enchanted&mdash;the Fortunate Land, whose shores and mountain-peaks can be
+seen only between dawn and sunrise, when they loom up distinctly,<a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a> soon
+fading away, however, mysteriously into the increasing daylight, and
+becoming entirely invisible when the sun appears."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw it this morning," said Miss Graves, soberly. "It is only
+Corsica."</p>
+
+<p>"Brigands and vendetta," said Inness.</p>
+
+<p>"Napoleon," said all the rest of us.</p>
+
+<p>"My idea of it is much the best," said Mrs. Clary; "it is Fairy-land,
+the lost Isles of the Blest."</p>
+
+<p>After that each morning at breakfast the question always was, who had
+seen Corsica. And a vast amount of ingenious evasion was displayed in
+the answers. However, I did see it once. It rose from the water on the
+southeastern horizon, its line of purple mountain-peaks and low shore so
+distinctly visible that it seemed as if one could take the little boat
+with the crimson sail and be over there in an hour, although it was
+ninety miles away; but while I gazed it faded slowly, melted, as it
+were, into the gold of the awakening day.</p>
+
+<p>The weeks passed, and we rode, drove, walked, and climbed hither and
+thither, looking at the carouba-trees, the stiff pyramidal cypresses,
+the euphorbias in woody bushes five feet high, the great planes, the
+grotesque naked figs, the aloes and oleanders growing wild, and the
+fantastic shapes of the cacti. We searched for ferns, finding the rusty
+ceterach, the little trichomanes, and <i>Adiantum nigrum</i>, but especially
+the exquisite maiden-hair of the delicate variety called <i>Capillus
+veneris</i>, which fringed every watercourse and bank and rock where there
+is the least moisture with its lovely green fretwork. There is a phrase
+current in Mentone and applied to this fern, as well as to the violets
+which grow wild in rich profusion, starring the ground with their blue;
+unthinking people say of them that they are "so common they become
+weeds." This phrase should be suppressed by a society for the
+cultivation<a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a> of good taste and the prevention of cruelty to plants. Ivy
+was everywhere, growing wild, and heather in bloom.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Graves was brought almost to tears one day by finding her old
+friend the wild climbing smilax of Florida on these Mediterranean rocks,
+and only recovered her self-possession because Lloyd would call it
+"sarsaparilla," and she felt herself called upon to do battle. But the
+profusion of the violets, the pomp of the red anemones, the perfume of
+the white narcissus, the hyacinths and sweet alyssum, all growing wild,
+who shall describe them? There were also tulips, orchids, English
+primroses, and daisies. Even when nothing else could grow there was
+always the demure rosemary. Of course, too, we made close acquaintance
+with the olive and lemon, the characteristic trees of Mentone, whose
+foliage forms its verdure, and whose fruit forms its commerce. The
+orange groves were insignificant and the oranges sour compared with
+those of Florida; but the olive and lemon groves were new to us, and in
+themselves beautiful and luxuriant. Our hotel stood on the edge of an
+old olive grove climbing the mountain-side slowly on broad terraces
+rising endlessly as one looked up. After some weeks' experience we found
+that we represented collectively various shades of opinion concerning
+olive groves in general, which may be given as follows:</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Clary: "These old trees are to me so sacred! When I walk under
+their great branches I always think of the dove bringing the leaf to the
+ark, of the olive boughs of the entry into Jerusalem, and of the Mount
+of Olives."</p>
+
+<p>The Professor: "Olives are interesting because their manner of growth
+allows them to attain an almost indefinite age. The trunk decays and
+splits, but the bark, which still retains its vigor, grows around the<a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a><a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a><a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a>
+dissevered portions, making, as it were, new trunks of them, although
+curved and distorted, so that three or four trees seem to be growing
+from the same root. It is this which gives the tree its characteristic
+knotted and gnarled appearance. This species of olive attains a very
+fine development in the neighborhood of Mentone; there are said to be
+trees still alive at Cap Martin which were coeval with the Roman
+Empire."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 378px;">
+<a href="images/ill_079_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_079_sml.jpg" width="378" height="550" alt="BRINGING LEMONS FROM THE TERRACE" title="BRINGING LEMONS FROM THE TERRACE" /></a>
+<span class="caption">BRINGING LEMONS FROM THE TERRACE</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Verney: "The light in an old olive grove is beautiful and peculiar; it
+is like nothing but itself. It is quite impossible to give on canvas the
+gray shade of the long aisles without making them dim, and they are not
+in the least dim. I have noticed, too, that the sunshine never filters
+through sufficiently to touch the ground in a glancing beam, or even a
+single point of yellow light; and yet the leaves are small, and the
+foliage does not appear thick."</p>
+
+<p>Baker: "Olives and olive oil, the groundwork of every good dinner! I
+wonder how much a grove would cost?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Trescott: "How they murmur to us&mdash;like doves! My one regret now is
+that I did not name my child Olive. She would then have been so
+Biblical."</p>
+
+<p>Inness: "I should think more of the groves if I did not know that they
+were fertilized with woollen rags, old boots, and bones."</p>
+
+<p>Janet: "The inside tint of the leaves would be lovely for a summer
+costume. I have never had just that shade."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Graves: "Live-oak groves draped in long moss are much more
+imposing."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Elaine: "It is so jolly, you know, to sit under the trees with
+one's embroidery, and have some one read aloud&mdash;something sweet, like
+Adelaide Procter."</p>
+
+<p>Margaret: "Sitting here is like being in a great cathedral in Lent."<a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a></p>
+
+<p>Lloyd: "Shall we go quietly on, Miss Severin?"</p>
+
+<p>And Lloyd, I think, had the best of it. I mean that he knew how to
+derive the most pleasure from the groves. This English use of "quietly,"
+by-the-way, always amused Margaret and myself greatly. Lloyd and Verney
+were constantly suggesting that we should go here or there "quietly," as
+though otherwise we should be likely to go with banners, trumpets, and
+drums. The longer one remains in Mentone, the stronger grows attachment
+to the olive groves. But they do not seem fit places for the young,
+whose gay voices resound through their gray aisles; neither are they for
+the old, who need the cheer and warmth of the sun. But they are for the
+middle-aged, those who are beyond the joys and have not yet reached the
+peace of life, the poor, unremembered, hard-worked middle-aged. The
+olives of Mentone are small, and used only for making oil. We saw them
+gathered: men were beating the boughs with long poles, while old women
+and children collected the dark purple berries and placed them in sacks,
+which the patient donkeys bore to the mill. The oil mills are venerable
+and picturesque little buildings of stone, placed in the ravines where
+there is a stream of water. We visited one on the side hill; its only
+light came from the open door, and its interior made a picture which
+Gerard Douw might well have painted. The great oil jars, the old hearth
+and oven, the earthen jugs, hanging lamps with floating wicks, and the
+figures of the men moving about, made a picturesque scene. The fruit was
+first crushed by stone rollers, the wheel being turned by water-power;
+the pulp, saturated with warm water, was then placed in flat, round rope
+baskets, which were piled one upon the other, and the whole subjected to
+strong pressure, which caused the clear yellow oil to exude through the
+meshes of the baskets, and flow down into the little reservoir below.<a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Our manners would become charmingly suave if we lived here long," said
+Inness. "It would be impossible to resist the influence of so much oil."</p>
+
+<p>The lemon terraces were as unlike the olive groves as a gay love song is
+unlike a Gregorian chant. The trees rose brightly and youthfully from
+the grassy hill-side steps, each leaf shining as though it was
+varnished, and the yellow globes of fruit gleaming like so much
+imprisoned sunshine. Here was no shade, no weird grayness, but
+everything was either vivid gold or vivid green. Janet said this.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> am the latter, I think," said Baker, "to be caught here again on
+these terraces. I don't know what your experience has been, but for my
+part I detest them; I have been lost here again and again. You get into
+them and you think it all very easy, and you keep going on and on. You
+climb hopefully from one to the next by those narrow sidling little
+stone steps, only to find it the exact counterpart of the one you have
+left, with still another beyond. And you keep on plunging up and up
+until you are worn out. At last you meet a man, and you ask him
+something or other beginning with 'Purtorn'&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What in the world do you mean?" said Janet, breaking into laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure I don't know; but that is what you all say."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you mean 'Peut-on,'" suggested Margaret.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, whatever I mean, the man always answers 'Oui,' and so I am no
+better off than I was before, but keep plunging on," said Baker,
+ruefully.</p>
+
+<p>But the Professor now opened a more instructive subject. "Lemons are the
+most important product of Mentone," he began. "As they can be kept
+better than those of Naples and Sicily, they command a large price. The
+tree flowers all the year through, and the fruit is<a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a> gathered at four
+different periods. The annual production of lemons at Mentone is about
+thirty millions."</p>
+
+<p>"Thirty millions of lemons!" I said, appalled. "What an acid idea!"</p>
+
+<p>"The idea may be acid, but the air is not," said Margaret. "It is
+singularly delicious, almost intoxicating."</p>
+
+<p>And in truth there was a subtle fragrance which had an influence upon
+me, although no doubt it had much more upon Margaret, who was peculiarly
+sensitive to perfumes.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you heard the legend of the Mentone lemons?" said Verney.</p>
+
+<p>"No; what is it? We should be <i>very</i> pleased to hear it," said Miss
+Elaine, throwing herself down upon the grass in what she considered a
+rural way. She was bestowing her smiles upon Verney that day; she had
+mentioned to me on the way up the hill that she did not approve of
+giving too much of one's attention "to one especial gentleman
+exclusively"&mdash;it was so "conspicuous." I was smiling inwardly at this,
+since the only "conspicuous" person among us, as far as attention to
+"the gentlemen" was concerned, was Miss Elaine herself, when I caught
+her glance directed towards Margaret and Lloyd. This set me to thinking.
+Could she be referring to them? They had been much together, without
+doubt, for Margaret liked him, and he was very kind to her. My poor
+Margaret, she was very precious, to me; but to others she was only a
+pale, careworn woman, silent, quiet, and no longer young. With the
+remembrance of Miss Elaine's words in my mind, I now looked around for
+Margaret as we sat down on the grass to hear Verney's legend; but she
+had strolled off down the long green and gold aisle with Lloyd.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Severin is so well informed that she does not care for our simple
+little amusements," said Miss Elaine, in her artless way.<a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 440px;">
+<a href="images/ill_085_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_085_sml.jpg" width="440" height="550" alt="ON THE WAY TO L&#39; ANNUNZIATA" title="ON THE WAY TO L&#39; ANNUNZIATA" /></a>
+<span class="caption">ON THE WAY TO L&#39; ANNUNZIATA</span>
+</div><p><a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a><a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Once upon a time, as we all know," began Verney, "Adam and Eve were
+banished from the garden of Paradise. Poor Eve, sobbing, put up her hand
+just before passing through the gate and plucked a lemon from the last
+tree beside the angel. The two then wandered through the world together,
+wandered far and wide, and at last, following the shores of the
+Mediterranean, they came to Mentone. Here the sea was so blue, the
+sunshine so bright, and the sky so cloudless, that Eve planted her
+treasured fruit. 'Go, little seed,' she said; 'grow and prosper. Make
+another Eden of this enchanting spot, so that those who come after may
+know at least something of the tastes and the perfumes of Paradise.'"</p>
+
+<p>The Professor had not remained to hear the legend; he had gone up the
+mountain, and we now heard him shouting; that is, he was trying to
+shout, although he produced only a sort of long, thin hoot.</p>
+
+<p>"What can that be?" I said, startled.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the Professor," answered Mrs. Trescott. "It is his way of
+calling. He has his own methods of doing everything."</p>
+
+<p>It turned out that he had found a path down which the lemon girls were
+coming from the terraces above. We went up to this point to see them
+pass. They were all strong and ruddy, and walked with wonderful
+erectness, balancing the immense weight of fruit on their heads without
+apparent effort; they were barefooted, and moved with a solid, broad
+step down the steep, stony road. The load of fruit for each one was one
+hundred and twenty pounds; they worked all day in this manner, and
+earned about thirty cents each! But they looked robust and cheerful, and
+some of them smiled at us under their great baskets as they passed.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon not long after this we went to the Capuchin monastery of
+the Annunziata. Some of us<a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a> were on donkeys and some on foot, forming
+one of those processions so often seen winding through the streets of
+the little Mediterranean town. We passed the shops filled with the
+Mentone swallow, singing his "Je reviendrai" upon articles in wood, in
+glass, mosaic, silver, straw, canvas, china, and even letter-paper, with
+continuous perseverance; we passed the venders of hot chestnuts, which
+we not infrequently bought and ate ourselves. Then we came to the
+perfume distilleries, where thousands of violets yield their sweetness
+daily.</p>
+
+<p>"They cultivate them for the purpose, you know," said Verney. "It's a
+poetical sort of agriculture, isn't it? Imagination can hardly go
+further, I think, than the idea of a violet farm."</p>
+
+<p>We passed small chapels with their ever-burning lamps; the new villas
+described by the French newspapers as "ravishing constructions"; and
+then, turning from the road, we ascended a narrow path which wound
+upward, its progress marked here and there by stone shrines, some
+freshly repainted, others empty and ruined, pointing the way to the holy
+church of the Annunziata.</p>
+
+<p>"The only way to appreciate Mentone is to take these excursions up the
+valleys and mountains," said Mrs. Clary. "Those who confine themselves
+to sitting in the gardens of the hotels or strolling along the Promenade
+du Midi have no more idea of its real beauty than a man born blind has
+of a painting. Descriptions are nothing; one must <i>see</i>. I think the
+mountain excursions may be called the shibboleth of Mentone; if you do
+not know them, you are no true Israelite."</p>
+
+<p>Verney had a graceful way of gathering delicate little sprays and
+blossoms here and there and silently giving them to Janet. The Professor
+had noticed this, and to-day emulated him by gathering a bunch of
+mallow<a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a> with great care&mdash;a bunch nearly a yard in circumference&mdash;which
+he presented to Janet with much ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thanks; I am <i>so</i> fond of flowers!" responded that young person.
+"Is it asphodel? I long to see asphodel."</p>
+
+<p>Now asphodel was said to grow in that neighborhood, and Janet knew it;
+by expressing a wish to see the classic blossom she sent the poor
+Professor on a long search for it, climbing up and down and over the
+rocks, until I, looking on from my safe donkey's back, felt tired for
+him. And it was not long before our donkeys' steady pace left him far
+behind.</p>
+
+<p>"With its pale, dusty leaves and weakly lavender flowers, it is, I
+think, about as depressing a flower as I have seen," said Inness,
+looking at the mammoth bouquet.</p>
+
+<p>"I might fasten it to the saddle, and relieve your hands, Miss
+Trescott," suggested Verney. So the delicate gray gloves relinquished
+the pound of mallow, which was tied to the saddle, and there hung
+ignominiously all the remainder of the day.</p>
+
+<p>The church and convent of L'Annunziata crown an isolated vine-clad hill
+between two of the lovely valleys behind Mentone. The church was at the
+end of a little plaza, surrounded by a stone-wall; in front there was an
+opening towards the south, where stood an iron cross twenty feet high,
+visible, owing to its situation, for many a mile. The stone monastery
+was on one side; and the whole looked like a little fortification on the
+point of the hill. We went into the church, and looked at the primitive
+ex-votos on the wall, principally the offerings of Mediterranean sailors
+in remembrance of escape from shipwreck&mdash;fragments of rope and chain,
+pictures of storms at sea, and little wooden models of ships. In
+addition to these marine souvenirs,<a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a> there were also some tokens of
+events on dry land, generally pictures of run-aways, where such
+remarkable angels were represented sitting unexpectedly but calmly on
+the tops of trees by the road-side that it was no wonder the horses ran.
+But the lovely view of sea and shore at the foot of the great cross in
+the sunshine was better than the dark, musty little church, and we soon
+went out and seated ourselves on the edge of the wall to look at it.
+While we were there one of the Capuchins, clad in his long brown gown,
+came out, crossed the plaza, gazed at us slowly, and then with equal
+slowness stooped and kissed the base of the cross, and returned, giving
+us another long gaze as he passed.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 436px;">
+<a href="images/ill_090_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_090_sml.jpg" width="436" height="550" alt="THE MONASTERY OF L&#39;ANNUNZIATA" title="THE MONASTERY OF L&#39;ANNUNZIATA" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<p style="margin-top:-15%;">"Was that piety or curiosity?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"I think it was Miss Trescott," said Baker.<a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a></p>
+
+<p>Now as Miss Elaine was present, this was a little cruel;<br />but I learned
+afterwards that Baker had been rendered violent<br />that day by hearing that
+his American politeness regarding Miss Elaine's self-bestowed society
+had been construed by that young lady into a hidden attachment to
+herself&mdash;an attachment which she "deeply regretted," but could not
+"prevent." She had confided this to several persons, who kept the secret
+in that strict way in which such secrets are usually kept. Indeed, with
+all the strictness, it was quite remarkable that Baker heard it. But not
+remarkable that he writhed under it. However, his remarks and manners
+made no difference to Miss Elaine; she attributed them to despair.</p>
+
+<p>While we were sitting on the wall the Professor came toiling up the
+hill; but he had not found the asphodel. However, when Janet had given
+him a few of her pretty phrases he revived, and told us that the plaza
+was the site of an ancient village called Podium-Pinum, and that the
+Lascaris once had a ch�teau there.</p>
+
+<p>"The same Lascaris who lived in the old castle at Mentone?" said Janet.</p>
+
+<p>"The same."</p>
+
+<p>"These old monks have plenty of wine, I suppose," said Inness, looking
+at the vine terraces which covered the sunny hill-side.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good wine was formerly made around Mentone," said the Professor;
+"but the vines were destroyed by a disease, and the peasants thought it
+the act of Providence, and for some time gave up the culture. But lately
+they have replanted them, and wine is now again produced which, I am
+told, is quite palatable."</p>
+
+<p>"That is but a cold phrase to apply to the <i>bon petit vin blanc</i> of
+Sant' Agnese, for instance," said Verney, smiling.<a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a></p>
+
+<p>Soon we started homeward. While we were winding down the narrow path, we
+met a Capuchin coming up, with his bag on his back; he was an old man
+with bent shoulders and a meek, dull face, to whom the task of patient
+daily begging would not be more of a burden than any other labor. But
+when we reached the narrow main street, and found a momentary block,
+another Capuchin happened to stand near us who gave me a very different
+impression. Among the carriages was a phaeton, with silken canopy, fine
+horses, and a driver in livery; upon the cushioned seat lounged a young
+man, one of Fortune's favorites and Nature's curled darlings, a little
+stout from excess of comfort, perhaps, but noticeably handsome and
+noticeably haughty&mdash;probably a Russian nobleman. The monk who stood near
+us with his bag of broken bread and meat over his back was of the same
+age, and equally handsome, as far as the coloring and outline bestowed
+by nature could go. His dark eyes were fixed immovably upon the occupant
+of the phaeton, and I wondered if he was noting the difference; it
+seemed as if he must be noting it. It was a striking tableau of life's
+utmost riches and utmost poverty.</p>
+
+<p>That evening there was music in the garden; a band of Italian singers
+chanted one or two songs to the saints, and then ended with a gay
+Tarantella, which set all the house-maids dancing in the moonlight. We
+listened to the music, and looked off over the still sea.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it beautiful?" said Mrs. Clary. "I think loving Mentone is like
+loving your lady-love. To you she is all beautiful, and you describe her
+as such. But perhaps when others see her they say: 'She is by no means
+all beautiful; she has this or that fault. What do you mean?' Then you
+answer: 'I love her; therefore to me she is all beautiful. As for her
+faults, they may be there, but I do not see them: I am blind.'"<a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 434px;">
+<a href="images/ill_093_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_093_sml.jpg" width="434" height="550" alt="CAPUCHIN MONKS" title="CAPUCHIN MONKS" /></a>
+<span class="caption">CAPUCHIN MONKS</span>
+</div><p><a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a><a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a></p>
+
+<p>That same evening Margaret gave me the following verses which she had
+written:</p>
+
+<h4>MENTONE.</h4>
+
+<p class="c">"<i>And there was given unto them a short time before they went forward.</i>"</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry">
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Upon this sunny shore</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">A little space for rest. The care and sorrow,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp;Sad memory's haunting pain that would not cease,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Are left behind. It is not yet to-morrow.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp;To-day there falls the dear surprise of peace;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The sky and sea, their broad wings round us sweeping,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Close out the world, and hold us in their keeping.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">A little space for rest. Ah! though soon o'er,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">How precious is it on the sunny shore!</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Upon this sunny shore</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">A little space for love, while those, our dearest,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp;Yet linger with us ere they take their flight</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">To that far world which now doth seem the nearest,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp;So deep and pure this sky's down-bending light</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Slow, one by one, the golden hours are given</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">A respite ere the earthly ties are riven.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">When left alone, how, 'mid our tears, we store</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Each breath of their last days upon this shore!</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Upon this sunny shore</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">A little space to wait: the life-bowl broken,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp;The silver cord unloosed, the mortal name</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">We bore upon this earth by God's voice spoken,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp;While at the sound all earthly praise or blame,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Our joys and griefs, alike with gentle sweetness</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Fade in the dawn of the next world's completeness.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The hour is thine, dear Lord; we ask no more,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">But wait thy summons on the sunny shore.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<h4>II</h4>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry">
+<tr><td align="left">"Thy skies are blue, thy crags as wild,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp;Thine olive ripe, as when Minerva smiled."</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">&mdash;Byron.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"So having rung that bell once too often, they were all carried off,"
+concluded Inness, as we came up.</p>
+
+<p>"Who?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Look around you, and divine."</p>
+
+<p>We were on Capo San Martino. This, being interpreted, is only Cape
+Martin; but as we had agreed to use the "dear old names," we could not
+leave out that of the poor cape only because it happened to have six
+syllables. We looked around. Before us were ruins&mdash;walls built of that
+unintelligible broken stone mixed at random with mortar, which confounds
+time, and may be, as a construction, five or five hundred years old.</p>
+
+<p>"They&mdash;whoever they were&mdash;lived here?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And it was from here that they were carried off?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was."</p>
+
+<p>"Were they those interesting Greek Lascaris?" said Mrs. Trescott.</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"The Troglodytes?" suggested Mrs. Clary.</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"The poor old ancient gods and goddesses of the coast?" said Margaret.</p>
+
+<p>"No."<a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a></p>
+
+<p>"But who carried them off?" I said. "That is the point. It makes all the
+difference in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it does," replied Inness; "especially in the case of an
+elopement. In this case it happened to be Miss Trescott's friends
+(always with two r's), the Sarrasins. The story is but a Mediterranean
+version of the boy and the wolf. These ruins are the remains of an
+ancient convent built in&mdash;in the remote Past. The good nuns, after
+taking possession (perhaps they were inland nuns, and did not know what
+they were coming to when they came to a shore), began to be in great
+fear of the sea and Sarrasin sails. They therefore besought the men of
+Mentone and Roccabruna to fly to their aid if at any time they heard the
+bell of the chapel ringing rapidly. The men promised, and held
+themselves in readiness to fly. One night they heard the bell. Then
+westward ran the men of Mentone, and down the hill came those of
+Roccabruna, and together they flew out on Capo San Martino to this
+convent&mdash;only to find no Sarrasins at all, but only the nuns in a row
+upon their knees entreating pardon: they had rung the bell as a test.
+Not long afterwards the bell rang again, but no one went. This time it
+really was the Sarrasins, and the nuns were all carried off."</p>
+
+<p>"Very dramatic. The slight discrepancy that this happened to be a
+monastery for monks makes no difference: who cares for details!" said
+Verney, who, under the pretence of sketching the ruins, was making his
+eighth portrait of Janet. He said of these little pencil portraits that
+he "threw them in." Janet was therefore thrown into the Red Rocks, the
+"old town," the Bone Caverns, the Pont St. Louis, Dr. Bennet's garden,
+the cemetery, Capo San Martino, and before we finished into Roccabruna,
+Castellare, Monaco, Dolce Acqua, Sant' Agnese, and the old Roman Trophy
+at Turbia.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the ruins, we went down to the point, where<a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a> the cape juts out
+sharply into the sea, forming the western boundary of the Mentone bay.
+Opposite, on the eastern point, lay blanche Bordighera, fair and silvery
+as ever in the sunshine. We found the Professor on the point examining
+the rocks.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a formation similar to that which we may see in process of
+construction at the present moment off the coast of Florida," he
+explained.</p>
+
+<p>"Not <i>coquina</i>?" cried Miss Graves, instantly going down and selecting a
+large fragment.</p>
+
+<p>"It is conglomerate," replied the Professor, disappearing around the
+cliff corner, walking on little knobs of rock, and almost into the
+Mediterranean in his eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>"That word conglomerate is one of the most useful terms I know," said
+Inness. "It covers everything: like Renaissance."</p>
+
+<p>"The rock is also called pudding-stone," said Verney.</p>
+
+<p>"Away with pudding-stone! we will have none of it. We are nothing if not
+dignified, are we, Miss Elaine?" said Inness, turning to that young
+lady, who was bestowing upon him the boon of her society for the happy
+afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure I have always thought you had a <i>great</i> deal of dignity, Mr.
+Inness," replied Miss Elaine, with her sweetest smile.</p>
+
+<p>We sat down on the rocks and looked at the blue sea. "It is commonplace
+to be continually calling it blue," I said; "but it is inevitable, for
+no one can look at it without thinking of its color."</p>
+
+<p>"It has seen so much," said Mrs. Clary, in her earnest way; "it has
+carried the fleets of all antiquity. The Egyptians, the Greeks, the
+Ph&oelig;nicians, the Carthaginians, and the Romans passed to and fro
+across it; the Apostles sailed over it; yet it looks as fresh and young
+and untraversed as though created yesterday."<a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_099_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_099_sml.jpg" width="550" height="376" alt="MONACO" title="MONACO" /></a>
+<span class="caption">MONACO</span>
+</div><p><a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a><a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a></p>
+
+<p>"It certainly is the fairest water in the world," said Janet. "It must
+be the reflection of heaven."</p>
+
+<p>"It is the proportion of salt," said the Professor, who had come back
+around the rock corner on the knobs. "A larger amount of salt is held in
+solution in the Mediterranean than in the Atlantic. It is a very deep
+body of water, too, along this coast: at Nice it was found to be three
+thousand feet deep only a few yards from the shore."</p>
+
+<p>"These Mediterranean sailors are such cowards," said Inness. "At the
+first sign of a storm they all come scudding in. If the Ph&oelig;nicians
+were like them, another boyhood illusion is gone! However, since they
+demolished William Tell, I have not much cared."</p>
+
+<p>"The Mediterranean sailors of the past were probably, like those of the
+present, obliged to come scudding in," said Verney, "because the winds
+were so uncertain and variable. They use lateen-sails for the same
+reason, because they can be let down by the run; all the coasting xebecs
+and feluccas use them."</p>
+
+<p>"Xebecs and feluccas&mdash;delicious words!" said Janet.</p>
+
+<p>"I still maintain that they are cowards," resumed Inness. "The other
+day, when there was that capful of wind, you know, twenty of these
+delicious xebecs came hurrying into our little port, running into each
+other in their haste, and crowding together in the little pool like
+frightened chickens under a hen's wings. And they were not all delicious
+xebecs, either; there were some good-sized sea-going vessels among them,
+brig-rigged in front with the seven or eight small square sails they
+string up one above the other, and a towel out to windward."</p>
+
+<p>"The winds of Mentone are wizards," said Margaret; "they never come from
+the point they seem to come from. If they blow full in your face from
+the east,<a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a> make up your mind that they come directly from the west. They
+are enchanted."</p>
+
+<p>"They are turned aside by the slopes of the mountains," said Baker,
+practically.</p>
+
+<p>"But the Mediterranean has not lived up to its reputation, after all,"
+said Janet. "I expected to see fleets of nautilus, and I have not seen
+one. And not a porpoise!"</p>
+
+<p>"For porpoises," said Miss Graves, who had knotted a handkerchief around
+her conglomerate, and was carrying it tied to a scarf like a
+shawl-strap&mdash;"for porpoises you must go to Florida."</p>
+
+<p>We left the cape and went inland through the woods, looking for the old
+Roman tomb. We found it at last, appropriately placed in a gray old
+olive grove, some of whose trees, no doubt, saw its foundations laid.
+The fragment of old roadway near it was introduced by Inness as "the
+Julia Augusta, lifting up its head again." It had laid it down last at
+the Red Rocks. The tomb originally was as large as a small chapel; one
+of the side walls was gone, but the front remained almost perfect. This
+front was in three arches; traces of fresco decoration were still
+visible under the curves. Below were lines of stone in black and white
+alternately, and the same mosaic was repeated above, where there was
+also a cornice stretching from the sides to a central empty space, once
+filled by the square marble slab bearing the inscription. We found Lloyd
+here, sketching; but as we came up he closed his sketch-book, joined
+Margaret, and the two strolled off through the old wood, which had, as
+Inness remarked, "as many moving associations" as we chose to recall,
+"from the feet of the Roman legions to those of the armies of Napoleon."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish we knew what the inscription was," said Janet, who was sitting
+on the grass in front of the old tomb. "I should like to know who it was
+who was laid here so long, long ago."<a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Some old Roman," said Baker.</p>
+
+<p>"He might not have been old," said Verney, who was now sketching in his
+turn. "There is another Roman tomb, or fragment of one, above us on the
+side of the mountain, and the inscription on that one gives the name of
+a youth who died, 'aged eighteen years and ten months,' two thousand
+years ago, 'much sorrowed for by his father and his mother.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Love then was the same as now, and will be the same after we are gone,
+I suppose," said Janet, thoughtfully, leaning her pretty head back
+against an old olive-tree.</p>
+
+<p>"A reason why we should take it while we can," observed Inness.</p>
+
+<p>The Professor and Miss Graves now appeared in sight, for we had come
+across from the cape in accidental little groups, and these two had
+found themselves one of them. As the Professor had his sack of specimens
+and Miss Graves her conglomerate, we thought they looked well together;
+but the Professor evidently did not think so, for he immediately joined
+Janet.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know that there is any surer sign of advancing age in a man
+than a growing preference for the society of very young girls&mdash;mere
+youth <i>per se</i>, as the Professor himself would say," said Mrs. Clary to
+me in an undertone.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the Professor, unconscious of this judgment, was telling Janet
+that she was standing upon the site of the old Roman station "Lumone,"
+mentioned in Antony's Itinerary, and that the tomb was that of a
+patrician family.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Trescott was impressed by this. She said it was "a p�an moment" for
+us all, if we would but realize it; and she plucked a fern in
+remembrance.</p>
+
+<p class="top5">One bright day not long after this we went to Mentone's sister city,
+Roccabruna, a little town looking as<a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a> if it were hooked on to the side
+of the mountain. As we passed through the "old town" on our donkeys we
+met a wedding-party, walking homeward from the church, in the middle of
+the street. The robust bride, calm and majestic, moved at the head of
+the procession with her father, her white muslin gown sweeping the
+pavement behind her. Probably it would have been considered undignified
+to lift it. The father, a small, wizened old man, looked timorous, and
+the bridegroom, next behind with the bride's mother, still more so, even
+the quantity of brave red satin cravat he wore failing to give him a
+martial air. Next came the relatives and friends, two and two, all the
+gowns of the women sweeping out with dignity. In truth this seemed to be
+the feature of the occasion, since at all other times their gowns were
+either short or carefully held above the dust. There was no music, no
+talking, hardly a smile. A christening party we had met the day before
+was much more joyous, for then the smiling father and mother threw from
+the carriage at intervals handfuls of sugar-plums and small copper
+coins, which were scrambled for by a crowd of children, while the
+gorgeously dressed baby was held up proudly at the window.</p>
+
+<p>We were going first to Gorbio. The Gorbio Valley is charming. Of all the
+valleys, the narrow Val de Menton is the loveliest for an afternoon
+walk; but for longer excursions, and compared with the valleys of Carrei
+and Borrigo, that of Gorbio is the most beautiful, principally because
+there is more water in the stream, which comes sweeping and tumbling
+over its bed of flat rock like the streams of the White Mountains,
+whereas the so-called "torrents" of Carrei and Borrigo are generally but
+wide, arid torrents of stone. We passed olive and lemon groves, mills,
+vineyards, and millions upon millions of violets. Then the path, which<a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a>
+constantly ascended, grew wilder, but not so wild as Inness. I could not
+imagine what possessed him. He sang, told stories, vaulted over Baker,
+and laughed until the valley rang again; but as his voice was good and
+his stories amusing, we enjoyed his merriment. Miss Elaine looked on, I
+thought, with an air of pity; but then Miss Elaine pitied everybody. She
+would have pitied Jenny Lind at the height of her fame, and no doubt
+when she was in Florence she pitied the Venus de' Medici.</p>
+
+<p>We found Gorbio a little village of six hundred inhabitants, perched on
+the point of a rock, with the ground sloping away on all sides; the
+remains of its old wall and fortified gates were still to be seen. We
+entered and explored its two streets&mdash;narrow passageways between the old
+stone houses, whose one idea seemed to be to crowd as closely together
+and occupy as little of the ground space as possible. Above the
+clustered roofs towered the ruined walls of what was once the castle,
+the tower only remaining distinct. This tower bore armorial bearings,
+which I was trying to decipher, when Verney came up with Janet. "Nothing
+but those same arms of the Lascaris," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you say 'nothing but'?" said Janet. "To be royal, and Greek, and
+have three castles&mdash;for this is the third we have seen&mdash;is not nothing,
+but something, and a great deal of something. How I wish <i>I</i> had lived
+in those days!"</p>
+
+<p>As the Professor was not with us, we knew nothing of the story of
+Gorbio, and walked about rather uncomfortable and ill-informed in
+consequence. But it turned out that Gorbio, like the knife-grinder, had
+no story. "Story? Lord bless you! I have none to tell, sir." Inness,
+however, had reserved one fact, which he finally delivered to us under
+the great elm in the centre of the little plaza, where we had assembled
+to rest. "This<a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a> peaceful village," he began, "whose idyllic children now
+form a gazing circle around us, was the scene of a sanguinary combat
+between the French and Spanish-Austrian armies in 1746."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, modern! modern!" said Verney from behind (where he was throwing
+Janet into Gorbio).</p>
+
+<p>"Your pardon," said Inness, with majesty; "not modern at all. In 1746,
+as I beg to remind you, even the foundation-stones of our great republic
+were not laid, yet the man who ventures to say that it is not, as a
+construction, absolutely venerable, from exceeding merit, will be a rash
+one. In America, Time is not old or slow; he has given up his
+hour-glass, and travels by express. Each month of ours equals one of
+your years, each year a century. Therefore have we all a singularly
+mature air&mdash;as exemplified in myself. But to return. Upon this spot,
+then, my friends, there was once&mdash;carnage! The only positive and
+historical carnage in the neighborhood of Mentone. Therefore all warlike
+spirits should come to Gorbio, and breathe the inspiring air."</p>
+
+<p>We did not stay long enough in the inspiring air to become belligerent,
+however, but, on the contrary, went peacefully past a quiet old shrine,
+and took the path to Roccabruna&mdash;one of the most beautiful paths in the
+neighborhood of Mentone. By-and-by we came to a tall cross on the top of
+a high ridge. We had seen it outlined against the sky while still in the
+streets of Gorbio. These mountain-side crosses were not uncommon. They
+are not locally commemorative, as we first supposed, but seem to be
+placed here and there, where there is a beautiful view, to remind the
+gazer of the hand that created it all. Some distance farther we found a
+still wider prospect; and then we came down into Roccabruna, and spread
+out our lunch on the battlements of the old castle. From this point our
+eyes<a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a> rested on the coast-line stretching east and west, the frowning
+Dog's Head at Monaco, and the white winding course of the Cornice Road.
+The castle was on the side of the mountain, eight hundred feet above the
+sea. Although forming part of the village, it was completely isolated by
+its position on a high pinnacle of rock, which rose far above the roofs
+on all sides.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 545px;">
+<a href="images/ill_107_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_107_sml.jpg" width="545" height="550" alt="STREET IN ROCCABRUNA" title="STREET IN ROCCABRUNA" /></a>
+<span class="caption">STREET IN ROCCABRUNA</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"How these poor timid little towns clung close to and under their lords'
+walls!" said Baker, with the fine contempt of a young American. "They
+are all alike: the castle towering above; next the church and the
+priest; and the people&mdash;nowhere!"<a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a></p>
+
+<p>"The people were happy enough, living in this air," said Mrs. Clary.
+"How does it strike you? To me it seems delicious; but many persons find
+it too exciting."</p>
+
+<p>"It certainly gives me an appetite," I said, taking another sandwich.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Elaine found it "too warm." Miss Graves found it "too cold." Mrs.
+Trescott, having been made herself again by a glass of the "good little
+white wine" of Gorbio, said that it was "almost too idealizing." Lloyd
+remarked that it was not "too anything unless too delightful," and that,
+for his part, he wished that, with the present surroundings, he might
+"breathe it forever!" This was gallant. Janet looked at him: he was the
+only one who had not bowed at her shrine, and it made her pensive.
+Meanwhile Inness's gayety continued; he made a voyage of discovery
+through the narrow streets below, coming back with the legend that he
+had met the prettiest girl he had seen since his "pretty girl of Arles,"
+whose eyes, "enshrined beside those of Miss Trescott" (with a grand
+bow), had remained ever since in his "heart's inmost treasury." This,
+like Baker's L' Annunziata speech, was both un-American and unnecessary
+in the presence of a second young lady, and I looked at Inness,
+surprised. But Miss Elaine only smiled on.</p>
+
+<p>The Professor now appeared, having come out from Mentone on a donkey. We
+immediately became historical. It appeared that the castle upon whose
+old battlements we were idly loitering was one of the "homes" of the
+Lascaris, Counts of Ventimiglia, who in 1358 transferred it with its
+domains to the Grimaldis, Princes of Monaco.</p>
+
+<p>"These Lascaris and Grimaldis seem to have played at seesaw for the
+possession of this coast," said Baker. "Now one is up, and now the
+other, but never any one else."<a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a></p>
+
+<p>But Janet was impressed. "<i>Again</i> the Lascaris!" she murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"What is your idea of them?" said Verney.</p>
+
+<p>"I hardly know; but of course they were knights in armor; and of course,
+being Greeks, they had classic profiles. They were impulsive, and they
+were generous; but if any one seriously displeased them, they
+immediately ordered him cast into that terrible <i>oubliette</i> we saw
+below."</p>
+
+<p>"That," said the Professor, mildly, "is only the well." Then, as if to
+strengthen her with something authentic, he added, "The village was
+sacked by the Duke of Guise towards the end of the sixteenth century,
+when this castle was reduced to the ruined condition in which we find it
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"Happily it is not altogether ruined," said Mrs. Trescott, putting up
+her eye-glass; "one of the&mdash;the apartments seems to be roofed, and to
+possess doors."</p>
+
+<p>"That," said the Professor, "is a donkey-stable, erected&mdash;or rather
+adapted&mdash;later."</p>
+
+<p>"Do the donkeys come up all these stairs?" I said, amused.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe they do," replied the Professor. "Indeed, I have seen them
+coming up after the day's work is over."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry, Janet, but I shall never be able to think of this home of
+your Lascaris after this without seeing a procession of donkeys coming
+up-stairs on their way to their high apartments," I said, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>procession</i> might have been the same in the days of the Lascaris,"
+suggested Baker.</p>
+
+<p>Roccabruna&mdash;brown rock&mdash;is an appropriate name for the village, which is
+so brown and so mixed with and built into the cliff to which it clings
+that it is difficult to tell where man's work ends and that of nature
+begins.<a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a></p>
+
+<p>"The town was the companion of Mentone in its rebellion against the
+Princes of Monaco," said the Professor. "Mentone and Roccabruna freed
+themselves, but Monaco remained enslaved."</p>
+
+<p>"They are all now in France," said Baker.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir!" replied the Professor, with heat, "it is in a much worse place
+than France that wretched Monaco now finds herself!"</p>
+
+<p>We went homeward down the mountain-side, passing the little chapel of
+the Madonna della Pausa&mdash;a pause being indeed necessary when one is
+ascending. Here, where the view was finest, there was another way-side
+cross. Farther on, as we entered the old olive wood below, Margaret
+dismounted; she always liked to walk through the silver-gray shade; and
+Lloyd seemed to have adopted an equal fondness for the same tint.</p>
+
+<p>That evening, when we were alone, Margaret explained the secret of
+Inness's remarkable and unflagging gayety. It seemed that Miss Elaine
+had, during the day before, confided to Verney&mdash;as a fellow-countryman,
+I suppose&mdash;her self-reproach concerning "that poor young American
+gentleman, Mr. Inness." What <i>should</i> she do? Would he advise her? She
+must go to some one, and she did not feel like troubling her dear mamma.
+It was true that Mr. Inness had been with her a good deal, had helped
+her wind her worsteds in the evening, but she never meant
+anything&mdash;never dreamed of anything. And now, she could not but
+feel&mdash;there was something in his manner that forced her to see&mdash;In
+short, had not Mr. Verney noticed it?</p>
+
+<p>Now I have no doubt but that Verney told her he had "seen" and had
+"noticed" everything she desired. But in the meanwhile he could not
+resist confiding the story to Baker, who having been already a victim,
+was overcome with glee, and in his turn hastened to repeat the tale to
+Inness.<a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a></p>
+
+<p>Inness raged, but hardly knew what to do. He finally decided to become a
+perfect Catharine-wheel of gayety, shooting off laughter and jokes in
+all directions to convince the world that he remained heart-whole.</p>
+
+<p>"But it will be of no avail," I said to Margaret, laughing, as I
+recalled the look of soft pity on Miss Elaine's face all day; "she will
+think it but the gayety of desperation." Then, more soberly, I added:
+"Mr. Lloyd told you this, I suppose? You are with him a great deal, are
+you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"You see that I am, aunt. But it is only because she has not come yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Who?"</p>
+
+<p>"The brighter and younger woman who will take my place." But I did not
+think she believed it.</p>
+
+<p class="top5">On another day we went to Castellare, a little stone village much like
+Gorbio, perched on its ridge, and rejoicing in an especial resemblance
+to one of C�sar's fortified camps. The castle here was not so much a
+castle as a ch�teau; its principal apartment was adorned with frescos
+representing the history of Adam and Eve. We should not have seen these
+frescos if it had not been for Miss Graves: I am afraid we should have
+(there is no other word) shirked them. But Miss Graves had heard of the
+presence of ancient works of art, and was bent upon finding them. In
+vain Lloyd conducted her in and out of half a dozen old houses,
+suggesting that each one was "probably" all that was left of the
+"ch�teau." Miss Graves remained inflexibly unconvinced, and in the end
+gained her point. We all saw Adam and Eve.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did they want frescos away out here in this primitive little
+village to which no road led, hardly even a donkey path?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"That is the very reason," replied Margaret. "They<a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a> had no society,
+nothing to do; so they looked at their frescos exhaustively."</p>
+
+<p>"What do those eagles at the corners represent?" said Janet.</p>
+
+<p>"They are the device of the Lascaris," replied the Professor.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to tell me that <i>this</i> was one of their homes also?" she
+exclaimed. "Let a chair be brought, and all of you leave me. I wish to
+remain here alone, and imagine that I am one of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't you imagine two?" said Inness. And he gained his point.</p>
+
+<p>On our way home we found another block in the main street, and paused.
+We were near what we called the umbrella place&mdash;an archway opening down
+towards the old port; here against the stone wall an umbrella-maker had
+established his open-air shop, and his scarlet and blue lined parasols
+and white umbrellas, hung up at the entrance, made a picturesque spot of
+color we had all admired. This afternoon we were late; it was nearly
+twilight, and, in this narrow, high-walled street, almost night. As we
+waited we heard chanting, and through the dusky archway came a
+procession. First a tall white crucifix borne between two swinging
+lamps; then the surpliced choir-boys, chanting; then the incense and the
+priests; then a coffin, draped, and carried in the old way on the
+shoulders of the bearers, who were men robed in long-hooded black gowns
+reaching to the feet, their faces covered, with only two holes for the
+eyes. These were members of the Society of Black Penitents, who, with
+the White Penitents, attend funerals by turn, and care for the sick and
+poor, from charitable motives alone, and without reward. Behind the
+Penitents walked the relatives and friends, each with a little lighted
+taper. As the procession came through the dark archway, crossed the
+street, and wound up the<a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a><a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a><a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a> hill into the "old town," its effect, with
+the glancing lights and chanting voices, was weirdly picturesque. It was
+on its way to the cemetery above.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 334px;">
+<a href="images/ill_113_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_113_sml.jpg" width="334" height="550" alt="THE KING OF THE OLIVES" title="THE KING OF THE OLIVES" /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE KING OF THE OLIVES</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Did you ever read this, Mr. Lloyd?" I heard Margaret say behind me, as
+we went onward towards home:</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry">
+<tr><td align="left">"'One day, in desolate wind-swept space,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp;In twilight-land, in no-man's-land,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Two hurrying Shapes met face to face,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp;And bade each other stand.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"And who art thou?" cried one, agape,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp;Shuddering in the gloaming light.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"I do not know," said the second Shape:</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp;"I only died last night."'"</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>I turned. Lloyd was looking at her curiously, or rather with wonder.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Margaret," I said, falling behind so as to join them, "the
+English are not mystical, as some of us are. They are content with what
+they can definitely know, and they leave the rest."</p>
+
+<p>During the next week, after a long discussion, we decided to go up the
+valley of the Nervia. The discussion was not inharmonious: we liked
+discussions.</p>
+
+<p>"This is by no means one of the ordinary Mentone excursions," said Mrs.
+Clary, as our three carriages ascended the Cornice Road towards the
+east, on a beautiful morning after one of the rare showers. "Many
+explore all of the other valleys, and visit Monaco and Monte Carlo; but
+comparatively few go up the Nervia."</p>
+
+<p>The scene of the instalment of our twelve selves in these three
+carriages, by-the-way, was amusing. Between the inward determination of
+Inness, Verney, Baker, and the Professor to be in the carriage which
+held Janet, and the equally firm determination of Miss Elaine to be in
+the carriage which held <i>them</i>, it seemed as if we should never be
+placed. But no one said what he<a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a> or she wished; far from it. Everybody
+was very polite, wonderfully polite; everybody offered his or her place
+to everybody else. Lloyd, after waiting a few moments, calmly helped
+Margaret into one of the carriages, handed in her shawl, and then took a
+seat himself opposite. But the rest of us surged helplessly to and fro
+among the wheels, not quite knowing what to do, until the arrival of the
+hotel omnibus hurried us, when we took our places hastily, without any
+arrangement at all, and drove off as follows: in the first carriage,
+Mrs. Trescott, Janet, Miss Elaine, and myself; in the second, Miss
+Graves, Inness, Verney, and Baker; in the third, Mrs. Clary, Margaret,
+Lloyd, and the Professor. This assortment was so comical that I laughed
+inwardly all the way up the first hill. Miss Elaine looked as if she was
+on the point of shedding tears; and the Professor, who did not enjoy the
+conversation of either Margaret or Mrs. Clary, was equally discomfited.
+As for the faces of the three young men shut in with Miss Graves, they
+were a study. However, it did not last long. The young men soon
+preferred "to walk uphill." Then we stopped at Mortola to see the
+Hanbury garden, and took good care not to arrange ourselves in the same
+manner a second time. Still, as four persons cannot, at least in the
+present state of natural science, occupy at the same moment the space
+only large enough for one, there was all day more or less man&oelig;uvring.
+From Mortola to Ventimiglia I was in the carriage with Janet, Inness,
+and Verney.</p>
+
+<p>"What ruin is that on the top of the hill?" said Janet. "It looks like a
+castle."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a castle&mdash;Castel d'Appio," said Verney; "a position taken by the
+Genoese in 1221 from the Lascaris, who&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop the carriage!&mdash;I must go up," said Janet.<a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a></p>
+
+<p>"I assure you, Miss Trescott, that, Lascaris or no Lascaris, you will
+find yourself mummied in mud after this rain," said Inness. "<i>I</i> went up
+there in a dry time, and even then had to wade."</p>
+
+<p>Now if there is anything which Janet especially cherishes, it is her
+pretty boots; so Castel d'Appio remained unvisited upon its height, in
+lonely majesty against the sky. The next object of interest was a square
+tower, standing on the side-hill not far above the road; it was not
+large on the ground, rather was it narrow, but it rose in the air to an
+imposing height. I could not imagine what its use had been: it stood too
+far from the sea for a lookout, and, from its shape, could hardly have
+been a residence; in its isolation, not a fortress. Inness said it
+looked like a steeple with the church blown away; and then, inspired by
+his own comparison, he began to chant an ancient ditty about</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry">
+<tr><td align="left">"'The next thing they saw was a barn on a hill:</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; One said 'twas a barn;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; The other said "Na-ay;"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp;And t'other 'twas a church with its steeple blown away:</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Look&mdash;a&mdash;there!'"</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>This extremely venerable ballad delighted Miss Graves in the carriage
+behind so that she waved her black parasol in applause. She asked if
+Inness could not sing "Springfield Mountain."</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing left now," I said, laughing, "but the 'Battle of the
+Nile.'"</p>
+
+<p>Verney, who had sketched the tower early in the winter, explained that
+the old road to Ventimiglia passed directly through the lower story,
+which was built in the shape of an arch. All the carriages were now
+together, as we gazed at the relic.</p>
+
+<p>"The road goes through?" said Miss Graves. "Probably, then, it was a
+toll-gate."<a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 326px;">
+<a href="images/ill_118_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_118_sml.jpg" width="326" height="550" alt="FEUDAL TOWER NEAR VENTIMIGLIA" title="FEUDAL TOWER NEAR VENTIMIGLIA" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<p style="margin-top:-15%;">This was so probable, although unromantic,<br />
+that thereafter the venerable
+structure was called<br />
+by that name,
+or, as Inness suggested, "not to be<br />
+too disrespectful, the medi�val T.G."</p>
+
+<p>Ventimiglia, seven miles from Mentone,<br /> was "one of<a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a> the most ancient
+towns in Liguria," the Professor remarked. Mrs. Trescott, Mrs. Clary,
+and I looked much wiser after this information, but carefully abstained
+from saying anything to each other of the cloudy nature of our ideas
+respecting the geographical word. However, we noticed, unaided, that its
+fortifications were extensive, for we rolled over a drawbridge to enter
+it, passing high stone-walls, bastions, and port-holes, while on the
+summit of the hill above us frowned a large Italian fort. The Roya, a
+broad river which divides the town into two parts, is crossed by a long
+bridge; and we were over this bridge and some distance beyond before we
+discovered that we had left the old quarter on the other side, its
+closely clustering roofs and spires having risen so directly over our
+heads on the steep side-hill that we had not observed them. Should we go
+back? The carriages drew up to consider. We had still "a long drive
+before us;" these "old Riviera villages" were "all alike;" the hill
+seemed "very steep;" and "we can come here, you know, at any time"&mdash;were
+some of the opinions given. The Professor, who really wished to stop,
+gallantly yielded. Miss Graves, alone in the opposition, was obliged to
+yield also; but she was deeply disappointed. The cathedral, formerly
+dedicated to Jupiter, "'possesses a white marble pulpit incrusted with
+mosaics, and an octagon font, very ancient,'" she read, mournfully,
+aloud, from her manuscript note-book. "'The Church of St. Michael, also,
+guards Roman antiquities of surpassing interest.'" This word "guards"
+had a fine effect.</p>
+
+<p>But, "we can come here at any time, you know," carried the day; and we
+drove on. I may as well mention that, as usual in such cases, we never
+did "come here at any time," save on the one occasion of our departure
+for Florence&mdash;an occasion which no railway traveller going to Italy by
+this route is likely soon to<a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a> forget, the Ventimiglia custom-house being
+modelled patriotically upon the circles of Dante's "Inferno."</p>
+
+<p>When we were at a safe distance&mdash;"I suppose you know, Miss Trescott,
+that Ventimiglia was the principal home of your Lascaris?" said Verney.
+"First of all, they were Counts of Ventimiglia: that Italian port stands
+on the site of their old castle. I have been looking into their
+genealogy a little on your account; and I find that the first count of
+whom we have authentic record was a son of the King of Italy, <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 950.
+His son married the Princess Eudoxie, daughter of Theodore Lascaris,
+Emperor of Greece, and assumed the arms and name of his wife's family.
+Their descendants, besides being Counts of Ventimiglia, became Seigniors
+of Mentone, Castellare, Gorbio, Peille, Tende, and Briga, Roccabruna,
+and what is now L'Annunziata. They also had a ch�teau at Nice."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go back!" said Janet.</p>
+
+<p>"To Nice?" I asked, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>But Verney appeased her with an offering&mdash;nothing less than a sketch he
+had made. "The Lascaris," he said, as if introducing them. And there
+they were, indeed, a group of knights on horseback, dressed in velvet
+doublets and lace ruffles, with long white plumes, followed by a train
+of pages and squires with armor and led-horses. All had Greek profiles:
+in truth, they were but various views of the Apollo Belvedere. This
+splendid party was crossing the drawbridge of a castle, and, from a
+latticed casement above, two beautiful and equally Greek ladies, attired
+in ermine, with long veils and golden crowns, waved their scarfs in
+token of adieu.</p>
+
+<p>"Charming!" said Janet, much pleased. (And in truth it was, if fanciful,
+a very pretty sketch.) "But who are those ladies above?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose they had wives and sisters, did they not?" said Verney.<a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a></p>
+
+<p>"I suppose they did&mdash;of <i>some</i> sort," said Janet, disparagingly.</p>
+
+<p>But Verney now produced a second sketch; "another study of the same
+subject," he called it. This was a picture of the same number of men,
+clad in clumsy armor, with rough, coarse faces, attacking a pass and
+compelling two miserable frightened peasants with loaded mules to yield
+up what they had, while, from a rude tower above, like our medi�val T.
+G., two or three swarthy women with children were watching the scene.
+The wrappings of the two sketches being now removed, we saw that one was
+labelled, "The Lascaris&mdash;her Idea of them;" and the other, "The
+Lascaris&mdash;as they were."</p>
+
+<p>We all laughed. But I think Janet was not quite pleased. After the next
+change Verney found himself, by some mysterious chance, left to occupy
+the seat beside Miss Elaine, while Baker had his former place.</p>
+
+<p>The Nervia, a clear rapid little snow-formed river, ran briskly down
+over its pebbles towards the sea. Our road followed the western bank,
+and before long brought us to Campo Rosso, a little village with a
+picturesque belfry, a church whose fa�ade was decorated with old
+frescos, two marble sirens spouting water, and numberless "bits" in the
+way of vistas through narrow arched passages and crooked streets, which
+are the delight of artists. But Campo Rosso was not our destination, and
+entering the carriage again, we went onward through an olive wood whose
+broad terraces extended above, below, and on all sides as far as eye
+could reach. When we had stopped wondering over its endlessness, and had
+grown accustomed to the gray light, suddenly we came out under the open
+sky again, with Dolce Acqua before us, its castle above, its church
+tower below, and, far beyond, our first view of snow-capped peaks rising
+high and silvery against the deep<a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a> blue sky. Inness and Baker threw up
+their hats and saluted the snow with an American hurrah. "What with
+those white peaks and this Italian sky, I feel like the Merry Swiss Boy
+and the Marble Faun rolled into one," said Baker.</p>
+
+<p>We drove up to the Locanda Desiderio, or "Desired Inn," as Inness
+translated it. It was now noon, and in the brick-floored apartment below
+a number of peasants were eating sour bread and drinking wine. But the
+host, a handsome young Italian, hastened to show us an upper chamber,
+where, with the warm sunshine flooding through the open windows across
+the bare floor, we spread our luncheon on a table covered with coarse
+but snowy homespun, and decked with remarkable plates in brilliant hues
+and still more brilliant designs. The luncheon was accompanied by
+several bottles of "the good little white wine" of the neighborhood&mdash;an
+accompaniment we had learned to appreciate.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the chimney-piece of a room adjoining ours, whose door stood open,
+there was an old brass lamp. In shape it was not unlike a high
+candlestick crowned with an oval reservoir for oil, which had three
+little curving tubes for wicks, and an upright handle above ending in a
+ring; it was about a foot and a half high, and from it hung three brass
+chains holding a brass lamp-scissors and little brass extinguishers.
+Mrs. Clary, Mrs. Trescott, Miss Graves, Miss Elaine, and myself all
+admired this lamp as we strolled about the rooms after luncheon before
+starting for the castle. It happened that Janet was not there; she had
+gone, by an unusual chance, with Lloyd, to look at some cinque-cento
+frescos in an old church somewhere, and was, I have no doubt, deeply
+interested in them. When she returned she too spied the old lamp, and
+admired it. "I wish I had it for my own room at home," she exclaimed. "I
+feel sure it is Aladdin's."<a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 395px;">
+<a href="images/ill_123_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_123_sml.jpg" width="395" height="550" alt="DOLCE ACQUA" title="DOLCE ACQUA" /></a>
+<span class="caption">DOLCE ACQUA</span>
+</div><p><a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a><a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Come, come, Janet," called Mrs. Trescott from below. "The castle
+waits."</p>
+
+<p>"It has waited some time already," said Inness&mdash;"a matter of six or
+seven centuries, I believe."</p>
+
+<p>"And looks as though it would wait six or seven more," I said, as we
+stood on the arched bridge admiring the massive walls above.</p>
+
+<p>"It has withstood numerous attacks," said the Professor. "Genoese armies
+came up this valley more than once to take it, and went back
+unsuccessful."</p>
+
+<p>"To me it is more especially distinguished by <i>not</i> having been a home
+of the Lascaris," said Baker.</p>
+
+<p>"To whom, then, did it belong?" said Janet, contemptuously.</p>
+
+<p>We all, in a chorus, answered grandly, "To the Dorias!" (We were so glad
+to have reached a name we knew.)</p>
+
+<p>The castle crowned the summit of a crag, ruined but imposing; in shape a
+parallelogram, it had in front square towers, five stories in height,
+pierced with round-arched windows. It was the finest as well as largest
+ruin we lately landed Americans had seen, and we went hither and thither
+with much animation, telling each other all we knew, and much that we
+did not know, about ruined towers, square towers, drawbridges, moats,
+donjon keeps, and the like; while Miss Elaine, who had placed herself
+beside Verney on the knoll where he was sketching, looked on in a kindly
+patronizing way, as much as to say: "Enjoy yourselves, primitive
+children of the New World. We of England are familiar with ruins."</p>
+
+<p>Margaret and Lloyd found a seat in one of the ruined windows of the
+south tower; I stood beside them for a few moments looking at the view.
+On the north the narrow valley curved and went onward, while over its
+dark near green rose the glittering snowy peaks so far<a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a> away. In the
+south, the blue of the Mediterranean stretched across the mouth of the
+valley, whose sides were bold and high; the little river gleamed out in
+spots of silver here and there, and the white belfry of Campo Rosso rose
+picturesquely against the dark olive forest. Directly under us were the
+roofs of the village, and the old stone bridge of one high arch. "Do you
+notice that many of these roofs are flat, with benches, and pots of
+flowers?" said Lloyd. "You do not see that in Mentone. It is thoroughly
+Italian."</p>
+
+<p>Janet, Mrs. Trescott, Inness, Baker, and the Professor were up on the
+highest point of the crag, where the Professor was giving a succinct
+account of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. His words floated down to us,
+but to which of those celebrated and eternally quarrelling factions
+these Dorias belong I regret to say I cannot now remember. But it was
+evident that he was talking eloquently, and Inness, who was quite
+distanced, by way of diversion threw pebbles at the north tower.</p>
+
+<p>We came down from the castle after a while, and strolled through the
+village streets&mdash;all of us save Margaret and Lloyd, who remained sitting
+in their window. Mrs. Trescott, seeing a vaulted entrance, stopped to
+examine it, and the broad doors being partly open, she peeped within. As
+there was more vaulting and no one to forbid, she stepped into the old
+hall, and we all followed her. We were looking at the massive, finely
+proportioned stairway, when a little girl appeared above gazing down
+curiously. She was a pretty child of seven or eight, and held some
+little thumbed school-books under her arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this a school?" asked Verney, in Italian.</p>
+
+<p>She nodded shyly, and ran away, but soon returned accompanied by a
+Sister, or nun, who, with a mixture of politeness and timidity, asked if
+we wished to see their schools. Of course we wished to see everything,<a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a>
+and going up the broad stairway, we were ushered into an unexpected and
+remarkable apartment.</p>
+
+<p>"We came to see an infant school, and we find a row of noblemen," said
+Baker. "They must be all the Dorias upon their native heath!"</p>
+
+<p>The "heath" was the wall, upon which, in black frames, were ranged
+forty-two portraits in a long procession going around three sides of the
+great room, which must have been fifty feet in length. At the head of
+the apartment was a picture seven feet square, representing a
+full-blooming lady in a long-bodied white satin dress, with an
+extraordinary structure of plumes and pearls on her head, accompanied by
+a stately little heir in a pink satin court suit, and several younger
+children. One grim, dark old man in red, farther down the hall, was
+"Roberto: Seigneur Dolce Acqua. Anno 1270." A dame in yellow brocade,
+with hoop, ruff, and jewels, and a little curly dog under her arm, was
+"Brigida: Domina Dolce Acqua. 1290."</p>
+
+<p>"So they carried dogs in that way then as well as now," observed Janet.</p>
+
+<p>The Mother Superior now came in. She informed us that this was the
+ch�teau of the Dorias, built after their castle was destroyed, and
+occupied by descendants of the family until a comparatively recent
+period. Its plain exterior, extending across one end of the little
+square, we had not especially distinguished from the other buildings
+which joined it, forming the usual continuous wall of the Riviera towns.
+The ch�teau was now a convent and school. There were benches across one
+side of the large apartment where the village children were already
+assembled under the black-framed portraits, but there was not much
+studying that day, I think, save a study of strangers.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is the real treasure," said Verney.</p>
+
+<p>It was a chimney-piece of stone, extending across one<a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a> end of the room,
+richly carved with various devices in relief, figures, and ornaments,
+and a row of heads on shields across the front, now the profile of an
+old bearded man looking out, and now that of a youth in armor. It was
+fifteen feet high, and a remarkably fine piece of work.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite thrown away here," said Miss Graves.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know; the portraits can see it," replied Janet.</p>
+
+<p>The Mother Superior conducted us all over the ch�teau, reserving only
+the corridor where were her own and the Sisters' apartments. The
+dignified stone stairway with its broad stone steps extended unchanged
+to the top of the house.</p>
+
+<p>"In the matter of stairways," I said, "I must acknowledge that our New
+World ideas are deficient. We have spacious rooms, broad windows, high
+ceilings, but such a stairway as this is beyond us."</p>
+
+<p>The empty sunny rooms above were gayly painted in fresco. At one end of
+the house a door opened into a little latticed balcony, into which we
+stepped, finding ourselves in an adjoining church, high up on the wall
+at one side of the altar. Here the Sisters came to pray, and as we
+departed, one of them glided in and knelt down in the dusky corner.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps she is going to pray for us," said Inness.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure we need it," replied Janet, seriously.</p>
+
+<p>In the garret was a Sedan-chair, once elaborately gilded.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose they went down to Ventimiglia in that," said Baker&mdash;"those
+fine old dames below."</p>
+
+<p>From one of the rooms on the second floor opened a little cell or
+closet, part of whose flooring had been removed, showing a hollow space
+beneath following the massive exterior wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Here," said the Mother Superior, "the papers of<a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a><a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a><a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a> the family were
+concealed at the approach of the first Napoleon, and not taken out for a
+number of years. The flooring has never been replaced."</p>
+
+<p>The Mother Superior spoke only Italian, which Verney translated, much to
+the envy of the younger men. The Professor was not with us, for as soon
+as he learned that the place was "papist" he departed, although Inness
+suggested that the street was papist also, and likewise the very air
+must be redolent of Rome. But the Professor was an example of "c&oelig;lum,
+non animum, mutant, qui trans mare currunt," and quite determined to be
+as Protestant in Italy as he was in Connecticut. He would not desert his
+colors because under a foreign sky, as so many Americans desert them.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 396px;">
+<a href="images/ill_129_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_129_sml.jpg" width="396" height="550" alt="PIFFERARI" title="PIFFERARI" /></a>
+<span class="caption">PIFFERARI</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Mother now conducted us to a little square parlor, with south
+windows opening upon a balcony full of pots of flowers; the walls and
+ceiling of this little room were glowing with color&mdash;paintings in fresco
+more suited to the Dorias, I fancy, than to the "Sisters of the Snow,"
+for this was the poetical name of the little black-robed band. In this
+worldly little room we found wine waiting for us, and grapes which were
+almost raisins: we had never seen them in transition before. The wine
+was excellent, and Mrs. Trescott partook with much graciousness. After
+partaking, she employed Verney in translating to the Mother a number of
+her own characteristic sentences. But Verney must have altered them
+somewhat en route, for I hardly think the Mother would have remained so
+calmly placid if she had comprehended that "this whole scene&mdash;the
+grapes, the wine, and the frescos"&mdash;reminded Mrs. Trescott of
+"Cleopatra, and of Sardanapalus and his golden flagons." Presently two
+of the Sisters entered with coffee which they had prepared for us; after
+serving it, they retired to a corner, where they stood gently regarding
+us. Then another entered, and then another, unobtrusively<a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a> taking their
+places beside the others. It was interesting to notice the simplicity of
+their mild gaze; although brown and middle-aged, their expression was
+like that of little children. When they learned that some of us were
+from America they were much impressed, and looked at each other
+silently.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it does not seem to them but a little while since Columbus
+discovered us," said Baker.</p>
+
+<p>At last it was time for us to go: we bade the little group farewell, and
+left some coins "for their poor."</p>
+
+<p>"Though we may not meet on earth, we shall see you all again in heaven,"
+said the Mother, and all the Sisters bowed assent. They accompanied us
+down to the outer door, and waved their hands in adieu as we crossed the
+little square. When, at the other side, we turned to look back, we saw
+their black skirts retiring up the stairway to their little school.</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell, Sisters of the Snow," said Janet. "May we all so live as to
+keep that rendezvous you have given us!"</p>
+
+<p>The carriages were now ordered, and Margaret and Lloyd summoned from the
+castle tower. We were standing at the door of the Desired Inn,
+collecting our baskets and wraps, when the Professor appeared with a
+long narrow parcel in his hand. This he stowed away carefully in one of
+the carriages, changing its position several times, as if anxious it
+should be carried safely. While he was thus engaged in his absorbed,
+near-sighted way, Inness came down the stone stairs from the upper
+chamber, and going across to Janet, who was leaning on the parapet
+looking at the river, he was on the point of presenting something to
+her, when his little speech was stopped by the appearance of Baker
+coming around the corner from the front of the house, with a parcel
+exactly like his own.</p>
+
+<p>"Two!" cried Inness, bursting into a peal of laugh<a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a><a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a><a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a>ter; and then we
+saw, as he tore off the paper, that he had the old brass lamp which
+Janet had admired. Meanwhile Baker had another, the Desired Inn having
+been evidently equal to the occasion, and to driving a good bargain. Our
+laughter aroused the Professor, who turned and gazed at our group from
+the step of the carriage. But having no idea of losing the credit of his
+unusual gallantry simply because some one else had had the same thought,
+he now extracted his own parcel and silently extended it.</p>
+
+<p>"A third!" cried Inness. And then we all gave way again.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 366px;">
+<a href="images/ill_133_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_133_sml.jpg" width="366" height="550" alt="MONACO&mdash;THE PALACE AND PORT" title="MONACO&mdash;THE PALACE AND PORT" /></a>
+<span class="caption">MONACO&mdash;THE PALACE AND PORT</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"I am so much obliged to you," said Janet, sweetly, when there was a
+pause, "but I am sorry you took the trouble. Because&mdash;because Mr. Verney
+has already kindly given me one, which is packed in one of the baskets."</p>
+
+<p>At this we laughed again, more irresistibly than before&mdash;all, I mean,
+save Miss Elaine, who merely said, in the most unamused voice, "How
+<i>very</i> amusing!" As we had all admired the ancient lamp (although no one
+thought of offering it to <i>us</i>), the superfluous gifts easily found
+places among us, and were not the less thankfully received because
+obtained in that roundabout way.</p>
+
+<p>We now left the "Sweet Waters" behind us, and went down the valley
+towards the sea.</p>
+
+<p>"There is another town as picturesque as Dolce Acqua some miles farther
+up the valley," said Verney. "I have a sketch of it. It is called
+Pigna."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, let us go there!" said Janet.</p>
+
+<p>"We cannot, my daughter, spend the entire remainder of our earthly
+existence among the Maritime Alps," said Mrs. Trescott.</p>
+
+<p>Inness had the place beside Janet all the way home.</p>
+
+<p>On the Cornice, a few miles from Mentone, we came<a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a> upon a boy and girl
+sitting by the road-side; they had a flageolet and a sort of bagpipe,
+and wore the costume of Italian peasants, their foot-coverings being the
+complicated bands and strings which are, in American eyes (the strings
+transmuted into ribbons), indelibly associated with bandits. "They are
+pifferari," said Verney; and we stopped the carriages and asked them to
+play for us. The boy played on his flageolet, and the girl sang. As she
+stood beside us in the dust, her brown hands clasped before her, her
+great dark eyes never once stopped gazing at Janet, who, clad that day
+in a soft cream-white walking costume, with gloves, round hat, and plume
+of the same tint, looked not unlike a lily on its stem. The Italian girl
+was of nearly the same age in years, and of fully the same age in
+womanhood, and it seemed as if she could not remove her fascinated gaze
+from the fair white stranger. Inness and Verney both tried to attract
+her attention; but the boy gathered up the coins they dropped, and the
+girl gazed on. As the Professor was tired, and did not care for music,
+we drove onward; but, as far as we could see, the Italian girl still
+stood in the centre of the road, gazing after the carriages.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you suppose is in her mind?" I said. "Envy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hardly," said Verney. "To her, probably, Miss Trescott is like a being
+from another world&mdash;a saint or Madonna."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Mr. Verney, what exaggerated comparisons!" said Miss Elaine, in
+soft reproach. "Besides, it is irreligious, and you <i>promised</i> me you
+would not be irreligious."</p>
+
+<p>Verney looked somewhat aghast at this revelation, of course overheard by
+Mrs. Clary and myself. It was rather hard upon him to have his misdeeds
+brought up in this way&mdash;the little sentimental speeches he had<a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a><a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a><a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a> made
+to Miss Elaine in the remote past&mdash;i.e., before Janet arrived. But he
+was obliged to bear it.</p>
+
+<p class="top5">"I suppose," said Inness, one morning, "that you are not all going away
+from Mentone without even <i>seeing</i> Mon&mdash;Monaco?"</p>
+
+<p>"It can be <i>seen</i> from Turbia," answered the Professor, grimly. "And
+that view is near enough."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_137_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_137_sml.jpg" width="550" height="299" alt="ENTRANCE TO THE PALACE, MONACO" title="ENTRANCE TO THE PALACE, MONACO" /></a>
+<span class="caption">ENTRANCE TO THE PALACE, MONACO</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Inness made a grimace, and the subject was dropped. But it ended in our
+seeing Turbia from Monaco, and not Monaco from Turbia.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no use in fighting against it," said Mrs. Clary, shrugging her
+shoulders. "You will have to go once. Every one does. There is a fate
+that drives you."</p>
+
+<p>"And the joke is," said Baker, in high glee, "that the Professor is
+going too. It seems that the view from Turbia was not near enough for
+him, after all."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not surprised," said Mrs. Clary. "I thought he would go: they all
+do. I have seen English deans, Swiss pastors, and American Presbyterian
+ministers looking on in the gambling-rooms, under the principle, I
+suppose, of knowing something of the evil they oppose. They do not go
+but once; but that once they are very apt to allow themselves."</p>
+
+<p>The views along the Cornice west of Mentone are very beautiful. As we
+came in sight of Monaco, lying below in the blue sea, we caught its
+alleged resemblance to a vessel at anchor.</p>
+
+<p>"Monaco, or Portus Herculis Mon&oelig;ci, was well known to the ancients,"
+said the Professor. "Its name appears in Virgil, Tacitus, Pliny, Strabo,
+and other classical writers. Before the invention of gunpowder its
+situation made it impregnable. It was one of the places of refuge in the
+long struggle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines" (we were rather
+discouraged by the appearance<a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a> of these names so early in the day), "and
+it is mentioned by an Italian historian as having become in the
+fourteenth century a 'home for criminals' and a 'gathering-place for
+pirates'&mdash;terms equally applicable at the present day." The Professor's
+voice was very sonorous.</p>
+
+<p>Inness, the Professor, Janet, and myself were in a carriage together. As
+Mrs. Clary and Miss Graves did not accompany us that day, we had two
+carriages and a phaeton, the latter occupied by Lloyd and Verney.</p>
+
+<p>"As to Monaco history," remarked Inness, carelessly, when the Professor
+ceased, "I happen to remember a few items. The Grimaldis came next to
+Hercules, and have had possession here since <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 980. Marshal
+Boucicault, who was extremely devout, and never missed hearing two
+masses a day, besieged the place and took it before Columbus and the
+other Boucicault discovered America. In the reign of Louis the
+Fourteenth a Prince of Monaco was sent as ambassador to Rome, and
+entered that city with horses shod in silver, the shoes held by one nail
+only, so that they might drop the sooner. Another Prince of Monaco went
+against the Turks with his galleys, and brought back to this shore the
+inestimable gift of the prickly-pear, for which we all bless his memory
+whenever we brush against its cheerful thorns. <i>Three</i> Princes of Monaco
+were murdered in their own palace, which of course was much more
+home-like than being murdered elsewhere. The Duke of York died there
+also: not murdered, I believe, although there is a ghost in the story.
+The principality is now three miles long, and the present prince retains
+authority under the jurisdiction of France. To preserve this authority
+he maintains a strictly disciplined standing army (they never sit down)
+of ten able-bodied men."</p>
+
+<p>These sentences were rolled out by Inness with such<a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a> rapidity that I was
+quite bewildered; as for the Professor, he was hopelessly stranded
+half-way down the list, and never came any farther.</p>
+
+<p>Passing Monte Carlo, we drove over to the palace.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly there is no town on the Riviera so beautifully situated as
+Monaco," I said, as the road swept around the little port and ascended
+the opposite slope. "The high rock on which it stands, jutting out
+boldly into the sea, gives it all the isolation of an island, and yet
+protects by its peninsula this clear deep little harbor within."</p>
+
+<p>The old town of Monaco proper is on the top of this rocky presqu'ile,
+three hundred feet above the sea, and west of Monte Carlo, the suburb of
+Condamine, and the chapel of St. Devote. Leaving the carriages, we
+entered the portal of the palace, conducted by a tenth of the standing
+army.</p>
+
+<p>"My first living and roofed palace," said Janet, as we ascended the
+broad flight of marble steps leading to the "Court of Honor," which was
+glowing with recently renewed frescos. A solemn man in black received
+us, and conducted us with much dignity through thirteen broad, long
+rooms, with ceilings thirty feet high&mdash;a procession of stately
+apartments which left upon our minds a blurred general impression of
+gilded vases, crimson curtains, slippery floors, ormolu clocks, wreaths
+of painted roses, fat Cupids, and uninhabitableness. The only trace of
+home life in all the shining vista was a little picture of the present
+Prince, taken when he was a baby, a life-like, chubby little fellow,
+smiling unconcernedly out on all this cold splendor. It was amusing to
+see how we women gathered around this little face, with a sort of
+involuntary comfort.</p>
+
+<p>In the Salle Grimaldi there was a vast chimney-piece of one block of
+marble covered with carved devices.</p>
+
+<p>In the room where the Duke of York died there<a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a> was a broad bed on a
+platform, curtained and canopied with heavy damask, and surrounded by a
+gilded railing. We stood looking at this structure in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"It is very impressive," murmured Mrs. Trescott at last. Then, with a
+long reminiscent sigh, as if she had been present and chief mourner on
+the occasion, she added: "There is nothing more inscrutable than the
+feet of the flying hours: they are winged!&mdash;winged!"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 380px;">
+<a href="images/ill_142_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_142_sml.jpg" width="380" height="550" alt="THE SALLE GRIMALDI, IN THE PALACE, MONACO" title="THE SALLE GRIMALDI, IN THE PALACE, MONACO" /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE SALLE GRIMALDI, IN THE PALACE, MONACO</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"On the whole," said Janet, as we went down the<a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a> marble steps towards
+the army&mdash;"on the whole, taking it as a <i>palace</i>, I am disappointed."</p>
+
+<p>"What did you expect?" said Verney.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, all the age of chivalry," she answered, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"The so-called age of chivalry&mdash;" began the Professor; but he never
+finished; because, by some unexpected adjustment of places, he found
+himself in the phaeton with Baker, and that adventurous youth drove him
+over to Monte Carlo at such a speed that he could only close his eyes
+and hold on.</p>
+
+<p>The Casino of Monte Carlo is now the most important part of the
+principality of Monaco; instead of being subordinate to the palace, the
+latter has become but an appendage to the modern splendor across the
+bay. Monte Carlo occupies a site as beautiful as any in the world. In
+front the blue sea laves its lovely garden; on the east the soft
+coast-line of Italy stretches away in the distance; on the west is the
+bold curving rock of Monaco, with its castle and port, and the great
+cliff of the Dog's Head. Behind rises the near mountain high above; and
+on its top, outlined against the sky, stands the old tower of Turbia in
+its lonely ruined majesty, looking towards Rome.</p>
+
+<p>"That tower is nineteen hundred feet above the sea," said the Professor.
+"It was built by the Romans, on the boundary between Liguria and Gaul,
+to commemorate a victory gained by Augustus C�sar over the Ligurians. It
+was called Trop�um Augusti, from which it has degenerated into Turbia.
+Fragments of the inscription it once bore have been found on stones
+built into the houses of the present village. The inscription itself is,
+fortunately, fully preserved in Pliny, as follows: 'To C�sar, son of the
+divine C�sar Augustus, Emperor for the fourteenth time, in the
+seventeenth year of his reign, the Senate and the Roman people have
+decreed this monument, in token that<a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a> under his orders and auspices all
+the Alpine races have been subdued by Roman arms. Names of the
+vanquished:' and here follow the names of forty-five Alpine races."</p>
+
+<p>At first we thought that the Professor was going to repeat them all; but
+although no doubt he knew them, he abstained.</p>
+
+<p>"The village behind the tower&mdash;we cannot see it from here&mdash;seems to be
+principally built of fragments of the old Roman stone-work," said Lloyd.
+"I have been up there several times."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we do not see the Trophy as it was?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"No; it is but a ruin, although it looks imposing from here. It was used
+as a fortress during the Middle Ages, and partially destroyed by the
+French at the beginning of the last century."</p>
+
+<p>"It must have been majestic indeed, since, after all its dismemberment,
+it still remains so majestic now," said Margaret.</p>
+
+<p>We were standing on the steps of the Casino during this conversation; I
+think we all rather made ourselves stand there, and talk about Turbia
+and the Middle Ages, because the evil and temptation we had come to see
+were so near us, and we knew that they were. We all had a sentence ready
+which we delivered impartially and carelessly; but none the less we knew
+that we were going in, and that nothing would induce us to remain
+without.</p>
+
+<p>From a spacious, richly decorated entrance-hall, the gambling-rooms
+opened by noiseless swinging doors. Entering, we saw the tables
+surrounded by a close circle of seated players, with a second circle
+standing behind, playing over their shoulders, and sometimes even a
+third behind these. Although so many persons were present, it was very
+still, the only sounds being the chink, chink, of the gold and silver
+coins, and the dull,<a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a><a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a><a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a> mechanical voices of the officials announcing
+the winning numbers. There were tables for both roulette and trente et
+quarante, the playing beginning each day at eleven in the morning and
+continuing without intermission until eleven at night. Everywhere was
+lavished the luxury of flowers, paintings, marbles, and the costliest
+decoration of all kinds; beyond, in a superb hall, the finest orchestra
+on the Continent was playing the divine music of Beethoven; outside, one
+of the loveliest gardens in the world offered itself to those who wished
+to stroll awhile. And all of this was given freely, without restriction
+and without price, upon a site and under a sky as beautiful as earth can
+produce. But one sober look at the faces of the steady players around
+those tables betrayed, under all this luxury and beauty, the real horror
+of the place; for men and women, young and old alike, had the gambler's
+strange fever in the expression of the eye, all the more intense
+because, in almost every case, so governed, so stonily repressed, so
+deadly cold! After a half-hour of observation, we left the rooms, and I
+was glad to breathe the outside air once more. The place had so struck
+to my heart, with its intensity, its richness, its stillness, and its
+terror, that I had not been able even to smile at the Professor's
+demeanor; he had signified his disapprobation (while looking at
+everything quite closely, however) by buttoning his coat up to the chin
+and keeping his hat on. I almost expected to see him open his umbrella.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 387px;">
+<a href="images/ill_145_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_145_sml.jpg" width="387" height="550" alt="THE RIDE TO SANT&#39; AGNESE" title="THE RIDE TO SANT&#39; AGNESE" /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE RIDE TO SANT&#39; AGNESE</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"To me, they seemed all mad," I said, with a shudder, looking up at the
+calm mountains with a sense of relief.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a species of madness," said Verney. Miss Elaine was with him; she
+had taken his arm while in the gambling-room; she said she felt "so
+timid." Margaret and Lloyd meanwhile had only looked on for<a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a> a moment or
+two, and had then disappeared; we learned afterwards that they had gone
+to the concert-room, where music beautiful enough for paradise was
+filling the perfumed air.</p>
+
+<p>"For those who care nothing for gambling, that music is one of the
+baits," said Lloyd. "When you really love music, it is very hard to keep
+away from it; and here, where there is no other music to compete with
+it, it is offered to you in its divinest perfection, at an agreeable
+distance from Nice and Mentone, along one of the most beautiful
+driveways in the world, with a Parisian hotel at its best to give you,
+besides, what other refreshment you need. Hundreds of persons come here
+sincerely 'only to hear the music.' But few go away without 'one look'
+at the gambling tables; and it is upon that 'one look' that the
+proprietors of the Casino, knowing human nature, quietly and securely
+rely."</p>
+
+<p>The Professor, having seen it all, had no words to express his feeling,
+but walked across to call the carriages with the air of a man who shook
+off perdition from every finger. And yet I felt sure, from what I knew
+of him, that he had appreciated the attractions of the place less than
+any one of us&mdash;had not, in fact, been reached by them at all. Those who
+do not feel the allurements of a temptation are not tempted. Not a grain
+in the Professor's composition responded to the invitation of the siren
+Chance; they were not allurements to him; they were but the fantastic
+phantasmagoria of a dream. The lovely garden he appreciated only
+botanically; the view he could not see; abstemious by nature, he cared
+nothing for the choice rarities of the hotel; while the music, the
+heavenly music, was to him no more than the housewife's clatter of tin
+pans. Yet I might have explained this to him all the way home, he would
+never have comprehended it, but<a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a> would have gone on thinking that it was
+simply, on his part, superior virtue and self-control.</p>
+
+<p>But I had no opportunity to explain, since I was not in the carriage
+with him, but with Janet, Inness, and Baker. Margaret and Lloyd drove
+homewards together in the phaeton; and as they did not reach the hotel
+until dusk&mdash;long after our own arrival&mdash;I asked Margaret where they had
+been.</p>
+
+<p>"We stopped at the cemetery to watch the sunset beside my statue, aunt."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you care so much for that marble figure?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think she is quite marble," answered Margaret, smiling. "When
+I look at her, after a while she becomes, in a certain sense,
+responsive. To me she is like a dear friend."</p>
+
+<p>Another week passed, and another. And now the blossoms of the
+fruit-trees&mdash;a cloud of pink and snowy white&mdash;were gone, and the winter
+loiterers on the sunny shore began to talk of home; or, if they were
+travellers who had but stopped awhile on the way to Italy, they knew now
+that the winds of the Apennines no longer chilled the beautiful streets
+of Florence, and that all the lilies were out.</p>
+
+<p>"Why could it not go on and on forever? Why must there always come that
+last good-bye?" quoted Mrs. Clary.</p>
+
+<p>"Because life is so sad," said Margaret.</p>
+
+<p>"But I like to look forward," said Janet.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall meet again," said Lloyd.</p>
+
+<p>"The world," I remarked, sagely, "is composed of three classes of
+persons&mdash;those who live in the present, those who live in the past, and
+those who live in the future. The first class is the wisest."</p>
+
+<p>Our last excursion was to Sant' Agnese. This little mountain village was
+the highest point we attained on our donkeys, being two thousand two
+hundred feet<a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a> above the sea. Its one rugged little street, cut in the
+side of the cliff, had an ancient weather-beaten little church at one
+end and a lonely chapel at the other, with the village green in the
+centre&mdash;a "green" which was but a smooth rock amphitheatre, with a
+parapet protecting it from the precipice below. From this "green" there
+was a grand view of the mountains, with the sharp point of the Aiguille
+towering above them all. It was a village f�te day, and we met the
+little procession at the church door. First came the priests and<a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a>
+choir-boys, chanting; then the village girls, dressed in white, and
+bearing upon a little platform an image of Saint Agnes; then youths with
+streamers of colored ribbons on their arms; and, last, all the
+villagers, two and two, dressed in their best, and carrying bunches of
+flowers. Through the winding rocky street they marched, singing as they
+went. When they arrived at the lonely chapel, Saint Agnes was borne in,
+and prayers were offered, in which the village people joined, kneeling
+on the ground outside, since there was not place for them within. Then
+forth came Saint Agnes again, a hymn was started, in which all took
+part, the little church bell pealed, and an old man touched off small
+heaps of gunpowder placed at equal distances along the parapet, their
+nearest approach, I suppose, to cannon. When the saint had reached her
+shrine again in safety, her journeyings over until the next year, the
+procession dissolved, and feasting began, the simple feasting of Italy,
+in which we joined so far as to partake of a lunch in the little inn,
+which had a green bush as a sign over the narrow door&mdash;the "wine of the
+country" proving very good, however, in spite of the old proverb. Then,
+refreshed, we climbed up the steep path leading to the peak where was
+perched the ruin of the old castle which is so conspicuous from Mentone,
+high in the air. This castle, the so-called "Saracen stronghold" of
+Sant' Agnese, pronounced, as Baker said, "either Frenchy to rhyme with
+lace, or Italianly to rhyme with lazy," seemed to me higher up in the
+sky than I had ever expected to be in the flesh.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 505px;">
+<a href="images/ill_150_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_150_sml.jpg" width="505" height="550" alt="VIEW FROM SANT&#39; AGNESE" title="VIEW FROM SANT&#39; AGNESE" /></a>
+<span class="caption">VIEW FROM SANT&#39; AGNESE</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"As our interesting friend" (she meant the Professor) "is not here,"
+said Mrs. Trescott, sinking in a breathless condition upon a Saracen
+block, "there is no one to tell us its history."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no history," said Verney, "or, rather, no one knows it; and to
+me that is its chief attraction.<a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a> There are, of course, legends in
+stacks, but nothing authentic. The Saracens undoubtedly occupied it for
+a time, and kept the whole coast below cowering under their cruel sway.
+But it is hardly probable that they built it; they did not build so far
+inland; they preferred the shore."</p>
+
+<p>Our specified object, of course, in climbing that breathless path was
+"the view."</p>
+
+<p>Now there are various ways of seeing views. I have known "views" which
+required long gazing at points where there was nothing earthly to be
+seen: in such cases there was probably something heavenly. Other "views"
+reveal themselves only to two persons at a time; if a third appears,
+immediately there is nothing to be seen. As to our own manner of looking
+at the Sant' Agnese view, I will mention that Mrs. Trescott looked at it
+from a snug corner, on a soft shawl, with her eyes closed. Mrs. Clary
+looked at it retrospectively, as it were; she began phrases like these:
+"When I was here three years ago&mdash;" pause, sigh, full stop. "Once I was
+here at sunset&mdash;" ditto. Janet, on a remote rock, looked at it, I think,
+amid a little tragedy from Inness, interrupted and made more tragic by
+the incursions of Baker, who would not be frowned away. Verney looked at
+it from a high niche in which he had incautiously seated himself for a
+moment, and now remained imprisoned, because Miss Elaine had placed
+herself across the entrance so that he could not emerge without asking
+her to rise; from this niche, like the tenor of <i>Trovatore</i> in his
+tower, he occasionally sent across a Miserere to Janet in the distance,
+like this: "Do you ob&mdash;serve, Miss Trescott, the col&mdash;ors of the
+lem&mdash;ons below?" And Janet would gesture an assent. Lloyd and Margaret
+had found a place on a little projecting plateau, where, with the warm
+sunshine flooding over them, they sat contentedly talking. Meanwhile<a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a><a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a><a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a>
+having neither sleep, retrospect, tragedy, Miserere, nor conversation
+with which to entertain myself, I really looked at the view, and
+probably was the only person who did. I had time enough for it. We
+remained there nearly two hours.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 358px;">
+<a href="images/ill_153_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_153_sml.jpg" width="358" height="550" alt="F�TE, VILLAGE OF SANT&#39; AGNESE" title="F�TE, VILLAGE OF SANT&#39; AGNESE" /></a>
+<span class="caption">F�TE, VILLAGE OF SANT&#39; AGNESE</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>At last our donkey-driver came up to tell us that dancing was going on
+below, and that there was not much time if we wished to see it, since
+the long homeward journey still lay before us. So we elders began to
+call: "Janet!" "Janet!" "Margaret!" "Mr. Verney!" And presently from the
+rock, the niche, and the plateau they came slowly in, Janet flushed, and
+Inness very pale, Baker like a thunder-cloud, Miss Elaine smiling and
+conscious, Verney annoyed, Lloyd just as usual, and Margaret with a
+younger look in her face than I had seen there for months. In the little
+rock amphitheatre below we found the villagers merrily dancing; and some
+strangers like ourselves, who had come out from Mentone later, were
+amusing themselves by dancing also. Janet joined the circle with Baker,
+and Inness, after leaning on the parapet awhile, with his back to the
+dancers, gazing into space, disappeared. I think he went homeward by
+another path across the mountains. Miss Elaine admired "so much" Miss
+Trescott's courage in dancing before "so many strangers." She (Miss
+Elaine) was far "too shy to attempt it." But I did not notice that she
+was violently urged to the attempt. In the meantime Lloyd was looking at
+an English girl belonging to the other party, who was dancing near us.
+She was tall and shapely, with the beautiful English rose-pink
+complexion, and abundant light hair which had the glint of bronze where
+the sun shone across it. After a while, as the others came near, he
+recognized in one of them an acquaintance, who turned out to be the
+brother of the young lady who had been dancing.<a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a></p>
+
+<p>When, as we returned, we reached the main street of Mentone, Margaret
+and I, who were behind, stopped a moment and looked back. The far peak
+of Sant' Agnese was flushed with rose-light, although where we were it
+was already night.</p>
+
+<p>"It does not seem as if we could have been there," I said. "It looks so
+far away."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we have been there," said Margaret; "we <i>have</i> been there. But
+already it <i>is</i> far, far away."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 451px;">
+<a href="images/ill_156_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_156_sml.jpg" width="451" height="550" alt="VESTIGES OF ROMAN MONUMENTS" title="VESTIGES OF ROMAN MONUMENTS" /></a>
+<span class="caption">VESTIGES OF ROMAN MONUMENTS</span>
+</div><p><a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Trescott found a letter awaiting her which made her decide to go
+forward to Florence on the following day. A great deal can happen in a
+short time when there is the pressure of a near departure. That evening
+Janet, who was dressed in white, had a great bunch of the sweet wild
+narcissus at her belt. I do not know anything certainly, of course, but
+I <i>did</i> meet Inness in the hall, about eleven o'clock, with a radiant,
+happy face, and some of that same narcissus in his button-hole. He went
+with the Trescott's to Florence the next day. And Baker, with disgust,
+went to Nice. Soon afterwards Verney said that he felt that he required
+"a closer acquaintance with early art," and departed without saying
+exactly whither. "Etruscan art, I believe, is considered extremely
+'early,'" remarked Mrs. Clary.</p>
+
+<p>The Professor was to join the Trescotts later; at present he was much
+engaged with some cinerary urns. Miss Elaine, who was to remain a month
+longer with her mother, remarked to me, on one of the last mornings,
+that "really, for his age," he was a "very well preserved man."</p>
+
+<p>Margaret and I remained for two weeks after Mrs. Trescott's departure.
+We saw Mr. Lloyd now and then; but he was more frequently off with the
+English party.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon I went with Margaret to watch the sunset from her favorite
+post beside the statue. She sought the place almost every evening now,
+and occasionally I went with her. We had never found any one there at
+that hour; but this evening we heard voices, and came upon Lloyd and the
+English girl of Sant' Agnese, strolling to and fro.</p>
+
+<p>"I have brought Miss Read to see the view here, Miss Severin," he said;
+and then introductions followed, and we stood there together watching
+the beautiful<a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a> tints of sky and sea. The English girl talked in her
+English voice with its little rising and falling inflections, so
+different from our monotonous American key. Margaret answered
+pleasantly, and, indeed, talked more than usual; I was glad to see her
+interested.</p>
+
+<p>After a while Lloyd happened to stroll forward where he could see the
+face of the statue. Then, suddenly, "Wonderful!" he exclaimed. "Strange
+that I never thought of it before! Do come here, please, and see for
+yourselves. There is the most extraordinary resemblance between this
+statue and Miss Read."</p>
+
+<p>Then, as we all went forward, "Wonderful!" he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret said not a word. The English girl only laughed. "Surely you
+<i>see</i> it?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"There may be a little something about the mouth&mdash;" I began.</p>
+
+<p>But he interrupted me. "Why, it is perfect! The statue is her portrait
+in marble. Miss Read, will you not let me place you in the same
+position, just for an instant?" And, leading her to a little mound, he
+placed her in the required pose; she had thrown off her hat to oblige
+him, and now clasped her hands and turned her eyes over the sea towards
+the eastern horizon. What was the result?</p>
+
+<p>The only resemblance, as I had said, was about the mouth; for the
+beautifully cut lips of the statue turned downward at the corners, and
+the curve of Miss Read's sweet baby-like mouth was the same. But that
+was all. Above was the woman's face in marble, beautiful, sad, full of
+the knowledge and the grief of life; below was the face of a young girl,
+lovely, fresh, and bright, and knowing no more of sorrow than a
+blush-rose upon its stem.</p>
+
+<p>"Exact!" said Lloyd.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Read laughed, rose, and resumed her straw hat; presently they went
+away.<a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 296px;">
+<a href="images/ill_159_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_159_sml.jpg" width="296" height="550" alt="THE STATUE IN THE CEMETERY" title="THE STATUE IN THE CEMETERY" /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE STATUE IN THE CEMETERY</span>
+</div><p><a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a><a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a></p>
+
+<p>"There was not the slightest resemblance," I said, almost with
+indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"People see resemblances differently," answered Margaret. Then, after a
+pause, she added, "She is, at least, much more like the statue than I
+am."</p>
+
+<p>"Not in the spirit, dear," I said, much touched; for I saw that as she
+spoke the rare tears had filled her eyes. But they did not fall;
+Margaret had a great deal of self-control; perhaps too much.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was a silence. "Shall we go now, aunt?" she said, after a
+time. And we never spoke of the subject again.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, look, Margaret! the palms of Bordighera!" I said, as our train
+rushed past. It was our last of Mentone.<a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a><a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CAIRO_IN_1890" id="CAIRO_IN_1890"></a><a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a><a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a>CAIRO IN 1890</h3>
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+<p style="text-indent:-3%;">
+<span class="figleft" style="width: 262px;margin-top:-2%;">
+<a href="images/ill_165_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_165_sml.jpg"
+width="262" height="550" alt="&quot;T" title="&quot;T" /></a>
+<span class="caption">CONTEMPORARY PORTRAIT OF CLEOPATRA<br />On
+the wall of the Temple at Denderah.&mdash;From a photograph by Sebah,
+Cairo.</span></span>
+HE
+way to Egypt is long and vexatious"&mdash;so Homer sings; and so also
+have sung other persons more modern. A chopping sea prevails off Crete,
+and whether one leaves Europe at Naples, Brindisi, or Athens, one's
+steamer soon reaches that beautiful island, and consumes in passing it
+an amount of time which is an ever-fresh surprise. Crete, with its long
+coast-line and soaring mountain-tops, appears to fill all that part of
+the sea. However, as the island is the half-way point between Europe and
+Africa, one can at least feel, after finally leaving it behind, that the
+Egyptian coast is not far distant. This coast is as indolent as that of
+Crete is aggressive; it does not raise its head. You are there before
+you see it or know it; and then, if you like, in something over three
+hours more you can be in Cairo.</p>
+
+<p>The Cairo street of the last Paris Exhibition, familiar<a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a> to many
+Americans, was a clever imitation. But imitations of the Orient are
+melancholy; you cannot transplant the sky and the light.</p>
+
+<p>The real Cairo has been sacrificed to the Nile. Comparatively few among
+travellers in the East see the place under the best conditions; for upon
+their arrival they are preoccupied with the magical river voyage which
+beckons them southward, with the dahabeeyah or the steamer which is to
+carry them; and upon their return from that wonderful journey they are
+planning for the more difficult expedition to the Holy Land. It is safe
+to say that to many Americans Cairo is only a confused memory of donkeys
+and dragomans, mosquitoes and dervishes, and mosques, mosques, mosques!
+This hard season probably must be gone through by all. The wise are
+those who stay on after it is over, or who return; for the true
+impression of a place does not come when the mind is overcrowded and
+confused; it does not come when the body is wearied; for the descent of
+the vision, serenity of soul is necessary&mdash;one might even call it
+idleness. It is during those days when one does nothing that the reality
+steals noiselessly into one's comprehension, to remain there forever.</p>
+
+<p>But is Cairo worth this? is asked. That depends upon the temperament. If
+one must have in his nature somewhere a trace of the poet to love
+Venice, so one must be at heart something of a painter to love Cairo.
+Her colors are so softly rich, the Saracenic part of her architecture is
+so fantastically beautiful, the figures in her streets are so
+picturesque, that one who has an eye for such effects seems to himself
+to be living in a gallery of paintings without frames, which stretch off
+in vistas, melting into each other as they go. If, therefore, one loves
+color, if pictures are precious to him, are important, let him go to
+Cairo; he will find<a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a> pleasure awaiting him. Flaubert said that one could
+imagine the pyramids, and perhaps the Sphinx, without an actual sight of
+them, but that what one could not in the least imagine was the
+expression on the face of an Oriental barber as he sits cross-legged
+before his door. That is Cairo exactly. You must see her with the actual
+eyes, and you must see her without haste. She does not reveal herself to
+the Cook tourist nor even to Gaze's, nor to the man who is hurrying off
+to Athens on a fixed day which nothing can alter.</p>
+
+<h4>THE NEW QUARTER</h4>
+
+<p>(One must begin with this, and have it over.) Cairo has a population of
+four hundred thousand souls. The new part of the town, called Isma�lia,
+has been persistently abused by almost all writers, who describe it as
+dusty, as shadeless, as dreary, as glaring, as hideous, as blankly and
+broadly empty, as adorned with half-built houses which are falling into
+ruin&mdash;one has read all this before arriving. But what does one find in
+the year of grace 1890? Streets shaded by innumerable trees; streets
+broad indeed, but which, instead of being dusty, are wet (and over-wet)
+with the constant watering; well-kept, bright-faced houses, many of them
+having beautiful gardens, which in January are glowing with giant
+poinsettas, crimson hibiscus, and purple bougainvillea&mdash;flowers which
+give place to richer blooms, to an almost over-luxuriance of color and
+perfumes, as the early spring comes on. If the streets were paved, it
+would be like the outlying quarters of Paris, for most of the houses are
+French as regards their architecture. Shadeless? It is nothing but
+shade. And the principal drives, too, beyond the town&mdash;the Ghezireh
+road, the Choubra and Gizeh roads, and the long avenue which leads to
+the pyramids&mdash;are deeply embowered,<a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a> the great arms of the trees which
+border them meeting and interlacing overhead. Consider the stony streets
+of Italian cities (which no one abuses), and then talk of "shadeless
+Cairo"!</p>
+
+<h4>THE CLIMATE</h4>
+
+<p>If one wishes to spend a part of each day in the house, engaged in
+reading, writing, or resting; if the comfortable feeling produced by a
+brightly burning little fire in the cool of the evening is necessary to
+him for his health or his pleasure&mdash;then he should not attempt to spend
+the entire winter in the city of the Khedive. The mean temperature there
+during the cold season&mdash;that is, six weeks in January and February&mdash;is
+said to be 58� Fahrenheit. But this is in the open air; in the houses
+the temperature is not more than 54� or 52�, and often in the evening
+lower. The absence of fires makes all the difficulty; for out-of-doors
+the air may be and often is charming; but upon coming in from the bright
+sunshine the atmosphere of one's sitting-room and bedroom seems chilly
+and prison-like. There are, generally speaking, no chimneys in Cairo,
+even in the modern quarter. Each of the hotels has one or two open
+grates, but only one or two. Southern countries, however, are banded
+together&mdash;so it seems to the shivering Northerner&mdash;to keep up the
+delusion that they have no cold weather; as they have it not, why
+provide for it? In Italy in the winter the Italians spread rugs over
+their floors, hang tapestries upon their walls, pile cushions
+everywhere, and carpet their sofas with long-haired skins; this they
+call warmth. But a fireless room, with the thermometer on its walls
+standing at 35�, is not warm, no matter how many cushions you may put
+into it; and one hates to believe, too,<a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a> that necessary accompaniments
+of health are roughened faces and frost-bitten noses, and the extreme
+ugliness of hands swollen and red. "Perhaps if one could have in Cairo
+an open hearth and three sticks, it would, with all the other pleasures
+which one finds here, be too much&mdash;would reach wickedness!" was a remark
+we heard last winter. A still more forcible exclamation issued from the
+lips of a pilgrim from New York one evening in January. Looking round
+her sitting-room upon the roses gathered that day in the open air, upon
+the fly-brushes and fans and Oriental decorations, this misguided person
+moaned, in an almost tearful voice: "Oh, for a blizzard and a <i>fire</i>!"
+The reasonable traveller, of course, ought to remember that with a
+climate which has seven months of debilitating heat, and three and a
+half additional months of summer weather, the attention of the natives
+is not strongly turned towards devices for warmth. This consideration,
+however, does not make the fireless rooms agreeable during the few weeks
+that remain.</p>
+
+<p>Another surprise is the rain. "In our time it rained in Egypt," writes
+Strabo, as though chronicling a miracle. Either the climate has changed,
+or Strabo was not a disciple of the realistic school, for in the January
+of this truthful record the rain descended in such a deluge in Cairo
+that the water came above the knees of the horses, and a ferry-boat was
+established for two days in one of the principal streets. Later the rain
+descended a second time with almost equal violence, and showers were by
+no means infrequent. (It may be mentioned in parenthesis that there was
+heavy rain at Luxor, four hundred and fifty miles south of Cairo, on the
+19th of February.) One does not object to these rains; they are in
+themselves agreeable; one wishes simply to note the impudence of the
+widely diffused statement that Egypt is a rainless land. So far nothing<a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a>
+has been said against the winter climate of Cairo; objection has been
+made merely to the fireless condition of the houses&mdash;a fault which can
+be remedied. But now a real enemy must be mentioned&mdash;namely, the kamsin.
+This is a hot wind from the south, which parches the skin and takes the
+life out of one; it fills the air with a thick grayness, which you
+cannot call mist, because it is perfectly dry, and through which the sun
+goes on steadily shining, with a light so weird that one can think of
+nothing but the feelings of the last man, or the opening of the sixth
+seal. The regular kamsin season does not begin before May; the
+occasional days of it that bring suffering to travellers<a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a> occur in
+February, March, and April. But what are five or six days of kamsin amid
+four winter months whose average temperature is 58� Fahrenheit? It is
+human nature to detect faults in climates which have been greatly
+praised, just as one counts every freckle on a fair face that is
+celebrated for its beauty. Give Cairo a few hearth fires, and its winter
+climate will seem delightful; although not so perfect as that of
+Florida, in our country, because in Florida there are no January
+mosquitoes.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 504px;">
+<a href="images/ill_170_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_170_sml.jpg" width="504" height="550" alt="THE NILE BRIDGE, CAIRO From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo" title="THE NILE BRIDGE, CAIRO From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo" /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE NILE BRIDGE, CAIRO<br />From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo</span>
+</div>
+
+<h4>MOSQUES</h4>
+
+<p>It must be remembered that Cairo is Arabian. "The Nile is Egypt," says a
+proverb. The Nile is mythical, Pharaonic, Ptolemaic; but Cairo owes its
+existence solely to the Arabian conquerors of the country, who built a
+fortress and palace here in <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 969.</p>
+
+<p>Very Arabian is still the call to prayer which is chanted by the
+muezzins from the minarets of the mosques several times during the day.
+We were passing through a crowded quarter near the Mooski one afternoon
+in January, when there was wafted across the consciousness a faint,
+sweet sound. It was far away, and one heard it half impatiently at
+first, unwilling to lift one's attention even for an instant from the
+motley scenes nearer at hand. But at length, teased into it by the very
+sweetness, we raised our eyes, and then it was seen that it came from a
+half-ruined minaret far above us. Round the narrow outer gallery of this
+slender tower a man in dark robes was pacing slowly, his arms
+outstretched, his face upturned to heaven. Not once did he look below as
+he continued his aerial round, his voice giving forth the chant which we
+had heard&mdash;"Allah akbar; Allah akbar; la Allah ill' Allah. Heyya
+alas-salah!" (God is great; God is great; there is no<a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a> God but God, and
+Mohammed is his prophet. Come to prayer.) Again, another day, in the old
+Touloun quarter, we heard the sound, but it was much nearer. It came
+from a window but little above our heads, the small mosque within the
+quadrangle having no minaret. This time I could note the muezzin
+himself. As he could not see the sky from where he stood, his eyes were
+closed. I have never beheld a more concentrated expression of devotion
+than his quiet face expressed; he might have been miles away from the
+throng below, instead of three feet, as his voice gave forth the same
+strange, sweet chant. The muezzins are often selected from the ranks of
+the blind, as the duties of the office are within their powers; but this
+singer at the low window had closed his eyes voluntarily. The last time
+I saw the muezzin was towards the end of the season, when the spring was
+far advanced. Cairo gayety was at its height, the streets were crowded
+with Europeans returning from the races, the new quarter was as modern
+as Paris. But there are minarets even in the new quarter, or near it;
+and on one of the highest of these turrets, outlined against the glow of
+the sunset, I saw the slowly pacing figure, with its arms outstretched
+over the city&mdash;"Allah akbar; Allah akbar; come, come to prayer."</p>
+
+<p>There are over four hundred mosques in Cairo, and many of them are in a
+dilapidated condition. Some of these were erected by private means to
+perpetuate the name and good deeds of the founder and his family; then,
+in the course of time, owing to the extinction or to the poverty of the
+descendants, the endowment fund has been absorbed or turned into another
+channel, and the ensuing neglect has ended in ruin. When a pious Muslim
+of to-day wishes to perform a good work, he builds a new mosque. It
+would never occur to him to repair the old one near at hand, which
+commemorates<a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a> the generosity of another man. It must be remembered that
+a mosque has no established congregation, whose duty it is to take care
+of it. A mosque, in fact, to Muslims has not an exclusively religious
+character. It is a place prepared for prayer, with the fountain which is
+necessary for the preceding ablutions required by Mohammed, and the
+niche towards Mecca which indicates the position which the suppliant
+must take; but it is also a place for meditation and repose. The poorest
+and most ragged Muslim has the right to enter whenever he pleases; he
+can say his prayers, or he can simply rest; he can quench his thirst; he
+can eat the food which he has brought with him; if he is tired, he can
+sleep. In mosques not often visited by travellers I have seen men
+engaged in mending their clothes, and others cooking food with a
+portable furnace. In the church-yard of Charlton Kings, England, there
+is a tombstone of the last century with an inscription which concludes
+as follows: "And his dieing request to his Sons and Daughters was, Never
+forsake the Charitys until the Poor had got their Rites." In the Cairo
+mosques the poor have their rites&mdash;both with the <i>gh</i> and without. The
+sacred character of a mosque is, in truth, only made conspicuous when
+unbelievers wish to enter. Then the big shuffling slippers are brought
+out to cover the shoes of the Christian infidels, so that they may not
+touch and defile the mattings reserved for the faithful.</p>
+
+<p>After long neglect, something is being done at last to arrest the ruin
+of the more ancient of these temples. A commission has been appointed by
+the present government whose duty is the preservation of the monuments
+of Arabian art; occasionally, therefore, in a mosque one finds
+scaffolding in place and a general dismantlement. One can only hope for
+the best&mdash;in much the same spirit in which one hopes when one<a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a> sees the
+beautiful old front of St. Mark's, Venice, gradually encroached upon by
+the new raw timbers.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 473px;">
+<a href="images/ill_174_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_174_sml.jpg" width="473" height="550" alt="BEFORE THE LITTLE MOSQUE From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo" title="BEFORE THE LITTLE MOSQUE From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo" /></a>
+<span class="caption">BEFORE THE LITTLE MOSQUE<br />From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="nind">But in Cairo, at least, the work of repairing goes
+on very slowly; three hundred mosques, probably, out of the four hundred
+still remain untouched, and many of these are adorned with a delicate
+beauty which is unrivalled. I know no quest so enchanting as a search
+through the winding lanes of the old quarters for these gems of
+Saracenic taste, which no guide-book has as yet chronicled, no dragoman
+discovered. The street is so narrow that your donkey fills almost all
+the space; passers-by are obliged to flatten themselves against the
+walls in response to the Oriental adjurations of your donkey-boy behind:
+"Take heed, O maid!" "Your<a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a> foot, O chief!" Presently you see a
+minaret&mdash;there is always a minaret somewhere; but it is not always easy
+to find the mosque to which it belongs, hidden, perhaps, as it is,
+behind other buildings in the crowded labyrinth. At length you observe a
+door with a dab or two of the well-known Saracenic honeycomb-work above
+it; instantly you dismount, climb the steps, and look in. You are almost
+sure to find treasures, either fragments of the pearly Cairo mosaic, or
+a wonderful ceiling, or gilded Kufic (old Arabian text) inscriptions and
+arabesques, or remains of the ancient colored glass which changes its
+tint hour by hour. Best of all, sometimes you find a space open to the
+sky, with a fountain in the centre, the whole surrounded by arcades of
+marble columns adorned with hanging lamps (or, rather, with the bronze
+chains which once carried the lamps), and with suspended ostrich
+eggs&mdash;the emblems of good-luck. One day, when my donkey was making his
+way through a dilapidated region, I came upon a mosque so small that it
+seemed hardly more than a base for its exquisite minaret, which towered
+to an unusual height above it. Of course I dismounted. The little mosque
+was open; but as it was never visited by strangers, it possessed no
+slippers, and without coverings of some kind it was impossible that
+unsanctified shoes, such as mine, should touch its matted floor; the
+bent, ancient guardian glared at me fiercely for the mere suggestion.
+One sees sometimes (even in 1890) in the eyes of old men sitting in the
+mosques the original spirit of Islam shining still. Once their religion
+commanded the sword; they would like to grasp it again, if they could.
+It was suggested that the matting might, for a backsheesh, be rolled up
+and put away, as the place was small. But the stern old keeper remained
+inflexible. Then the offer was made that so many piasters&mdash;ten (that is,
+fifty cents)&mdash;would be given<a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a> to the blind. Now the blind are sacred in
+Cairo; this offer, therefore, was successful; all the matting was
+carefully rolled and stacked in a corner, the three or four Muslims
+present withdrew to the door, and the unbeliever was allowed to enter.
+She found herself in a temple of color which was incredibly rich. The
+floor was of delicate marble, and every inch of the walls was covered
+with a mosaic of porphyry and jasper, adorned with gilded inscriptions
+and bands of Kufic text; the tall pulpit, made of mahogany-colored wood,
+was carved from top to bottom in intricate designs, and ornamented with
+odd little plaques of fretted bronze; the sacred niche was lined with
+alabaster, turquoise, and gleaming mother-of-pearl; the only light came
+through the thick glass of the small windows far above, in
+downward-falling rays of crimson, violet, and gold. The old mosaic-work
+of the Cairo mosques is composed of small plates of marble and of
+mother-of-pearl arranged in geometrical designs; the delicacy of the
+minute cubes employed, and the intricacy of the patterns, are
+marvellous; the color is faint, unless turquoise has been added; but the
+glitter of the mother-of-pearl gives the whole an appearance like that
+of jewelry. Upon our departure five blind men were found drawn up in a
+line at the door. It would not have been difficult to collect fifty.</p>
+
+<p>Another day, as my donkey was taking me under a stone arch, I saw on one
+side a flight of steps which seemed to say "Come!" At the top of the
+steps I found a picture. It was a mosque of the early pattern, with a
+large square court open to the sky. In the centre of this court was a
+well, under a marble dome, and here grew half a dozen palm-trees. Across
+the far end extended the sanctuary, which was approached through arcades
+of massive pillars painted in dark red bands. The pulpit was so old that
+it had lost its beauty; but<a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a><a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a><a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a> the entire back wall of this Mecca side
+was covered with beautiful tiles of the old Cairo tints (turquoise-blue
+and dark blue), in designs of foliage, with here and there an entire
+tree. This splendid wall was in itself worth a journey. A few single
+tiles had been inserted at random in the great red columns, reminding
+one of the majolica plates which tease the eyes of those who care for
+such things&mdash;set impossibly high as they are&mdash;in the campaniles of old
+Italian churches along the Pisan coast.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 352px;">
+<a href="images/ill_177_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_177_sml.jpg" width="352" height="550" alt="TOMB-MOSQUE OF KAIT BEY" title="TOMB-MOSQUE OF KAIT BEY" /></a>
+<span class="caption">TOMB-MOSQUE OF KAIT BEY</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>It may be asked, What is the shape of a mosque&mdash;its exterior? What is it
+like? You are more sure about this shape before you reach the Khedive's
+city than you are when you have arrived there; and after you have
+visited three or four mosques each day for a week, the clearness of your
+original idea, such as it was, has vanished forever. The mosques of
+Cairo are so embedded in other structures, so surrounded and pushed and
+elbowed by them, that you can see but little of their external form;
+sometimes a fa�ade painted in stripes is visible, but often a doorway is
+all. One must except the mosque of Sultan Hassan (which, to some of us,
+is dangerously like Aristides the Just). This mosque stands by itself,
+so that you can, if you please, walk round it. The chief interest of the
+walk (for the exterior, save for the deep porch, which can hardly be
+called exterior, is not beautiful) lies in the thought that as the walls
+were constructed of stones brought from the pyramids, perhaps among
+them, with faces turned inward, there may be blocks of that lost outer
+coating of the giant tombs&mdash;a coating which was covered with
+hieroglyphics. Now that hieroglyphics can be read, we may some day learn
+the true history of these monuments by pulling down a dozen of the Cairo
+mosques. But unless the commission bestirs itself, that task will not be
+needed for the edifice of Sultan Hassan; it is<a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a> coming down, piece by
+piece, unaided. The mosques of Cairo are not beautiful as a Greek temple
+or an early English cathedral is beautiful; the charm of Saracenic
+architecture lies more in decoration than in the management of massive
+forms. The genius of the Arabian builders manifested itself in ornament,
+in rich effects of color; they had endless caprices, endless fancies,
+and expressed them all&mdash;as well they might, for all were beautiful. The
+same free spirit carved the grotesques of the old churches of France and
+Germany. But the Arabians had no love for grotesques; they displayed
+their liberty in lovely fantasies. Their one boldness as architects was
+the minaret.</p>
+
+<p>It is probably the most graceful tower that has ever been devised. In
+Cairo the rich fretwork of its decorations and the soft yellow hue of
+the stone of which it is constructed add to this beauty. Invariably
+slender, it decreases in size as it springs towards heaven, carrying
+lightly with it two or three external galleries, which are supported by
+stalactites, and ending in a miniature cupola and crescent. These
+stalactites (variously named, also, pendentives, recessed clusters, and
+honey-combed work) may be called the distinctive feature of Saracenic
+architecture. They were used originally as ornaments to mask the
+transition from a square court to the dome. But they soon took flight
+from that one service, and now they fill Arabian corners and angles and
+support Arabian curves so universally that for many of us the mere
+outline of one scribbled on paper brings up the whole pageant of the
+crescent-topped domes and towers of the East.</p>
+
+<p>The Cairo mosques are said to show the purest existing forms of
+Saracenic architecture. One hopes that this saying is true, for a
+dogmatic superlative of this sort is a rock of comfort, and one can
+remember it and repeat it. With the best of memories, however,<a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a> one
+cannot intelligently see all these specimens of purity, unless, indeed,
+one takes up his residence in Cairo (and it is well known that when one
+lives in a place one never pays visits to those lions which other
+persons journey thousands of miles to see). Travellers, therefore, very
+soon choose a favorite and abide by it, vaunting it above all others, so
+that you hear of El Ghouri, with its striking fa�ade and magnificent
+ceiling, as "the finest," and of Kalaoon as "the finest," and of Moaiyud
+as ditto; not to speak of those who prefer the venerable Touloun and
+Amer, and the undiscriminating crowd that is satisfied, and rightly,
+with Aristides the Just&mdash;that is, the mosque of Sultan Hassan. For
+myself, after acknowledging to a weakness for the mosques which are not
+in the guide-books, which possess no slippers, I confess that I admire
+most the tomb-mosque of Kait Bey. It is outside of Cairo proper, among
+those splendid half-ruined structures the so-called tombs of the
+Khalifs. It stands by itself, its chiselled dome and minaret, a
+lace-work in stone, clearly revealed. It would take pages to describe
+the fanciful beauty of every detail, both without and within, and there
+must, in any case, come an end of repeating the words "elegance,"
+"mosaic," "minaret," "arabesque," "jasper," and "mother-of-pearl." The
+chief treasures of this mosque are two blocks of rose granite which bear
+the so-called impressions of the feet of Mohammed; the legend is that he
+rests here for a moment or two at sunset every Thursday. "How well I
+understand this fancy of the prophet!" exclaimed an imaginative visitor.
+"How I wish I could do the same!"</p>
+
+<h4>THE GIZEH MUSEUM</h4>
+
+<p>One of the great events of the winter of 1890 was the opening of the new
+Museum of Egyptian Antiquities<a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a> at Gizeh. This magnificent collection,
+which until recently has been ill-housed at Boulak, is now installed in
+another suburb, Gizeh, in one of the large summer palaces built by the
+former Khedive, Ismail. To reach it one passes through the new quarter
+and crosses the handsome Nile bridge. Not only are all these streets
+watered, but the pedestrian also can have water if he likes. Large
+earthen jars, propped by framework of wood, stand here and there, with
+the drinking-bottle, or kulleh, attached; these jars are replenished by
+the sakkahs, who carry the much-loved Nile water about the streets for
+sale. One passes at regular intervals the light stands, made of split
+sticks, upon which is offered for sale, in flat loaves like pancakes,
+the Cairo bread. There are also the open-air cook shops&mdash;small furnaces,
+like a tin pan with legs; spread out on a board before them are saucers
+containing mysterious compounds, and the cook is in attendance, wearing
+a white apron. These cooks never lack custom; a large majority of the
+poorer class in Cairo obtains its hot food, when it obtains it at all,
+at these impromptu tables. Before long one is sure to meet a file of
+camels. The camel ought to appreciate travellers; there is always a
+tourist murmuring "Oh!" whenever one of these supercilious beasts shows
+himself near the Ezbekiyeh Gardens. The American, indeed, cannot keep
+back the exclamation; perhaps when he was a child he attended (oh, happy
+day!) the circus, and watched with ecstasy the "Grande Orientale Rentr�e
+of the Lights of the Harem"&mdash;two of these strange steeds, ridden by
+dazzling houris in veils of glittering gauze. The camel has remained in
+his mind ever since as the attendant of sultanas; though this impression
+may have become mixed in later years with the constantly recurring
+painting (in a dead-gold frame and red mat) of a camel and an Arab in
+the desert, outlined against a sunset sky. In either<a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a><a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a><a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a> case, however,
+the animal represents something which is as far as possible from an
+American street traversed by horse-cars, and when the inhabitant of this
+street sees the identical creature passing him, engaged not in making
+rentr�es or posing against the sunset, but diligently at work carrying
+stones and mortar for his living, no wonder he feels that he has reached
+a land of dreams.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_183_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_183_sml.jpg" width="550" height="411" alt="A SELLER OF WATER-JUGS, CAIRO. From a photograph by
+Sebah, Cairo" title="A SELLER OF WATER-JUGS, CAIRO. From a photograph by
+Sebah, Cairo" /></a>
+<span class="caption">A SELLER OF WATER-JUGS, CAIRO. From a photograph by
+Sebah, Cairo</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Most of us do not lose our admiration for the Orientalness of the camel.
+But we learn in time that he has been praised for qualities which he
+does not possess. He is industrious, but he continually scolds about his
+industry; he may not trouble one with his thirst, but he revenges
+himself by his sneer. The smile of a camel is the most disdainful thing
+I know. On the other side of the Nile bridge one comes sometimes upon an
+acre of these beasts, all kneeling down in the extraordinary way
+peculiar to them, with their hind-legs turned up; here they chew as they
+rest, and put out their long necks to look at the passers-by. But the
+way to appreciate the neck of a camel is to be on a donkey; then, when
+the creature comes up behind and lopes past you, his neck seems to be
+the highest thing in Cairo&mdash;higher than a mosque.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the bridge the road to Gizeh follows the river. Gizeh itself is
+the typical Nile village, with the low, clustered houses built of Nile
+mud (which looks like yellow-brown stucco), and beautiful feathery palms
+with a minaret or two rising above. The palace stands apart from the
+village, and is surrounded by large gardens. Opposite the central
+portico is the tomb of Mariette Pasha, the founder of the museum&mdash;a high
+sarcophagus designed from an antique model. Mariette Pasha (it may be
+mentioned here that the title Pasha means General, and that of Bey,
+Colonel) was a native of Boulogne. A mummy case in the museum of that<a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a>
+town of schools first attracted his attention towards Egyptian
+antiquities, and in 1850 he came to Egypt. Khedive Said authorized him
+to found a museum; and Said's successor, Ismail, conferred upon him the
+exclusive right to make excavations, placing in his charge all the
+antiquities of Egypt. Mariette used these powers with intelligence and
+energy, giving the rest of his life to the task&mdash;a period of thirty
+years. He died in Cairo, at the age of sixty-one, in January, 1882. This
+Frenchman made many important discoveries, and he preserved to Egypt her
+remaining antiquities; before his time her treasures had been stolen and
+bought by all the world. A thought which haunts all travellers in this
+strange country is, how many more rich stores must still remain hidden!
+The most generally interesting among the recent discoveries was the
+finding of the Pharaohs, in 1881. The story has been given to the world
+in print, therefore it will be only outlined here. But by far the most
+fortunate way is to hear it directly from the lips of the keeper of the
+museum, Emil Brugsch Bey himself, his vivid, briefly direct narration
+adding the last charm to the striking facts. By the museum authorities
+it had been for several years suspected that some one at Luxor (Thebes)
+had discovered a hitherto unopened tomb; for funeral statuettes, papyri,
+and other objects, all of importance, were offered for sale there, one
+by one, and bought by travellers, who, upon their return to Cairo,
+displayed the treasures, without comprehending their value. Watch was
+kept, and suspicion finally centred upon a family of brothers; these
+Arabs at last confessed, and one of them led the way to a place not far
+from the temple called Deir-el-Bahari, which all visitors to Thebes will
+remember. Here, filled with sand, there was a shaft not unlike a well,
+which the man had discovered by chance. When the sand was removed, the
+opening of a<a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a> lateral tunnel was visible below, and this tunnel led into
+the heart of the hill, where, in a rude chamber twenty feet high, were
+piled thirty or more mummy cases, most of them decorated with the royal
+asp. The mummies proved to be those of Sethi the First, the conqueror
+who carried his armies as far into Asia as the Orontes; and of Rameses
+the Great (called Sesostris by the Greeks), the Pharaoh who oppressed
+the Israelites; and of Sethi the Second, the Pharaoh of the Exodus,
+together with other sovereigns and members of their families, princes,
+princesses, and priests. At some unknown period these mummies had been
+taken from the magnificent rock tombs in that terrible Apocalyptic
+Valley of the Kings, not far distant, and hidden in this rough chamber.
+No one knows why this was done; a record of it may yet be discovered.
+But in time all knowledge of the hiding-place was lost, and here the
+Pharaohs remained until that July day in 1881. They were all transported
+across the burning plain and down the Nile to Cairo. Now at last they
+repose in state in an apartment which might well be called a
+throne-room. You reach this great cruciform hall by a handsome double
+stairway; upon entering, you see the Pharaohs ranged in a majestic
+circle, and careless though you may be, unhistorical, practical, you are
+impressed. The features are distinct. Some of the dark faces have
+dignity; others show marked resolution and power. Curiously enough, one
+of them closely resembles Voltaire. This, however, is probably due to
+the fact that Voltaire closely resembled a mummy while living. How would
+it seem, the thought that beings who are to come into existence <span class="smcap">A.D.</span>
+5000 should be able, in the land which we now call the United States of
+America (what will it be called then?), to gaze upon the features of
+some of our Presidents&mdash;for instance, George Washington and Abraham
+Lincoln? I am afraid that the<a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a> fancy is not as striking as it should be,
+for New World ambition grasps without difficulty all futures, even <span class="smcap">A.D.</span>
+25,000; it is only when our eyes are turned towards the past, where we
+have no importance and represent nothing, that an enumeration of
+centuries overpowers us&mdash;a little. But in any case, after visiting
+Egypt, we all learn to hate the art of the embalmer; those who have been
+up the Nile, and beheld the poor relics of mortality offered for sale on
+the shores, become, as it were by force, advocates of cremation.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_188_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_188_sml.jpg" width="550" height="482" alt="STATUE OF PRINCE RAHOTEP&#39;S WIFE
+Gizeh Museum.&mdash;Discovered in 1870 in a tomb near Meydoom.&mdash;According to
+the chronological table of Mariette, it is 5800 years old.&mdash;From a
+photograph by Sebah, Cairo." title="STATUE OF PRINCE RAHOTEP&#39;S WIFE
+Gizeh Museum.&mdash;Discovered in 1870 in a tomb near Meydoom.&mdash;According to
+the chronological table of Mariette, it is 5800 years old.&mdash;From a
+photograph by Sebah, Cairo." /></a><br />
+<span class="caption">STATUE OF PRINCE RAHOTEP&#39;S WIFE<br />Gizeh Museum.&mdash;Discovered in 1870 in a tomb near Meydoom.&mdash;According to
+the chronological table of Mariette,<br />it is 5800 years old.&mdash;From a
+photograph by Sebah, Cairo.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Gizeh Museum is vast; days are required to see all its treasures.
+Among the best of these are two colored statues, the size of life,
+representing Prince Rahotep and his wife; these were discovered in 1870
+in a tomb near Meydoom. Their rock-crystal eyes are so<a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a> bright that the
+Arabs employed in the excavation fled in terror when they came upon the
+long-hidden chamber. They said that two afreets were sitting there,
+ready to spring out and devour all intruders. Railed in from his
+admirers is the intelligent, well-fed, highly popular wooden man, whose
+life-like expression raises a smile upon the faces of all who approach
+him. This figure is not in the least like the Egyptian statues of
+conventional type, with unnaturally placed eyes. As regards the head, it
+might be the likeness of a Berlin merchant of to-day, or it might be a
+successful American bank president after a series of dinners at
+Delmonico's. Yet, strange to say, this, and the wonderful diorite statue
+of Chafra, are the oldest sculptured figures in the world.</p>
+
+<p>One is tempted to describe some of the other treasures of this precious
+and unrivalled collection, as well as to note in detail the odd
+contrasts between Ismail's gayly flowered walls and the solemn
+antiquities ranged below them. "But here is no space," as Lady Mary
+Wortley Montagu would have expressed it. And one of the curious facts
+concerning description is that those who have with their own eyes seen
+the statue, for instance, which is the subject of a writer's pen (and it
+is the same with regard to a landscape, or a country, or whatever you
+please)&mdash;such persons sometimes like to read an account of it, though
+the words are not needed to bring up the true image of the thing
+delineated, whereas those who have never seen the statue&mdash;that is, the
+vast majority&mdash;are, as a general rule, not in the least interested in
+any description of it, long or short, and, indeed, consider all such
+descriptions a bore.</p>
+
+<p>At present the one fault of Gizeh is the absence of a catalogue. But
+catalogues are a mysterious subject, comprehended only by the elect.</p>
+
+<p>One day when I was passing the hot hours in the<a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a> shaded rooms of the
+museum, surrounded by seated granite figures with their hands on their
+knees (the coolest companions I know), I heard chattering and laughter.
+These are unusual sounds in those echoing halls, where unconsciously
+everybody whispers, partly because of the echo, and partly also, I
+think, on account of the mystic mummy cases which stand on end and look
+at one so queerly with their oblique eyes. Presently there came into
+view ten or twelve Cairo ladies, followed by eunuchs, and preceded by a
+guide. The eunuchs were (as eunuchs generally are) hideous, though they
+represented all ages, from a tall lank boy of seventeen to a withered
+old creature well beyond sixty. The Cairo eunuchs are negroes; one
+distinguishes them always by the extreme care with which they are
+dressed. They wear coats and trousers of black broadcloth made in the
+latest European style, with patent-leather shoes, and they are decorated
+with gold chains, seal rings, and scarf-pins; they have one merit as
+regards their appearance&mdash;I know of but one&mdash;they do look clean. The
+ladies were taking their ease; the muffling black silk outer cloaks,
+which all Egyptian women of the upper class wear when they leave the
+house, had been thrown aside; the white face veils had been loosened so
+that they dropped below the chin. It was the hareem of the Minister for
+Foreign Affairs; their carriages were waiting below. The most modest of
+men&mdash;a missionary, for instance, or an entomologist&mdash;would, I suppose,
+have put them to flight; but as the tourist season was over, and as it
+was luncheon-time for Europeans, no one appeared but myself, and the
+ladies strayed hither and thither as they chose, occasionally stopping
+to hear a few words of the explanations which the guide (a woman also)
+was vainly trying to give before each important statue. With one
+exception, these Cairo dames were, to say the least, extremely plump;
+their bare hands were deeply<a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a><a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a><a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a> dimpled, their cheeks round. They all
+had the same very white complexion without rose tints; their features
+were fairly good, though rather thick; the eyes in each case were
+beautiful&mdash;large, dark, lustrous, with sweeping lashes. Their figures,
+under their loose garments, looked like feather pillows. They were
+awkward in bearing and gait, but this might have been owing to the fact
+that their small plump feet (in white open-work cotton stockings) were
+squeezed into very tight French slippers with abnormally high heels,
+upon which it must have been difficult to balance so many dimples. The
+one exception to the rule of billowy beauty was a slender, even meagrely
+formed girl, who in America would pass perhaps for seventeen; probably
+she was three years younger. Her thin, dark, restless face, with its
+beautiful inquiring eyes, was several times close beside mine as we both
+inspected the golden bracelets and ear-rings, the necklaces and fan, of
+Queen Ahhotpu, our sister in vanity of three thousand five hundred years
+ago. I looked more at her than I did at the jewels, and she returned my
+gaze; we might have had a conversation. What would I not have given to
+have been able to talk with her in her own tongue! After a while they
+all assembled in what is called the winter garden, an up-stairs
+apartment, where grass grows over the floor in formal little plots.
+Chairs were brought, and they seated themselves amid this aerial verdure
+to partake of sherbet, which the youngest eunuch handed about with a
+business-like air. While they were still here, much relaxed as regards
+attire and attitude, my attention was attracted by the rush through the
+outer room (where I myself was seated) of the four older eunuchs. They
+had been idling about; they had even gone down the stairs, leaving to
+the youngest of their number the task of serving the sherbet; but now
+they all appeared again, and the swiftness with which<a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a> they crossed the
+outer room and dashed into the winter-garden created a breeze. They
+called to their charges as they came, and there was a general smoothing
+down of draperies. The eunuchs, however, stood upon no ceremony; they
+themselves attired the ladies in the muffling cloaks, and refastened
+their veils securely, as a nurse dresses children, and with quite as
+much authority. I noticed that the handsomer faces showed no especial
+haste to disappear from view; but there was no real resistance; there
+was only a good deal of laughter.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_191_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_191_sml.jpg" width="231" height="550" alt="THE WOODEN MAN Gizeh Museum, near Cairo.&mdash;According to the chronological table of
+Marlette, this statue is over 6000 years old.&mdash;From a photograph by
+Brugsch Bey" title="THE WOODEN MAN Gizeh Museum, near Cairo.&mdash;According to the chronological table of
+Marlette, this statue is over 6000 years old.&mdash;From a photograph by
+Brugsch Bey" /></a><br />
+<span class="caption">THE WOODEN MAN<br />Gizeh Museum, near Cairo.&mdash;According to the chronological table of
+Marlette, this statue is over 6000 years old.&mdash;From a photograph by
+Brugsch Bey</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>I dare say that there was more laughter still (under the veils) when the
+cause of all this haste appeared, coming slowly up the stairs. It was a
+small man of sixty-five or seventy, one of my own countrymen, attired in
+a linen duster and a travel-worn high hat; his silver-haired head was
+bent over his guide-book, and he wore blue spectacles. I don't think he
+saw anything but blue antiquities, safely made of stone.</p>
+
+<p>Hareem carriages (that is, ladies' carriages) in Cairo are large,
+heavily built broughams. The occupants wear thin white muslin or white
+tulle veils tied across the face under the eyes, with an upper band of
+the same material across the forehead; but these veils do not in reality
+hide the features much more closely than do the dotted black or white
+lace veils worn by Europeans. The muffling outer draperies, however,
+completely conceal the figure, and this makes the marked difference
+between them and their English, French, and American sisters in the
+other carriages near at hand. On the box of the brougham, with the
+coachman, the eunuch takes his place. To go out without a eunuch would
+be a humiliation for a Cairo wife; to her view, it would seem to say
+that she is not sufficiently attractive to require a guardian. The
+hareem carriage of a man of importance has not only its eunuch, but also
+its sais, or running footman; often two of them.<a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a> These winged creatures
+precede the carriage; no matter how rapid the pace of the horses, they
+are always in advance, carrying, lightly poised in one hand, high in the
+air, a long lance-like wand. Their gait is the most beautiful motion I
+have ever seen. The Mercury of John of Bologna; the younger gods of
+Olympus&mdash;will these do for comparisons? One calls the sais winged not
+only because of his speed, but also on account of his large white
+sleeves (in English, angel sleeves), which, though lightly caught
+together behind, float out on each side as he runs, like actual wings.
+His costume is rich&mdash;a short velvet jacket thickly embroidered with
+gold; a red cap with long silken tassel; full white trousers which end
+at the knee, leaving the legs and feet bare; and a brilliant scarf
+encircling the small waist. These men are Nubians, and are admirably
+formed; often they are very handsome. Naturally one never sees an old
+one, and it is said that they die young. Their original office was to
+clear a passage for the carriage through the narrow, crowded streets;
+now that the streets are broader, they are not so frequently seen,
+though Egyptians of rank still employ them, not only for their hareem
+carriages, but for their own. They are occasionally seen, also, before
+the victoria or the landau of European residents; but in this case their
+Oriental dress accords ill with the stiff, tight Parisian costumes
+behind them. Now and then one sees them perched on the back seat of an
+English dog-cart, and here they look well; they always sit sidewise,
+with one hand on the back of the seat, as though ready at a moment's
+notice to spring out and begin flying again.</p>
+
+<p>If the figures of the Cairo ladies are always well muffled, one has at
+least abundant opportunity to admire the grace and strength of the women
+of the working classes. When young they have a noble bearing.<a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a> Their
+usual dress is a long gown of very dark blue cotton, a black head veil,
+and a thick black face veil that is kept in its place below the eyes by
+a gilded ornament which looks like an empty spool. Often their
+beautifully shaped slender feet are bare; but even the poorest are
+decked with anklets, bracelets, and necklaces of beads, imitation silver
+or brass. The men of the working classes wear blue gowns also, but the
+blue is of a much lighter hue; many of them, especially the farmers and
+farm laborers (called fellaheen), have wonderfully straight flat backs
+and broad, strong shoulders. Europeans, when walking, appear at a great
+disadvantage beside these loosely robed people; all their movements seem
+cramped when compared with the free, effortless step of the Arab beside
+them.</p>
+
+<h4>THE BAZAARS</h4>
+
+<p>One spends half one's time in the bazaars, perhaps. One admires them and
+adores them; but one feels that their attraction cannot be made clear to
+others by words. Nor can it be by the camera. There are a thousand
+photographic views of Cairo offered for sale, but, with the exception of
+an attempt at the gateway of the Khan Khaleel, not one copy of these
+labyrinths, which is a significant fact. Their charm comes from color,
+and this can be represented by the painter's brush alone. But even the
+painter can render it only in bits. From a selfish point of view we
+might perhaps be glad that there is one spot left on this earth whose
+characteristic aspect cannot be reproduced, either upon the wall or the
+pictured page, whose shimmering vistas must remain a purely personal
+memory. We can say to those who have in their minds the same fantastic
+vision, "Ah, <i>you</i> know!" But we cannot make others know. For what is
+the use of declaring that a<a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a><a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a><a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a> collection of winding lanes, some of them
+not more than three feet broad, opening into and leading out of each
+other, unpaved, dirty, roofed far above, where the high stone houses
+end, with a lattice-work of old mats&mdash;what is the use of declaring that
+this maze is one of the most delightful places in the world? There is no
+use; one must see it to believe it.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 258px;">
+<a href="images/ill_197_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_197_sml.jpg" width="258" height="550" alt="AN EGYPTIAN WOMAN From a photograph by Abdullah Fr�res, Cairo" title="AN EGYPTIAN WOMAN From a photograph by Abdullah Fr�res, Cairo" /></a>
+<span class="caption">AN EGYPTIAN WOMAN<br />From a photograph by Abdullah Fr�res, Cairo</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>We approach the bazaars by the Mooski, a street which has lost all its
+ancient attraction&mdash;which is, in fact, one of the most commonplace
+avenues I know. But near its end the enchantment begins, and whether we
+enter the flag bazaar, the lemon-colored-slipper bazaar, the
+gold-and-silver bazaar, the bazaar of the Soudan, the bazaar of silks
+and embroideries, the bazaar of Turkish carpets, or the lane of perfumes
+felicitously named by the donkey-boys the smell bazaar, we are soon in
+the condition of children before a magician's table. I defy any one to
+resist it. The most tired American business man looks about him with
+awakened interest, the lines of his face relax and turn into the
+wrinkles we associate with laughter, as he sees the small, frontless
+shops, the long-skirted merchants, and the sewing, embroidering,
+cross-legged crowd. The best way, indeed, to view the bazaars is to
+relax&mdash;to relax your ideas of time as well as of pace, and not be in a
+hurry about anything. Accompany some one who is buying, but do not buy
+yourself; then you can have a seat on the divan, and even (as a friend
+of the purchaser) one of those wee cups of black coffee which the
+merchant offers, and which, whether you like it or not, you take,
+because it belongs to the scene. Thus seated, you can look about at your
+ease.</p>
+
+<p>In these days, when every one is rereading the <i>Arabian Nights</i>, the
+learned in Burton's translation, the outside public in Lady Burton's,
+even the most unmethodical of writers feels himself, in connection<a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a> with
+Cairo, forced towards the inevitable allusion to Haroun. But once within
+the precincts of the Khan Khaleel, he does not need to have his fancy
+jogged by Burton or any one else; he thinks of the <i>Arabian Nights</i>
+instinctively, and "it's a poor tale," indeed, to quote Mrs. Poyser, if
+he does not meet the one-eyed calendar in the very first booth. But, as
+has already been said, it is useless to describe. All one can do is to
+set down a few impressions. One of the first of these is the charming
+light. The sunshine of Egypt has a great radiance, but it has also&mdash;and
+this is especially visible when one looks across any breadth of
+landscape&mdash;a pleasant quality of softness; it is a radiance which is
+slightly hazy and slightly golden brown, being in these respects quite
+unlike the pellucid white light of Greece. The Greeks frown; even the
+youngest of the handsome men who go about in ballet-like white
+petticoats and the brimless cap, has the ugly little perpendicular line
+between the eyes, produced by a constant knitting of the brows. Like the
+Greek, the Egyptian also is without protection for his eyes; the
+dragoman wears a small shawl over the fez, which covers the back of the
+neck and sides of the face, the Bedouins have a hood, but the large
+majority of the natives are unprotected. It is said that a Mohammedan
+can have no brim to his turban or tarboosh, because he must place his
+bare forehead upon the ground when he says his prayers, and this without
+removing his head-gear (which would be irreverent). However this may be,
+he goes about in Egypt with the sun in his eyes, though, owing to the
+softer quality of the light, he does not frown as the Greek frowns. For
+those who are not Egyptians, however, the light in Cairo sometimes seems
+too omnipresent; then, for refuge, they can go to the bazaars. The
+sunshine is here cut off horizontally by thick walls, and from above<a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a> it
+is filtered through mats, whose many interstices cause a checker of
+light and shade in an infinite variety of unexpected patterns on the
+ground. This ground is watered. Somehow the air is cool; coming in from
+the bright streets outside is like entering an arbor. The little shops
+resemble cupboards; their floors are about three feet above the street.
+They have no doors at the back. When the merchant wishes to close his
+establishment, he comes out, pulls down the lid, locks it, and goes
+home. A picturesque characteristic is that in many cases the wares are
+simply sold here; they are also made, one by one, upon the spot. You can
+see the brass-workers incising the arabesques of their trays; you can
+see the armorers making arms, the ribbon-makers making ribbons, the
+jewellers blowing their forges, the ivory-carvers bending over their
+delicate task. As soon as each article is finished, it is dusted and
+placed upon the little shelf above, and then the apprentice sets to work
+upon a new one. In addition to the light, another thing one notices is
+the amazing way in which the feet are used. In Cairo one soon becomes as
+familiar with feet as one is elsewhere with hands; it is not merely that
+they are bare; it is that the toes appear to be prehensile, like
+fingers. In the bazaars the embroiderers hold their cloth with their
+toes; the slipper-makers, the flag-cutters, the brass-workers, the
+goldsmiths, employ their second set of fingers almost as much as they
+employ the first. Both the hands and feet of these men are well formed,
+slender, and delicate, and, by the rules of their religion, they are
+bathed five times each day.</p>
+
+<p>Mosques are near where they can get water for this duty. For the bazaars
+are not continuous rows of shops: one comes not infrequently upon the
+ornamental portal of an old Arabian dwelling-house, upon the forgotten
+tomb of a sheykh, with its low dome; one passes<a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a> under stone arches;
+often one sees the doorway of a mosque. Humble-minded dogs, who look
+like jackals, prowl about. The populace trudges through the narrow
+lanes, munching sugar-cane whenever it can get it. Another favorite food
+is the lettuce-plant; but the leaves, which we use for salad, the
+Egyptians throw away; it is the stalk that attracts them.</p>
+
+<p>Lettuce-stalks are not rich food, but the bazaars of the people who eat
+them convey, on the whole, an impression of richness; this is owing to
+the sumptuousness of the prayer carpets, the gold embroideries, the
+gleaming silks, the Oriental brass-work with sentences from the Koran,
+the ivory, the ostrich plumes, the little silver bottles for kohl, the
+inlaid daggers, the turquoises and pearls, and the beautiful gauzes, a
+few of them embroidered with the motto, "I do this work for you," and on
+the reverse side, "And this I do for God." To some persons, the
+far-penetrating mystic sweetness from the perfume bazaar adds an element
+also. Here sit the Persian merchants in their delicate silken robes;
+they weigh incense on tiny scales; they sort the gold-embossed vials of
+attar of roses; their taper fingers move about amid whimsically small
+cabinets and chests of drawers filled with ambrosial mysteries. There is
+magic in names; these merchants are doubly interesting because they come
+from Ispahan! Scanderoun&mdash;there is another; how it rolls off the tongue!
+We do not wish for exact geographical descriptions of these places; that
+would spoil all. We wish to chant, like Kit Marlowe's Tamburlaine (and
+with similar indefiniteness):</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry">
+<tr><td align="left">"Is it not passing brave to be a king,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">And march in triumph through Persepolis?"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"So will I ride through Samarcanda streets,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">... to Babylon, my lords; to Babylon!"</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 385px;">
+<a href="images/ill_203_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_203_sml.jpg" width="385" height="550" alt="THE NILE&mdash;COMING DOWN TO GET WATER From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo" title="THE NILE&mdash;COMING DOWN TO GET WATER From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo" /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE NILE&mdash;COMING DOWN TO GET WATER<br />From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a></p>
+
+<p><a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a></p>
+
+<p>When we leave Cairo we cannot take with us the light of these
+labyrinths; we cannot take their colors; but one traveller, last May,
+having found in an antiquity-shop an ancient perfume-burner, had the
+inspiration of bargaining with these Persians, seated cross-legged in
+their aromatic niches (said traveller on a white donkey outside), for
+small packages of sandal and aloes wood, of myrrh, of frankincense and
+ambergris, of benzoin, of dried rose leaves, and of other Oriental twigs
+and sticks, for the purpose of summing up, later, and in less congenial
+climes perhaps, the spicy atmosphere, at least, of the Cairo bazaars.
+What would be the effect of breathing always this fragrant air? Would it
+give a richer life, would it tinge the cheek with warmer hues? These
+merchants have complexions like cream-tinted tea-roses; their dark eyes
+are clear, and all their movements graceful; they are very tranquil, but
+not in the least sleepy; they look as if they could take part in subtle
+arguments, and pursue the finest chains of reasoning. Would an
+atmosphere perfumed by these Eastern woods clarify and rarefy our denser
+Occidental minds?</p>
+
+<h4>THE NILE</h4>
+
+<p>As every one who comes to Cairo goes up the Nile, the river is seldom
+thought of as it appears during its course past the Khedive's city. This
+simple vision of it is overshadowed by memories of Abydos, of Karnak and
+Thebes, and Phil�&mdash;the great temples on its banks which have impressed
+one so profoundly. Perhaps they have over-impressed; possibly the
+tension of continuous gazing has been kept up too long. In this case the
+victim, with his head in his hands, is ready to echo the (extremely
+true) exclamation of Dudley Warner, "There is nothing on earth so
+tiresome as a row of stone gods standing to receive the offerings of a
+Turveydrop<a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a> of a king!" This was the mental condition of a lady who last
+winter, on a Nile boat, suddenly began to sew. "I have spent nine long
+days on this boat, staring from morning till night. One cannot stare at
+a river forever, even if it <i>is</i> the Nile! Give me my thimble."</p>
+
+<p>One is not obliged to leave Cairo in order to see examples of the
+smaller silhouettes of the great river&mdash;the shadoofs or irrigating
+machines, the rows of palm-trees, the lateen yards clustered near a
+port, and always and forever the women coming down the bank to get water
+from the yellow tide. These processions of women are the most
+characteristic "Nile scene with figures" of the present day. I am not
+sure but that one of their jars, or the smaller gray kulleh (which by
+evaporation keeps the water deliciously cool), would evoke "Egypt" more
+quickly in the minds of most of us than even the portrait of Cleopatra
+herself on the back wall at Denderah. If one is staying in Cairo after
+the tremendous voyage is over, one wanders to the banks every now and
+then to gaze anew at the broad, monotonous stream. It comes from the
+last remaining unknown territory of our star, and this very year has
+seen that space grow smaller. Round about it stand to-day five or six of
+the civilized nations, who have formed a battue, and are driving in the
+game. The old river had a secret, one of the three secrets of the world;
+but though the North and South Poles still remain unmapped, the annual
+rise of its waters will be strange no longer when Lado is a second
+Birmingham. How will it seem when we can telephone to Sennaar (perhaps
+to that ambassador beloved by readers of the Easy Chair), or when there
+is early closing in Darfur?</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_207_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_207_sml.jpg" width="550" height="394" alt="THE DOCK AT OLD CAIRO From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo" title="THE DOCK AT OLD CAIRO From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo" /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE DOCK AT OLD CAIRO<br />From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a></p>
+
+<p>At Cairo, when one rides or drives, one almost always crosses the Nile;
+but Cairo herself does not cross. Her more closely built quarters do not
+even come<a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a> down to the shore. The Nile and Cairo are two distinct
+personalities; they are not one and indivisible, as the Nile and Thebes
+are one, the Nile and Phil�.</p>
+
+<p>The river at Cairo has a dull appearance. Its only beauty comes from the
+towering snow-white sails of the dahabeeyahs and trading craft that
+crowd the stream. It is true that these have a great charm.</p>
+
+<h4>DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE</h4>
+
+<p>In the old quarters this is Arabian. The beauty lies largely in the
+latticed balconies called mouchrabiyehs, which overhang the narrow
+roadways. These bay-windows sometimes stud the fa�ades thickly, now
+large, now small, but always a fretwork of delicate wood-carving. Often
+from the bay projects a second and smaller oriel, also latticed. This is
+the place for the water jar, the current of air through the lattices
+keeping the water cool. An Arabian house has no windows on the
+ground-floor in its outer wall save small air-holes placed very high,
+but above are these mouchrabiyehs, which are made of bits of cedar
+elaborately carved in geometrical designs. The small size of the pieces
+is due to the climate, the heats of the long summer would warp larger
+surfaces of wood; but the delicacy and intricacy of the carving are a
+work of supererogation due to Arabian taste. From the mouchrabiyehs the
+inmates can see the passers-by, but the passers-by cannot see the
+inmates, an essential condition for the carefully guarded privacy of the
+family.</p>
+
+<p>There is in Cairo a personage unconnected with the government who, among
+the native population, is almost as important as the Khedive himself;
+this is the Sheykh Ahmed Mohammed es Sadat, the only descendant in the
+direct line of the Prophet Mohammed now living. He has the right to many
+native titles, though<a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a> he does not put them on his quiet little
+visiting-card, which bears only his name and a mysterious monogram in
+Arabic. By Europeans he is called simply the Sheykh (the word means
+chief) es Sadat. The ancestral dwelling of the sheykh shares in its
+master's distinction. It is pointed out, and, when permission can be
+obtained, visited. It is a typical specimen of Saracenic domestic
+architecture, and has always remained in the possession of the family,
+for whom it was first erected eight hundred years ago. There are in
+Cairo other Arabian houses as beautiful and as ancient as this. By
+diplomatic (and mercenary) arts I gained admittance to three, one of
+which has walls studded with jasper and mother-of-pearl. But these
+exquisite chambers, being half ruined, fill the mind with wicked
+temptations. One longs to lay hands upon the tiles, to bargain for an
+inscription or for a small oriel with the furtive occupants, who have no
+right to sell, the real owners being Arabs of ancient race, who would
+refuse to strip their walls, however crumbling, for unbelievers from
+contemptible, paltry lands beyond the sea. The house of the Sheykh es
+Sadat may not leave one tranquil, for it is tantalizingly picturesque,
+but at least it does not inspire larceny; the presence of many servitors
+prevents that. To reach this residence one leaves (gladly) the Boulevard
+Mohammed Ali, and takes a narrower thoroughfare, the Street of the
+Sycamores, which bends towards the south. This lane winds as it goes,
+following the course of the old canal, the Khaleeg, and one passes many
+of the public fountains, or sebeels, which are almost as numerous in
+Cairo as the mosques. A fountain in Arab signification does not mean a
+jet of water, but simply a place where water can be obtained. The
+sebeels are beautiful structures, often having marble walls, a dome, and
+the richest kind of ornament. The water is either dipped with a cup from
+the basin with<a name="page_197" id="page_197"></a><a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a><a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a>in, or drawn from the brass mouth-pieces placed
+outside. Nothing could represent better, I think, the difference between
+the East and the West than one of these elaborate fountains, covering,
+in a crowded quarter, the space which might have been occupied by two or
+three small houses, adorned with carved stone-work, slabs of porphyry,
+and long inscriptions in gilt, and an iron town pump, its erect
+slenderness taking up no space at all, and its excellent if unbeautiful
+handle standing straight out against the sky.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 291px;">
+<a href="images/ill_211_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_211_sml.jpg" width="291" height="550" alt="MOUCHRABIYEHS IN THE OLD QUARTER" title="MOUCHRABIYEHS IN THE OLD QUARTER" /></a>
+<span class="caption">MOUCHRABIYEHS IN THE OLD QUARTER</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>A narrow lane, leaving the Street of the Sycamores, burrows still more
+deeply into the heart of the quarter, and at last brings us to a porch
+which juts into the roadway, masking, as is usual in Cairo, the real
+doorway, which is within. Upon entering, one finds himself in a
+quadrilateral court, which is open to the sky. An old sycamore shades
+several latticed windows, among them one which contains three of the
+smaller oriels; this portion of the second story rests upon an antique
+marble column. On one side of the column is the low, rough archway
+leading to the porch; on the other, the high decorated marble entrance
+of the reception-hall. For in Arabian houses all the magnificence is
+kept for the interior. In the streets one sees only plain stone walls,
+which are often hidden under a stucco of mud, more or less peeled off,
+so that they look half ruined. In the old quarters of Cairo, among the
+private houses, one obtains, indeed (unless one has an invitation to
+enter), a general impression of ruin. At the back of the sheykh's court
+is the stairway to the hareem, the entrance masked by a gayly colored
+curtain. Across another side extends the private mosque, only half
+hidden by an ornamented grating. One can see the interior and the high
+pulpit decked with the green flag of the Prophet. The walls which
+encircle the court, and which are embellished here and there with Arabic
+inscriptions,<a name="page_198" id="page_198"></a> are of differing heights, as they form parts of separate
+structures which have been erected at various periods through the eight
+centuries. The place is, in fact, an agglomeration of houses, and some
+of the older chambers are crumbling and roofless. The central court
+(which shows its age only in a picturesque trace or two) is adorned with
+at least twenty beautiful mouchrabiyehs, some large, some small, and no
+two on the same level. A charm of Saracenic architecture is that you can
+always make discoveries, nothing is stereotyped; of a dozen delicate
+rosettes standing side by side under a balcony, no two are carved in the
+same design.</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_199" id="page_199"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 362px;">
+<a href="images/ill_215_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_215_sml.jpg" width="362" height="550" alt="INTERIOR COURT OF A NATIVE HOUSE, CAIRO From a photograph by Abdullah Fr�res, Cairo" title="INTERIOR COURT OF A NATIVE HOUSE, CAIRO From a photograph by Abdullah Fr�res, Cairo" /></a>
+<span class="caption">INTERIOR COURT OF A NATIVE HOUSE, CAIRO<br />
+From a photograph by Abdullah Fr�res, Cairo</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="page_200" id="page_200"></a></p>
+
+<p>In a room which stretches back to the garden&mdash;and which at the time of
+our visit was empty, save for a row of antique silver-gilt coffee-pots
+standing on the marble floor&mdash;there is a long, low window, like a band
+in the wall, formed of small carved lattices. The hand of Abbey only, I
+think, could reproduce the beauty of this casement; but instead of the
+charming seventeenth-century English girls whom he would wish to place
+there, realism would demand the hideous eunuchs, with their gold chains
+and scarf-pins; or else (and this would be better) the dignified old
+Arab in a white turban who sat cross-legged in the court with his long
+pipe, his half-closed eyes expressing his disdain for the American
+visitors. The courtesy of the master of the house, however, made up for
+his servitor's scorn. The sheykh is a tall man, somewhat too portly,
+with amiable dark eyes, and a gleam of humor in his face. One scans his
+features with interest, as if to catch some reflection of the Prophet;
+but the rays from an ancestor who walked the earth twelve hundred years
+ago are presumably faint. There is nothing modern in the sheykh's
+attire; his handsome flowing gown is of silk; he wears a turban,
+slippers, and an India shawl wound round his waist like a sash. When the
+air is cool, he shrouds him<a name="page_201" id="page_201"></a>
+self in a large outer cloak of fine dark
+blue cloth, which is lined with white fur. Sometimes Signor Ahmed
+carries in his hand the Mohammedan rosary. This string of beads appears
+to be used as Madame de Sta�l used her "little stick," as the English
+called it (in Italy, more poetically, they named it "a twig of laurel").
+Corrinne must always have this beside her plate at dinner to play with
+before she conversed, or rather declaimed. Her maid, in confidence,
+explained that it was necessary to madame "to stimulate her ideas." One
+often sees the rosary on duty when two Turks are conversing. After a
+while, their subjects failing them, they fall into silence. Then each
+draws out his string from a pocket, and they play with their beads for a
+moment or two, until, inspiration reviving, they begin talking again.
+One hopes that poor Ahmed Mohammed has not been driven to his string too
+often as mental support during dumb visits from Anglo-Saxon tourists,
+who can do nothing but stare at him. The sheykh's reception-hall is
+forty feet wide and sixty feet long. The ceiling, which has the
+Saracenic pendentives in the corners and under the beams, is of wood,
+gilded and painted and carved in the characteristic style which one
+vainly tries to describe. Travellers have likened it to an India shawl;
+to me it seemed to approach more nearly the wrong side of a Persian
+scarf, which shows the many-hued silken ravellings. The effect, as a
+whole, though extraordinarily rich, is yet subdued. The walls are
+encrusted with old blue tiles which mount to the top. At one end of the
+room there is a beautiful wall-fountain. And now comes the other side of
+the story. To enjoy all this beauty, you must not look down; for, alas!
+the marble floor is tightly covered with a modern French carpet; chairs
+and tables of the most ordinary modern designs have taken the place of
+the old divans; and these tables, furthermore, are ornamented with
+hideous<a name="page_202" id="page_202"></a> bouquets of artificial flowers under glass. Finally, the tiles
+which have fallen from the lower part of the walls have not been
+replaced by others; a coarse fresco has been substituted. What would not
+one give to see the sheykh, who is himself a purely Oriental figure,
+seated in this splendid hall of his fathers as it once was, on one of
+the now superseded divans, the marbles of his floor uncovered save for
+his discarded Turkish rugs, the fountain sending forth its rose-water
+spray, perfume burning in the silver receivers, and no encumbering
+furniture save piles of brocaded cushions and a jar or two on the gilded
+shelf.</p>
+
+<p>But we shall never see this. In 1889, 180,594 travellers crossed Egypt
+by way of the Suez Canal. In this item of statistics we have the reason.</p>
+
+<h4>THE PYRAMIDS</h4>
+
+<p>For those who have fair eyesight the pyramids of Gizeh are a part of
+Cairo; their gray triangles against the sky are visible from so many
+points that they soon become as familiar as a neighboring hill. In
+addition, they have been pictured to us so constantly in paintings,
+drawings, engravings, and photographs that one views them at first more
+with recognition than surprise. "There they are! How natural!" And this
+long familiarity makes one shrink from arranging phrases about them.</p>
+
+<p>One thing, however, can be said: when we are in actual fact under them,
+when we can touch them, our easy acquaintance vanishes, and we suddenly
+perceive that we have never comprehended them in the least. The strange
+geometrical walls effect a spiritual change in us; they free us from
+ourselves for a moment, and unconsciously we look back across the past
+to which they belong, and into the future, of which they are a<a name="page_203" id="page_203"></a> part
+much more than we are, as unmindful of our own little cares and
+occupations, and even our own small lives, as though we had never been
+chained to them. It is but a fleeting second, perhaps, that this mental
+emancipation lasts, but it is a second worth having!</p>
+
+<p>One drives to the pyramids in an hour, over a macadamized road. The
+perennial stories about trouble with the Bedouins belong to the past.
+Soldiers and policemen guard the sands as they guard the Cairo streets,
+and the proffer of false antiquities is not more pressing, perhaps, than
+the demands of the beggars in town. These three pyramids of Gizeh are
+those we think of before we have visited Egypt. But there are others;
+including the small ones and those which are ruined, seventy have been
+counted in twenty-five miles from Cairo to Meydoom, and pyramids are to
+be seen in other parts of Egypt. The stories concerning Gizeh and the
+travellers who, from Herodotus down, have visited the colossal tombs,
+are innumerable. I do not know why the one about Lepsius should seem to
+me amusing. This learned man and his party, who were sent to Egypt by
+King Frederick William of Prussia in 1842, celebrated that king's
+birthday by singing in chorus the Prussian national anthem in the centre
+of Cheops. The Bedouins in attendance reported outside that they had
+"prayed all together a loud general prayer."</p>
+
+<p>In connection with the pyramids, the English may be said to have devoted
+themselves principally to measurements. The genius of the French, which
+is ever that of expression, has invented the one great sentence about
+them. So far, the Americans have done nothing by which to distinguish
+themselves; but their time will come, perhaps. One fancies that Edison
+will have something to do with it. In the meanwhile modernity is already
+there. There is a hotel at the foot of Cheops,<a name="page_204" id="page_204"></a> and one hardly knows
+whether to laugh or to cry when one sees lawn-tennis going on there
+daily.</p>
+
+<p>But no matter what lies before us&mdash;even if they should pave the desert,
+and establish an English tramway (or a line of American horse-cars) to
+the Sphinx&mdash;these mighty masses cannot be belittled. There is something
+in the pyramids which overawes our boasted civilization. In their
+presence this seems trivial; it seems an impertinence.</p>
+
+<h4>THE COPTS</h4>
+
+<p>The most interesting of the Coptic churches are at Old Cairo, a mother
+suburb, where the first city was founded by the conquering Arabian army.
+Here, ensconced amid hill-like mounds of rubbish, concealed behind mud
+walls, hidden at the end of blind alleys, one finds the temples of these
+native Christians, who are the descendants of the converts of St. Mark.
+The exterior walls have no importance. In truth, one seldom sees them,
+for the churches are within other structures. Some of them form part of
+old fortified convents; one is reached by passing through the
+dwelling-rooms of an inhabited house; another is up-stairs in a Roman
+tower. You arrive somehow at a door. When this is opened, you find
+yourself in a church whose general aspect is rough, and whose aisles are
+adorned with dust and sometimes with dirt. But these temples have their
+treasures. Chief among them are the high choir screens of dark wood,
+elaborately carved in panels, and decorated with morsels of ivory which
+have grown yellow from age. The sculpture is not open-work; it does not
+go through the panel; it is done in relief. The designs are Saracenic,
+but these geometrical patterns are interrupted every now and then by
+Christian emblems and by the Coptic cross. The style of this
+wood-carving<a name="page_205" id="page_205"></a> is unique; no other sculpture resembles it. If it does not
+quite attain beauty, it is at least very odd and rich. There are also
+carved doors representing Scriptural subjects, marble pulpits, singular
+bronze candlesticks, brass censers adorned with little bells,
+silver-gilt gospel-cases, embroidered vestments, silver
+marriage-diadems, ostrich eggs in metal cases, and old Byzantine
+paintings, often representing St. George, for St. George is the patron
+saint of the Copts.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_221_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_221_sml.jpg" width="550" height="537" alt="A DONKEY RIDE" title="A DONKEY RIDE" /></a>
+<span class="caption">A DONKEY RIDE</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>These people esteem themselves to be the true descendants of the ancient
+Egyptians, as distinguished from the conquering race of Arabians who
+have now overrun their land. It is a comical idea, but they call<a name="page_206" id="page_206"></a> upon
+us to note their close resemblance to the mummies. Early converts to
+Christianity, they have remained faithful to their belief amid the
+Mohammedan population all about them. It must be mentioned, however,
+that they had been pronounced heretics by the Council of Chalcedon
+before the Arabian conquest; for they had refused to worship the human
+nature of Christ, revering His divine nature alone. They are the
+guardians of the Christian legends of Egypt. In a crypt under one of
+their churches they show two niches. One, they say, was the
+sleeping-place of Joseph, and the other of the Virgin and Child, during
+the flight into Egypt. Near Heliopolis is an ancient tree, under whose
+branches the Holy Family are supposed to have rested when the sunshine
+was too hot for further travelling.</p>
+
+<p>There are between four and five hundred thousand Copts in Egypt. It may
+be mentioned here that the Christians of the country, including all
+branches of the faith, number to-day about six hundred thousand, or
+one-tenth of the population. The Copts are the book-keepers and scribes;
+they are also the jewellers and embroiderers. Their ancient tongue has
+fallen into disuse, and is practically a dead language. They now use
+Arabic, like all the rest of the nation; but the speech survives in
+their church service, a part of which is still given in the old tongue,
+though it is said that even the priests themselves do not always
+understand what they are saying, having merely learned the sentences by
+heart, so that they can repeat them as a matter of form. Copts have been
+converted to Protestantism during these latter days by the American
+missionaries.</p>
+
+<p>They are not, in appearance, an attractive people. Their convents and
+churches, at least in Cairo and its neighborhood, are so hidden away,
+inaccessible, and<a name="page_207" id="page_207"></a> dirty that they are but slightly appreciated by the
+majority of travellers, who spend far more of their time among the
+mosques of Mohammed. But both the people and their ancient language are
+full of interest from an historical point of view. They form a field for
+research which will give some day rich results. A little has been done,
+and well done; but much still remains hidden. It has yet to be dug out
+by the learned. Then it must be translated by the middle-men into those
+agreeable little histories which, with agreeable little tunes, agreeable
+little stories, and agreeable little pictures, are the delight of the
+many.</p>
+
+<h4>KIEF</h4>
+
+<p>The large modern caf�s of Cairo are imitations of the caf�s of Paris.
+They are uninteresting, save that one sees under their awnings, or at
+the little tables within, the stambouline in all its glory and
+ugliness&mdash;that is, the heavy black frock-coat with stiff collar, which,
+with the fez or tarboosh, is the appointed costume for all persons who
+are employed by the government. The stranger, observing the large number
+of men of all ages in this attire, is led to the conclusion that the
+government must employ many thousands of persons in Cairo alone; but
+probably there is a permitted usage in connection with it, like that
+mysterious legend&mdash;"By especial appointment to the Queen"&mdash;which one
+sees so often in England inscribed over the doors of little shops in
+provincial High Streets, where the inns have names which to Americans
+are as fantastic as anything in "Tartarin;" the "White Horse;" the "Crab
+and Lobster;" the "Three Choughs;" and the "Five Alls."</p>
+
+<p>The native caf�s have much more local color than the homes of the
+stambouline. Outside are rows of<a name="page_208" id="page_208"></a> high wooden settees, upon which the
+patrons of the establishment sit cross-legged, their slippers left on
+the ground below. One often sees a row of Arabs squatting here, holding
+no communication with each other, hearing nothing, seeing nothing,
+enjoying for the moment an absolute rest. This period of daily repose,
+called kief, is a necessity for Egyptians. It has its overweight, its
+excess, in the smoking of hasheesh, which is one of the curses of the
+land; but thousands of the people who never touch hasheesh would
+understand as little how to get through their day without this
+interregnum as without eating; in fact, eating is less important to
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The Egyptian often takes his rest at the caf�. When the American sees
+Achmet and Ibrahim, who have attended to some of his errands for
+infinitesimal wages&mdash;men whose sole possessions are the old cotton gowns
+on their backs&mdash;when he sees them squatted in broad daylight at the
+caf�, smoking the long pipes and slowly drinking the Mocha coffee, it
+appears to him an inexplicable idleness, an incurable self-indulgence.
+It is idleness, no doubt, but associations should not be mixed with the
+subject. To the American the little cup of after-dinner coffee seems a
+luxury. He does not always stop to remember that Achmet's coffee is,
+very possibly, all the dinner he is to have; that it has been preceded
+by nothing since daylight but a small piece of Egyptian bread, and that
+it will be followed by nothing before bedtime but a mouthful of beans or
+a lettuce-stalk. The daily rest is by no means taken always at the caf�.
+Egyptians also take it at the baths, where, after the final douche, they
+spend half an hour in motionless ease. For those who have not the paras
+for the caf� or the bath, the mosques offer their shaded courts. When
+there is no time to seek another place, the men take their rest wherever
+they are. One often<a name="page_211" id="page_211"></a><a name="page_210" id="page_210"></a><a name="page_209" id="page_209"></a> sees them lying asleep, or apparently asleep, in
+their booths at the bazaars. The very beggars draw their rags round
+them, cover their faces, and lie down close to a wall in the crowded
+lanes.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_225_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_225_sml.jpg" width="550" height="386" alt="AN ARAB CAF� From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo" title="AN ARAB CAF� From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo" /></a>
+<span class="caption">AN ARAB CAF�<br />From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>At the caf�s, during another stage of the rest, games are played, the
+favorites being dominos, backgammon, and chess. Sometimes a story-teller
+entertains the circle. He narrates the deeds of Antar and legends of
+adventure; he also tells stories from the Bible, such as the tale of the
+flood, or of Daniel in the den of lions. Sometimes he recites, in
+Arabic, the poems of Omar Khayyam.</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry">
+<tr><td align="left">"I sent my soul through the invisible,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp; Some letter of that after-life to spell;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">And by-and-by my soul returned to me,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp; And answered, 'I myself am heaven and hell!'"</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>This verse of the Persian poet might be taken as the motto of kief; for
+if the heaven or hell of each person is simply the condition of his own
+mind, then if he is able every day to reduce his mind, even for a
+half-hour only, to a happy tranquillity which has forgotten all its
+troubles, has he not gained that amount of paradise?<a name="page_212" id="page_212"></a></p>
+
+<h4>II</h4>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_228_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_228_sml.jpg" width="550" height="223" alt="city view" title="city view" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<p class="nind"><span class="figleft" style="width: 450px;">
+<a href="images/ill_228arabic_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_228arabic_sml.jpg" width="450" height="42" alt="arabic" title="arabic" /></a>
+</span> "I love the Arabian language for three reasons: because I am an Arab
+myself; because the Koran is in Arabic; because Arabic is the language
+of Paradise." This hadith, or saying, of Mohammed might be put upon the
+banner of the old university of Cairo, El Azhar; that is, the Splendid.
+El Azhar was founded in the tenth century, when Cairo itself was hardly
+more than a name. In its unmoved attachment to the beliefs of its
+founders, to their old enthusiasms, their methods and hates, El Azhar
+has opposed an inflexible front to the advance of European ideas,
+sending out year after year its hundreds of pupils to all parts of Egypt
+and to Nubia, to the Soudan and to Morocco, to Turkey, Arabia, and
+Syria, to India and Ceylon, and to the borders of Persia, believing that
+so long as it could keep the education of the young in its grasp the
+reign of the Prophet was secure. It is to-day the most important
+Mohammedan college in the world; for though it has no longer the twenty
+thousand students who crowded its courts in the thirteenth and
+fourteenth centuries, there is still an annual attendance of from seven
+to ten thousand; by some authorities the number is given as twelve
+thousand. The twelve thousand have no academic groves; they have not
+even one tree. There<a name="page_213" id="page_213"></a> is nothing sequestered about El Azhar; it is near
+the bazaars in the old part of the town, where the houses are crowded
+together like wasps' nests. One sees nothing of it as one approaches
+save the minarets above, and in the narrow, crowded lane an outer
+portal. Here the visitor must show his permit and put on the
+mosque-shoes, for El Azhar was once a mosque, and is now mosque and
+university combined. After the shoes are on he steps over the low bar,
+and finds himself within the porch, which is a marvel as it stands, with
+its fretwork, carved stones, faded reds, and those old plaques of
+inscription which excite one's curiosity so desperately, and which no
+dragoman can ever translate, no matter in how many languages he can
+complacently ask, "You satisfi?" One soon learns something of the older
+tongue; hieroglyphics are not difficult; any one with eyes can discover
+after a while that the A of the ancient Egyptians is, often, a bird who
+bears a strong resemblance to a pigeon; that their L is a lion; and that
+the name of the builder of the Great Pyramid, for instance, is
+represented by a design which looks like two freshly hatched chickens, a
+football, and a horned lizard (speaking, of course, respectfully of them
+all). But one can never find out the meaning of the tantalizing
+characters, so many thousand years nearer our own day, which confront
+us, surrounded by arabesques, over old Cairo gateways, across the fronts
+of the street fountains, or inscribed in faded gilt on the crumbling
+walls of mosques. It is probable that they are Kufic, and one would
+hardly demand, I suppose, that an English guide should read
+black-letter? But who can be reasonable in the land of Aladdin's Lamp?</p>
+
+<p>The porch leads to the large central court, which is open to the sky,
+the breeze, and the birds; and this last is not merely a possibility,
+for birds of all kinds are numerous in Egypt, and unmolested. On the
+pavement of<a name="page_214" id="page_214"></a> this court, squatting in groups, are hundreds of the
+turbaned students, some studying aloud, some reading aloud (it is always
+aloud), some listening to a professor (who also squats), some eating
+their frugal meals, some mending their clothes, and some merely
+chatting. These groups are so many and so close together that often the
+visitor can only make the circuit of the place on its outskirts; he
+cannot cross. There is generally a carrier of drinking-water making his
+rounds amid the serried ranks. "For whoever is thirsty, here is water
+from God," he chants. One is almost afraid to put down the melodious
+phrase, for the street cries of Cairo have become as trite as the <i>Ranz
+des Vaches</i> of Switzerland. Still, some of them are so imaginative and
+quaint that they should be rescued from triteness and made classic. Here
+is one which is chanted by the seller of vegetables&mdash;the best beans, it
+should be explained, come from Embebeh, beyond Boulak&mdash;"Help, O Embebeh,
+help! The beans of Embebeh are better than almonds. Oh-h, how <i>sweet</i>
+are the little sons of the river!" (This last phrase makes poetical
+allusion to the soaking in Nile water, which is required before the
+beans can be cooked.) Certain famous baked beans nearer home also
+require preliminary soaking. Let us imagine a huckster calling out in
+Boston streets, as he pursues his way: "Help, O Beverly, help! The beans
+of Beverly are better than peaches. Oh-h, how <i>sweet</i> are the little
+sons of Cochituate!"</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_215" id="page_215"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 360px;">
+<a href="images/ill_231_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_231_sml.jpg" width="360" height="550" alt="PORCH OF EL AZHAR From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo" title="PORCH OF EL AZHAR From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo" /></a>
+<span class="caption">PORCH OF EL AZHAR<br />From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="page_216" id="page_216"></a></p>
+
+<p>The central court of the Splendid is surrounded by colonnades, whose
+walls are now undergoing repairs; but the propping beams do not appear
+to disturb either the pupils or teachers. On the east side is the
+sanctuary, which is also a school-room, but a covered one; it is a
+large, low-ceilinged hall, covering an area of thirty-six hundred square
+yards; by day its light is dusky; by night it is illuminated by twelve
+hundred twinkling little<a name="page_217" id="page_217"></a> lamps suspended from the ceiling by bronze
+chains. The roof is supported by three hundred and eighty antique
+columns of marble and granite placed in irregular ranges; there are so
+many of these pillars that to be among them is like standing in a grove.
+The pavement is smoothly covered with straw matting; and here also are
+assembled throngs of pupils&mdash;some studying, some reciting, some asleep.
+I paid many visits to El Azhar, moving about quietly with my venerable
+little dragoman, whom I had selected for an unusual
+accomplishment&mdash;silence. One day I came upon an arithmetic class; the
+professor, a thin, ardent-eyed man of forty, was squatted upon a
+beautiful Turkish rug at the base of a granite column; his class of
+boys, numbering thirty, were squatted in a half-circle facing him, their
+slates on the matting before them. The professor had a small black-board
+which he had propped up so that all could see it, and there on its
+surface I saw inscribed that enemy of my own youth, a sum in
+fractions&mdash;three-eighths of seven-ninths of twelve-twentieths of
+ten-thirty-fifths, and so on; evidently the terrible thing is as savage
+as ever! The professor grew excited; he harangued his pupils; he did the
+sum over and over, rubbing out and rewriting his ferocious conundrum
+with a bit of chalk. Slender Arabian hands tried the sum furtively on
+the little slates; but no one had accomplished the task when, afraid of
+being remarked, I at last turned away.</p>
+
+<p>The outfit of a well-provided student at El Azhar consists of a rug, a
+low desk like a small portfolio-easel, a Koran, a slate, an inkstand,
+and an earthen dish. Instruction is free, and boys are admitted at the
+early age of eight years. The majority of the pupils do not remain after
+their twelfth or fourteenth year; a large number, however, pursue their
+studies much longer, and old students return from time to time to obtain
+further<a name="page_218" id="page_218"></a> instruction, so that it is not uncommon to see a gray-bearded
+pupil studying by the side of a child who might be his grandson. To me
+it seemed that two-thirds of the students were men between thirty and
+forty years of age; but this may have been because one noticed them
+more, as collegians so mature are an unusual sight for American eyes.</p>
+
+<p>All the pupils bow as they study, with a motion like that of the bowing
+porcelain mandarins. The custom is attributed to the necessity for
+bending the head whenever the name of Allah is encountered; as the first
+text-book is always the Koran, children have found it easier to bow at
+regular intervals with an even motion than to watch for the numerous
+repetitions of the name. The habit thus formed in childhood remains, and
+one often sees old merchants in the bazaars reading for their own
+entertainment, and bowing to and fro as they read. I have even beheld
+young men, smartly dressed in full European attire, who, lost in the
+interest of a newspaper, had forgotten themselves for the moment, and
+were bending to and fro unconsciously at the door of a French caf�. A
+nation that enjoys the rocking-chair ought to understand this. Some of
+the students of El Azhar have rooms outside, but many of them possess no
+other shelter than these two courts, where they sleep upon their rugs
+spread over the matting or pavement. Food can be brought in at pleasure,
+but those two Oriental time-consumers, pipes and coffee, are not allowed
+within the precincts. In one of the porches barbers are established;
+there is generally a row of students undergoing the process of
+head-shaving. The fierce, fanatical blind pupils, so often described in
+the past by travellers, are no longer there; the porter can show only
+their empty school-room. Blindness is prevalent in Egypt; no doubt the
+sunshine of the long summer has something to do with it, but another
+cause is the neglected condition<a name="page_219" id="page_219"></a> of young children. There is no belief
+so firmly established in the minds of Egyptian mothers as the
+superstition that the child who is clean and well-dressed will
+inevitably attract the dreaded evil-eye, and suffer ever afterwards from
+the effects of the malign glance. I have seen women who evidently
+belonged to the upper ranks of the middle class&mdash;women dressed in silk,
+with gold ornaments, and a following servant&mdash;who were accompanied by a
+poor baby of two or three years of age, so dirty, so squalid and
+neglected, that any one unacquainted with the country would have
+supposed it to be the child of a beggar.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to the bowing motion, instruction at El Azhar is aided by a
+mnemonic system, the rules of grammar, and other lessons also, being
+given in rhyme. I suppose our public schools are above devices of this
+sort; but there are some of us among the elders who still fly mentally,
+when the subject of English history comes up, to that useful poem
+beginning "First, William the Norman;" and I have heard of the rules for
+the use of "shall" and "will" being properly remembered only when set to
+the tune of "Scotland's burning!" Surely any tune&mdash;even "Man the
+Life-boat"&mdash;would become valuable if it could clear up the bogs of the
+subjunctive.</p>
+
+<p>It must be mentioned that El Azhar did not invent its mnemonics; it has
+inherited them from the past. All the medi�val universities made use of
+the system.</p>
+
+<p>The central court is surrounded on three sides by chambers, one of which
+belongs to each country and to each Egyptian province represented at the
+college. These sombre apartments are filled with oddly-shaped wardrobes,
+which are assigned to the students for their clothes. There is a legend
+connected with these rooms: At dusk a man whose heart is pure is
+sometimes permitted to see the elves who come at that hour to play<a name="page_220" id="page_220"></a>
+games in the inner court under the columns; here they run races, they
+chase each other over the matting, they climb the pillars, and indulge
+in a thousand antics. The little creatures are said to live in the
+wardrobes, and each student occasionally places a few flowers within, to
+avert from himself the danger that comes from their too great love of
+tricks. There are other inhabitants of these rooms who also indulge in
+tricks. These are little animals which I took to be ferrets; twice I had
+a glimpse of a disappearing tail, like a dark flash, as I passed over a
+threshold. Probably they are kept as mouse-hunters, for pets are not
+allowed; if they were, it would be entertaining to note those which
+would be brought hither by homesick pupils from the Somali coast, or
+Yemen.</p>
+
+<p>In beginning his education the first task for a boy is to commit the
+Koran to memory. As he learns a portion he is taught to read and to
+write those paragraphs; in this way he goes through the entire volume.
+Grammar comes next; at El Azhar the word includes logic, rhetoric,
+composition, versification, elocution, and other branches. Then follows
+law, secular and religious. But the law, like the logic, like all the
+instruction, is founded exclusively upon the Koran. As there is no
+inquiry into anything new, the precepts have naturally taken a fixed
+shape; the rules were long ago established, and they have never been
+altered; the student of 1890 receives the information given to the
+student of 1490, and no more. But it is this very fact which makes El
+Azhar interesting to the looker-on; it is a living relic, a survival in
+the nineteenth century of the university of the fourteenth and
+fifteenth. It is true that when we think of those great colleges of the
+past, the picture which rises in the mind is not one of turbaned, seated
+figures in flowing robes; it is rather of aggressively agile youths,
+with small braggadocio<a name="page_223" id="page_223"></a><a name="page_222" id="page_222"></a><a name="page_221" id="page_221"></a> caps perched on their long locks, their
+slender waists outlined in the shortest of jackets, and their long legs
+incased in the tightest of party-colored hose. But this is because the
+great painters of the past have given immortality to these astonishing
+scholars of their own lands by putting them upon their canvases. They
+confined themselves to their own lands too, unfortunately for us; they
+did not set sail, with their colors and brushes, upon Homer's "misty
+deep." It would be interesting to see what Pinturicchio would have made
+of El Azhar; or how Gentile da Fabriano would have copied the crowded
+outer court.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_237_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_237_sml.jpg" width="550" height="368" alt="STUDENTS IN THE OUTER COURT, EL AZHAR From a photograph
+by Abdullah Fr�res, Cairo" title="STUDENTS IN THE OUTER COURT, EL AZHAR From a photograph
+by Abdullah Fr�res, Cairo" /></a>
+<span class="caption">STUDENTS IN THE OUTER COURT, EL AZHAR From a photograph
+by Abdullah Fr�res, Cairo</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The president of El Azhar occupies, in native estimation, a position of
+the highest authority. Napoleon, recognizing this power, requested the
+aid of his influence in inducing Cairo to surrender in 1798. The sheykh
+complied; and a month later the wonderful Frenchman, in full Oriental
+costume, visited the university in state, and listened to a recitation
+from the Koran.</p>
+
+<p>Now that modern schools have been established by the government in
+addition to the excellent and energetic mission seminaries maintained by
+the English, the Americans, the Germans, and the French, one wonders
+whether this venerable Arabian college will modify its tenets or shrink
+to a shadow and disappear. There are hopeful souls who prophesy the
+former; but I do not agree with them. Let us aid the American schools by
+all the means in our power. But as for El Azhar, may it fade (as fade it
+must) with its ancient legends draped untouched about it.</p>
+
+<p>All who visit Cairo see the Assiout ware&mdash;pottery made of red and black
+earth, and turned on a wheel; it comes from Assiout, two hundred and
+thirty miles up the Nile, and the simple forms of the vases and jugs,
+the rose-water stoups and narrow-necked perfume-throwers,<a name="page_224" id="page_224"></a> are often
+very graceful. Assiout ware is offered for sale in the streets; but the
+itinerant venders are sent out by a dealer in the bazaars, and the
+fatality which makes it happen that the vender has two black stoups and
+one red jug when you wish for one black stoup and two red jugs sent us
+to headquarters. But the crowded booth did not contain our heart's
+desire, and as we still lingered, making ourselves, I dare say, too
+pressing for the Oriental ease of the proprietor, it was at last
+suggested that Mustapha might perhaps go to the store-room for more&mdash;?
+(the interrogation-point meaning backsheesh). Seizing the opportunity,
+we asked permission to accompany the messenger. No one objecting&mdash;as the
+natives consider all strangers more or less mad&mdash;we were soon following
+our guide through a dusky passageway behind the shop, the darkness lit
+by the gleam of his white teeth as he turned, every now and then, to
+give us an encouraging smile and a wink of his one eye, over his
+shoulder. At length&mdash;still in the dark&mdash;we arrived at a stairway, and,
+ascending, found ourselves in a second-story court, which was roofed
+over with matting. This court was surrounded by chambers fitted with
+rough, sliding fronts: almost all of the fronts were at the moment
+thrown up, as a window is thrown up and held by its pulleys. In one of
+these rooms we found Assiout ware in all its varieties; but we made a
+slow choice. We were evidently in a lodging-house of native Cairo; all
+the chambers save this one store-room appeared to be occupied as
+bachelors' apartments. The two rooms nearest us belonged to El Azhar
+students, so Mustapha said: he could speak no English, but he imparted
+the information in Arabic to our dragoman. Seeing that we were more
+interested in the general scene than in his red jugs, Mustapha left the
+Assiout ware to its fate, and, lighting a cigarette, seated himself on
+the railing with a disengaged<a name="page_225" id="page_225"></a> air, as much as to say: "Two more mad
+women! But it's nothing to me." One of the students was evidently an
+ascetic; his room contained piles of books and pamphlets, and almost
+nothing else; his one rug was spread out close to the front in order to
+get the light, and placed upon it we saw his open inkstand, his pens,
+and a page of freshly copied manuscript. When we asked where he was,
+Mustapha replied that he had gone down to the fountain to wash himself,
+so that he could say his prayers. The second chamber belonged to a
+student of another disposition; this extravagant young man had three
+rugs; clothes hung from pegs upon his walls, and he possessed an extra
+pair of lemon-colored slippers; in addition we saw cups and saucers upon
+a shelf. Only two books were visible, and these were put away in a
+corner; instead of books he had flowers; the whole place was adorned
+with them; pots containing plants in full bloom were standing on the
+floor round the walls of his largely exposed abode, and were also drawn
+up in two rows in the passageway outside, where he himself, sitting on a
+mat, was sewing. His blossoms were so gay that involuntarily we smiled.
+Whereupon he smiled too, and gave us a salam. Opposite the rooms of the
+students there was a large chamber, almost entirely filled with white
+bales, like small cotton bales; in a niche between these high piles, an
+old man, kneeling at the threshold, was washing something in a large
+earthen-ware tub of a pink tint. His body was bare from the waist
+upward, and, as he bent over his task, his short chest, with all the
+ribs clearly visible, his long brown back with the vertebr� of the spine
+standing out, and his lean, seesawing arms, looked skeleton-like, while
+his head, supported on a small wizened throat, was adorned with such an
+enormous bobbing turban, dark green in hue, that it resembled vegetation
+of some sort&mdash;a colossal cabbage. Directly<a name="page_226" id="page_226"></a> behind him, also on the
+threshold, squatted a large gray baboon, whose countenance expressed a
+fixed misanthropy. Every now and then this creature, who was secured by
+a long, loose cord, ascended slowly to the top of the bales and came
+down on the other side, facing his master. He then looked deeply into
+the tub for several minutes, touched the water carefully with his small
+black hand, withdrew it, and inspected the palm, and then returned
+gravely, and by the same roundabout way over the bales, to resume his
+position at the doorsill, looking as if he could not understand the
+folly of such unnecessary and silly toil.</p>
+
+<p>In another chamber a large, very black negro, dressed in pure white, was
+seated upon the floor, with his feet stretched out in front of him, his
+hands placed stiffly on his knees, his eyes staring straight before him.
+He was motionless; he seemed hardly to breathe.</p>
+
+<p>"What is he doing?" I said to the dragoman.</p>
+
+<p>"He? Oh, he <i>berry</i> good man; he pray."</p>
+
+<p>In a chamber next to the negro two grave old Arabs were playing chess.
+They were perched upon one of those Cairo settees which look like square
+chicken-coops. One often sees these seats in the streets, placed for
+messengers and porters, and for some time I took them for actual
+chicken-coops, and wondered why they were always empty. Chickens might
+well have inhabited the one used by the chess-players, for the central
+court upon which all these chambers opened was covered with a layer of
+rubbish and dirt several inches thick, which contained many of their
+feathers. It was upon this same day that we made our search for the Khan
+of Kait Bey. No dragoman knows where it is. The best way, indeed, to see
+the old quarters is to select from a map the name of a street as remote
+as possible from the usual thoroughfares beloved by these tasselled
+guides, and then demand to be conducted thither.<a name="page_227" id="page_227"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 353px;">
+<a href="images/ill_243_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_243_sml.jpg" width="353" height="550" alt="BEFORE THE SACRED NICHE
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo" title="BEFORE THE SACRED NICHE
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo" /></a>
+<span class="caption">BEFORE THE SACRED NICHE<br />From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo</span>
+</div><p><a name="page_229" id="page_229"></a><a name="page_228" id="page_228"></a></p>
+
+<p>We did this in connection with the Khan of Kait Bey. But when we had
+achieved the distinction of finding it, we discovered that it was
+impossible to see it. The winding street is so narrow, and so constantly
+crowded with two opposed streams of traffic, that your donkey cannot
+pause to give you a chance to inspect the portion which is close to your
+eyes, and there is no spot where you can get a view in perspective of
+the whole. So you pass up the lane, turn, and come down again; and, if
+conscientious, you repeat the process, obtaining for all your pains only
+a confused impression of horizontal plaques and panels, with ruined
+walls tottering above them, and squalid shops below. There is a fine
+arched gateway adorned with pendentives; that, on account of its size,
+you can see; it leads into the khan proper, where were once the chambers
+for the travelling merchants and the stalls for their beasts; but all
+this is now a ruin. One of the best authorities on Saracenic art has
+announced that this khan is adorned with more varieties of exquisite
+arabesques than any single building in Cairo. This may be true. But to
+appreciate the truth of the statement one needs wings or a ladder. The
+word ladder opens the subject of the two ways of looking at
+architecture&mdash;in detail or as a whole. The natural power of the eye has
+more to do with this than is acknowledged. If one can distinctly see,
+without effort and aid, a whole fa�ade at a glance, with the general
+effect of its proportions, the style of its ornament, the lights and
+shadows, the outline of the top against the sky, one is more interested
+in this than in the small traceries, for instance, over one especial
+window. There are those of us who remember the English cathedrals by
+their great towers rising in the gray air, with the birds flying about
+them. There are others who, never having clearly seen this vision&mdash;for
+no opera-glass can give the whole&mdash;recall, for their share of the
+pleasure,<a name="page_230" id="page_230"></a> the details of the carvings over the porches, or of the old
+tombs within. It is simply the far-sighted and the near-sighted view.
+Another authority, a master who has had many disciples, has (of late
+years, at least) devoted himself principally to the near-sighted view.
+In his maroon-colored Tracts on Venice he has given us a minute account
+of the features of the small faces of the capitals of the columns of the
+Doge's palace (all these ofs express the minuteness of it); but when we
+stand on the pavement below the palace&mdash;and naturally we cannot stand in
+mid-air&mdash;we find that it is impossible to follow him: I speak of the old
+capitals, some of which are still untouched. The solution lies in the
+ladder. And Ruskin, as regards his later writings, may be called the
+ladder critic. The poet Longfellow, arriving in Verona during one of his
+Italian journeys, learned that Ruskin was also there, and not finding
+him at the hotel, went out in search of his friend. After a while he
+came upon him at the Tombs of the Scaligers. Here high in the air, at
+the top of a long ladder, with a servant keeping watch below, was a
+small figure. It was Ruskin, who, nose to nose with them, was making a
+careful drawing of some of the delicate terminal ornaments of those
+splendid Gothic structures. One does not object to the careful drawings
+any more than to the descriptions of the little faces at Venice. They
+are good in their way. But one wishes to put upon record the suggestion
+that architectural beauty as viewed from a ladder, inch by inch, is not
+the only aspect of that beauty; nor is it, for a large number of us, the
+most important aspect. A man who is somewhat deaf, if talking about a
+symphony, will naturally dwell upon the strains which he has heard&mdash;that
+is, the louder portions; but he ought not therefore to assume that the
+softer notes are insignificant.<a name="page_231" id="page_231"></a></p>
+
+<h4>THE DERVISHES</h4>
+
+<p>On the 31st of January, 1890, we took part in a horse-race. It was a
+long race of great violence, and the horses engaged in it were
+disgracefully thin and weak. "Very Mohammedan&mdash;that," some one comments.
+The race was Mohammedan from one point of view, for it was connected
+with the dervishes, Mohammedans of fanatical creed. The dervishes,
+however, remained in their monasteries&mdash;with their fanaticism; the race
+was made by Christians, who, crowded into rattling carriages, flew in a
+body from the square of Sultan Hassan through the long, winding lanes
+that lead towards Old Cairo at a speed which endangered everybody's
+life, with wheels grating against each other, coachmen standing up and
+yelling like demons, whiplashes curling round the ribs of the wretched,
+ill-fed, galloping horses, and natives darting into their houses on each
+side to save themselves from death, as the furious procession, in clouds
+of dust, rushed by. The cause of this sudden madness is found in the
+fact that the two best-known orders of these Mohammedan monks (one calls
+them monks for want of a better name; they have some resemblance to
+monks, and some to Freemasons) go through their rites once a week only,
+and upon the same afternoon; by making this desperate haste it is
+possible to see both services; and as travellers, for the most part,
+make but a short stay in Cairo, they find themselves taking part,
+<i>nolens volens</i>, in this frantic progress, led by their ambitious
+dragomans, who appear to enjoy it. The service of the Dancing Dervishes
+takes place in their mosque, which is near the square of Sultan Hassan.
+Here they have a small circular hall; round this arena, and elevated
+slightly above it, is an aisle where spectators are allowed to stand;
+over the aisle is the gallery. This January day brought a crowd<a name="page_232" id="page_232"></a> of
+visitors who filled the aisle completely. Presently a dervish made the
+circuit of the empty arena, warning, by a solemn gesture, those who had
+seated or half-seated themselves upon the balustrade that the attitude
+was not allowed. As soon as he had passed, some of the warned took their
+places again. Naturally, these were spectators of the gentler sex. I am
+even afraid that they were pilgrims from the land where the gentler sex
+is accustomed from its earliest years to a profound deference. Two of
+these pretty pilgrims transgressed in this way four times, and at last
+the dervish came and stood before them. They remained seated, returning
+his gaze with amiable tranquillity. What he thought I do not know&mdash;this
+lean Egyptian in his old brown cloak and conical hat. I fancied,
+however, that it had something to do with the great advantages of the
+Mohammedan system regarding the seclusion of women. He did not conquer.</p>
+
+<p>At length began the music. The band of the dervishes is placed in one of
+the galleries; we could see the performers squatting on their rugs, the
+instruments being flutes or long pipes, and small drums like tambourines
+without the rattles. Egyptian music has a marked time, but no melody; no
+matter how good an ear one has, it is impossible to catch and resing its
+notes, even though one hears them daily. Pierre Loti writes: "The
+strains of the little flutes of Africa charm me more than the most
+perfect orchestral harmonies of other lands." If by this he means that
+the flutes recall to his memory the magic scenes of Oriental life, that
+is one thing; but if he means that he really loves the sounds for
+themselves, I am afraid we must conclude that this prince of verbal
+expression has not an ear for music (which is only fair; a man cannot
+have everything). The band of the dervishes sends forth a high wail,
+accompanied by a rumble. Neither, however, is distressingly loud.<a name="page_233" id="page_233"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_249_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_249_sml.jpg" width="550" height="413" alt="OUTER ENTRANCE OF THE CITADEL, CAIRO
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo" title="OUTER ENTRANCE OF THE CITADEL, CAIRO
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo" /></a>
+<span class="caption">OUTER ENTRANCE OF THE CITADEL, CAIRO<br />From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo</span>
+</div><p><a name="page_235" id="page_235"></a><a name="page_234" id="page_234"></a></p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the dervishes have entered, and, muffled in their cloaks, are
+standing, a silent band, round the edge of the arena; their sheykh&mdash;a
+very old man, much bent, but with a noble countenance&mdash;takes his place
+upon the sacred rug, and receives with dignity their obeisances. All
+remain motionless for a while. Then the sheykh rises, heads the
+procession, and, with a very slow step, they all move round the arena,
+bowing towards the sacred carpet as they pass it. This opening ceremony
+concluded, the sheykh again takes his seat, and the dervishes, divesting
+themselves of their cloaks, step one by one into the open space, where,
+after a prayer, each begins whirling slowly, with closed eyes. They are
+all attired in long, full white skirts, whose edges have weights
+attached to them; as the speed of the music increases, their whirl
+becomes more rapid, but it remains always even; though their eyes are
+closed, they never touch each other. From the description alone, it is
+difficult to imagine that this rite (for such it is) is solemn. But
+looked at with the actual eyes, it seemed to me an impressive ceremony;
+the absorbed appearance of the participants, their unconsciousness of
+all outward things, the earnestness of the aspiration visible on their
+faces&mdash;all these were striking. The zikr, as this species of religious
+effort is named, is an attempt to reach a state of ecstasy
+(hallucination, we should call it), during which the human being, having
+forgotten the existence of its body, becomes for the moment spirit only,
+and can then mingle with the spirit world. The Dancing Dervishes
+endeavor to bring on this trance by the physical dizziness which is
+produced by whirling; the Howling Dervishes try to effect the same by
+swinging their heads rapidly up and down, and from side to side, with a
+constant shout of "Allah!" "Allah!". The latter soon reach a state of
+temporary frenzy. For this reason the dancers are more interesting;
+their ecstasy, being silent,<a name="page_236" id="page_236"></a> seems more earnest. The religion of the
+Hindoos has a similar idea in another form&mdash;namely, that the highest
+happiness is a mingling with God, and an utter unconsciousness of one's
+humanity. Christian hermits, in retiring from the world, have sought, as
+far as possible, the same mental condition; but for a lifetime, not,
+like the dervishes, for an hour. These enthusiasts marry, if they
+please; many of them are artisans, tradesmen, and farm laborers, and
+only go at certain times to the monasteries to take part in the zikrs.
+There are many different orders, and several other kinds of zikr besides
+the two most commonly seen by travellers.</p>
+
+<p>Travellers see also the Mohammedan prayers. These prayers, with
+alms-giving, fasting during the month Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to
+Mecca, are the important religious duties of all Muslims. The excellent
+new hotel, the Continental, where we had our quarters, a hotel whose
+quiet and comfort are a blessing to Cairo, overlooked a house which was
+undergoing alteration; every afternoon at a certain hour a plasterer
+came from his work within, and, standing in a corner under our windows,
+divested himself of his soiled outer gown; then, going to a wall-faucet,
+he turned on the water, and rapidly but carefully washed his face, his
+hands and arms, his feet, and his legs as far as his knees, according to
+Mohammed's rule; this done, he took down from a tree a clean board which
+he kept there for the purpose, and, placing it upon the ground, he
+kneeled down upon it, with his face towards Mecca, and went through his
+worship, many times touching the ground with his forehead in token of
+self-humiliation. His devotions occupied five or six minutes. As soon as
+they were over, the board was quickly replaced in the tree, the soiled
+gown put on again, and the man hurried back to his work with an
+alertness which showed that he was no idler.<a name="page_237" id="page_237"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 423px;">
+<a href="images/ill_253_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_253_sml.jpg" width="423" height="550" alt="A MECCA DOOR" title="A MECCA DOOR" /></a>
+<span class="caption">A MECCA DOOR</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="nind">On the Nile, at the
+appointed hour, our pilot gave the wheel to a subordinate, spread out
+his prayer-carpet on the deck, and said his prayers with as much
+indifference to the eyes watching him as though they did not exist. In
+the bazaars the merchants pray in their shops; the public cook prays in
+the street beside his little furnace; on the shores of the river at
+sunset the kneeling figures outlined against the sky are one of the
+pictures which all travellers remember. The official pilgrimage to Mecca
+takes place each year, the departure<a name="page_238" id="page_238"></a> and return of the pilgrim train
+being celebrated with great pomp; the most ardent desire of every
+Mohammedan is to make this journey before he dies. When a returning
+Cairo pilgrim reaches home, it is a common custom to decorate his
+doorway with figures, painted in brilliant hues, representing his
+supposed adventures. The designs, which are very primitive in outline,
+usually show the train of camels, the escort of soldiers, wonderful wild
+beasts in fighting attitudes, nondescript birds and trees, and garlands
+of flowers. One comes upon these Mecca doorways very frequently in the
+old quarters. Sometimes the gay tints show that the journey was a recent
+one; often the faded outlines speak of the zeal of an ancestor.</p>
+
+<h4>THE REIGNING DYNASTY</h4>
+
+<p><a name="page_239" id="page_239"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_255_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_255_sml.jpg" width="550" height="397" alt="THE ROAD TO CHOUBRA. From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo" title="THE ROAD TO CHOUBRA. From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo" /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE ROAD TO CHOUBRA.<br />From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="page_240" id="page_240"></a></p>
+
+<p>While in the city of the Khedive, if one has a wish for the benediction
+of a far-stretching view, he must go to the Citadel. The prospect from
+this hill has been described many times. One sees all Cairo, with her
+minarets; the vivid green of the plain, with the Nile winding through
+it; the desert meeting the verdure and stretching back to the red hills;
+lastly, the pyramids, beginning with those of Gizeh, near at hand, and
+ending, far in the distance, with the hazy outlines of those of Abouseer
+and Sakkarah. The Citadel was built by Saladin in the twelfth century.
+Saladin's palace, which formed part of it, was demolished in 1824 to
+make room for the modern mosque, whose large dome and attenuated
+minarets are now the last objects which fade away when the traveller
+leaves Cairo behind him. This rich Mohammedan temple was the work of
+Mehemet Ali, the founder of the present dynasty. It is not beautiful, in
+spite of its alabaster, but Mehemet himself would probably admire it,
+could he return to<a name="page_241" id="page_241"></a> earth (the mosque was not completed until after
+his death), as he had to the full that bad taste in architecture and art
+which, for unexplained reasons, so often accompanies a new birth of
+progress in an old country. Mehemet was born in Roumelia; he entered the
+Turkish army, and after attaining the rank of colonel he was sent to
+Egypt. Here he soon usurped all power, and had it not been for the
+intervention of Russia and France, and later of England and Austria, it
+is probable that he would have succeeded in freeing himself and the
+country whose leadership he had grasped from the domination of Turkey.
+Every one has heard something of the terrible massacre of the Memlooks
+by his order, in this Citadel, in 1811. The Memlooks were opposed to all
+progress, and Mehemet was bent upon progress. Freed from their power,
+this ferocious liberator built canals; he did his best to improve
+agriculture; he established a printing-office and founded schools; he
+sent three hundred boys to Europe to be educated as civil engineers, as
+machinists, as printers, as naval officers, and as physicians; his idea
+was that, upon their return, they could instruct others. When the first
+class came back, he filled his public schools by the simple method of
+force. The translators of the French text-books which had been selected
+for the use of the schools were taken from the ranks of the returned
+students. A text-book was given to each, and all were kept closely
+imprisoned in the Citadel a period of four months, until they had
+completed their task. Mehemet had a dream of an Arabian kingdom in Egypt
+which should in time rival the European nations without joining them. It
+is this dream which makes him interesting. He was the first modern. A
+Turk by birth, and remaining a Turk as regards his private life, he had
+great ideas. Undoubtedly he possessed genius of a high order.</p>
+
+<p>As to his private life, one comes across a trace of it<a name="page_242" id="page_242"></a> at Choubra. This
+was Mehemet's summer residence, and the place remains much as it was
+during his lifetime. The road to Choubra, which was until recently the
+favorite drive of the Cairenes, is now deserted. The palace stands on
+the banks of the Nile, three miles from town, and its gardens, which
+cover nine acres, are beautiful even in their present neglected
+condition; in the spring the fragrance from the mass of blossoms is
+intoxicatingly sweet. But the wonder of Choubra is a richly decorated
+garden-house, containing, in a marble basin, a lake which is large
+enough for skiffs. Here Mehemet often spent his evenings. Upon these
+occasions the whole place was brilliantly lighted, and the hareem
+disported itself in little boats on the fairy-like pool, and in
+strolling up and down the marble colonnades, unveiled (as Mehemet was
+the only man present), and in their richest attire. The marbles have
+grown dim, the fountains are choked, the colonnades are dusty, and the
+lake has a melancholy air. But even in its decay Choubra presents to the
+man of fancy&mdash;a few such men still exist&mdash;a picture of Oriental scenes
+which he has all his life imagined, perhaps, but whose actual traces he
+no more expected to see with his own eyes in 1890 than to behold the
+silken sails of Cleopatra furled among Cook's steamers on the Nile.
+Mehemet's last years were spent at Choubra, and here he died, in 1849,
+at the age of eighty-one. As he had forced from Turkey a firman
+assigning the throne to his own family, he was succeeded by one of his
+sons.</p>
+
+<h4>ISMAIL</h4>
+
+<p>In 1863 (after the short reign of Ibrahim, five years of Abbas, and
+eight of Said), Ismail, Mehemet's grandson, ascended the throne. He had
+received his education in Paris.<a name="page_243" id="page_243"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_259_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_259_sml.jpg" width="550" height="333" alt="GARDEN-HOUSE AT CHOUBRA, SHOWING PART OF THE LAKE NEAR
+CAIRO From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo" title="GARDEN-HOUSE AT CHOUBRA, SHOWING PART OF THE LAKE NEAR
+CAIRO From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo" /></a>
+<span class="caption">GARDEN-HOUSE AT CHOUBRA, SHOWING PART OF THE LAKE NEAR
+CAIRO<br />From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo</span>
+</div><p><a name="page_245" id="page_245"></a><a name="page_244" id="page_244"></a></p>
+
+<p>Much has been written about this man. The opening, in 1869, of the Suez
+Canal turned the eyes of the entire civilized world upon Egypt. The
+writers swooped down upon the ancient country in a flock, and the canal,
+the land, and its ruler were described again and again. The ruler was
+remarkable. Ismail was short (one speaks of him in the past tense,
+although he is not dead), with very broad shoulders; his hands were
+singularly thick; his ears also were thick, and oddly placed; his feet
+were small, and he always wore finically fine French shoes. There was
+nothing of the Arab in his face, and little of the Turk. One of his
+eyelids had a natural droop, and vexed diplomatists have left it upon
+record that he had the power of causing the other to droop also, thus
+making it possible for him to study the faces of his antagonists at his
+leisure, he, meanwhile, presenting to them in return a blind mask. The
+mask, however, was amiable; it was adorned almost constantly with a
+smile. The man must have had marked powers of fascination. At the
+present day, when some of the secrets of his reign are known&mdash;though by
+no means all&mdash;it is easy to paint him in the darkest colors; but during
+the time of his power his great schemes dazzled the world, and people
+liked him&mdash;it is impossible to doubt the testimony of so many pens;
+European and American visitors always left his presence pleased.</p>
+
+<p>There are in Cairo black stories of cruelty connected with his name.
+These for the most part are unwritten; they are told in the native caf�s
+and in the bazaars. It does not appear that he loved cruelty for its own
+sake, as some of the Roman emperors loved it; but if any one rebelled
+against his power or his pleasure, that person was sacrificed without
+scruple. In some cases it took the form of a disappearance in the night,
+without a sound or a trace left behind. This is the sort of thing we
+associate with the old despotic ages. But 1869<a name="page_246" id="page_246"></a> is not a remote date,
+and at that time the present Emperor of Austria, the late Emperor
+Frederick (then Crown-Prince of Prussia), the Empress Eug�nie, Prince
+Oscar of Sweden, Prince Louis of Hesse, the Princess of the Netherlands,
+the Duke and Duchess of Aosta, and other distinguished Europeans, were
+the guests of this enigmatic host, eating his sumptuous dinners and
+attending his magnificent balls. The festivities in connection with the
+opening of the canal are said to have cost Ismail twenty-one millions of
+dollars. The sum seems large; but it included the furnishing of palaces,
+lavish hospitality to an army of guests besides the sovereigns and their
+suites, and an opera to order&mdash;namely, Verdi's <i>A�da</i>, which was given
+with great brilliancy in Cairo, in an opera-house erected for the
+occasion. Ismail, like Mehemet, had his splendid dream. He, too, wished
+to free Egypt from the power of Turkey; but, unlike his grandfather, he
+wished to take her bodily into the circle of the civilized nations, not
+as a rival, but as an ally and friend. An Egyptian kingdom, under his
+rule, was to extend from the Mediterranean to the equator; from the Red
+Sea westward beyond Darfur. His bold ambition ended in disaster. His
+railways, telegraphs, schools, harbors, and postal-service, together
+with his personal extravagance, brought Egypt to the verge of
+bankruptcy. All Europe now had a vital interest in the Suez Canal, and
+the powers therefore united in a demand that the Sultan should stop the
+career of his audacious Egyptian Viceroy. The Viceroy might perhaps have
+resisted the Porte; he could not resist the united powers. In 1879 he
+was deposed, and his son Tufik appointed in his place. Ismail left
+Egypt. For several years he travelled, residing for a time in Naples; at
+present he is living in a villa near Constantinople. There is a rumor in
+Cairo that he is more of a prisoner there than he supposes. But this may
+be only one of<a name="page_249" id="page_249"></a><a name="page_248" id="page_248"></a><a name="page_247" id="page_247"></a> the legends that are always attached to Turkish
+affairs. His dream has come true in one respect at least: Egypt has
+indeed joined the circle of the European nations, but not in the manner
+which Ismail intended; she is only a bondwoman&mdash;if the pun can be
+permitted.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 325px;">
+<a href="images/ill_263_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_263_sml.jpg" width="325" height="550" alt="THE KHEDIVE. From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo" title="THE KHEDIVE. From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo" /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE KHEDIVE. From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo</span>
+</div>
+
+<h4>THE HAUNTED PALACE</h4>
+
+<p>The Gezireh road is to-day the favorite afternoon drive of the Cairenes.
+It is a broad avenue, raised above the plain, and overarched by trees
+throughout its course. At many points it commands an uninterrupted view
+of the pyramids. Two miles from town the Gezireh Palace rises on the
+right, surrounded by gardens, which, unlike those of Choubra, are
+carefully tended. It was built by Ismail. Of all these Cairo palaces it
+must be explained that they have none of the characteristics of castles
+or strongholds; they are merely lightly built residences, designed for a
+climate which has ten months of summer. The central hall and grand
+staircase of Gezireh are superb; alabaster, onyx, and malachite adorn
+like jewels the beautiful marbles, which came from Carrara. The
+drawing-rooms and audience-chambers have a splendid spaciousness: the
+state apartments of many a royal palace in Europe sink into
+insignificance in this respect when compared with them. Much of the
+furniture is rich, but again (as in the old house of the Sheykh es
+Sadat) one finds it difficult to forgive the tawdry French carpets and
+curtains, when the bazaars close at hand could have contributed fabrics
+of so much greater beauty. But Ismail's taste was French&mdash;that is, the
+lowest shade of French&mdash;as French is still the taste of modern Egypt
+among the upper classes. It remains to be seen whether the English
+occupation will change this. During the festivities at the time of the
+opening of the canal, Ismail's royal<a name="page_250" id="page_250"></a> guests were entertained at
+Gezireh. On the upper floor are the rooms which were occupied by the
+Empress Eug�nie, the walls and ceilings covered with thick satin, tufted
+like the back of an arm-chair, its tint the shade of blue which is most
+becoming to a blond complexion&mdash;Ismail's compliment to his beautiful
+guest. During these days there were state dinners and balls at Gezireh,
+with banks of orchids, myriads of wax-lights, and orchestras playing
+strains from <i>La Belle H�l�ne</i> and <i>La Grande Duchesse</i>. During one of
+these balls the Emperor of Austria made a progress through the rooms
+with Ismail, band after band taking up the Austrian national anthem as
+the imperial guest entered. The vision of the stately, grave Franz Josef
+advancing through these glittering halls by the side of the waddling
+little hippopotamus of the Nile, to the martial notes of that fine hymn
+(which we have appropriated for our churches under another name, and
+without saying "By your leave"), is one of the sinister apparitions with
+which this rococo palace, a palace half splendid, half shabby, is
+haunted.</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_251" id="page_251"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_267_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_267_sml.jpg" width="550" height="334" alt="CHIEF WIFE OF EX-KHEDIVE ISMAIL, WITH HER PRIVATE BAND From a photograph by Schoefft, Cairo"
+title="CHIEF WIFE OF EX-KHEDIVE ISMAIL, WITH HER PRIVATE BAND From a photograph by Schoefft, Cairo" /></a>
+<span class="caption">CHIEF WIFE OF EX-KHEDIVE ISMAIL, WITH HER PRIVATE BAND<br />From a photograph by Schoefft, Cairo</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="page_252" id="page_252"></a></p>
+
+<p>In the garden there is a kiosk whose proportions charm the eye. The
+guide-books inform us that this ornamentation is of cast-iron; that it
+is an imitation of the Alhambra; that it is "considered the finest
+modern Arabian building in the world"&mdash;all of which is against it.
+Nevertheless, viewed from any point across the gardens, its outlines are
+exquisite. Within there are more festal chambers, and a gilded
+dining-room, which was the scene of the suppers (they were often orgies)
+that were given by Ismail upon the occasion of his private masked balls.
+At some distance from the palace, behind a screen of trees, are the
+apartments reserved for the hareem. This smaller palace has no beauty,
+unless one includes its enchanting little garden; such attraction as it
+has comes from the light it sheds upon the<a name="page_253" id="page_253"></a> daily life of Eastern
+women. Occidental travellers are always curious about the hareem. The
+word means simply the ladies, or women, of the family, and the term is
+made to include also the rooms which they occupy, as our word "school"
+might mean the building or the pupils within it. At Gezireh the hareem,
+save that its appointments are more costly, is much like those
+caravansaries which abound at our inland summer resorts. There are long
+rows of small chambers opening from each side of narrow halls, with a
+few sitting-rooms, which were held in common. The carpets, curtains, and
+such articles of furniture as still remain are all flowery, glaring, and
+in the worst possible modern taste, save that they do not exhibit those
+horrible hues, surely the most hideous with which this world has been
+cursed&mdash;the so-called solferinos and magentas. Besides their private
+garden, the women and children of the hareem had for their entertainment
+a small menagerie, an aviery, and a confectionery establishment, where
+fresh bonbons were made for them every day, especially the sugared rose
+leaves so dear to the Oriental heart. The chief of Ismail's four wives
+had a passion for jewels. She possessed rubies and diamonds of unusual
+size, and so many precious stones of all kinds that her satin dresses
+were embroidered with them. She had her private band of female
+musicians, who played for her, when she wished for music, upon the
+violin, the flute, the zither, and the mandolin. The princesses of the
+royal house, Ismail's wives and his sisters-in-law, could not bring
+themselves to admire the Empress of the French. They were lost in wonder
+over what they called her "pinched stiffness." It is true that the
+uncorseted forms of Oriental beauties have nothing in common with the
+rigid back and martial elbows of modern attire. Dimples, polished limbs,
+dark, long-lashed eyes, and an indolent step are the ideals of the
+hareem.<a name="page_254" id="page_254"></a></p>
+
+<p>The legends of these jewelled sultanas, of the masked balls, of the long
+train of royal visitors, of the orchids, the orchestras, and the
+wax-lights, are followed at Gezireh by a tale of murder which is
+singularly ghastly. Ismail's Minister of Finance was his foster-brother
+Sadyk, with whom he had lived upon terms of closest intimacy all his
+life. The two were often together; frequently they drove out to Gezireh
+to spend the night. One afternoon in 1878 Ismail's carriage stopped at
+the doorway of the palace in Cairo occupied by his minister. Sadyk came
+out. "Get in," Ismail was heard to say. "We will go to Gezireh. There
+are business matters about which I must talk with you." The two men went
+away together. Sadyk never came back. When the carriage reached Gezireh,
+Ismail gave orders that it should stop at the palace, instead of going
+on to the kiosk, where they generally alighted. He himself led the way
+within, crossing the reception-room to the small private salon which
+overlooks the Nile. Here he seated himself upon a sofa, drawing up his
+feet in the Oriental fashion, which was not his usual custom. Sadyk was
+about to follow his example, when he found himself seized suddenly from
+behind. The doors were now locked from the outside, leaving within only
+the two foster-brothers and the man who had seized Sadyk. This was a
+Nubian named Ishak, a creature celebrated for his strength. He now
+proceeded to murder Sadyk after a fashion of his own country, a process
+of breaking the bones of the chest and neck in a manner which leaves on
+the skin no sign. Sadyk fought for his life; he dragged the Nubian over
+the white velvet carpet, and finally bit off two of his fingers. But he
+was not a young man, and in the end he was conquered. During this
+struggle Ismail remained motionless on the sofa, with his feet drawn up
+and his arms folded. A steamer lay at anchor outside, and during the
+night<a name="page_255" id="page_255"></a> Sadyk's body was placed on board; at dawn the boat started up the
+river. At the same hour Ismail drove back to Cairo, where, in the course
+of the morning, it was officially announced that the Minister of
+Finance, having been detected in colossal peculations, had been banished
+to the White Nile, and was already on his way thither. Sadyk's body
+rests somewhere at the bottom of the river. But Ismail's little drama of
+banishment and the steamer were set at naught when, after he had left
+Cairo, Ishak the Nubian returned, with his mutilated hand and his story.
+Such is the tale as it is told in the bazaars. Ismail's motive in
+murdering a man he liked (he was incapable of true affection for any
+one) is found in the fact that he could place upon the shoulders of the
+missing minister the worst of the financial irregularities which were
+trying the patience of the European powers. It did him no good. He was
+deposed the next year.</p>
+
+<p>During the spring of 1890 Gezireh awoke to new life for a time. A French
+company had purchased the place, with the intention of opening it as an
+Egyptian Monte Carlo. But Khedive Tufik, who has prohibited gambling
+throughout his domain, forbade the execution of this plan. So the
+tarnished silks remain where they were, and the faded gilded ceilings
+have not been renewed. When we made our last visit, during the heats of
+early summer, the blossoms were as beautiful as ever, and the ghosts
+were all there&mdash;we met them on the marble stairs: the European princes,
+led by poor Eug�nie; the sultanas, with their jewels and their band;
+Ismail, with his drooping eyelids; and Sadyk, followed by the Nubian.</p>
+
+<h4>TUFIK</h4>
+
+<p>The present Khedive (or Viceroy) is thirty-eight years of age. Well
+proportioned, with fine dark eyes,<a name="page_256" id="page_256"></a> he may be called a handsome man; but
+his face is made heavy by its expression of settled melancholy. It is
+said in Cairo that he has never been known to laugh. But this must apply
+to his public life only, for he is much attached to his family&mdash;to his
+wife and his four children; in this respect he lives strictly in the
+European manner, never having had but this one wife. He is a devoted
+father. Determined that the education of his sons should not be
+neglected as his own education was neglected by Ismail, he had for them,
+at an early age, an accomplished English tutor. Later he sent them to
+Geneva, Switzerland; they are now in Vienna. Tufik's chief interest, if
+one may judge by his acts, is in education. In this direction his
+strongest efforts have been made; he has improved the public schools of
+Egypt, and established new ones; he has given all the support possible
+to that greatest of modern innovations in a Mohammedan country, the
+education of women. With all this, he is a devout Mohammedan; he is not
+a fanatic; but he may be called, I think, a Mohammedan Puritan. He
+receives his many European and American visitors with courtesy. But they
+do not talk about him as they talked about Ismail; he excites no
+curiosity. This is partly owing to his position, his opinions and
+actions having naturally small importance while an English army is
+taking charge of his realm; but it is also owing, in a measure, to the
+character of the man himself. One often sees him driving. On Sunday
+afternoons his carriage in semi-state leads the procession along the
+Gezireh Avenue. First appear the outriders, six mounted soldiers; four
+brilliantly dressed saises follow, rushing along with their wands high
+in the air; then comes the open carriage, with the dark-eyed, melancholy
+Khedive on the back seat, returning mechanically the many salutations
+offered by strangers and by his own people. Behind his carriage are four
+more of<a name="page_257" id="page_257"></a> the flying runners; then the remainder of the mounted escort,
+two and two. At a little distance follows the brougham of the
+Vice-reine; according to Oriental etiquette, she never appears in public
+beside her husband. Her brougham is preceded and followed by saises, but
+there is no mounted escort. The Vice-reine is pretty, intelligent, and
+accomplished; in addition, she is brave. Several years ago, when the
+cholera was raging in Cairo, and the Khedive, almost alone among the
+upper classes, remained there in order to do what he could for the
+suffering people, his wife also refused to flee. She stayed in the
+plague-stricken town until the pestilence had disappeared, exerting her
+influence to persuade the frightened women of the lower classes to
+follow her example regarding sanitary precautions. Tufik is accused of
+being always undecided; he was not undecided upon this occasion at
+least. It is probable that some of his moments of indecision have been
+caused by real hesitations. And this brings us to Arabi.</p>
+
+<p>Arabi (he is probably indifferent to the musical sound of his name) was
+the leader of the military revolt which broke out in Egypt in 1881&mdash;a
+revolt with which all the world is familiar, because it was followed by
+the bombardment of Alexandria by the English fleet. Arabi had studied at
+El Azhar; he knew the Koran by heart. To the native population he seemed
+a wonderful orator; he excited their enthusiasm; he roused their
+courage; he almost made them patriotic. The story of Arabi is
+interesting; there were many intrigues mixed with the revolt, and a
+dramatic element throughout. But these slight impressions&mdash;the idle
+notes merely of one winter&mdash;are not the place for serious history. Nor
+is the page completed so that it can be described as a whole. Egypt at
+this moment is the scene of history in the actual process of making, if
+the term may be so used&mdash;making day by day and hour by hour. Arabi has
+been called the<a name="page_258" id="page_258"></a> modern Masaniello. The watchword of his revolt was,
+"Egypt for the Egyptians"; and there is always something touching in
+this cry when the invaded country is weak and the incoming power is
+strong. But it may be answered that the Egyptians at present are
+incapable of governing themselves; that the country, if left to its own
+devices, would revert to anarchy in a month, and to famine, desolation,
+and barbarism in five years. Americans are not concerned with these
+questions of the Eastern world. But if a similar cry had been
+successfully raised about two hundred years ago on another
+coast&mdash;"America for the Americans"&mdash;would the Western continent have
+profited thereby? Doubtless the original Americans&mdash;those of the red
+skins&mdash;raised it as loudly as they could. But there was not much
+listening. The comparison is stretched, for the poor Egyptian fellah is
+at least not a savage; but there is a grain of resemblance large enough
+to call for reflection, when the question of occupation and improvement
+of a half-civilized land elsewhere is under discussion. The English put
+down the revolt, and sent Arabi to Ceylon, a small Napoleon at St.
+Helena. The rebel colonel and his fellow-exiles are at present enjoying
+those spicy breezes which are associated in our minds with foreign
+missions and a whole congregation singing (and dragging them fearfully)
+the celebrated verses. Arabi has complained of the climate in spite of
+the perfumes, and it is said that he is to be transferred to some other
+point in the ocean; there are, indeed, many of them well adapted for the
+purpose. The English newspapers of to-day are dotted with the word
+"shadowed," which signifies, apparently, that certain persons in Ireland
+are followed so closely by a policeman that the official might be the
+shadow. Possibly the melancholy Khedive is shadowed by the memory of the
+exile of Ceylon. For Tufik did not cast his lot with Arabi. He turned
+towards the<a name="page_261" id="page_261"></a><a name="page_260" id="page_260"></a><a name="page_259" id="page_259"></a> English. To use the word again, though with another
+signification, though ruler still, he has but a shadowy power.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 425px;">
+<a href="images/ill_275_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_275_sml.jpg" width="425" height="550" alt="AN EGYPTIAN DANCING-GIRL" title="AN EGYPTIAN DANCING-GIRL" /></a>
+<span class="caption">AN EGYPTIAN DANCING-GIRL</span>
+</div>
+
+<h4>THE ARAB MUSEUM</h4>
+
+<p>Near the city gate named the Help of God, on the northeastern border of
+Cairo, is the old mosque El Hakim. Save its outer walls, which enclose,
+like the mosques of Touloun and Amer, a large open square, there is not
+much left of it; but within this square, housed in a temporary building,
+one finds the collection of Saracenic antiquities which is called the
+Arab Museum.</p>
+
+<p>This museum is interesting, and it ought to be beautiful. But somehow it
+is not. The barrack-like walls, sparsely ornamented with relics from the
+mosques, the straight aisles and glass show-cases, are not inspiring;
+the fragments of Arabian wood-carving seem to be lamenting their fate;
+and the only room which is not desolate is the one where old tiles lie
+in disorder upon the floor, much as they lie on broken marble pavements
+of the ancient houses which, half ruined and buried in rubbish, still
+exist in the old quarters. Why one should be so inconsistent as to find
+no fault with Gizeh, where rows of antiquities torn from their proper
+places confront us, where show-cases abound, and yet at the same time
+make an outcry over this poor little morsel at El Hakim, remains a
+mystery. Possibly it is because the massive statues and the solid little
+gods of ancient Egypt do not require an appropriate background, as do
+the delicate fancies of Saracenic taste. However this may be, to some of
+us the Arab Museum looks as if a New England farmer's wife had tried her
+best to make things orderly within its borders, poor soul, in spite of
+the strangeness of the articles with which she was obliged to deal. It
+must, however, be added that the<a name="page_262" id="page_262"></a> museum will not make this impression
+upon persons who are indifferent to the general aspect of an aisle, or
+of a series of walls&mdash;persons who care only for the articles which adorn
+them&mdash;the lovers of detail, in short. And it is well for all of us to
+join this class as soon as our feet have crossed the threshold. For we
+shall be repaid for it. The details are exquisite.</p>
+
+<p>The Arab Museum has been established recently. Every one is grateful to
+the zeal which has rescued from further injury so many specimens of a
+vanishing art. One covets a little chest for the Koran which is made of
+sandal-wood. It is incrusted with arabesques carved in ivory, and has
+broad hasps and locks of embossed silver. There are many koursis, or
+small, stool-like tables; one of these has panels of silver filigree,
+and fretted medallions bearing the name of the Sultan Mohammed ebn
+Kalaoon, thus showing that it once belonged to the mosque at the Citadel
+which was built by that Memlook ruler&mdash;the mosque whose minarets are
+ornamented with picturesque bands of emerald-hued porcelain. The
+illuminated Korans are not here; they are kept in the Public Library in
+the Street of the Sycamores. Perhaps the most beautiful of the museum's
+treasures are the old lamps of Arabian glass. In shape they are vases,
+as they were simply filled with perfumed oil which carried a floating
+wick; the colors are usually a pearly background, faintly tinged
+sometimes by the hue we call ashes of roses; upon this background are
+ornaments of blue, gold, and red; occasionally these ornaments are
+Arabic letters forming a name or text. These lamps were made in the
+thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; the glass, which has as marked
+characteristics of its own as Palissy ware, so that once seen it can
+never be confounded with any other, has a delicate beauty which is
+unrivalled.<a name="page_263" id="page_263"></a></p>
+
+<h4>HELIOPOLIS</h4>
+
+<p>Like the pyramids, Heliopolis belongs to Cairo. On the way thither, one
+first traverses the pleasant suburb of Abbasieh. How one traverses it
+depends upon his taste. The most enthusiastic pedestrian soon gives up
+walking in the city of the Khedive save in the broad streets of the new
+quarter. The English ride, one meets every day their gallant mounted
+bands; but these are generally residents and their visitors, and the
+horses are their own; for the traveller there are only the street
+carriages and the donkeys. The carriages are dubiously loose-jointed,
+and the horses (whose misery has already been described) have but two
+gaits&mdash;the walk of a dying creature and the gallop of despair; unless,
+therefore, one wishes to mount a dromedary, he must take a donkey. But
+the "must" is not a disparagement; the white and gray donkeys of
+Cairo&mdash;the best of them&mdash;are good-natured, gay-hearted, strong, and even
+handsome. They have a coquettish way of arching their necks and holding
+their chins (if a donkey can be said to have a chin), which always
+reminded me of George Eliot's description of Gwendolen's manner of
+poising her head in <i>Daniel Deronda</i>. George Eliot goes on to warn other
+young ladies that it is useless to try to imitate this proud little air,
+unless one has a throat like Gwendolen's. And, in the same spirit, one
+must warn other donkeys that they must be born in Cairo to be beautiful.
+Upon several occasions I recognized vanity in my donkey. He knew
+perfectly when he was adorned with his holiday necklaces&mdash;one of
+imitation sequins, the other of turquoise-hued beads. I am sure that he
+would have felt much depressed if deprived of his charm against
+magic&mdash;the morsel of parchment inscribed with Arabic characters which
+decorated his breast. His tail and his short mane were<a name="page_264" id="page_264"></a> dyed fashionably
+with henna, but his legs had not been shaved in the pattern which
+represents filigree garters, and whenever a comrade who had this
+additional glory passed him, he became distinctly melancholy, and
+brooded about it for several minutes. There is nothing in the world so
+deprecating as the profile of one of these Cairo donkeys when he finds
+himself obliged, by the pressure of the crowd, to push against a
+European; his long nose and his polite eye as he passes are full of
+friendly apologies. The donkey-boy, in his skull-cap and single garment,
+runs behind his beast. These lads are very quick-witted. They have ready
+for their donkeys five or six names, and they seldom make a mistake in
+applying them according to the supposed nationality of their patrons of
+the moment, so that the Englishman learns that he has Annie Laurie; the
+Frenchman, Napoleon; the German, Bismarck; the Italian, Garibaldi; and
+the Americans, indiscriminately, Hail Columbia, Yankee Doodle, and
+General Grant.</p>
+
+<p>In passing through the Abbasieh quarter, we always came, sooner or
+later, upon a wedding. The different stages of a native marriage
+require, indeed, so many days for their accomplishment that nuptial
+festivities are a permanent institution in Cairo, like the policemen and
+the water-carts, rather than an occasional event, as in other places.
+One day, upon turning into a narrow street, we discovered that a long
+portion of it had been roofed over with red cloth; from the centre of
+this awning four large chandeliers were suspended by cords, and at each
+end of the improvised tent were hoops adorned with the little red
+Egyptian banners which look like fringed napkins. In the roadway, placed
+against the walls of the houses on each side, were rows of wooden
+settees; one of these seats was occupied by the band, which kept up a
+constant piping and droning, and upon the others were squatted the<a name="page_265" id="page_265"></a>
+invited guests. Every now and then a man came from a gayly adorned door
+on the left, which was that of the bridegroom, bringing with him a tray
+covered with the tiny cups of coffee set in their filigree stands; he
+offered coffee to all. In the meanwhile, in the centre of the roadway
+between the settees, an Egyptian, in his long blue gown, was dancing.
+The expression of responsibility on his face amounted to anxiety as he
+took his steps with great care, now lifting one bare foot as high as he
+could, and turning it sidewise, as if to show us the sole; now putting
+it down and hopping upon it, while he displayed to us in the same way
+the sole of the other. This formal dancing is done by the guests when no
+public performers are employed. Some one must dance to express the
+revelry of the occasion; those who are invited, therefore, undertake the
+duty one by one. When at last we went on our way we were obliged to ride
+directly through the reception, our donkeys brushing the band on one
+side and the guests on the other; the dancer on duty paused for a
+moment, wiping his face with the tail of his gown.</p>
+
+<p>The road leading to Heliopolis has a charm which it shares with no other
+in the neighborhood of Cairo: at a certain point the desert&mdash;the real
+desert&mdash;comes rolling up to its very edge; one can look across the sand
+for miles. The desert is not a plain, the sand lies in ridges and
+hillocks; and this sand in many places is not so much like the sand of
+the sea-shore as it is like the dust of one of our country roads in
+August. The contrast between the bright green of the cultivated fields
+(the land which is reached by the inundation) and those silvery,
+arrested waves is striking, the line of their meeting being as sharply
+defined as that between sea and shore. I have called the color silvery,
+but that is only one of the tints which the sand assumes. An artist has
+jotted down the names of the colors used in an effort to<a name="page_266" id="page_266"></a> copy the hues
+on an expanse of desert before him; beginning with the foreground, these
+were brown, dark red, violet, blue, gold, rose, crimson, pale green,
+orange, indigo blue, and sky blue. Colors supply the place of shadows,
+for there is no shade anywhere; all is wide open and light; and yet the
+expanse does not strike one in the least as bare. For myself, I can say
+that of all the marvels which one sees in Egypt, the desert produced the
+most profound impression; and I fancy that, as regards this feeling, I
+am but one of many. The cause of the attraction is a mystery. It cannot
+be found in the roving tendencies of our ancestor, since he was
+arboreal, and there are no trees in the strange-tinted waste. The old
+legend says that Adam's first wife, Lilith, fled to Egypt, where she was
+permitted to live in the desert, and where she still exists:</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry">
+<tr><td align="left">"It was Lilith, the wife of Adam;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp;Not a drop of her blood was human."</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Perhaps it is Lilith's magic that we feel.</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_267" id="page_267"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 346px;">
+<a href="images/ill_283_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_283_sml.jpg" width="346" height="550" alt="THE INUNDATION NEAR CAIRO" title="THE INUNDATION NEAR CAIRO" /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE INUNDATION NEAR CAIRO</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="page_268" id="page_268"></a></p>
+
+<p>Heliopolis, the City of the Sun, the On of the forty-first chapter of
+Genesis, is five miles from Cairo. Nothing of it is now left above
+ground save an obelisk and a few ruined walls. The obelisk, which is the
+oldest yet discovered, bears the name of the king in whose reign it was
+erected; this gives us the date&mdash;5000 years ago; that is, more than a
+millennium before the days of Moses. At Heliopolis was the Temple of the
+Sun, and the schools which Herodotus visited "because the teachers are
+considered the most accomplished men in Egypt." When Strabo came hither,
+four hundred years later, he saw the house which Plato had occupied;
+Moses here learned "all the wisdom of the Egyptians." Papyri describe
+Heliopolis as "full of obelisks." Two of these columns were carried to
+Alexandria 1937 years ago, and set up before the Temple of C�sar.
+According<a name="page_269" id="page_269"></a> to one authority, this temple was built by Cleopatra; in
+any case, the two obelisks acquired the name of Cleopatra's Needles, and
+though the temple itself in time disappeared, they remained where they
+had been placed&mdash;one erect, one prostrate&mdash;until, in recent years, one
+was given to London and the other to New York. One recites all this in a
+breath in order to bring up, if possible, the associations which rush
+confusedly through the mind as one stands beside this red granite column
+rising alone in the green fields at Heliopolis. No myth itself, it was
+erected in days which are to us mythical&mdash;days which are the jumping-off
+place of our human history; yet they were not savages who polished this
+granite, who sculptured this inscription; ages of civilization of a
+certain sort must have preceded them. Beginning with the Central Park,
+we force our minds backward in an endeavor to make these dates real.
+"Homer was a modern compared with the designers of this pillar," we say
+to ourselves. "The Mycen� relics were <i>articles de Paris</i> of centuries
+and centuries later." But repeating the words (and even rolling the
+<i>r's</i>) are useless efforts; the imagination will not rise; it is crushed
+into stupidity by such a vista of years. As reaction, perhaps as
+revenge, we flee to geology and Darwin; here, at least, one can take
+breath.</p>
+
+<p>Near Heliopolis there is an ostrich yard. The giant birds are very
+amusing; they walk about with long steps, and stretch their necks. If
+allowed, they would tap us all on the head, I think, after the fashion
+of the ostriches in that vivid book, <i>The Story of an African Farm</i>.</p>
+
+<h4>FRENCH AND ENGLISH</h4>
+
+<p>Gerard de Nerval begins his volume on Egypt by announcing that the women
+of Cairo are so thickly veiled that the European (<i>i.e.</i>, the
+Frenchman?) becomes<a name="page_270" id="page_270"></a> discouraged after a very few days, and, in
+consequence, goes up the Nile. This, at least, is one effort to explain
+why strangers spend so short a time in Cairo. The French, as a nation,
+are not travellers; they have small interest in any country beyond their
+own borders. A few of their writers have cherished a liking for the
+East; but it has been what we may call a home-liking. They give us the
+impression of having sincerely believed that they could, owing to their
+extreme intelligence, imagine for themselves (and reproduce for others)
+the entire Orient from one fez, one Turkish pipe, and a picture of the
+desert. Gautier, for instance, has described many Eastern landscapes
+which his eyes have never beheld. Pictures are, indeed, much to
+Frenchmen. The acme of this feeling is reached by one of the Goncourt
+brothers, who writes, in their recently published journal, that the true
+way to enjoy a summer in the country is to fill one's town-house during
+the summer months with beautiful paintings of green fields, wild
+forests, and purling brooks, and then stay at home, and look at the
+lovely pictured scenes in comfort. French volumes of travels in the East
+are written as much with exclamation-points as with the letters of the
+alphabet. Lamartine and his disciples frequently paused "to drop a
+tear." Later Gallic voyagers divided all scenery into two classes; the
+cities "laugh," the plains are "amiable," or they "smile"; if they do
+not do this, immediately they are set down as "sad." One must be bold
+indeed to call Edmond About, the distinguished author of <i>Tolla</i>,
+ridiculous. The present writer, not being bold, is careful to abstain
+from it. But the last scene of his volume on Egypt (<i>Le Fellah</i>,
+published in 1883), describing the hero, with all his clothes rolled
+into a gigantic turban round his head, swimming after the yacht which
+bears away the heroine&mdash;a certain impossible Miss Grace&mdash;from the<a name="page_271" id="page_271"></a>
+harbor of Port Said, must have caused, I think, some amused reflection
+in the minds of English and American readers. It is but just to add that
+among the younger French writers are several who have abandoned these
+methods. Gabriel Charmes's volume on Cairo contains an excellent account
+of the place. Pierre Loti and Maupassant have this year (1890) given to
+the world pages about northwestern Africa which are marvels of actuality
+as well as of unsurpassed description.</p>
+
+<p>The French at present are greatly angered by the continuance of the
+English occupation of Egypt. Since Napoleon's day they have looked upon
+the Nile country as sure to be theirs some time. They built the Suez
+Canal when the English were opposed to the scheme. They remember when
+their influence was dominant. The French tradesmen, the French milliners
+and dressmakers in Cairo, still oppose a stubborn resistance to the
+English way of counting. They give the prices of their goods and render
+their accounts in Egyptian piasters, or in napoleons and francs; they
+refuse to comprehend shillings and pounds. And here, by-the-way,
+Americans would gladly join their side of the controversy. England
+alone, among the important countries of the world, has a currency which
+is not based upon the decimal system. The collected number of sixpences
+lost each year in England, by American travellers who mistake the
+half-crown piece for two shillings, would make a large sum. The
+bewilderment over English prices given in a coin which has no existence
+is like that felt by serious-minded persons who read <i>Alice in
+Wonderland</i> from a sense of duty. Talk of the English as having no
+imagination when the guinea exists!</p>
+
+<p>France lost her opportunity in Egypt when her fleet sailed away from
+Alexandria Harbor in July, 1882. Her ships were asked to remain and take
+part in the<a name="page_272" id="page_272"></a> bombardment; they refused, and departed. The English, thus
+being left alone, quieted the country later by means of an army of
+occupation. An English army of occupation has been there ever since.</p>
+
+<p>At present it is not a large army. The number of British soldiers in
+1890 is given as three thousand; the remaining troops are Egyptians,
+with English regimental officers. During the winter months the
+short-waisted red coat of Tommy Atkins enlivens with its cheerful blaze
+the streets of Cairo at every turn. The East and the West may be said to
+be personified by the slender, supple Arabs in their flowing draperies,
+and by these lusty youths of light complexion, with straight backs and
+stiff shoulders, who walk, armed with a rattan, in the centre of the
+pavement, wearing over one ear the cloth-covered saucer which passes for
+a head-covering. Tommy Atkins patronizes the donkeys with all his heart.
+One of the most frequently seen groups is a party of laughing
+scarlet-backed youths mounted on the smallest beasts they can find, and
+careering down the avenues at the donkey's swiftest speed, followed by
+the donkey-boys, delighted and panting. As the spring comes on, Atkins
+changes his scarlet for lighter garments, and dons the summer helmet.
+This species of hat is not confined to the sons of Mars; it is worn in
+warm weather by Europeans of all nationalities who are living or
+travelling in the East. It may be cool. Without doubt, �sthetically
+considered, it is the most unbecoming head-covering known to the
+civilized world. It has a peculiar power of causing its wearer to appear
+both ignoble and pulmonic; for, viewed in front, the most distinguished
+features, under its tin-pan-like visor, become plebeian; and, viewed
+behind, the strongest masculine throat looks wizened and consumptive.</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_273" id="page_273"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 428px;">
+<a href="images/ill_289_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_289_sml.jpg" width="428" height="550" alt="A MOHAMMEDAN CEMETERY, CAIRO" title="A MOHAMMEDAN CEMETERY, CAIRO" /></a>
+<span class="caption">A MOHAMMEDAN CEMETERY, CAIRO</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="page_274" id="page_274"></a></p>
+
+<p>The English have benefited Egypt. They have put an end to the open
+knavery in high places which flourished<a name="page_275" id="page_275"></a> unchecked; they have taught
+honesty; they have so greatly improved the methods of irrigation that a
+bad Nile (<i>i.e.</i>, a deficient inundation) no longer means starvation;
+finally, they have taken hold of the mismanaged finances, disentangled
+them, set them in order, and given them at least a start in the right
+direction. The natives fret over some of their restrictions. And they
+say that the English have, first of all, taken care of their own
+interests. In addition, they greatly dislike seeing so many Englishmen
+holding office over them. But this last objection is simply the other
+side of the story. If the English are to help the country, they must be
+on the spot in order to do it; and it appears to be a fixed rule in all
+British colonies that the representatives of the government, whether
+high or low, shall be made, as regards material things, extremely
+comfortable. Egypt is not yet a British colony; she is a viceroyalty
+under the suzerainty of the Porte. But practically she is to-day
+governed by the English; and, to the American traveller at least
+(whatever the French may think), it appears probable that English
+authority will soon be as absolute in the Khedive's country as it is now
+in India.</p>
+
+<p>In Cairo, in 1890, the English colony played lawn-tennis; it attended
+the races; when Stanley returned to civilization it welcomed him with
+enthusiasm; and when, later, Prince Eddie came, it attended a gala
+performance of <i>A�da</i> at the opera-house&mdash;a resurrection from the time
+of Ismail ordered by Ismail's son for the entertainment of the
+heir-presumptive (one wonders whether Tufik himself found entertainment
+in it).</p>
+
+<p>In the little English church, which stands amid its roses and vines in
+the new quarter, is a wall tablet of red and white marble&mdash;the memorial
+of a great Englishman. It bears the following inscription: "In memory of
+Major-General Charles George Gordon, C.B. Born<a name="page_276" id="page_276"></a> at Woolwich, Jan. 28,
+1833. Killed at the defence of Khartoum, Jan. 26, 1885." Above is a
+sentence from Gordon's last letter: "I have done my best for the honor
+of our country."</p>
+
+<p>St. George of Khartoum, as he has been called. If objection is made to
+the bestowal of this title, it might be answered that the saints of old
+lived before the age of the telegraph, the printer, the newspaper, and
+the reporter; possibly they too would not have seemed to us faultless if
+every one of their small decisions and all their trivial utterances had
+been subjected to the electric-light publicity of to-day. Perhaps Gordon
+was a fanatic, and his discernment was not accurate. But he was
+single-hearted, devoted to what he considered to be his duty, and brave
+to a striking degree. When we remember how he faced death through those
+weary days we cannot criticise him. The story of that rescuing army
+which came so near him and yet failed, and of his long hoping in vain,
+only to be shot down at the last, must always remain one of the most
+pathetic tales of history.</p>
+
+<h4>SOUVENIRS</h4>
+
+<p>As the warm spring closes, every one selects something to carry
+homeward. Leaving aside those fortunate persons who can purchase the
+ancient carved woodwork of an entire house, or Turkish carpets by the
+dozen, the rest of us keep watch of the selections of our friends while
+we make our own. Among these we find the jackets embroidered in silver
+and gold; the inevitable fez; two or three blue tiles of the thirteenth
+century; a water-jug, or kulleh; a fly-brush with ivory handle; attar of
+roses and essence of sandal-wood; Assiout ware in vases and stoups; a
+narghileh; the gauze scarfs embroidered with Persian benedictions; a
+koursi inlaid with mother-of-pearl; Arabian inkstands&mdash;<a name="page_277" id="page_277"></a>long cases of
+silver or brass, to be worn like a dagger in the belt; a keffiyeh, or
+delicate silken head-shawl with white knotted fringe; the Arabian
+finger-bowls; the little coffee-cups; images of Osiris from the tombs; a
+native bracelet and anklet; and, finally, a scarab or two, whose
+authenticity is always exciting, like an unsolved riddle. A picture of
+these mementos of Cairo would not be complete for some of us without two
+of those constant companions of so many long mornings&mdash;the dusty,
+shuffling, dragging, slipping, venerable, abominable mosque shoes.</p>
+
+<h4>HOMEWARD-BOUND</h4>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry">
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">"We who pursue</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Our business with unslackening stride,</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Traverse in troops, with care-fill'd breast,</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">The soft Mediterranean side,</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">The Nile, the East,</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">And see all sights from pole to pole,</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And glance and nod and bustle by,</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">And never once possess our soul</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Before we die."</span></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>So chanted Matthew Arnold of the English of to-day. And if we are to
+believe what is preached to us and hurled at us, it is a reproach even
+more applicable to Americans than to the English themselves. One
+American traveller, however, wishes to record modestly a disbelief in
+the universal truth of this idea. Many of us are, indeed, haunted by our
+business; many of us do glance and nod and bustle by; it is a class, and
+a large class. But these hurried people are not all; an equal number of
+us, who, being less in haste, may be less conspicuous perhaps, are the
+most admiring travellers in the world. American are the bands who
+journey to Stratford-upon-Avon, and go down upon their
+knees&mdash;<a name="page_278" id="page_278"></a>almost&mdash;when they reach the sacred spot; American are the
+pilgrims who pay reverent visits to all the English cathedrals, one
+after the other, from Carlisle to Exeter, from Durham to Canterbury. In
+the East, likewise, it is the transatlantic travellers who are so deeply
+impressed by the strangeness and beauty of the scenes about them that
+they forget to talk about their personal comforts (or, rather, the lack
+of them).</p>
+
+<p>There is another matter upon which a word may be said, and this is the
+habit of judging the East from the stand-point of one's home customs,
+whether the home be American or English. It is, of course, easy to find
+faults in the social systems of the Oriental nations; they have laws and
+usages which are repugnant to all our feelings, which seem to us
+horrible. But it is well to remember that it is impossible to comprehend
+any nation not our own unless one has lived a long time among its
+people, and made one's self familiar with their traditions, their
+temperament, their history, and, above all, with the language which they
+speak. Anything less than this is observation from the outside alone,
+which is sure to be founded upon misapprehension. The French and the
+English are separated by merely the few miles of the Channel, and they
+have, to a certain extent, a common language; for though the French do
+not often understand English, the English very generally understand
+something of French. Yet it is said that these two nations have never
+thoroughly comprehended each other either as nations or individuals; and
+it is even added that, owing to their differing temperaments, they will
+never reach a clear appreciation of each other's merits; demerits, of
+course, are easier. Our own country has a language which is, on the
+whole, nearer the English tongue perhaps than is the speech of France;
+yet have we not felt now and then that English travellers have
+misunderstood us? If this is<a name="page_279" id="page_279"></a> the case among people who are all
+Occidentals together, how much more difficult must be a thorough
+comprehension by us of those ancient nations who were old before we were
+born?</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_295_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_295_sml.jpg" width="550" height="506" alt="SOUVENIRS OF CAIRO" title="SOUVENIRS OF CAIRO" /></a>
+<span class="caption">SOUVENIRS OF CAIRO</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The East is the land of mystery. If one cares for it at all, one loves
+it; there is no half-way. If one does not love it, one really (though
+perhaps not avowedly) hates it&mdash;hates it and all its ways. But for those
+who love it the charm is so strong that no surprise is felt in reading
+or hearing of Europeans who have left all to take up a wandering
+existence there for long years or for life&mdash;the spirit of Browning's
+"What's become of Waring?"</p>
+
+<p>All of us cannot be Warings, however, and the time comes at last when we
+must take leave. The streets of Cairo have been for some time adorned
+with placards<a name="page_280" id="page_280"></a> whose announcements begin, in large type, "Travellers
+returning to Europe." We are indeed far away when returning to Europe is
+a step towards home. We wait for the last festival&mdash;the Shem-en-Neseem,
+or Smelling of the Zephyr&mdash;the annual picnic day, when the people go
+into the country to gather flowers and breathe the soft air before the
+opening of the regular season for the Khamsin. Then comes the journey by
+railway to Alexandria. We wave a handkerchief (now fringed on all four
+sides by the colored threads of the laundresses) to the few friends
+still left behind. They respond; and so do all the Mustaphas, Achmets,
+and Ibrahims who have carried our parcels and trotted after our donkeys.
+Then we take a seat by the window, to watch for the last time the flying
+Egyptian landscape&mdash;the green plain, the tawny Nile, the camels on the
+bank, the villages, and the palm-trees, and behind them the solemn line
+of the desert.</p>
+
+<p>At sunset the steamer passes down the harbor, and, pushing out to sea,
+turns westward. A faint crescent moon becomes visible over the
+Ras-et-Teen palace. It is the moon of Ramadan. Presently a cannon on the
+shore ushers in, with its distant sound, the great Mohammedan fast.<a name="page_281" id="page_281"></a></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CORFU_AND_THE_IONIAN_SEA" id="CORFU_AND_THE_IONIAN_SEA"></a>CORFU AND THE IONIAN SEA<a name="page_283" id="page_283"></a><a name="page_282" id="page_282"></a></h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_299_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_299_sml.jpg" width="550" height="283" alt="city view" title="city view" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry">
+<tr><td align="left">Sad eyes! the blue sea laughs, as heretofore.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Ah, singing birds, your happy music pour;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp; Ah, poets, leave the sordid earth awhile;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Flit to these ancient gods we still adore:</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp; "It may be we shall touch the happy isle!"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">&mdash;<i>Translated by Andrew Lang.</i></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>N<span class="smcap">ot</span> long before Christmas, last year, I found myself travelling from
+Ancona down the Adriatic coast of Italy by the fast train called the
+Indian Mail. There was excitement in the very name, and more in the
+conversation of the people who sat beside me at the table of a queer
+little eating-house on the shore, before whose portal the Indian Mail
+stopped late in the evening. We all descended and went in. A dusky
+apartment was our discovery, and a table illuminated by guttering
+candles that flared in the strong currents of air. Roast chickens were
+stacked on this table in a high pile, and loaves of dark-colored bread
+were placed here and there, with portly straw-covered flasks of the wine
+of the country. No one came to serve us; we were expected to serve
+ourselves. A landlord who looked like an obese Don Juan was established
+behind a bench in a distant corner, where he made coffee with
+amiability<a name="page_284" id="page_284"></a> and enthusiasm for those who desired it. It was supposed
+that we were to go to him, before we returned to the train, and pay for
+what we had consumed; and I hope that his trust in us was not misplaced,
+for with his objection to exercise, and his dim little lamp which
+illuminated only his smiles, there was nothing for him but trust. The
+Indian Mail carries passengers who are outward-bound for Constantinople,
+Egypt, and India; his confidence rested perhaps in the belief that
+persons about to embark on such dangerous seas would hardly begin the
+enterprise by crime. To other minds, however, it might have seemed the
+very moment to perpetrate enormities. As we attacked the chickens, I
+perceived in the flickering glare that all my companions were English.
+Everybody talked, and the thrill of the one American increased as the
+names of the steamers waiting at Brindisi were mentioned&mdash;the
+<i>Hydaspes</i>, the <i>Coromandel</i>, the <i>Cathay</i>, the <i>Mirzapore</i>: towards
+what lands of sandal-wood, what pleasure-domes of Kubla-Khan, might not
+one sail on ships bearing those titles! The present voyagers, however,
+were all old travellers; they took a purely practical view of the
+Orient. Nevertheless, their careless "Cairo," "Port Said," "Bombay,"
+"Ceylon," "Java," were as fascinating as the shining balls of a juggler
+when a dozen are in the air at the same moment. My right-hand neighbor,
+upon learning that my destination was Corfu, good-naturedly offered the
+information that the voyage was an easy one. "Corfu, however, is <i>not</i>
+what it has been!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Polly, it is looking up a little, now that the Empress of Austria
+is building a villa there," suggested a sister correctively.</p>
+
+<p>After this outburst of talk, we all climbed back into the waiting train,
+and went flying on towards the south, following the lonely, wild-looking
+coast, with the wind<a name="page_285" id="page_285"></a> from the Adriatic crying over our heads like a
+banshee. It was midnight when we reached Brindisi. At present this, the
+ancient Brundusium, is the jumping-off place for the traveller on his
+way to the East; here he must leave the land and trust himself to an
+enigmatical deep. But if he wishes to have the sensation in full force,
+he must not delay his journey; for, presently, the Indian Mail will rush
+through Greece and meet the steamers at Cape Colonna; and then, before
+long, there will be another spurt, and Pullman trains will go through to
+Calcutta, with a ferry over the Bosporus.</p>
+
+<p>At Brindisi I became the prey of five barelegged boatmen, who, owing to
+the noise of the wind and the water, communicated with each other by
+yells. The Austrian-Lloyd steamer from Trieste, outward-bound for
+Constantinople, which carried the friends I was expecting to meet, was
+said to be lying out in the stream, and I enjoyed the adventure of
+setting forth alone on the dark sea in search of her, in a small boat
+rowed by my Otranto crew. During the transit there was not much time to
+think of Brundusium, with its memories of Horace and Virgil. But there
+was another opportunity to reflect upon the question, perplexing to the
+unskilled mind&mdash;namely, Why it is that an American abroad is constantly
+called upon to praise the wharves, piers, and landing-stages, and with
+the same breath to condemn as disgraces to civilization the like
+nautical platforms of his own country, when he is so often obliged, on
+foreign shores, to embark and disembark by means of a tossing small boat
+or a crowded tender, whereas at home, with the aid of those same
+makeshift constructions for whose short-comings he is supposed to blush,
+he walks on board of his steamship with no trouble whatever?</p>
+
+<p>Early the next morning, awakening on a shelf in a red velvet cupboard, I
+was explaining to myself vaguely<a name="page_286" id="page_286"></a> that the cupboard was a dream, when
+there appeared through the port-hole a picture of such fairy-tale beauty
+that the dream became lyrical&mdash;it began to sing:</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry">
+<tr><td align="left">"Far and few, far and few,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp;Are the lands where the Jumblies live!"</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>At last those famous lines were actualities, for surely this was the sea
+of the Jumblies, and those heights without doubt were "the hills of
+Chankly Bore." (There are people, I believe, who do not care for the
+Jumblies. There are persons who do not care for Alice in Wonderland, nor
+for Brer Rabbit, when he played on his triangle down by the brook.)</p>
+
+<p>The sea which I saw was of a miraculously blue tint; in the distance the
+cliffs of a mountainous island rose boldly from the water, their color
+that of a violet pansy; a fishing-boat with red sails was crossing the
+foreground; over all glittered an atmosphere so golden that it was like
+that of sunset in other lands, though the sky, at the same time, had
+unmistakably the purity of early morning. Later, on the deck, during the
+broadly practical time of after breakfast, this view, instead of
+diminishing in attraction, grew constantly more fair. The French
+novelist of to-day, Paul Bourget, describes Corfu as "so lovely that one
+wants to take it in one's arms!" Another Frenchman, who was not given to
+the making of phrases, no less a personage than Napoleon Bonaparte, has
+left upon record his belief that Corfu has "the most beautiful situation
+in the world." What, then, is this beauty? What is this situation?</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_303_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_303_sml.jpg" width="550" height="375" alt="PART OF THE TOWN OF CORFU" title="PART OF THE TOWN OF CORFU" /></a>
+<span class="caption">PART OF THE TOWN OF CORFU</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>First, there is the long and charming approach, with the snow-capped
+mountains of Albania, in European Turkey, looming up against the sky at
+the end; then comes the landlocked harbor; then the picturesque<a name="page_289" id="page_289"></a><a name="page_288" id="page_288"></a><a name="page_287" id="page_287"></a> old
+town, its high stone houses, all of creamy hue, crowded together on the
+hill-side above the sea-wall, with here and there a bell-tower shooting
+into the blue. Below is the busy, many-colored port. Above towers the
+dark double fortress on its rock. And, finally, the dense, grove-like
+vegetation of the island encircles all, and its own mountain-peaks rise
+behind, one of them attaining a height of three thousand feet. There are
+other islands of which all this, or almost all, can be said&mdash;Capri, for
+instance. But at Corfu there are two attributes peculiar to the region;
+these are: first, the color; second, the transparency. Although the
+voyage from Brindisi hardly occupies twelve hours, the atmosphere is
+utterly unlike that of Italy; there is no haze; all is clear. Some of us
+love the Italian haze (which is not in the least a mist), that soft veil
+which makes the mountains look as if they were covered with velvet. But
+a love of this softness need not, I hope, make us hate everything that
+is different. Greece (and Corfu is a Greek island) seemed to me all
+light&mdash;the lightest country in the world. In other lands, if we climb a
+high mountain and stand on its bald summit at noon, we feel as if we
+were taking a bath in light; in Greece we have this feeling everywhere,
+even in the valleys. Euripides described his countrymen as "forever
+delicately tripping through the pellucid air," and so their modern
+descendants trip to this day. This dry atmosphere has an exciting effect
+upon the nervous energy, and the faces of the people show it. It has
+also, I believe, the defect of this good quality&mdash;namely, an
+over-stimulation, which sometimes produces neuralgia. In some respects
+Americans recognize this clearness of the atmosphere, and its influence,
+good and bad; the air of northern New England in the summer, and of
+California at the same season, is not unlike it. But in America the
+transparency is more<a name="page_290" id="page_290"></a> white, more blank; we have little of the coloring
+that exists in Greece, tints whose intensity must be seen to be
+believed. The mountains, the hills, the fields, are sometimes bathed in
+lilac. Then comes violet for the plains, while the mountains are rose
+that deepens into crimson. At other times salmon, pink, and purple
+tinges are seen, and ochre, saffron, and cinnamon brown. This
+description applies to the whole of Greece, but among the Ionian Islands
+the effect of the color is doubled by the wonderful tint of the
+surrounding sea. I promise not to mention this hue again; hereafter it
+can be taken for granted, for it is always present; but for this once I
+must say that you may imagine the bluest blue you know&mdash;the sky, lapis
+lazuli, sapphires, the eyes of some children, the Bay of Naples&mdash;and the
+Ionian Sea is bluer than any of these. And nowhere else have I seen such
+dear, queer little foam sprays. They are so small and so very white on
+the blue, and they curl over the surface of the water even when the sea
+is perfectly calm, which makes me call them queer. You meet them miles
+from land. And all the shores are whitened with their never-ceasing
+play. It is a pygmy surf.</p>
+
+<p>It was eleven o'clock in the morning when our steamer reached her
+anchorage before the island town. Immediately she was surrounded by
+small boats, whose crews were perfectly lawless, demanding from
+strangers whatever they thought they could get, and obtaining their
+demands, because there was no way to escape them except by building a
+raft. Upon reaching land one forgets the extortion, for the windows of
+the hotel overlook the esplanade, and this open space amiably offers to
+persons who are interested in first impressions a panoramic history of
+two thousand five hundred years in a series of striking mementos. Let me
+premise that as regards any solid knowledge of these islands, only a<a name="page_291" id="page_291"></a>
+contemptible smattering can be obtained in a stay so short as mine.
+Corfu and her sisters have borne a conspicuous part in what we used to
+call ancient history. Through the Roman days they appear and reappear.
+In the times of the Crusaders their position made them extremely
+important. Years of study could not exhaust their records, nor months of
+research their antiquities. To comprehend them rightfully one must
+indeed be an historian, an arch�ologist, and a painter at one and the
+same time, and one must also be good-natured. Few of us can hope to
+unite all these. The next best thing, therefore, is to go and see them
+with whatever eyes and mind we happen to possess. Good-nature will
+perhaps return after the opening encounter with the boatmen is over.</p>
+
+<p>From our windows, then, we could note, first, the Citadel, high on its
+rock, three hundred feet above the town. The oldest part of the present
+fortress was erected in 1550; but the site has always been the
+stronghold. Corinthians, Athenians, Spartans, Macedonians, and Romans
+have in turn held the island, and this rock is the obvious keep. Later
+came four hundred years of Venetian control, and I am ashamed to add
+that the tokens of this last-named period were to me more delightful
+than any of the other memorials. I say "ashamed," for why should one be
+haunted by Venice in Greece? With the Parthenon to look forward to, why
+should the lion of St. Mark, sculptured on Corfu fa�ades, be a thing to
+greet with joy? Many of us are familiar with the disconsolate figures of
+some of our fellow-countrymen and countrywomen in the galleries of
+Europe, tired and dejected tourists wandering from picture to picture,
+but finding nothing half so interesting as the memory of No. 4699
+Columbus Avenue at home. I am afraid it is equally narrow to be scanning
+Corfu, Athens, Cairo, and the sands of the desert itself for something
+that reminds<a name="page_292" id="page_292"></a> one of another place, even though that place be the
+enchanting pageant of a town at the head of the Adriatic. History,
+however, as related by the esplanade, pays no attention to these
+aberrations of the looker-on; its story goes steadily forward. The lions
+of St. Mark on the fa�ades, and another memento of the Doges&mdash;namely,
+the statue of Count von der Schulenburg, who commanded the Venetian
+forces in the great defence of Corfu in 1716&mdash;these memorials have as
+companions various tokens of the English occupation, which, following
+that of Venice, continued through forty-nine years&mdash;that is, from 1815
+to 1863. Before this there had been a short period of French dominion;
+but the esplanade, so far as I could discover, contains no memorial of
+it, unless Napoleon's phrase can stand for one&mdash;and I think it can. The
+souvenirs of the British rule are conspicuous. The first is the palace
+built for the English Governor, a functionary who bore the sonorous
+official name of Lord High Commissioner, a title which was soon
+shortened to the odd abbreviation "the Lord High." This palace is an
+uninteresting construction stretching stiffly across the water-side of
+the esplanade, and cutting off the view of the harbor. It is now the
+property of the King of Greece, but at present it is seldom occupied.
+While we were at Corfu its ghostliness was enlivened for a while; Prince
+Henry of Prussia was there with his wife. They had left their yacht (if
+so large a vessel as the <i>Irene</i> can be called a yacht), and were
+spending a week at the palace. An hour after their departure entrance
+was again permitted, and an old man, still trembling from the excitement
+of the royal sojourn, conducted us from room to room. All was ugly.
+Fading flowers in the vases showed that an attempt had been made to
+brighten the place; but the visitors must have been endowed with a
+strong natural cheerfulness to withstand with success<a name="page_293" id="page_293"></a> such a mixture of
+the commonplace and the dreary as the palace presents. They had the
+magnificent view to look at, and there was always the graceful
+silhouette of the <i>Irene</i> out on the water. She could come up at any
+time and take them away; it was this, probably, that kept them alive.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_309_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_309_sml.jpg" width="550" height="245" alt="THE PALACE" title="THE PALACE" /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE PALACE</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>If the palace is ordinary, what shall be said of another memento which
+adorns the esplanade? This is a high, narrow building, so uncouth that
+it causes a smile. It looks raw, bare, and so primitive that if it had a
+pulley at the top it might be taken for a warehouse erected on the bank
+of a canal in one of our Western towns; one sees in imagination
+canal-boats lying beneath, and bulging sacks going up or down. Yet this
+is nothing less than that University of the Ionian Islands which was
+founded by the Earl of Guildford early in this century, the epoch of
+English enthusiasm for Greece, the days of the Philhellenes. Lord
+Guildford, who was one of the distinguished North family, gave largely
+of his fortune and of his time to establish this university.
+Contemporary records speak of him as "an amiable nobleman." But after
+seeing his touchingly ugly academy and his bust (which is not ugly) in
+the hall of the extinct Ionian Senate at the palace, one feels sure that
+he<a name="page_294" id="page_294"></a> was more than amiable&mdash;he must have been original also.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_310_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_310_sml.jpg" width="550" height="340" alt="UNIVERSITY OF THE IONIAN ISLANDS" title="UNIVERSITY OF THE IONIAN ISLANDS" /></a>
+<span class="caption">UNIVERSITY OF THE IONIAN ISLANDS</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="nind">The English
+are called cold; but as individuals they are capable sometimes of
+extraordinary enthusiasms for distant causes and distant people.
+Adventurous travellers as they are, does the charm lie in the word
+"distant"? The defunct academy now shelters a school where vigorous
+young Greeks sit on benches, opposite each other, in narrow, doorless
+compartments which resemble the interior of a large omnibus; this, at
+least, was the arrangement of the ground-floor on the day of our visit.
+Although it was December, the boys looked heated. The teachers, who
+walked up and down, had a relentless aspect. Even the porter,
+white-haired and bent, had a will untouched by the least decay; he would
+not show us the remains of the university library, nor the Roman
+antiquities which are said to be stored somewhere in a lumber-room,
+among them "fifty-nine frames of mosaic representing a bustard in
+various attitudes." He had not the power, apparently, to exhibit these
+treasures while the school exercises were going on, and as soon as they
+were<a name="page_295" id="page_295"></a> ended&mdash;instantly, that very minute&mdash;he intended to eat his dinner,
+and nothing could alter this determination; his face grew ferocious at
+the mere suggestion. So we were obliged to depart without seeing the
+souvenirs of Lord Guildford's enthusiasm; and owing to the glamour which
+always hangs over the place one has failed to see, I have been sure ever
+since that we should have found them the most fascinating objects in
+Corfu.</p>
+
+<p>At the present school the teaching is done, no doubt, in a tongue which
+would have made the old university shudder. In a letter written by Sir
+George Bowen in 1856, from one of the Ionian Islands, there is the
+following anecdote: "Bishop Wilberforce told me that he recently had, as
+a candidate at one of his ordinations, Mr. M., the son of an English
+merchant settled in Greece. 'I examined him myself,' said the bishop,
+'when he gave what was to me an unknown pronunciation.' 'Oh, Mr. M.,' I
+said, 'where <i>did</i> you learn Greek?' 'In Athens, my lord,' replied the
+trembling man." Classical scholars who visit Greece to-day are not able
+to ask the simplest questions; or, rather, they may ask, but no one will
+understand them. Several of these gentlemen have announced to the world
+that the modern speech of Athens is a barbarous decadence. It is not for
+an American, I suppose, to pass judgment upon matters of this sort. But
+when these authorities continue as follows: "And even in pronunciation
+modern Greek is hopelessly fallen; the ancients never pronounced in this
+way," may we not ask how they can be so sure? They are not, I take it,
+inspired, and the phonograph is a modern invention. The voice of Robert
+Browning is stored for coming generations; the people <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 3000 may hear
+him recite "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix." Possibly
+the tones of Lord Salisbury and of Mr.<a name="page_296" id="page_296"></a> Balfour are already garnered and
+arranged in cylinders for the future orators of the South Seas. But we
+cannot know how Pindar spoke any more than we can know the song the
+Sirens sang; the most learned scholar cannot, alas! summon from the past
+the articulation of Plato.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_312_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_312_sml.jpg" width="550" height="343" alt="SMALL TEMPLE, MEMORIAL TO SIR THOMAS MAITLAND" title="SMALL TEMPLE, MEMORIAL TO SIR THOMAS MAITLAND" /></a>
+<span class="caption">SMALL TEMPLE, MEMORIAL TO SIR THOMAS MAITLAND</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the esplanade the period of English rule is further kept in mind by
+monuments to the memory of three of the Lords High&mdash;a statue, an
+obelisk, and (of all things in the world) an imitation of a Greek
+temple. This temple&mdash;it is so small that they might call it a
+templette&mdash;was erected in honor of Sir Thomas Maitland, a Governor whose
+arbitrary rule gained for him the title of King Tom. The three memorials
+are officially protected, an agreement to that effect having been made
+between the governments of Great Britain and Greece. They were never in
+danger, probably, as the English protection was a friendly one. In spite
+of its friendliness, the Corfiotes voted as follows with<a name="page_297" id="page_297"></a> enthusiasm
+when an opportunity was offered to them: "The single and unanimous will
+of the Ionian people has been and is for their reunion with the Kingdom
+of Greece." England yielded to this wish and withdrew&mdash;a disinterested
+act which ought to have gained for her universal applause. Since 1864
+Corfu and her sister islands, happily freed at last from foreign
+control, have filled with patriotic pride and contentment their proper
+place as part of the Hellenic kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>The esplanade also contains the one modern monument erected by the
+Corfiotes themselves&mdash;a statue of Capo d'Istria. John Capo d'Istria, a
+native of Corfu, was the political leader of Greece when she succeeded
+in freeing herself from the Turkish yoke. The story of his life is a
+part of the exciting tale of the Greek revolution. His measures, after
+he had attained supreme power, were thought to be high-handed, and he
+was accused also of looking too often towards that great empire in the
+North whose boundaries are stretching slowly towards Constantinople; he
+was resisted, disliked; finally he was assassinated. Time has softened
+the remembrance of his faults, whatever they were, and brought his
+services to the nation into the proper relief; hence this statue,
+erected in 1887, fifty-six years after his death, by young Greece. It is
+a sufficiently imposing figure of white marble, the face turned towards
+the bay with a musing expression. Capo d'Istria&mdash;a name which might have
+been invented for a Greek patriot! The Eastern question is a complicated
+one, and I have no knowledge of its intricacies. But a personal
+observation of the hatred of Turkey which exists in every Greek heart,
+and a glance at the map of Europe, lead an American mind towards one
+general idea or fancy&mdash;namely, that Capo d'Istria was merely in advance
+of his time, and that an alliance between Russia and Greece is now one
+of the probabilities of the near<a name="page_298" id="page_298"></a> future. It is unexpected&mdash;at least, to
+the non-political observer&mdash;that Hellas should be left to turn for help
+and comfort to the Muscovites, a race to whom, probably, her ancient art
+and literature appeal less strongly than they do to any other European
+people. But she has so turned. "Wait till <i>Russia</i> comes down here!" she
+appears to be saying, with deferred menace, to Turkey to-day.</p>
+
+<p>These various monuments of the esplanade do not, however, make Corfu in
+the least modern. They are unimportant, they are inconspicuous, when
+compared with the old streets which meander over the slopes behind them,
+fringed with a net-work of stone lanes that lead down to the water's
+edge. It has been said that the general aspect of the place is Italian.
+It is true that there are arcades like those of Bologna and Padua; that
+some of the byways have the look of a Venetian calle, without its canal;
+and that the neighborhood of the gay little port resembles, on a small
+scale, the streets which border the harbor of Genoa. In spite of this,
+we have only to look up and see the sky, we have only to breathe and
+note the quality of the air, to perceive that we are not in Italy. Corfu
+is Greek, with a coating of Italian manners. And it has also caught a
+strong tinge from Asia. Many of the houses have the low door and masked
+entrance which are so characteristic of the East; at the top of the
+neglected stairway, as far as possible from public view, there may be
+handsome, richly furnished apartments; but if such rooms exist, the
+jealous love of privacy keeps them hidden. This inconspicuous entrance
+is as universal in the Orient as the high wall, shutting off all view of
+the garden or park, is universal in England.</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_299" id="page_299"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 438px;">
+<a href="images/ill_315_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_315_sml.jpg" width="438" height="550" alt="STATUE OF CAPO D&#39;ISTRIA" title="STATUE OF CAPO D&#39;ISTRIA" /></a>
+<span class="caption">STATUE OF CAPO D&#39;ISTRIA</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The town of Corfu has 26,000 inhabitants. Among the population are
+Dalmatians, Maltese, Levantines, and others; but the Greeks are the
+dominant race. There<a name="page_301" id="page_301"></a><a name="page_300" id="page_300"></a>
+is a Jews' quarter, and Jews abound, or did
+abound at the time of my visit. Since then fanaticism has raised its
+head again, and there have been wild scenes at Corfu. Face to face with
+the revival of persecution for religious opinions which is now visible
+in Russia, and not in Russia alone, are we forced to acknowledge that
+our century is not so enlightened as we have hoped that it was. I
+remember when I believed that in no civilized country to-day could there
+be found, among the educated, a single person who would wish to
+persecute or coerce his fellow-beings solely on account of their
+religious opinions; but I am obliged to confess that, without going to
+Russia or Corfu, I have encountered within the last dozen years
+individuals not a few whose flashing eyes and crimson cheeks, when they
+spoke of a mental attitude in such matters which differed from their
+own, made me realize with a thrill that if it were still the day of the
+stake and the torch they would come bringing fagots to the pile with
+their own hands.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of these survivals, ceremonial martyrdom for so-called
+religion's sake is, we may hope, at an end among the civilized nations;
+we have only its relics left. Corfu has one of these relics, a martyr
+who is sincerely honored&mdash;St. Spiridion, or, as he is called in loving
+diminutive, Spiro. Spiro, who died fifteen hundred years ago, was bishop
+of a see in Cyprus, I believe. He was tortured during the persecution of
+the Christians under Diocletian. His embalmed body was taken to
+Constantinople, and afterwards, in 1489, it was brought to Corfu by a
+man named George Colochieretry. Some authorities say that Colochieretry
+was a monk; in any case, what is certain is that the heirs of this man
+still own the saint&mdash;surely a strange piece of property&mdash;and derive
+large revenues from him. St. Spiro reposes in a small dim chapel of the
+church which is called by his<a name="page_302" id="page_302"></a> name; his superb silver coffin is lighted
+by the rays from a hanging lamp which is suspended above it. When we
+paid our visit, people in an unbroken stream were pressing into this
+chapel, and kissing the sarcophagus repeatedly with passionate fervor.
+The nave, too, was thronged; families were seated on the pavement in
+groups, with an air of having been there all day: probably Christmas is
+one of the seasons set apart for an especial pilgrimage to the martyr.
+Three times a year the body is taken from its coffin and borne round the
+esplanade, followed by a long train of Greek clergy, and by the public
+officers of the town; upon these occasions the sick are brought forth
+and laid where the shadow of the saint can pass over them. "Yes, he's
+out to-day, I believe," said a resident, to whom we had mentioned this
+procession. He spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. After seeing it three
+times a year for twenty years, the issuing forth of the old bishop into
+the brilliant sunshine to make a solemn circuit round the esplanade did
+not, I suppose, seem so remarkable to him as it seemed to us. There is
+another saint, a woman (her name I have forgotten), who also reposes in
+a silver coffin in one of the Corfu churches. At first we supposed that
+this was Spiro. But the absence of worshippers showed us our mistake.
+This lonely witness to the faith was also a martyr; she suffered
+decapitation. "They don't think much of <i>her</i>," said the same resident.
+Then, explanatorily, "You see&mdash;she has no head." This practically minded
+critic, however, was not a native of Corfu. The true Corfiotes are very
+reverent, and no doubt they honor their second martyr upon her appointed
+day. But Spiro is the one they love. The country people believe that he
+visits their fields once a year to bless their olives and grain, and the
+Corfu sailors are sure that he comes to them, walking on the water in
+the darkness, when a storm is approaching.<a name="page_303" id="page_303"></a> Mr. Tuckerman, in his
+delightful volume, <i>The Greeks of To-Day</i>, says, in connection with this
+last legend, that it is believed by the devout that seaweed is often
+found about the legs of the good bishop in his silver coffin, after his
+return from these marine promenades. There is something charming in this
+story, and I shall have to hold back my hand to keep myself from
+alluding (and yet I do allude) to a shrine I know at Venice; it is far
+out on the lagoon, and its name is Our Lady of the Seaweed. The last
+time my gondola passed it I saw that by a happy chance the high tide had
+left seaweed twined about it in long, floating wreaths, like an
+offering.</p>
+
+<p>The name of the national religion of Greece is the Orthodox Church of
+the East, or, more briefly, the Orthodox Church. Western nations call it
+the Greek Church, but they have invented that name themselves. The
+Orthodox Church has rites and ceremonies which are striking and
+sometimes magnificent. I have many memories of the churches of Corfu.
+The temples are so numerous that they seem innumerable; one was always
+coming upon a fresh one; sometimes there is only a fa�ade visible, and
+occasionally nothing but a door, the church being behind, masked by
+other buildings. My impressions are of a series of magnified
+jewel-boxes. There was not much daylight; no matter how radiant the
+sunshine outside, within all was richly dim, owing to the dark tints of
+the stained glass. The ornamentation was never paltry or tawdry. The
+soft light from the wax candles drew dull gleams from the singular
+metal-incrusted pictures. These pictures, or icons, are placed in large
+numbers along the walls and upon the screen which divides the nave from
+the apse. They are generally representations of the Madonna and Child in
+repouss�-work of silver, silvered copper, or gilt. Often the face and
+hands of the Madonna are<a name="page_304" id="page_304"></a> painted on panel; in that case the portrait
+rises from metal shoulders, and the head is surrounded by metal hair.
+The painting is always of the stiff Byzantine school, following an
+ancient model, for any other style would be considered irreverent, and
+nothing can exceed the strange effect produced by these long-eyed,
+small-mouthed, rigid, sourly sweet virgin faces coming out from their
+silver-gilt necks, while below, painted taper fingers of unearthly
+length encircle a silver Child, who in His turn has a countenance of
+panel, often all out of drawing, but hauntingly sweet. These curious
+pictures have great dignity. The churches have no seats. I generally
+took my stand in one of the pew-like stalls which project from the wall,
+and here, unobserved, I could watch the people coming in and kissing the
+icons. This adoration, commemoration, reverence, or whatever the proper
+word for it may be, is much more conspicuous in the Greek places of
+worship than it is in Roman Catholic churches. Those who come in make
+the round of the walls, kissing every picture, and they do it fervently,
+not formally. The service is chanted by the priests very rapidly in a
+peculiar kind of intoning. The Corfu priests did not look as if they
+were learned men, but their faces have a natural and humane expression
+which is agreeable. In the street, with their flowing robes, long hair
+and beards, and high black caps, they are striking figures. The parish
+priest must be a married man, and he does not live apart from his
+people, but closely mingles with them upon all occasions. He is the
+papas, or pope, as it is translated, and a lover of Tourguenieff who
+meets a pope for the first time at Corfu is haunted anew by those
+masterpieces of the great Russian&mdash;the village tales across whose pages
+the pope and the popess come and go, and seem, to American readers, such
+strange figures.</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_305" id="page_305"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_321_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_321_sml.jpg" width="550" height="463" alt="THE TOMB OF MENEKRATES" title="THE TOMB OF MENEKRATES" /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE TOMB OF MENEKRATES</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="page_306" id="page_306"></a></p>
+
+<p>In the suburb of Castrades is the oldest church of<a name="page_307" id="page_307"></a>
+the island. It is
+dedicated to St. Jason, the kinsman of St. Paul. St. Jason's appeared to
+be deserted. Here, as elsewhere, it is not the church most interesting
+from the historical point of view which is the favorite of the people,
+or which they find, apparently, the most friendly. But when I paid my
+visit, there were so many vines and flowers outside, and such a blue sky
+above, that the little Byzantine temple had a cheerful, irresponsible
+air, as if it were saying: "It's not my fault that people won't come
+here. But if they won't, I'm not unhappy about it; the sunshine, the
+vines, and I&mdash;we do very well together." The interior was bare, flooded
+also with white daylight&mdash;so white that one blinked. And in this
+whiteness my mind suddenly returned to Hellas. For Hellas had been
+forgotten for the moment, owing to the haunting icons in the dark
+churches of the town. Those silver-incrusted images had brought up a
+vision of the uncounted millions to-day in Turkey, Greece, and Russia
+who bow before them, the Christians of whom we know and think
+comparatively so little. But now all these Eastern people vanished as
+silently as they had come, and the past returned&mdash;the past, whose spell
+summons us to Greece. For conspicuous in the white daylight of St.
+Jason's were three antique columns, which, with other sculptured
+fragments set in the walls, had been taken from an earlier pagan temple
+to build this later church. And the spell does not break again in this
+part of the island. Not far from St. Jason's is the tomb of Menekrates.
+This monument was discovered in 1843, when one of the Venetian forts was
+demolished. Beneath the foundations the workmen came upon funeral vases,
+and upon digging deeper an ancient Greek cemetery was uncovered, with
+many graves, various relics, and this tomb. It is circular, formed of
+large blocks of stone closely joined without cement, and at present one<a name="page_308" id="page_308"></a>
+stands and looks down upon it, as though it were in a roofless cellar.
+It bears round its low dome a metrical inscription in Greek, to the
+effect that Menekrates, who was the representative at Corcyra (the old
+name for Corfu) of his native town Eanthus, lost his life accidentally
+by drowning; that this was a great sorrow to the community, for he was a
+friend of the people; that his brother came from Eanthus, and, with the
+aid of the Corcyreans, erected the monument. There is something
+impressive to us in this simple memorial of grief set up before the days
+of �schylus, before the battle of Marathon&mdash;the commemoration of a
+family sorrow in Corfu two thousand five hundred years ago. The
+following is a Latin translation of the inscription:</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry">
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Tlasiadis memor ecce Menecrates hoc monumentum,</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Ortum &OElig;antheus, populus statuebat at illi,</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Quippe benignus erat populo patronus, in alto</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Sed periit ponto, totam et dolor obruit urbem.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Praximenes autem patriis huc venit ab oris</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Cum populo et fratris monumentum hoc struxit adempti."</span></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Two thousand five hundred years ago! That is far back. But it is not the
+oldest date "in the world." Americans are accused of cherishing an
+inordinate love for the superlative&mdash;the longest river, the highest
+mountain, the deepest mine in the world, the largest diamond in the
+world; there must always be that tag "in the world" to interest us. When
+ancient objects are in question we are said to rush from one to the
+next, applying our sole test; and we drop at any time a tomb or a
+temple, no matter how beautiful, if there comes a rumor that another has
+been discovered a little farther on which is thought to be a trifle more
+venerable. Thus they chaff us&mdash;pilgrims from a land where Nature herself
+works in superlatives, and where there is no antiquity at all. In Italy
+our mania, exercising itself<a name="page_309" id="page_309"></a> upon smaller objects than temples, brings
+us nearer the comprehension (or non-comprehension) of the contemptuous
+natives. "What hideous" (she called it hee-dee us) "things you <i>do</i>
+buy!" I heard an Italian lady exclaim with conviction some years ago, as
+she happened to meet three of her American acquaintances returning from
+a hunt through the antiquity-shops of Naples, loaded with a battered
+lamp, a square of moth-eaten tapestry with an indecipherable
+inscription, and a nondescript broken animal in bronze, without head,
+tail, or legs, who might have been intended for a dragon, or possibly
+for a cow. After a while we pass this stage of antiquity-shops. But we
+never pass the Etruscans, or, rather, I should speak for myself, and say
+that I never passed them; I was perpetually haunted by them. There was
+one road in particular, a lonely track which led from Bellosguardo (at
+Florence) up a steep hill, and I was forever climbing this stony ascent
+because, forsooth, it was set down on an Italian map as "the old
+Etruscan way between Fiesole and Volterra," two strongholds of this
+mysterious people. I was sure that there were tombs with strangely
+painted walls close at hand, and when there was no one in sight I made
+furtive arch�ological pokes with my parasol. In Italy an Etruscan tomb
+seems the oldest thing "in the world." And at Corfu the unearthed Greek
+cemetery became doubly interesting when I learned that among the relics
+discovered there was a lioness couchant, concerning which the highest
+authorities have said, "After the lions of the gates of Mycen�, there is
+no Greek sculpture older than this." (The lioness is now in the
+vestibule of the palace in the esplanade.) This was exciting, for Mycen�
+is a name to conjure with still, in spite of the refusal of the learned
+to accept, in all their extent, Dr. Schliemann's splendidly romantic
+theories and dreams. But when one goes on to Egypt, to have searched at<a name="page_310" id="page_310"></a>
+all for that enticing "oldest" in Greece appears to have been a mistake.
+For what is <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 1000, which the German authorities say is an
+approximate date for the Mycen� relics&mdash;what is that compared with King
+Menes of the Nile, with his <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 4400 according to Brugsch-Bey, and <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>
+5000 according to Mariette? And there are rumors of civilized times far
+older. But if we can bring ourselves to cease our chase after age and
+turn to beauty, then it is not in the sands of Egypt that we must dig.
+For beauty we must come to the clear light country of the gods.</p>
+
+<p>But leaving history, some of us suffer greatly nowadays from mental
+dislocations of another sort. The Mycen� lions and the grim lioness of
+Corfu are ascribed with a calmness which seems brutal to "pre-Homeric
+times." Surely there were no pre-Homeric times except chaos. Surely
+those were the first days of the world when all the men were
+sure-footed, and all the women white-armed; when the sea was hollow (it
+has remained that to this day), and when the heavenly powers interested
+themselves in human affairs upon the slightest occasion. Leave us our
+faith in them. It can be preserved, if you like, in the purely poetical
+compartment of the mind. For there are all sorts of compartments: I have
+met a learned geologist who turned pale when a mirror was broken by
+accident in his house; I know a disciple of Darwin who always deprecates
+instantly any reference to his good health, lest in some mysterious way
+it should attract ill-luck. It seems to me, therefore, that the dear
+belief that Homer's heroes began the world may coexist even with the
+bicycle. (Not that I myself have much knowledge of this excellent
+vehicle. But, its tandem wheels, swift and business-like, personify the
+spirit of the age.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_311" id="page_311"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 379px;">
+<a href="images/ill_327_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_327_sml.jpg" width="379" height="550" alt="THE ISLET CALLED &quot;THE SHIP OF ULYSSES&quot;" title="THE ISLET CALLED &quot;THE SHIP OF ULYSSES&quot;" /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE ISLET CALLED &quot;THE SHIP OF ULYSSES&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="page_312" id="page_312"></a></p>
+
+<p>At Corfu one is over one's head in the Odyssey. "The island is not what
+it has been," said the English<a name="page_313" id="page_313"></a> lady of the Indian Mail. It is not,
+indeed! She referred to the days of the Lords High. But the rest of us
+refer to Nausicaa; for Corfu is the Scheria of the Odyssey, the home of
+King Alcinous. Not far beyond the tomb of Menekrates, at the point
+called Canone, we have a view of a deep bay. On the opposite shore of
+this bay enters the stream upon whose bank Ulysses first met the
+delightful little maiden&mdash;"the beautiful stream of the river, where were
+the pools unfailing, and clear and abundant water." And also (but this
+is a work of supererogation, like feminine testimony in a court of
+justice) we have a view of the Ph�acian ship which was turned into stone
+by Neptune: "Neptune s'en approcha, et, le frappant du plat de la main,
+le changea en un rocher qu'il enracina dans le sol," as my copy of the
+Odyssey, which happens rather absurdly to be a French one, translates
+the passage. The ship, therefore, is now an island; its deck is a
+chapel; its masts are trees. Of late the belief that Corfu is the
+Scheria of the Odyssey has been attacked. Appended to the musical
+translation of the episode of Nausicaa, which was published in 1890,
+there is the following note: "It will be seen that the writer declines
+to accept the identification of Corcyra, the modern Corfu, with Scheria.
+In this skepticism he is emboldened by the protecting shield of the Ajax
+among English-speaking Hellenists. See Jebb's Homer." It is not possible
+to contest a point with Ajax. But any one who has seen the gardens and
+groves of this lovely isle, who has watched the crystalline water dash
+against the rocks at Pal�okastrizza, who has strolled down the hill-side
+at Pelleka, or floated in a skiff off the coast at Ipso&mdash;any such person
+will say that Corfu is at least an ideal home for the charming girl who
+played ball and washed the clothes on the shore, king's daughter though
+she was. To quote the translation:<a name="page_314" id="page_314"></a></p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry">
+<tr><td align="left">"Father dear, would you make ready for me a wagon, a high one,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Strong in the wheels, that I may carry our beautiful garments</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">... to be washed in the river?"</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>One wishes that this primitive princess could have had another name.
+Nausicaa; no matter how one pronounces the syllables, they are not
+melodious. Why could she not have been Aglaia, Daphne, or Artemidora?
+Standing at Canone and looking across at her shore, one is vexed anew
+that she should have given her heart, or even her fancy, to Ulysses&mdash;a
+man who was always eating. Instead of Ulysses, we should say Odysseus,
+no doubt. That may pass. But the sentimental, inaccurate persons who
+read Homer in English (or French) will not so easily consent to
+Alkinoos. No; Alcinous (which reminds them vaguely of halcyon) will
+remain in their minds as the name of the king who lived "far removed
+from the trafficking nations," among his blossoming gardens in the
+billowy sea; and to this faith will they cling. The clinging evidently
+exists at Corfu. One of the most comical sights there is a modern
+"detached villa," of course English, which might have come from
+Cheltenham; it is planted close to the glaring road, and over its dusty
+gate is inscribed imperturbably, "Alcinous Lodge."</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_315" id="page_315"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_331_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_331_sml.jpg" width="550" height="312" alt="VILLAGE OF PELLEKA" title="VILLAGE OF PELLEKA" /></a>
+<span class="caption">VILLAGE OF PELLEKA</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="page_316" id="page_316"></a></p>
+
+<p>One wonders whether the princesses of to-day (who no longer dry clothes
+upon the shore) amuse their leisure hours with Homer's recitals
+concerning their predecessors? One of them, at any rate, has chosen
+Corfu as a place of sojourn; the Empress of Austria, after paying many
+visits to the island, has now built for herself a country residence, or
+villino, at a distance from the town, not far from Nausicaa's stream.
+The house is surrounded by gardens, and from the terrace there is a
+magnificent view in all directions; here she enjoys the solitude which
+she is said to love, and the Corfiotes<a name="page_317" id="page_317"></a> see only the coming and going
+of her yacht. I don't know why there should be something so delightful,
+to one mind at least, in the selection of this distant Greek island as
+the resting-place of a queen, who takes the long journey down the
+Adriatic year after year to reach her retreat. The preference is perhaps
+due simply to fondness for a sea-voyage, and to the fact that a yacht
+lying at Trieste lies practically at Vienna's door. Lovers of Corfu,
+however, will not be turned aside by any of these reasons; they will
+continue to believe that the choice is made for beauty's sake; they will
+extol this perfect appreciation; they will praise this modern Nausicaa;
+they will purchase her portrait in photographed copies. When they have
+one of these representations, they can note with satisfaction the
+accordance between its outlines and a taste in islands which is surely
+the best in the world.</p>
+
+<p>The casino of the Empress is not the only royal residence at Corfu.
+About a mile from the town is the country-house called "Mon Repos," the
+property of the King of Greece. King George and Queen Olga, with their
+children, have frequently spent summers here. The mansion is ordinary as
+regards its architecture&mdash;it was built by one of the Lords High. The
+situation is altogether admirable, with a view of the harbor and town.
+But the especial loveliness of Mon Repos is to be found in its gardens;
+their foliage is tropical, with superb magnolias, palms, bananas, aloes,
+and orange and lemon trees. There are flowers of all kinds, with roses
+clambering everywhere, and blossoming vines. The royal family who rule,
+or rather preside over, the kingdom of the Hellenes are much respected
+and beloved at Corfu. The King, who was Prince William of Denmark&mdash;the
+brother of the Czarina of Russia and of the Princess of Wales&mdash;took the
+name of George when he ascended the throne in 1863.<a name="page_318" id="page_318"></a> He was elected by
+the National Assembly. Now that he has been reigning nearly thirty
+years, and has a grandson as well as a son to succeed him, it is amusing
+to turn back to the original candidates and the votes; for it was an
+election (within certain limits) by the people, and all sorts of tastes
+were represented. Prince Alfred of England, the Duke of Edinburgh, was
+at the head of the list; but as it had been stipulated that no member of
+the reigning families of England, France, or Russia should have the
+crown, his name was struck off. There were votes for Prince Jerome
+Napoleon. There were votes for the Prince Imperial. There were even
+votes for "A Republic." But Greece, as she stands, is as near a republic
+as a country with a sovereign can be. Suffrage is universal; there is no
+aristocracy; there are no hereditary titles, no entailed estates; the
+liberty of the press is untrammelled; education is free. Everywhere the
+people are ardently patriotic; they are actively, and one may say almost
+dangerously, interested in everything that pertains to the political
+condition of their country. This interest is quickened by their acute
+intellects. I have never seen faces more sharply intelligent than those
+of the Greek men of to-day. I speak of men who have had some advantages
+in the way of education. But as all are intensely eager to obtain these
+advantages, and as schools are now numerous, education to a certain
+extent is widely diffused. The men are, as a general rule, handsome. But
+they are not in the least after the model of the Greek god, as he exists
+in art and fiction. This model has an ideal height and strength, massive
+shoulders, a statuesque head with closely curling hair, and an unruffled
+repose. The actual Greek possesses a meagre frame, thin face, with high
+cheek-bones, a dry, dark complexion, straight hair, small eyes, and as
+for repose, he has never heard of it; he is overwhelmingly,never-endingly restless.<a name="page_321" id="page_321"></a></p>
+
+<p><a name="page_319" id="page_319"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 391px;">
+<a href="images/ill_335_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_335_sml.jpg" width="391" height="550" alt="KING GEORGE OF GREECE" title="KING GEORGE OF GREECE" /></a>
+<span class="caption">KING GEORGE OF GREECE</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="page_320" id="page_320"></a></p>
+
+<p class="nind">With this enumeration my statement that he
+is handsome may not appear to accord. Nevertheless, he is a good-looking
+fellow; his spare form is often tall, the quickly turning eyes are
+wonderfully brilliant, the dark face is lighted by the gleam of white
+teeth, the gait is very graceful, the step light. The Albanian costume,
+which was adopted after the revolution as the national dress for the
+whole country, is amazing. We have all seen it in paintings and
+photographs, where it is merely picturesque. But when you meet it in the
+streets every day, when you see the wearer of it engaged in cooking his
+dinner, in cleaning fish, in driving a cart, in carrying a hod, or
+hanging out clothes on a line, then it becomes perfectly fantastic. The
+climax of my own impressions about it was reached, I think, a little
+later, at Athens, when I beheld the guards walking their beats before
+the King's palace, and before the simple house of the Crown Prince
+opposite; they are soldiers of the regular army, and they held their
+muskets with military precision as they marched to and fro, attired in
+ordinary overcoats (it happened to be a rainy day) over the puffed-out
+white skirts of a ballet-dancer. Robert Louis Stevenson, in one of his
+recent letters from the South Seas, writes that "the mind of the female
+missionary" (British) "tends to be constantly busied about dress; she
+can be taught with extreme difficulty to think any costume decent but
+that to which she grew accustomed on Clapham Common, and, to gratify
+this prejudice, the native is put to useless expense." And here it
+occurs to me that it is high time to explore this Clapham Common. We go
+as worshippers to Shakespeare's Avon; we go to the land of Scott and
+Burns; we know the "stripling Thames at Bablockhithe," where "the punt's
+rope chops round"; but to Clapham Common we make, I think, no
+pilgrimages, although it has as clearly marked a place in English
+literature as the<a name="page_322" id="page_322"></a> Land of Beulah or the Slough of Despond. I fancy that
+Americans are not so closely tied to a fixed standard in dress as are
+the missionaries who excite Mr. Stevenson's wrath. A half of our
+population seeks its ideal in Paris, but as a whole we are easy-going.
+We accept the Chinese attire in our streets without demur; the lack of
+attire of the Sioux does not disconcert us; when abroad we admire
+impartially the Egyptian gown and the Cossack uniform, and we adorn
+ourselves liberally with the fez. But the Greek costume makes us pause;
+it seems a bravado in whimsicality. One can describe it in detail: one
+can say that it consists of a cap with a long tassel, a full white
+shirt, an embroidered jacket with open sleeves, a tight girdle, the
+white kilt or fustanella, long leggings with bright-colored garters,
+and, usually, shoes with turned-up toes. The enumeration, however, does
+not do away with the one general impression of men striding about in
+short white ballet petticoats.</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_323" id="page_323"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 274px;">
+<a href="images/ill_339_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_339_sml.jpg" width="274" height="550" alt="QUEEN OLGA OF GREECE" title="QUEEN OLGA OF GREECE" /></a>
+<span class="caption">QUEEN OLGA OF GREECE</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="page_324" id="page_324"></a></p>
+
+<p>In spite of their skirts, the Greeks have as martial an air as possible;
+an old Greek who is vain, and they are all vain, is even a
+fierce-looking figure. All the men have small waists, and are proud of
+them; their belts are drawn as tightly as those of young girls in other
+countries. From this girdle, or from the embroidered pouch below it,
+comes a gleam which means probably a pistol, though sometimes it is only
+the long, narrow inkhorn of brass or silver. Besides the Albanian, there
+are other costumes. One, which is frequently seen, is partly Turkish,
+with baggy trousers. The Greek men are vain, and with cause; if the
+women are vain, it must be without it; we did not see a single handsome
+face among them. It was not merely that we failed to find the beautiful
+low forehead, full temple, straight nose, and small head of classic
+days; we could not discover any marked type, good or bad; the
+features<a name="page_325" id="page_325"></a> were those that pass unnoticed everywhere. I speak, of
+course, generally, and from a superficial observation, for I saw only
+the people one meets in the streets, in the churches, in the fields,
+olive groves, and vineyards, on the steamers, and at the house doors.
+But after noting this population for two weeks and more, the result
+remained the same&mdash;the men who came under our notice were handsome, and
+the women were not. The dress of the women varies greatly. The Albanian
+costume, which ranks with the fustanellas or petticoats of the men, is
+as flat, narrow, and elongated as the latter are short and protruding.
+It consists of a sheath-like skirt of a woollen material, and over this
+a long, narrow white coat, which sometimes has black sleeves; the head
+is wrapped in loose folds of white. This was the attire worn by the
+girls who were at work in the fields. On Christmas Day I met a number of
+Corfiote women walking about the esplanade arrayed in light-colored
+dresses, with large aprons of white lace or white muslin, and upon their
+heads white veils with bunches of artificial flowers; in addition, they
+wore so many necklaces, pins, clasps, buckles, rings, lockets,
+bracelets, pendants, and other adornments of silver and silver-gilt that
+they clanked as they walked. This was a gala costume of some sort. We
+did not see it again.</p>
+
+<p>The island of Corfu is about forty miles long. Its breadth in the widest
+part is twenty miles. The English, who have a genius for road-making
+which is almost equal to that of the Romans, have left excellent
+highways behind them; it is easy, therefore, to cross the island from
+end to end. In arranging such an expedition, that exhaustive dialogue
+about buying a carriage, which (to one's bewilderment) occupies by far
+the most important place in all the Manuals of Conversation for the
+Traveller, might at last be of some service.<a name="page_326" id="page_326"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Have you a carriage?" it begins (in six languages).</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I have berlins, vis-�-vis, gigs, calashes, and cabriolets." (What
+vehicles are these?)</p>
+
+<p>"Are the axle-trees, the nave, the spokes, the tires, the felloes, and
+the splinter-bars in good condition?" it goes on in its painstaking
+polyglot. Possibly one might be called upon to purchase splinter-bars in
+a remote island of the Ionian Sea.</p>
+
+<p>Seated, then, in a berlin, or perhaps in a calash, one goes out at least
+to visit the olive groves, if not to cross the island. These groves are
+not the ranks of severely pruned, almost maimed, trees which greet the
+traveller in parts of southern Europe&mdash;groves without shade, without
+luxuriance; viewed from a distance, their gray-green foliage forms a
+characteristic part of the landscape, but at close quarters they have
+but one expression&mdash;namely, how many coins are to be squeezed out of
+each poor tree, whose every bud appears to have been counted. At Corfu
+one strolls through miles of wood whose foliage is magnificent; it is
+possible to lounge in the shade, for there is shade, and to draw a free
+breath. No doubt the Corfiotes keep guard over their leafy domain; but
+the occasional visitor, at least, is not harassed by warnings to
+trespassers set up everywhere, by children following him with suspicious
+eyes, by patrols, dogs, stone walls, and sometimes by stones of another
+kind which do not stay in the walls, but come flying through the air to
+teach him to keep his distance. It is difficult, probably, for people
+from the New World to look upon a forest as something sacred, guarded,
+private; we have taken our pleasure "in the woods" all our lives
+whenever we have felt so inclined; we do not intend to do any harm
+there, but we do wish to be free. In the olive groves of Corfu the wish
+can be gratified. Their aisles are wonderful in every respect: in the
+size of the trees (some of them are sixty feet<a name="page_329" id="page_329"></a><a name="page_328" id="page_328"></a><a name="page_327" id="page_327"></a> high), in the
+picturesque shapes of the gnarled trunks, in the extent of the long
+vistas where the light has the color which some of us know at home&mdash;that
+silvery green under the great live-oaks at the South, when their
+branches are veiled in the long moss.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_343_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_343_sml.jpg" width="550" height="407" alt="&quot;MON REPOS,&quot; SUMMER RESIDENCE OF THE KING OF GREECE" title="&quot;MON REPOS,&quot; SUMMER RESIDENCE OF THE KING OF GREECE" /></a>
+<span class="caption">&quot;MON REPOS,&quot; SUMMER RESIDENCE OF THE KING OF GREECE</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>But Athens was before us; we must leave the groves; we must leave
+Nausicaa's shore. We did so at last in the wake of a departing storm.
+For several days the wind had been tempestuous. The signal, which is
+displayed from the Citadel, had become a riddle; it is an arrangement of
+flags by day and of lanterns by night, and no two of us ever deciphered
+it alike. If the order was thus and so, it meant that something
+belonging to the Austrian-Lloyd company was in sight; if so and thus, it
+meant the Florio line; if neither of these, then it might possibly be
+our boat&mdash;that is, the Greek coasting steamer which we had decided to
+take because we had been told that it was the best. I have never
+fathomed the mystery as to why our informant told us this. If he had
+been a Greek, it would have been at least a patriotic misrepresentation.
+We were dismayed when we reached the rough tub. But, after all, in one
+sense she was the best, for she dawdled in and out among the islands,
+never in the least hurry, and stopping to gossip with them all; this
+gave us a good chance to see them, if it gave us nothing else. I have
+said "when we reached her," for there were several false starts. We rose
+in the morning in a mood of regretful good-bye, expecting to be far away
+at night. And at night, with our good-bye on our hands, we were still in
+our hotel. But it is only fair to add that with its garlands of flowers
+and myrtle for the Christmas season; with its queer assemblage of
+Levantines in the dining-room; with its bath-room in the depths of the
+earth, to which one descended by stairway leading down underground; with
+its group of petticoated Greeks in the hall, and, in its<a name="page_330" id="page_330"></a> rooms of honor
+above, a young Austrian princess of historic name and extraordinary
+beauty&mdash;with all this, and its cheerful lies, its smiling, gay-hearted
+irresponsibility, the Corfu inn was an entertaining place. The Greek
+steamer came at last. She had been driven out of her course by the gale,
+so said the pirate, ostensibly retired from business, who superintended
+the embarkations from the hotel. This lithe freebooter had presented
+himself at frequent intervals during the baffling days when we watched
+the signal, and he always entered without knocking. He could not grasp
+the idea, probably, that ceremonies would be required by persons who
+intended to sail by the coaster. When we reached this bark ourselves,
+later, we forgave him&mdash;a little. Her deck was the most democratic place
+I have ever seen. We think that we approve of equality in the United
+States. But the Greeks carry their approval further than we do. On this
+deck there were no reserved portions, no prohibitions; the persons who
+had paid for a first-class ticket had the same rights as those which
+were accorded to the steerage travellers, and no more; and as the latter
+were numerous, they obtained by far the larger share, eating the
+provisions which they had brought with them, sleeping on their
+coverlids, playing games, and smoking in the best places. There was no
+system, and little discipline; the sailors came up and washed the deck
+(a process which was very necessary) whenever and however they pleased,
+and we had to jump for our lives and mount a bench to escape the stream
+from the hose, as it suddenly appeared without warning from an
+unlooked-for quarter. The passengers, who came on board at various
+points during a cruise of several days, brought with them light personal
+luggage, which consisted of hens tied together by the legs, a live
+sheep, kitchen utensils, and bedding, all of which they placed
+everywhere and anywhere, according to their pleasure.</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_331" id="page_331"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_347_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_347_sml.jpg" width="550" height="384" alt="IN THE GROUNDS OF THE NEW VILLA OF THE EMPRESS OF GREECE" title="IN THE GROUNDS OF THE NEW VILLA OF THE EMPRESS OF GREECE" /></a>
+<span class="caption">IN THE GROUNDS OF THE NEW VILLA OF THE EMPRESS OF GREECE</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="page_332" id="page_332"></a></p>
+
+<p><a name="page_333" id="page_333"></a></p>
+
+<p class="nind">A Greek dressed
+in the full national costume accompanied us all the way to Missolonghi
+so closely that he was closer than a brother; save when we were locked
+in our small sleeping-cabins below (the one extra possession which a
+first-class ticket bestows), we were literally elbow to elbow with him.
+And his elbows were a weapon, like the closed umbrella held under the
+arm in a crowded street&mdash;that pleasant habit of persons who are not
+Greeks. The Greek elbow was clothed in a handsome sleeve covered with
+gold embroidery, for our friend was a dandy of dandies. His petticoats
+and his shirt were of fine linen, snowy in its whiteness; his small
+waist was encircled by a magnificent Syrian scarf; his cream-colored
+leggings were spotless; and his conspicuous garters new and brilliantly
+scarlet. He was an athletic young man of thirty, his good looks marred
+only by his over-eager eyes and his restlessness. It was his back which
+he presented to us, for his attention was given entirely to a party of
+his own friends, men and women. He talked to them; he read aloud to them
+from a small newspaper (they all had newspapers, and read them often);
+he stood up and argued; he grew excited and harangued; then he sat down,
+his inflated skirts puffing out over his chair, and went on with his
+argument, if argument it was, until, worn out by the hours of his
+eloquence, some of his companions fell asleep where they sat. His meals
+were astonishingly small. As everything went on under our eyes, we saw
+what they all ate, and it was unmistakable testimony to the Greek
+frugality. Our companion had brought with him from Corfu, by way of
+provisions for several days, a loaf of bread about as large as three
+muffins in one, a vial containing capers, a grapeleaf folded into a
+cornucopia and filled with olives, and a pint bottle of the light wine
+of the country. The only addition which he made to this store was a
+salted<a name="page_334" id="page_334"></a> fish about four inches long, which he purchased daily from the
+steward. There was always a discussion before he went in search of this
+morsel, which represented, I suppose, the roast meat of his dinner, and
+when he returned after a long absence, bearing it triumphantly on the
+palm of his hand, it was passed from one to the next, turned over,
+inspected, and measured by each member of the group, amid the most
+animated, eager discussion. When comment was at last exhausted, the
+superb orator seated himself (always with his chair against our knees),
+and placed before him, on a newspaper spread over the bench, his
+precious fishlette divided into small slices, with a few capers and
+olives arranged in as many wee heaps as there were portions of fish, so
+that all should come out even. Then, with the diminutive loaf of bread
+by his side and the bottle of wine at his feet, he began his repast,
+using the point of his pocketknife as a fork, eating slowly and
+meditatively, and intently watched by all his friends, who sat in
+silence, following with their eyes each mouthful on its way from the
+newspaper to his lips. They had previously made their own repasts in the
+same meagre fashion, but perhaps they derived some small additional
+nourishment from watching the mastication of their friend. When his fish
+had disappeared, accompanied by one slender little slice of bread, our
+neighbor lifted the wine-bottle, and gave himself a swallow of wine;
+then, after a pause of a minute or two, another. This was all. The
+bottle was recorked, and with the remaining provisions put carefully
+away. All foreign residents in Greece, whether they like the people or
+dislike them, agree in pronouncing them extraordinarily abstemious.
+Drunkenness hardly exists among them.</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_335" id="page_335"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 292px;">
+<a href="images/ill_351_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_351_sml.jpg" width="292" height="550" alt="ALBANIAN MALE COSTUME" title="ALBANIAN MALE COSTUME" /></a>
+<span class="caption">ALBANIAN MALE COSTUME</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="page_336" id="page_336"></a></p>
+
+<p>At one of the islands a prisoner was brought on board by two policemen.
+He was a slender youth&mdash;an apprentice to a mason, probably, for his poor
+clothes<a name="page_337" id="page_337"></a> were stained with mortar and lime. He held himself stiffly
+erect, making a determined effort to present a brave countenance to the
+world. He was led to a place in the centre of the deck, and then one of
+his guardians departed, leaving the second in charge. The steamer lay in
+the harbor for an hour or more, and four times skiffs put out from the
+shore, each bringing two or three young men&mdash;or, rather, boys&mdash;who came
+up the ladder furtively. Reaching the deck, they edged their way along,
+first to the right, then to the left, until they perceived their
+comrade. Even then they did not approach him directly; they assumed an
+air of indifference, and walked about a little among the other
+passengers. But after a while, one by one, they came to him, and, taking
+bread from under their jackets, they put it hastily and silently into
+his pockets, the policeman watching them, but not interfering. Then,
+moving off quickly, they disappeared down the ladder in the same
+stealthy way, and returned to the shore. Through all their man&oelig;uvres
+the prisoner did not once look at them; he kept his eyes fixed upon a
+distant point in the bay, as though there was something out there which
+he was obliged to watch without an instant's cessation. All his pockets
+meanwhile, and the space under his jacket, grew so full that he was
+swathed in bread. Finally came the whistle, and the steamer started.
+Then, as the island began to recede, the set young face quivered, and
+the arm in its ragged sleeve went up to cover the eyes&mdash;a touching
+gesture, because it is the child's when in trouble, the instinctive
+movement of the grief-stricken little boy.</p>
+
+<p>Ten miles south of Corfu one meets the second of the Ionian Islands,
+Paxo, with the tiny, severe Anti-Paxo lying off its southern point, like
+a summary period set to any romantic legend which the larger isle may
+wish to tell. As it happens, the legend is a striking<a name="page_338" id="page_338"></a> one, and we all
+know it without going to Paxo. But it is impossible to pass the actual
+scene without relating it once more, and, for the telling, no modern
+words can possibly approach those of the old annotator. "Here at the
+coast of Paxo, about the time that our Lord suffered His most bitter
+Passion, certain persons sailing from Italy at night heard a voice
+calling aloud: 'Thamus?' 'Thamus?' Who, giving ear to the cry (for he
+was the pilot of the ship), was bidden when he came near to Portus
+Pelodes" (the Bay of Butrinto) "to tell that the great god Pan was dead.
+Which he, doubting to do, yet when he came to Portus Pelodes there was
+such a calm of wind that the ship stood still in the sea, unmoored, and
+he was forced to cry aloud that Pan was dead. Whereupon there were such
+piteous outcries and dreadful shrieking as hath not been the like. By
+the which Pan, of some is understood the great Sathanas, whose kingdom
+was at that time by Christ conquered; for at that moment all oracles
+surceased, and enchanted spirits, that were wont to delude the people,
+henceforth held their peace."</p>
+
+<p>Those of us who read Milton's Ode on Christmas Eve will recall his
+allusion to this Paxo legend:</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry">
+<tr><td align="left">"The lonely mountains o'er,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">And the enchanted shore,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp;A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">From haunted spring and dale,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Edged with poplar pale,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp;The parting Genius is with sighing sent."</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><a name="page_339" id="page_339"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 274px;">
+<a href="images/ill_355_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_355_sml.jpg" width="274" height="550" alt="ALBANIAN FEMALE COSTUME" title="ALBANIAN FEMALE COSTUME" /></a>
+<span class="caption">ALBANIAN FEMALE COSTUME</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="page_340" id="page_340"></a></p>
+
+<p>Anti-Paxo is one of the oddest spots I have seen. It is a small, bare,
+stone plain, elevated but slightly above the surface of the water. The
+rock is of a tawny hue, and there is a queer odor of asphaltum. At
+certain seasons of the year it is covered so thickly with quail that
+"you could not put a paper-cutter between<a name="page_341" id="page_341"></a>
+
+ them." There were no quail
+when we passed the rock. The sun shone on the flat surface, bringing out
+its rich tint against the azure of the sea, and in its strange
+desolation it looked like a picture which might have been painted by a
+man of genius who had gone mad in his passion for color. Though I
+mention the Ionian group only, it must not be supposed that there were
+no other islands. Those of us who like to turn over maps, to search out
+routes though we may never follow them except on paper&mdash;innocent
+stay-at-home geographers of this sort have supposed that it was a simple
+matter to learn the names of the islands which one meets in any
+well-known track across well-known seas. This is a mistake. From Corfu
+to Patras, and, later, on the way to Egypt and Syria, and back through
+the Strait of Messina to Genoa, I saw many islands&mdash;it seemed to me that
+they could have been counted by hundreds&mdash;which are not indicated in the
+ordinary guide-books, and whose names no one on the steamers appeared to
+know, not even the captains. The captains, the pilots, and all the
+officers were of course aware of the exact position in the sea of each
+one; that was part of their business. But as to names, these mariners,
+whether Englishmen, Germans, Italians, Turks, or Greeks (and we sailed
+with all), appeared to share the common opinion that they had none;
+their manner was that they deserved none. But I have never met a steamer
+captain who felt anything but profound contempt for small islands; he
+appears to regard them simply as interruptions&mdash;as some Ohio farmers of
+my acquaintance regard the occasional single tree in their broad, level
+fields.</p>
+
+<p>Abreast of Paxo, on the mainland, is the small village of Parga. The
+place has its own tragic history connected with its cession to the Turks
+in 1815. But I am afraid that its principal association in my mind is<a name="page_342" id="page_342"></a>
+the frivolous one of a roaring chorus, "Robbers all at Parga!" This song
+may be as much of a libel as that bold ballad concerning the beautiful
+town at the eastern end of Lake Erie; the ladies of that place are not
+in the habit of "coming out to-night, to dance by the light of the
+moon," and in the same way there may never have been any robbers worth
+speaking of at Parga. It is Hobhouse who tells the story. "In the
+evening preparations were made for feeding our Albanians. After eating,
+they began to dance round the fire to their own singing with an
+astonishing energy. One of their songs begins, 'When we set out from
+Parga, there were sixty of us.' Then comes the chorus: 'Robbers all at
+Parga! Robbers all at Parga!' As they roared out this stave, they
+whirled round the fire, dropped to and rebounded from their knees, and
+again whirled round in a wild circle, repeating it at the top of their
+voices:</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry">
+<tr><td align="left">"'Robbers all at Parga!</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; Robbers all at Parga!'"</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>At Parga we met the Byronic legend, which from this point hangs over the
+whole Ionian Sea. Parga is not far from the castle of Suli, and with the
+word "Suliote" we are launched aloft into the resplendent realm of
+Byron's poetry, which seems as beautiful and apparition-like as the
+Oberland peaks viewed from Berne&mdash;shining cliffs, so celestially and
+impossibly fair, far up in the sky. (We may note, however, in passing,
+that these lofty limits are, after all, as real as a barn-yard, or as an
+afternoon sewing society.) The country near Parga is described at length
+in the second canto of "Childe Harold."</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_343" id="page_343"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 279px;">
+<a href="images/ill_359_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_359_sml.jpg" width="279" height="550" alt="GALA COSTUME, CORFU" title="GALA COSTUME, CORFU" /></a>
+<span class="caption">GALA COSTUME, CORFU</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="page_344" id="page_344"></a></p>
+
+<p>The third island of the Ionian group is Santa Maura, the Leucadia of the
+ancients. It looks like a chain of mountains set in the sea. Here there
+are earthquakes, as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu would have expressed<a name="page_345" id="page_345"></a>
+it. The story is that at Santa Maura and at Zante there is a severe
+shock once in twenty years, and a "small roll" twice in every three
+months. It is at least true that slight earthquakes are not uncommon,
+and that the houses are built to resist them, with strong beams crossing
+from side to side to hold the walls together, so that the interiors look
+like the cabins of a ship. The rolling motion, when it comes, must make
+this resemblance very vivid. The impression of Santa Maura which remains
+in my own mind, however, does not concern itself with earthquakes,
+unless, indeed, one means moral ones. I see a long, lofty promontory
+ending in a silvery headland. I see it flushed with the rose-tints of
+sunset, high above a violet sea. Of course I was looking for it; every
+one looks for the rock from which dark Sappho flung herself in her
+despair. But even without Sappho it is a striking cliff; it rises
+perpendicularly from deep water, and it is so white that one fancies
+that it must be visible even upon the darkest night. All day its
+towering opaline crest serves as a beacon from afar. The temple of
+Apollo which once crowned its summit can still be traced in sculptured
+fragments, though there are no marble columns like those that gleam
+across the waves from Sunium. "Leucadia's far-projecting rock of woe,"
+Byron calls it. But it does not look woful. One fancies that exaltation
+must flood the soul of the human creature who springs to meet Death from
+such a place. The memory of the Greek poetess has nothing to do with
+these reflections, unless one refers to the ladies who are announced to
+the public from time to time as "the modern Sappho," in which case one
+might suggest to them the excellent facilities the rock affords. As to
+the greatest of women of letters, I do not know that there is anything
+more to say about her in the language of the United States. If she had
+flourished and perished last year, M. Jules<a name="page_346" id="page_346"></a> Lema�tre (her name would
+have been L�ocadie, probably) would doubtless have written an article
+about her: "The career, literary and other, of Mademoiselle L�ocadie, a
+�t� des plus distingu�es, bien qu'un peu tapageuse."</p>
+
+<p>As the steamer crossed from Santa Maura to Cephalonia we had a clear
+view of little Ithaca, the Ithaca which Ulysses loved, "not because it
+was broad, but because it was his own." Except Paxo, Ithaca is the
+smallest of the sister islands. The guide-book declares "No steamer
+touches at Ithaca, but there is frequent communication by caique." This
+announcement, like others from the same authority, is false, though it
+may have been true thirty years ago. The very steamer that carried us
+stopped regularly at the suitors' island upon her return voyage to
+Corfu. We could not take this voyage; therefore we were free to wish
+(selfishly) that this particular one, among the many deceptive
+statements which we had read, might have been veracious. For
+"communication by caique" is surely a phrase of delight. It brings up
+not only the Ionian, but the �gean Sea; it carries the imagination
+onward to the Bosporus itself.</p>
+
+<p>Sir William Gell and Dr. Schliemann between them have discovered at
+Ithaca all the sites of the Odyssey, even to the stone looms of the
+nymphs. Other explorers, with colder minds, have decided that at least
+the author of the poem must have had a close acquaintance with the
+island, for many of his descriptions are very accurate. We need no guide
+for Penelope; we can materialize her, as the spiritualists say, for
+ourselves. Hers is a very modern character. One knows without the
+telling that she had much to say, day by day, about her sufferings, her
+feelings, her duty, and her conscience&mdash;above all things, her
+conscience. Her confidantes in that upper room were probably extremely
+familiar with her point of view, which was that if she<a name="page_347" id="page_347"></a> should choose
+any one of her suitors, or if she should cruelly drive the whole throng
+away, suicide on an overwhelming scale would inevitably be the result.
+It would amount to a depopulation of the entire archipelago! Would any
+woman be justified in causing such widespread despair as that?</p>
+
+<p>The next island, Cephalonia, is the largest of the Ionian group. There
+is much to say about it. But I must not say it here. The truth is that
+one sails past these sisters as slippery Ulysses sailed past the sirens;
+they are so beautiful that one must tie one's hands to the mast (or the
+bench) to keep them from writing a volume on the subject. But I must
+permit myself a word about Sir Charles Napier. Sir Charles was Governor
+of Cephalonia during the period of the British Protectorate, and
+officially he was a subordinate of the Lord High at Corfu. One of these
+temporary kings appears to have felt some jealousy regarding the
+vigorous administration of his Cephalonian lieutenant. It was not
+possible to censure his acts; they were all admirable. It was
+permissible, however, to censure a mustache, which at that time was
+considered a wayward appendage, not strictly in accordance with the
+regulations. Ludicrous as it may appear, it is nevertheless true that
+this sapient Lord High actually issued an order saying that the
+offending ornament must be shaved off. The witty lieutenant's answer was
+conveyed in four words: "Obeyed&mdash;to a hair." Napier constructed good
+roads throughout his rough, mountainous domain. "I wish I could be
+buried at the little chapel on the top of the mountain," he said to one
+of his friends. "At the last day many a poor mule's soul will say a good
+word for me, I know, when they remember what the old road was." One
+regrets that this wish was not carried out. But as for the souls of the
+poor mules, I for one am sure that they will remember him.<a name="page_348" id="page_348"></a></p>
+
+<p>At Zante, for some unexplained cause, the classic associations suddenly
+vanished: Homer faded, Theocritus followed him; Pliny and Strabo
+disappeared. The later memories, too: Lord Guildford and his university,
+Byron and his Suliotes, Napier and his mules&mdash;all these left us. We were
+back in the present; we must have some Zante flowers and Zante trinkets;
+we thought of nothing but going ashore. By pushing a bench, with
+semi-unconscious violence, against the Greek, we succeeded in making him
+move a little, so that we could rise. Then we landed (but not in a
+caique), and went roaming through the yellow town. Zante is the most
+cheerful-looking place I have ever seen. The bay ripples and smirks; it
+is so pretty that it knows it is pretty, and it smirks accordingly. The
+town, stretching, with its gayly tinted houses, round a level semicircle
+at the edge of the water, smiles, as one may say, from ear to ear. And
+this joyful expression is carried up the hill, by charming gardens,
+orange groves, and vineyards, to the Venetian fort at the top, which, as
+we saw it in the brilliant sunshine, with the birds flying about it,
+seemed to be throwing its cap into the sky with a huzza.</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry">
+<tr><td align="left">"O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp;Isola d'oro! Fior di Levante!"</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="nind">sang Poe, borrowing his chimes this time, however, from an Italian
+song&mdash;"Zante, Zante, fior di Levante!" This flower of the Levant exports
+not flowers, but fruit. The currants, which had vaguely presented
+themselves at Santa Maura and Cephalonia, came now decisively to the
+front. One does not think of these little berrylettes (I am certainly
+hunted by "ette") as ponderous. But when one beholds tons of them,
+cargoes for ships, one regards them with a new respect. It was probably
+the brisk commercial aspect of the currants which made<a name="page_349" id="page_349"></a> the port look so
+modern. All the Ionian Islands except Corfu export currants, but Zante
+throws them out to the world with both hands. I must confess that I have
+always blindly supposed (when I thought of it at all) that the currant
+of the plum-pudding was the same fruit as the currant of our
+gardens&mdash;that slightly acrid red berry which grows on bushes that follow
+the lines of back fences&mdash;bushes that have patches of weedy ground under
+them where hens congregate. I fancied that by some process unknown to
+me, at the hands of persons equally unknown (perhaps those who bring
+flattened raisins from grapes), these berries were dried, and that they
+then became the well-known ornament of the Christmas-cake. It was at
+Zante that my shameful ignorance was made clear to me. Here I learned
+that the dried fruit of commerce is a dwarf grape, which has nothing in
+common with currant jelly. Its English name, currant, is taken from the
+French "raisin de Corinthe," or Corinth grape, a title bestowed because
+the fruit was first brought into notice at Corinth. We have stolen this
+name in the most unreasonable way for our red berry. Then, to make the
+confusion worse, as soon as we have put the genuine currants into our
+puddings and cakes, we turn round and call them "plums"! The real
+currant, the dwarf grape of Corinth, is about as large as a gooseberry
+when ripe, and its color is a deep violet-black; the vintage takes place
+in August. It is not a hardy vine. It attains luxuriance, I was told,
+only in Greece; and even there it is restricted to the northern
+Peloponnesus, the shores of the Gulf of Corinth, and the Ionian Islands.
+M. About, confronted with the 195,000,000 pounds of currants which were
+exported in 1876, dipped his French pen afresh, and wrote: "Plum-pudding
+and plum-cake are typical pleasures of the English nation, pleasures
+whose charms the Gaul cannot appreciate." He adds that if other
+countries<a name="page_350" id="page_350"></a> should in time be converted to "these two pure delights,"
+Greece would not need to cultivate anything else; she would become rich
+"enorm�ment."</p>
+
+<p>Zante is the sixth of the islands, and as the steamer leaves her, still
+smiling gayly over her dimpling bay, it seems proper to cast at least
+one thought in the direction of the seventh sister, upon whom we are now
+turning our backs. For "We are seven" the islands declare as
+persistently as the little cottage girl, though the seventh has gone
+away, if not to heaven, at least to the very end of the Peloponnesus.
+Why Cerigo should have been included in the Ionian group I do not know;
+it lies off the southernmost point of Greece, near Cape Malea, and might
+more reasonably be classed with the Cyclades, or with Crete. Birthplace
+of Aphrodite, Cythera of the ancients, though it is, I have never met
+any one who has landed there in actual fact (I do not include dreams).
+People going by sea to Athens from Naples, or from Brindisi, pass it in
+their course, and if they read their Murray or their Baedeker, to say
+nothing of other literature, no doubt their thoughts dwell upon the
+goddess of love for a moment as they pass her favorite shore. A
+photograph of the minds of travellers, as their eyes rest upon this
+celebrated isle, would be interesting. To mention (with due respect)
+typical names only, what would be the vision of Mr. Herbert Spencer, or
+of Prince Bismarck? of the Archbishop of Canterbury, or of Ibsen? of
+General Booth, Tolsto�, or Miss Yonge? We can each of us think of a list
+which would rouse our curiosity in an acute degree. To come down to an
+unexciting level, I know what the apparition in my own mind would
+be&mdash;that picture in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence: Botticelli's "Birth
+of Venus." I should inevitably behold the fifteenth-century goddess
+coming over the waves in her very small shell; I should see her high
+cheek-bones, her sad eyes, her discontented<a name="page_353" id="page_353"></a><a name="page_352" id="page_352"></a><a name="page_351" id="page_351"></a> mouth, her lank form with
+the lovely slender feet, and her long, thick hair; and at last I should
+know (what I do not know now) whether she is beautiful or ugly. On the
+shore, too, would appear that galloping woman, who, clothed in copiously
+gathered garments which are caught up and tied in the wrong places,
+brings in haste a flowered robe to cover her melancholy mistress. Such
+are the idle fancies that come as one watches the track of churned
+water, like a broad ribbon, stretching from the steamer's stern&mdash;water
+forever fleeing backward as the boat advances. Scallops of foam sweep
+out on each side; their cool fringe dips under a little as the wavelet
+which comes from the opposite direction lifts its miniature crest and
+curls over in a graceful sweep.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<a href="images/ill_367_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/ill_367_sml.jpg" width="550" height="379" alt="OLIVE GROVE, CORFU" title="OLIVE GROVE, CORFU" /></a>
+<span class="caption">OLIVE GROVE, CORFU</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The voyage northward to Missolonghi is beautiful. The sea was dotted
+with white wings. The Greeks are bold sailors; one never observes here
+the timidity, the haste to seek refuge anywhere and everywhere, which is
+so conspicuous along the Riviera and the western coast of Italy.
+Throughout the Ionian archipelago, and it was the same later among the
+islands of the �gean, it was inspiring to note the smallest craft, far
+from land, dashing along under full sail, leaning far over as they flew.</p>
+
+<p>Missolonghi is a small abortive Venice, without the gondolas; it is
+situated on a lagoon, and a causeway nearly two miles long leads to it,
+across the shallow water. Vague and unimportant as it is upon its muddy
+shore, it was the soul of the Greek revolution. It has been through
+terrible sieges. During one of these Marco Botzaris was in command, and
+his grave is outside the western gate. A few years ago all the
+school-boys in America could chant his requiem; perhaps they chant it
+still. After the death of Botzaris, Byron took five hundred of the
+chieftain's needy Suliotes, and<a name="page_354" id="page_354"></a> formed them into a body-guard, giving
+them generous pay. This is but one of many instances. It is the fashion
+of the day to paint Byron in the darkest colors. But when you stand in
+the squalid, unhealthy little street where he drew his last breath you
+realize that he came here voluntarily; that he offered his life if need
+be, and, in the end, gave it, to the cause which appealed to him; he did
+not stay safely at home and write about it. He died nearly seventy years
+ago, but at Missolonghi he is very real and very present still&mdash;with his
+red coat, and his bravery and penetration. Napier said that, of all the
+Englishmen who came to assist the Greek revolution, Byron was the one
+who comprehended best the character of the modern Greek&mdash;"all the rest
+expected to find Plutarch's men." It is another fashion of the moment to
+put aside as of small account the glittering cantos which stirred the
+English-speaking world in the early days of this century. But it is not
+while the wild, beautiful Albanian mountains are rising above your head
+that you think meanly of them. "Remember all the splendid things he said
+of Greece," says some one. When you are in Greece, you do remember.</p>
+
+<p>The only brigands we saw we met at Patras. Missolonghi is on the
+northern shore of the bay; to reach Patras the steamer crosses to the
+Peloponnesus side. It was a dark night, and I don't know where we
+stopped, but it must have been far out from land. The barges which came
+to meet us were rough craft, with loose boards for seats and water in
+the bottom. We obtained places in one of them, and after twenty minutes
+of pitching up and down, shouting, tumbling about, and splashing, the
+crew bent to their big oars, and we started. Swaying lights glimmered
+through the darkness here and there; they came from vessels at anchor in
+the roadstead. We plunged and rolled, apparently making no progress; but
+at last a long, wet breakwater,<a name="page_355" id="page_355"></a> dimly seen, appeared on the right, and
+finally we perceived the lights of the landing-place, which is the
+water-side of one of the squares of the town. Our crew jumped out in the
+surf, and drew the heavy boat up to the steps of the embankment. Here
+were assembled the brigands. There were a hundred of them at least, all
+yelling. Probably they were astonished to see ladies landing from the
+Greek coaster. This was part of our original misconception in the
+selection of that steamer (a mistake, however, which had turned out to
+be such a picturesque success); but it was part also of a general error
+which came from our nationality. For we were natives of the one land on
+earth where to women is always accorded, without question, a first
+place. It had never occurred to us that we could be jostled. After
+Patras we were more careful (and more proud of our country than ever).
+But at the moment, as we were pulled first to the right by men who
+wished to carry us and our travelling-bags in that direction, and then
+to the left by others who had attacked the first party, felled them, and
+captured their prey&mdash;at the moment when we were closely pressed by a
+throng of wild-looking, dancing, shrieking figures, dressed in strange
+attire, and carrying pistols, it was not a little alarming. The fray had
+lasted six or seven minutes, and there were no signs of cessation, when
+there appeared on the edge of the throng a neatly dressed little man in
+spectacles. He made his way within, and rescued us by the simple process
+of repeating something that sounded like "La, la, la, <i>la</i>! La, la, la,
+<i>la</i>!" Breathless, freed, we stood, saved, in the square, while our
+preserver went back and captured our bags, bringing them out and
+depositing them gently, one after the other, on the ground by our side.
+We then waited until a handcart, trundled by a petticoated porter,
+appeared, when the little man led us quietly to the custom-house near
+by, where, after some delay, we<a name="page_356" id="page_356"></a> obtained our luggage, which was piled
+upon the cart. Followed by this cart, we walked across the square to the
+hotel. Throughout the whole of this process, which lasted twenty
+minutes, the brigands surrounded us in a close, scowling circle that
+moved as we moved. When its line drew too near us the little man walked
+round the ring&mdash;"La, la, la, <i>la</i>! La, la, la, <i>la</i>!"&mdash;and it widened
+slightly, but only slightly. We reached refuge at last, and escaped into
+a lighted hall. It was a real escape, and the hotel seemed a paradise.
+It was not until the next day that we recognized it as a mortal inn,
+with the appearance of the well-known tepid soup in the dining-room; but
+the coffee was excellent. And this showed that there was a German
+influence somewhere in the house; it proved to emanate from our
+preserver, who was also the landlord, and an exile from the Rhine. I
+think he was homesick. But at least he had learned the dialect of his
+temporary abode, and also the way to treat the last remnants of the
+pirate and brigand days, as its spirit reappears now and then, though
+faintly, among the hangers-on of a Greek port town.</p>
+
+<p>Though I have talked of brigands, for Greece as a whole, for the young
+nation, I have but one feeling&mdash;namely, admiration. The country,
+escaping at last from its bondage to Turkey, after a long and exhausting
+war, had everything to do and nothing to do it with. There was no
+agriculture, no commerce, no money, and only a small population; there
+were no roads, no schools, no industries or trades, and few men of
+education. (I quote the words of Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, written in 1891.) The
+Greeks have done much, and under the most unfavorable conditions. They
+will do more. The struggle upward of an intelligent and ambitious people
+is deeply interesting, and the effort in Greece appeals especially to
+Americans, because the country, in spite of its form of government, is a
+democracy.<a name="page_357" id="page_357"></a></p>
+
+<p>When we left Patras we left the Ionian Sea, and I ought therefore to
+bring these slight records to a close. But it was the same blue water,
+after all, that was washing the shores of the long, lake-like gulf
+beyond, and the impression produced by its pure, early-world tint, lasts
+as far as Corinth; here one turns inland, and the next crested waves
+which one meets are �gean. They rouse other sensations.</p>
+
+<p>There is now a railroad from Patras to Athens. On the morning when we
+made the transit there was given to us for our sole use a saloon on
+wheels, which was much larger than the compartments of an English
+railway carriage, and smaller than an American parlor car. In its centre
+was a long table, and a cushioned bench ran round its four sides; broad
+windows gave us a wide view of the landscape as we rolled (rather
+slowly) along. The track follows the gulf all the way to Corinth, and we
+passed through miles of vineyards. But I did not think of currants here;
+they had been left behind at Zante. There is, indeed, only one thing to
+think of, and the heart beats quickly as Parnassus lifts its head above
+the other snow-clad summits. "The prophetess of Delphi was hypnotized,
+of course." This sudden incursion of modernity was due no doubt to the
+mode of our progress through this sacred country. We ought to have been
+crossing the gulf in a Ph�acian boat, which needs no pilot, or, at the
+very least, in a bark with an azure prow. But even upon an iron track,
+through utilitarian currant fields, the spell descends again when the
+second peak becomes visible at the eastern end of the bay.</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry">
+<tr><td align="left">"Not here, O Apollo!</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp; Are haunts meet for thee,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">But where Helicon breaks down</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp; In cliff to the sea&mdash;"</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>How many times, in lands far from here, had I read these lines for their
+mere beauty, without hope of more!</p>
+
+<p>And now before my eyes was Helicon itself.</p>
+
+<h4>THE END</h4>
+
+<p class="top15"><b>ILLUSTRATED BOOKS OF TRAVEL<br />AND DESCRIPTION</b></p>
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+8vo, Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top. (<i>About Ready.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b><i>THE WARWICKSHIRE AVON.</i></b> Notes by A. T. <span class="smcap">Quiller-Couch</span>.
+Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Alfred Parsons</span>. Crown 8vo, Half Leather, Uncut
+Edges and Gilt Top, $2 00. (<i>In a Box.</i>)</p>
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+Cloth, $3 00.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b><i>A SPORTING PILGRIMAGE.</i></b> Studies in English Sport, Past and
+Present. By <span class="smcap">Caspar W. Whitney</span>. Copiously Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth,
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+
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+Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth. (<i>About Ready.</i>)</p>
+
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+Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $3 00.</p>
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+8vo, Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $2 50.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b><i>THE DANUBE</i></b>, from the Black Forest to the Black Sea. By <span class="smcap">F. D.
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+Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $2 50.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b><i>RIDERS OF MANY LANDS.</i></b> By <span class="smcap">Theodore Ayrault Dodge</span>, Brevet
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+from Photographs. 8vo, Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $4 00.</p>
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+Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $5 00. (<i>In a Box.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b><i>SKETCHING RAMBLES IN HOLLAND.</i></b> By <span class="smcap">George H. Boughton</span>, A.R.A.
+Illustrated by the Author and <span class="smcap">Edwin A. Abbey</span>. 8vo, Cloth, Uncut
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+
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+
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+
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+Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 25.</p>
+
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+Post 8vo, Cloth, $2 00.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b><i>A HOUSE-HUNTER IN EUROPE.</i></b> By <span class="smcap">William Henry Bishop</span>. With Plans and an
+Illustration. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 50.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b><i>LITERARY LANDMARKS OF LONDON.</i></b> By <span class="smcap">Laurence Hutton</span>. With Many Portraits.
+Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 75.</p>
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+8vo, Cloth, 75 cents.</p>
+
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+Illustrated. Square 8vo, Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $2 50.</p>
+
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+Half Leather, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $2 00.</p>
+
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+
+<p class="hang"><b><i>OUR GREAT WEST.</i></b> By <span class="smcap">Julian Ralph</span>. Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, $2 50.</p>
+
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+and Gilt Top, $3 00.</p>
+
+<p class="c"><span class="smcap">Published by</span> HARPER &amp; BROTHERS, <span class="smcap">New York</span></p>
+
+<p><span title="pointing hand">&#9758;</span><i>The above works are for sale by all
+booksellers, or will be mailed by the publishers, postage prepaid, on
+receipt of the price.</i></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
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+Project Gutenberg's Mentone, Cairo, and Corfu, by Constance Fenimore Woolson
+
+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
+
+
+Title: Mentone, Cairo, and Corfu
+
+Author: Constance Fenimore Woolson
+
+Release Date: August 7, 2010 [EBook #33367]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MENTONE, CAIRO, AND CORFU ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
+produced from scanned images of public domain material
+from the Internet Archive.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: STREET IN THE NEW QUARTER OF CAIRO Page 151]
+
+
+
+
+MENTONE, CAIRO, AND CORFU
+
+BY
+
+CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
+
+AUTHOR OF
+"ANNE" "EAST ANGELS" "HORACE CHASE" ETC.
+
+ILLUSTRATED
+
+[Illustration]
+
+NEW YORK
+HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+1896
+
+    BY CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON.
+
+    THE FRONT YARD, Etc. Illustrated. $1 25.
+    ANNE. Illustrated. $1 25.
+    EAST ANGELS. $1 25.
+    JUPITER LIGHTS. $1 25.
+    HORACE CHASE. $1 25.
+    CASTLE NOWHERE. $1 00.
+    RODMAN THE KEEPER. $1 00.
+    FOR THE MAJOR. Illustrated. $1 00.
+
+PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
+
+_All rights reserved._
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHERS' NOTE.
+
+
+The substance of this collection of Miss Woolson's sketches of travel in
+the Mediterranean originally appeared in HARPER'S MAGAZINE. "At Mentone"
+was published in that periodical in 1884; "Cairo in 1890," and "Corfu
+and the Ionian Sea," appeared in 1891 and 1892. As presented in this
+volume, the two sketches last mentioned contain much interesting
+material not included in their original form as magazine articles.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PAGE
+
+AT MENTONE                      3
+
+CAIRO IN 1890                 149
+
+CORFU AND THE IONIAN SEA      283
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+PAGE
+
+STREET IN THE NEW QUARTER OF CAIRO                         _Frontispiece_
+
+AT MENTONE                                                             5
+
+THE OLD TOWN                                                           9
+
+A STREET IN THE OLD TOWN                                              13
+
+RUE LONGUE BLOCKADED BY AN ARTIST                                     19
+
+THE CORNICE ROAD, MENTONE                                             23
+
+"TO ITALY"--PONT ST. LOUIS                                            27
+
+THE PALMS OF BORDIGHERA                                               31
+
+THE BONE CAVERNS                                                      37
+
+THE PROFESSOR DISCOURSES                                              43
+
+THE WASHER-WOMEN                                                      49
+
+OIL MILL                                                              55
+
+A MEDITERRANEAN BOAT                                                  60
+
+BRINGING LEMONS FROM THE TERRACE                                      63
+
+ON THE WAY TO L'ANNUNZIATA                                            69
+
+THE MONASTERY OF L'ANNUNZIATA                                         74
+
+CAPUCHIN MONKS                                                        77
+
+MONACO                                                                83
+
+STREET IN ROCCABRUNA                                                  91
+
+THE KING OF THE OLIVES                                                97
+
+FEUDAL TOWER NEAR VENTIMIGLIA                                        102
+
+DOLCE ACQUA                                                          107
+
+PIFFERARI                                                            113
+
+MONACO--THE PALACE AND PORT                                          117
+
+ENTRANCE TO THE PALACE, MONACO                                       121
+
+THE SALLE GRIMALDI, IN THE PALACE, MONACO                            126
+
+THE RIDE TO SANT' AGNESE                                             129
+
+VIEW FROM SANT' AGNESE                                               134
+
+FETE, VILLAGE OF SANT' AGNESE                                        137
+
+VESTIGES OF ROMAN MONUMENTS                                          140
+
+THE STATUE IN THE CEMETERY                                           143
+
+CONTEMPORARY PORTRAIT OF CLEOPATRA                                   149
+
+THE NILE BRIDGE, CAIRO                                               154
+
+BEFORE THE LITTLE MOSQUE                                             158
+
+TOMB-MOSQUE OF KAIT BEY                                              161
+
+A SELLER OF WATER-JUGS, CAIRO                                        167
+
+STATUE OF PRINCE RAHOTEP'S WIFE                                      172
+
+THE WOODEN MAN                                                       175
+
+AN EGYPTIAN WOMAN                                                    181
+
+THE NILE--COMING DOWN TO GET WATER                                   187
+
+THE DOCK AT OLD CAIRO                                                191
+
+MOUCHRABIYEHS IN THE OLD QUARTER                                     195
+
+INTERIOR COURT OF A NATIVE HOUSE, CAIRO                              199
+
+A DONKEY RIDE                                                        205
+
+AN ARAB CAFE                                                         209
+
+HEAD-PIECE                                                           212
+
+PORCH OF EL AZHAR                                                    215
+
+STUDENTS IN THE OUTER COURT, EL AZHAR                                221
+
+BEFORE THE SACRED NICHE                                              227
+
+OUTER ENTRANCE OF THE CITADEL, CAIRO                                 233
+
+A MECCA DOOR                                                         237
+
+THE ROAD TO CHOUBRA                                                  239
+
+GARDEN-HOUSE AT CHOUBRA, SHOWING PART OF THE LAKE NEAR CAIRO         243
+
+THE KHEDIVE                                                          247
+
+CHIEF WIFE OF EX-KHEDIVE ISMAIL, WITH HER PRIVATE BAND               251
+
+AN EGYPTIAN DANCING-GIRL                                             259
+
+THE INUNDATION NEAR CAIRO                                            267
+
+A MOHAMMEDAN CEMETERY, CAIRO                                         278
+
+SOUVENIRS OF CAIRO                                                   279
+
+HEAD-PIECE                                                           283
+
+PART OF THE TOWN OF CORFU                                            287
+
+THE PALACE                                                           293
+
+UNIVERSITY OF THE IONIAN ISLANDS                                     294
+
+SMALL TEMPLE, MEMORIAL TO SIR THOMAS MAITLAND                        296
+
+STATUE OF CAPO D'ISTRIA                                              299
+
+THE TOMB OF MENEKRATES                                               305
+
+THE ISLET CALLED "THE SHIP OF ULYSSES"                               311
+
+VILLAGE OF PELLEKA                                                   315
+
+KING GEORGE OF GREECE                                                319
+
+QUEEN OLGA OF GREECE                                                 323
+
+"MON REPOS," SUMMER RESIDENCE OF THE KING OF GREECE                  327
+
+IN THE GROUNDS OF THE NEW VILLA OF THE EMPRESS OF AUSTRIA            331
+
+ALBANIAN MALE COSTUME                                                335
+
+ALBANIAN FEMALE COSTUME                                              339
+
+GALA COSTUME, CORFU                                                  343
+
+OLIVE GROVE, CORFU                                                   351
+
+
+
+
+AT MENTONE
+
+
+I
+
+"_Kennst du das Land wo die Citronen bluehen?_"
+--GOETHE
+
+It is of no consequence why or how we came to Mentone. The vast subject
+of health and health resorts, of balancings between Torquay and Madeira,
+Algeria and Sicily, and, in a smaller sphere, between Cannes, Nice,
+Mentone, and San Remo, may as well be left at one side while we happily
+imitate the Happy-thought Man's trains in Bradshaw, which never "start,"
+but "arrive." We therefore arrived. Our party, formed not by selection,
+or even by the survival of the fittest (after the ocean and Channel),
+but simply by chance aggregation, was now composed of Mrs. Trescott and
+her daughter Janet, Professor Mackenzie, Miss Graves, the two youths
+Inness and Baker, my niece, and myself, myself being Jane Jefferson,
+aged fifty, and my niece Margaret Severin, aged twenty-eight.
+
+As I said above, we were an aggregation. The Trescotts had started
+alone, but had "accumulated" (so Mrs. Trescott informed me) the
+Professor. The Professor had started alone, and had accumulated the
+Trescotts. Inness and Baker had started singly, but had first
+accumulated each other, and then ourselves; while Margaret and I, having
+accumulated Miss Graves, found ourselves, with her, imbedded in the
+aggregation, partly by chance and partly by that powerful force
+propinquity. Arriving at Mentone, our aggregation went unbroken to the
+Hotel des Anglais, in the East Bay--the East Bay, the Professor said,
+being warmer than the West: the Professor had been at Mentone before.
+"The East Bay," he explained, "is warmer because more closely encircled
+by the mountains, which rise directly behind the house. The West Bay has
+more level space, and there are several little valleys opening into it,
+through which currents of air can pass; it is therefore cooler, but only
+a matter of two or three degrees." It was evening, and our omnibus
+proceeded at a pace adapted to the "Dead March" from _Saul_ through a
+street so narrow and walled in that it was like going through catacombs.
+Only, as Janet remarked, they did not crack whips in the catacombs, and
+here the atmosphere seemed to be principally cracks. But the Professor
+brought up the flagellants who might have been there, and they remained
+up until we reached our destination. We decided that the cracking of
+whips and the wash of the sea were the especial sounds of Mentone; but
+the whips ceased at nightfall, and the waves kept on, making a soft
+murmurous sound which lulled us all to restful slumber. We learned later
+that all vehicles are obliged, by orders from the town authorities, to
+proceed at a snail's pace through the narrow street of the "old town,"
+the city treasury not being rich enough to pay for the number of wooden
+legs and arms which would be required were this rule disregarded.
+
+[Illustration: AT MENTONE]
+
+The next morning when we opened our windows there entered the
+Mediterranean Sea. It is the bluest water in the world; not a clear cold
+blue like that of the Swiss lakes, but a soft warm tint like that of
+June sky, shading off on the horizon, not into darker blue or gray,
+but into the white of opal and mother-of-pearl. With the sea came in
+also the sunshine. The sunshine of Mentone is its glory, its riches, its
+especial endowment. Day follows day, month follows month, without a
+cloud; the air is pure and dry, fog is unknown. "The sun never stops
+shining;" and to show that this idea, which soon takes possession of one
+there, is not without some foundation, it can be stated that the average
+number of days upon which the sun does shine, as the phrase is, all day
+long is two hundred and fifty-nine; that is, almost nine months out of
+the twelve. "All the world is cheered by the sun," writes Shakespeare;
+and certainly "cheer" is the word that best expresses the effect of the
+constant sunshine of Mentone.
+
+We all came to breakfast with unclouded foreheads; even the three fixed
+wrinkles which crossed Mrs. Trescott's brow (she always alluded to them
+as "midnight oil") were not so deep as usual, and her little countenance
+looked as though it had been, if not ironed, at least smoothed out by
+the long sleep in the soft air. She floated into the sunny
+breakfast-room in an aureola of white lace, with Janet beside her, and
+followed by Inness and Baker. Margaret and I had entered a moment before
+with Miss Graves, and presently Professor Mackenzie joined us, radiating
+intelligence through his shining spectacles to that extent that I
+immediately prepared myself for the "Indeeds?" "Is it possibles?" "You
+surprise me," with which I was accustomed to assist him, when, after
+going all around the circle in vain for an attentive eye, he came at
+last to mine, which are not beautiful, but always, I trust, friendly to
+the friendless. Yet so self-deceived is man that I have no doubt but
+that if at this moment interrogated as to his best listener during that
+journey and sojourn at Mentone, he would immediately reply, "Miss
+Trescott."
+
+People were coming in and out of the room while we were there, the
+light Continental "first breakfast" of rolls and coffee or tea not
+detaining them long. Two, however, were evidently loitering, under a
+flimsy pretext of reading the unflimsy London _Times_, in order to have
+a longer look at Janet; these two were Englishmen. Was Janet, then,
+beautiful? That is a question hard to answer. She was a slender,
+graceful girl with a delicate American face, small, well-poised head,
+sweet voice, quiet manner, and eyes--well, yes, the expression in
+Janet's eyes was certainly a remarkable endowment. It could never be
+fixed in colors; it cannot be described in ink; it may perhaps be
+faintly indicated as each gazing man's ideal promised land. And this
+centre was surrounded by such a blue and childlike unconsciousness that
+every new-comer tumbled in immediately, as into a blue lake, and never
+emerged.
+
+"You have been roaming, Professor," said Mrs. Trescott, as he took his
+seat; "you have a fine breezy look of the sea. I heard the wa-ash,
+wa-ash, upon the beach all night. But _you_ have been out early,
+communing with Aurora. Do not deny it."
+
+The Professor had no idea of denying it. "I have been as far as the West
+Bay," he said, taking a roll. "Mentone has two bays, the East, where we
+are, and the West, the two being separated by the port and the 'old
+town.' Behind us, on the north, extends the double chain of mountains,
+the first rising almost directly from the sea, the second and higher
+chain behind, so that the two together form a screen, which completely
+protects this coast. Thus sheltered, and opening only towards the south,
+the bays of Mentone are like a conservatory, and _we_ like the plants
+growing within." (This, for the Professor, was quite poetical.)
+
+[Illustration: THE OLD TOWN]
+
+"I have often thought that to be a flower in a conservatory would be a
+happy lot," observed Janet. "One could have of the perfumes, sit
+still all the time, and never be out in the rain."
+
+"I trust, Miss Trescott, you have not often been exposed to inclement
+weather?" said the Professor, looking up.
+
+_He_ meant rain; but Mrs. Trescott, who took it upon herself to answer
+him, always meant metaphor. "Not yet," she answered; "no inclement
+weather yet for my child, because I have stood between. But the time may
+come when, _that_ barrier removed--" Here she waved her little claw-like
+hand, heavy with gems, in a sort of sepulchral suggestiveness, and took
+refuge in coffee.
+
+The Professor, who supposed the conversation still concerned the
+weather, said a word or two about the excellent English umbrella he had
+purchased in London, and then returned to his discourse. "The first
+mountains behind us," he remarked, "are between three and four thousand
+feet high; the second chain attains a height of eight and nine thousand
+feet, and, stretching back, mingles with the Swiss Alps. _Our_ name is
+Alpes Maritimes; we run along the coast in this direction" (indicating
+it on the table-cloth with his spoon), "and at Genoa we become the
+Apennines. The winter climate of Mentone is due, therefore, to its
+protected situation; cold winds from the north and northeast, coming
+over these mountains behind us, pass far above our heads, and advance
+several miles over the sea before they fall into the water. The mistral,
+too, that scourge of Southern France, that wind, cold, dry, and sharp,
+bringing with it a yellow haze, is unknown here, kept off by a
+fortunately placed shoulder of mountain running down into the sea on the
+west."
+
+"Indeed?" I said, seeing the search for a listener beginning.
+
+"Yes," he replied, starting on anew, encouraged, but, as usual, not
+noticing from whom the encouragement came--"yes; and the sirocco is
+even pleasant here, because it comes to us over a wide expanse of water.
+The characteristics of a Mentone winter are therefore sunshine,
+protection from the winds, and dryness. It is, in truth, remarkably
+dry."
+
+"Very," said Inness.
+
+"I have scarcely ever seen it equalled," remarked Baker.
+
+Margaret smiled, but I looked at the two youths reprovingly. Mrs.
+Trescott said, "Dry? Do you find it so? But you are young, whereas _I_
+have reminiscences. _Tears_ are not dry."
+
+They certainly are not; but why she should have alluded to them at that
+moment, no one but herself knew. There was a mystery about some of Mrs.
+Trescott's moods which made her society interesting: no one could ever
+tell what she would say next.
+
+After breakfast we sat awhile in the garden, where there were palm,
+lemon, and orange trees, high woody bushes of heliotrope, grotesque
+growth of cactus, and the great gray-blue swords of the century-plant.
+Before us stretched the sea. Even if we had not known it, we should have
+felt sure that its waters laved tropical shores somewhere, and that it
+was the reflection of those far skies which we caught here.
+
+Miss Graves now joined us, with an acquaintance she had discovered, a
+Mrs. Clary, who had "spent several winters at Mentone," and who adored
+"every stone of it." This phrase, which no doubt sounded well coming
+from Mrs. Clary, who was an impulsive person, with fine dark eyes and
+expressive mobile face, assumed a comical aspect when repeated by the
+sober voice of Miss Graves. Mrs. Clary, laughing, hastened to explain;
+and Miss Graves, noticing Mrs. Trescott on a bench in the shade, where
+she and her laces had floated down, said, warningly, "I should advise
+you to rise; I have just learned that the shade of Mentone is of the
+most deadly nature, and to be avoided like a scorpion."
+
+[Illustration: A STREET IN THE OLD TOWN]
+
+Mrs. Trescott and her laces floated up. "Is it damp?" she asked,
+alarmed.
+
+"No," replied Miss Graves, "it is not damp. It does not know how to be
+damp at Mentone. But the shade is deadly, all the same. Now in Florida
+it was otherwise." And she went into the house to get a white umbrella.
+
+"Matilda's temperament is really Alpine," said Mrs. Clary, smiling. "I
+have always felt that she would be cold even in heaven."
+
+"In that case," said Baker, "she might try--" But he had the grace to
+stop.
+
+"What is it about the shade?" I asked.
+
+"Only this," said Mrs. Clary: "as the warmth is due to the heat of the
+sun, and not to the air, which is cool, there is more difference between
+the sunshine and shade here than we are accustomed to elsewhere. But
+surely it is a small thing to remember. The treasure of Mentone is its
+sunshine: in it, safety; out of it, danger."
+
+"Like Mr. Micawber's income," said Margaret, smiling. "Amount, twenty
+shillings; you spend nineteen shillings and sixpence--riches; twenty
+shillings and sixpence--bankruptcy."
+
+A little later we went down to the "old town," as the closely built
+village of the Middle Ages, clinging to the side hill, and hardly
+changed in the long lapse of centuries, is called. The "old town" lies
+between the East Bay and the West Bay, as the body of a bird lies
+between the two long, slender wings.
+
+"The West Bay has its Promenade du Midi, and the East Bay has its
+sea-wall," said Mrs. Clary. "I like a sea-wall."
+
+"This one does not _approach_ that at St. Augustine," said Miss Graves.
+
+"Here is one of the fountains or wells," said Mrs. Clary. "You will soon
+see that going for water and gossiping at the well are two occupations
+of the women everywhere in this region. It comes, I suppose, from the
+scarcity of water, which is brought in pipes from long distances to
+these wells, to which the women must go for all the water needed by
+their households. Notice the classic shapes of the jugs and jars they
+bear on their heads. Those green ones might be majolica."
+
+We now turned up a paved ascent, and passing under a broad stone
+archway, entered the "old town," through whose narrow, lane-like streets
+no vehicle could be driven, through some of them hardly a donkey. The
+principal avenue, the Rue Longue, but a few feet in width, was smoothly
+paved and clean; but walking there was like being at the bottom of a
+well, so far above and so narrow was the little ribbon of blue sky at
+the top. Unbroken stone walls rose on each side, directly upon the
+street, five and six stories in height, shutting out the sunshine; and
+these tall gray walls were often joined above our heads also by arches,
+"like uncelebrated bridges of sighs," Janet said. These closely built
+continuous blocks were the homes of the native population, "old
+Mentone," unspoiled by progress and strangers. The low doorways showed
+stone steps ascending somewhere in the darkness, showed low-ceilinged
+rooms, whose only light was from the door, where were mothers and
+babies, men mending shoes, women sewing and occupied with household
+tasks, as calmly as though daylight was not the natural atmosphere of
+mankind, but rather their own dusky gloom. Outside the doors little
+black-eyed children sat on the pavement, eating the dark sour bread of
+the country, and here and there old women in circular white hats like
+large dinner plates were spinning thread with distaff and spindle. Above
+were some bits of color: pots of flowers on high window-sills,
+bright-hued rags hung out to dry, or a dark-eyed girl, with red kerchief
+tied over her black braids, looking down.
+
+"It is all like a scene from an opera," said Janet.
+
+"Oh no," said Mrs. Clary; "say rather that it is like a scene from the
+Middle Ages."
+
+"That is what I mean," said Janet. "The scenes in the operas are
+generally from the Middle Ages."
+
+"The chorus _always_," said Baker.
+
+"It is a pity you cannot see the old mansion of the Princes," said Mrs.
+Clary. "But I see the street is blockaded just now by the artist."
+
+"By the artist?" said Janet.
+
+"Yes; this one, a Frenchman, is rather broad-shouldered, and when he is
+at work he blockades the street. However, the mansion is not especially
+interesting; it was built by one of the later Princes with the stones of
+the ruined castle above, and has, I believe, only a vaulted hallway and
+one or two marble pillars. It is now a lodging-house. I saw dancing-dogs
+going up the stairway yesterday."
+
+From the Rue Longue we had turned into a labyrinth of crooked,
+staircase-like lanes, winding here and there from side to side, but
+constantly ascending, the whole net-work, owing to the number of arches
+thrown across above, seeming to be half underground, but in reality a
+honey-combed erection clinging to the steep hill-side.
+
+"Dancing-dogs!" said Janet, pausing in the darkest of these turnings.
+"Let us go back and see them."
+
+But we all exclaimed against this; Mrs. Trescott's little old feet were
+wearied with curling over the round stones, and Margaret was tired.
+Inness and Baker offered to make dancing-dogs of themselves for the
+remainder of the morning, and dogs, too, of a very superior quality, if
+she would only go on.
+
+The Professor, who, in his "winnowing progress," as Mrs. Trescott
+called it, had fallen behind, now joined us, followed by Miss Graves.
+
+"I have just witnessed a remarkably interesting little ceremony," he
+began, "quite mediaeval--a herald, with his trumpet, making an
+announcement through the streets. I could not comprehend all he said,
+but no doubt it was something of importance to the community."
+
+"It was," said Miss Graves's monotonous voice. "He was telling them that
+excellent sausage-meat was now to be obtained at a certain shop for a
+price much lower than before."
+
+"Ah," said the Professor. Then, rallying, he added, "But the ceremony
+was the same."
+
+"Certainly," I said, with my usual unappreciated benevolence.
+
+"I wonder what induced these people to build their houses upon such a
+crag as this, when they had the whole sunny coast to choose from?" said
+Janet.
+
+The Professor, charmed with this idle little speech (which he took for a
+thirst for knowledge), hastened by several of us as we walked in single
+file, in order to be nearer to the questioner.
+
+"You may not be aware, Miss Trescott," he began (she was still in
+advance, but he hoped to make up the distance), "that this whole shore,
+called the Riviera--"
+
+"Let us begin fairly," I said. "What _is_ the Riviera?"
+
+"It is heaven," said Mrs. Clary.
+
+[Illustration: RUE LONGUE BLOCKADED BY AN ARTIST]
+
+"It is the coast of the Gulf of Genoa," said the Professor, "extending
+both eastward and westward from the city of that name. On the west it
+extends geographically to Nice; but Cannes and Antibes are generally
+included. This shore-line, then, has been subject from a very early date
+to attacks from the pirates of the Mediterranean, who swept down upon
+the coast and carried off as slaves all who came in their way. To
+escape the horrors of this slavery the inhabitants chose situations like
+this steep hill-side, and crowded their stone dwellings closely together
+so that they formed continuous walls, which were often joined also by
+arched bridges, like these above us now, and connected by dark and
+winding passageways below, so that escape was easy and pursuit
+impossible. It was a veritable--"
+
+"Rabbit-warren," suggested Baker.
+
+Inness made no suggestions; he was next to the Professor, and fully
+occupied in blocking, with apparent entire unconsciousness, all his
+efforts to pass and join Janet.
+
+The Professor, not accepting, however, the rabbit-warren, continued: "As
+recently as 1830, Miss Trescott, when the French took possession of
+Algiers, they found there thousands of miserable Christian slaves,
+natives of this northern shore, who had been seized on the coast or
+taken from their fishing-boats at sea. There are men now living in
+Mentone who in their youth spent years as slaves in Tunis and Algiers.
+These pirates, these scourges of the Mediterranean, were Saracens,
+and--"
+
+"Saracens!" said Janet, with an accent of admiration; "what a lovely
+word it is! What visions of romance and adventure it brings up,
+especially when spelled with two r's, so as to be Sarrasins! It is even
+better than Paynim."
+
+I could not see how the Professor took this, because we were now all
+entirely in the dark, groping our way along a passage which apparently
+led through cellars.
+
+"We are in an _impasse_, or blind passage," called Mrs. Clary from
+behind; "we had better go back."
+
+Hearing this, we all retraced our steps--at least, we supposed we did.
+But when we reached comparative daylight again we found that Janet,
+Inness, and Baker were not with us; they had found a way through that
+_impasse_, although we could not, and were sitting high above us on a
+white wall in the sunshine, when, breathless, we at last emerged from
+the labyrinth and discovered them.
+
+"That looks like a cemetery," said Mrs. Trescott, disapprovingly,
+disentangling her lace shawl from a bush. "You _said_ it was a castle."
+She addressed the Professor, and with some asperity; she did not like
+cemeteries.
+
+"It was the castle," explained our learned guide; "the castle erected in
+1502, by one of the Princes, upon the site of a still earlier one, built
+in 1250."
+
+"That Prince used the ruins of his ancestors as his descendants
+afterwards used his," observed Margaret, referring to the mansion in the
+street below.
+
+"Possibly," said the Professor. He never gave Margaret more than a
+possibility; although a man of hyphens and semicolons, he generally
+dismissed her with an early period. "These old arches and buttresses,"
+he continued, turning to Mrs. Trescott, "were once part of the castle.
+Turreted walls extended from here down to the sea."
+
+"What they did once, of course I do not know," said Mrs. Trescott,
+implacably, "but now they plainly enclose a cemetery. Janet! Janet! come
+down! we are going back." And she turned to descend.
+
+"The cemetery is a lovely spot," said Mrs. Clary, as we lingered a
+moment looking at the white marble crosses gleaming above us, outlined
+against the blue sky.
+
+[Illustration: THE CORNICE ROAD, MENTONE]
+
+"Some other time," I answered, following Mrs. Trescott. For the quiet,
+lovely gardens where we lay our dead had too strong an attraction for
+Margaret already. She was fond of lingering amid their perfume and their
+silence, and she sought this one the next day, and afterwards often
+went there. It was a peculiar little cemetery, alone on the height, and
+walled like a fortress; but it was beautiful in its way, lifted up
+against the sky and overlooking the sea. On the eastern edge was a
+monument, the seated figure of a woman with her hands gently clasped,
+her eyes gazing over the water; the face was lovely, and not
+idealized--the face of a woman, not an angel. Margaret took a fancy to
+this white watcher on the height, and often stole away to look at the
+sunset, seated near it. I think she identified its loneliness somewhat
+with herself.
+
+We went through the labyrinth again, but by another route, not quite so
+dark and piratical, although equally narrow. Miss Graves liked nothing
+she saw, but walked on unmoved, save that at intervals she observed that
+it was "deathly cold" in these "stony lanes," and "_must_ be unhealthy."
+Mrs. Clary's assertion that the people looked remarkably vigorous only
+called out a shake of the head; Miss Graves was set upon "fever." It was
+amusing to see how carefully all the houses were numbered, up and down
+these break-neck little streets, through the narrowest burrows, and
+under the darkest arches. Here and there some citizen wealthier than his
+neighbors had painted his section of front in bright pink or yellow, and
+perhaps adorned his Madonna in her little shrine over the door with new
+robes, those broadly contrasted blues and reds of Italy, which American
+eyes must learn by gradual education to admire; or, if not by education,
+then by residence; for he will find himself liking them naturally after
+a while, as a relief from the unchanging white light of the Italian day.
+We came down by way of the square or piazza on the hill-side, to and
+from which broad flights of steps ascend and descend. Here are the two
+churches of St. Michael and the White Penitents, whose campaniles, with
+that of the Black Penitents beyond, make the "three spires of Mentone,"
+which stand out so picturesquely one above the other, visible in profile
+far to the east and the west on the sharp angle of the hill.
+
+"The different use of the same word in different languages is droll,"
+said Margaret. "French writers almost always speak of these little
+country church-spires as 'coquettes.'"
+
+"There is a Turkish lance here somewhere," said Inness, emerging
+unexpectedly from what I had thought was a cellar. "It is in one of
+these churches. It was taken at the battle of Lepanto, and is a
+'glorious relic.' We must see it."
+
+"No," said Janet, appearing with Baker at the top of a flight of steps
+which I had supposed was the back entrance of a private house, "we will
+not see it, but imagine it. I want to go homeward by the Rue Longue."
+
+"Now, Janet, if you mean those dancing-dogs--" began Mrs. Trescott.
+
+"I had forgotten their very existence, mamma. I was thinking of
+something quite different." Here she turned towards the Professor. "I
+was hoping that Professor Mackenzie would feel like telling me something
+of Mentone in the past, as we walk through that quaint old street."
+
+"He feels like it--feels like it day and night," said Baker to Inness,
+behind me. "He's a perfect statistics Niagara."
+
+"Look at him now, gorged with joy!" said Inness, indignantly. "But I'll
+floor him yet, and on his own ground, too. I'll study up, and _then_
+we'll see!"
+
+But the Professor, not hearing this threat, had already begun, and begun
+(for him) quite gayly. "The origin of Mentone, Miss Trescott, has been
+attributed to the pirates, and also to Hercules."
+
+"I have always been _so_ interested in Hercules," replied that young
+person.
+
+[Illustration: "TO ITALY"--PONT ST. LOUIS]
+
+"Mythical--mythical," said the Professor. "I merely mentioned it as one
+of the legends. To come down to facts--always much more impressive to a
+rightly disposed mind--the first mention of Mentone, _per se_, on the
+authentic page of history, occurs in the eighth century. In A.D. 975 it
+belonged to the Lascaris, Counts of Ventimiglia, a family of royal
+origin and Greek descent."
+
+"Are there any of them left?" inquired Janet.
+
+"I really do not know," replied the Professor, who was not interested in
+that branch of the subject. "In the fourteenth century the village
+passed into the possession of the Grimaldi family, Princes of Monaco,
+and they held it, legally at least, until 1860, when it was attached to
+France."
+
+"He is really quite Cyclopean in his information," murmured Mrs.
+Trescott.
+
+But the Professor had now discovered Inness, who, with an expression of
+deepest interest on his face, was walking close at his heels, and
+writing as he walked in a note-book.
+
+"What are you doing, sir?" said the Professor, in his college tone.
+
+"Taking notes," replied Inness, respectfully. "Miss Trescott may feel
+willing to trust her memory, but _I_ wish to preserve your remarks for
+future reference," and he went on with his writing.
+
+The Professor looked at him sharply, but the youth's face remained
+immovable, and he went on.
+
+"These three little towns, then, Mentone, Roccabruna, and Monaco, have
+belonged to the Princes of Monaco since the early Middle Ages."
+
+"Those dear Middle Ages!" said Mrs. Clary.
+
+The Professor gravely looked at her, and then repeated his phrase, as if
+linking together his remarks over her unimportant head. "As I
+observed--the early Middle Ages. But in 1848 Mentone and Roccabruna,
+unable longer to endure the tyranny of their rulers, revolted and
+declared their independence. The Prince at that time lived in Paris,
+knew little of his subjects, and apparently cared less, save to get from
+them through agents as much income as possible for his Parisian
+luxuries." (Impossible to describe the accent which our Puritan
+Professor gave to those two words.) "His little territory produced only
+olives, oranges, and lemons. By his order the oranges and lemons were
+taxed so heavily that the poor peasant owner made nothing from his toil;
+his olives, also, must be ground at the 'Prince's mill,' where a higher
+price was demanded than elsewhere. Finally an even more odious monopoly
+was established: all subjects were compelled to purchase the 'Prince's
+bread,' which, made from cheap grain bought on the docks of Marseilles
+and Genoa, was often unfit to eat. So severe were the laws that any
+traveller entering the principality must throw away at the boundary line
+all bread he might have with him, and the captain of a vessel having on
+board a single slice upon arrival in port was heavily fined. This state
+of things lasted twenty-five years, during which period the Prince in
+Paris spent annually his eighty thousand dollars, gained from this poor
+little domain of eight or nine thousand souls." The Professor in his
+heat stood still, and we all stood still with him. The Mentonnais,
+looking down from their high windows and up from their dark little
+doors, no doubt wondered what we were talking about; they little knew it
+was their own story.
+
+"A revolution made by bread. And ours was made by tea," observed Janet,
+thoughtfully.
+
+"We need now only one made by butter, to be complete," said Inness.
+
+Again the Professor scrutinized him, but discovered nothing.
+
+[Illustration: THE PALMS OF BORDIGHERA]
+
+_I_, however, discovered something, although not from Inness; I
+discovered why Janet had wished to pass a second time through that Rue
+Longue. For here was the French artist sketching the old mansion, and
+with him (she could not have known this, of course; but chance always
+favored Janet) were the two Englishmen, the respectful gazers of the
+breakfast-table, sketching also. There were therefore six artistic eyes
+instead of two to dwell upon her as she approached, passed, and went
+onward, her slender figure outlined against the light coming through the
+archway beyond, old St. Julian's Gate, a remnant of feudal
+fortification. Artists are not slack in the use of their eyes; an
+"artistic gaze" is not considered a stare. I was obliged to repeat this
+axiom to Baker, who did not appreciate it, but looked as though he would
+like to go back and artistically demolish those gazers. He contented
+himself, however, with the remark that water-color sketches were "weak,
+puling daubs," and then he went on through the old archway as
+majestically as he could.
+
+"One of the features of Mentone seems to be the number of false windows
+carefully painted on the outside of the houses, windows adorned with
+blinds, muslin curtains, pots of flowers, and even gay rugs hanging over
+the sill," said Margaret.
+
+"And then the frescos," I added--"landscapes, trees, gods and goddesses,
+in the most brilliant colors, on the side of the house."
+
+"_I_ like it," said Mrs. Clary; "it is so tropical."
+
+"You commend falsity, then," said Miss Graves. "_What_ can be more false
+than a false rug?"
+
+We went homeward by the sea-wall, and saw some boys coming up from the
+beach with a basket of sea-urchins. "They eat them, you know," said Mrs.
+Clary.
+
+"Is that tropical too?" said Janet, shuddering.
+
+"It is, after all, but a difference in custom," observed the Professor.
+"I myself have eaten puppies in China, and found them not unpalatable."
+
+Janet surveyed him; then fell behind and joined Inness and Baker.
+
+Some fishermen on the beach were talking to two women with red
+handkerchiefs on their heads, who were leaning over the sea-wall. "Their
+language is a strange patois," said the Professor; "it is composed of a
+mixture of Italian, French, Spanish, and even Arabic."
+
+"But the people themselves are thoroughly Italian, I think, in spite of
+the French boundary line," said Margaret. "They are a handsome race,
+with their dark eyes, thick hair, and rich coloring."
+
+"I have never bestowed much thought upon beauty _per se_," responded the
+Professor. "The imperishable mind has far more interest."
+
+"How much of the imperishable M. do you possess, Miss Trescott?" I heard
+Inness murmur.
+
+"Breakfast" was served at one o'clock in the large dining-room, and we
+found ourselves opposite the two English artists, and a young lady whom
+they called "Miss Elaine."
+
+"Elaine is bad enough; but 'Miss Elaine'!" said Margaret aside to me.
+
+However, Miss Elaine seemed very well satisfied with herself and her
+Tennysonian title. She was a short, plump blonde, with a high color, and
+I could see that she regarded Janet with pity as she noted her slender
+proportions and delicate complexion in the one exhaustive glance with
+which girls survey each other when they first meet. We were some time at
+the table, but during the first five minutes both of the artists
+succeeded in offering some slight service to Mrs. Trescott which gave an
+opportunity for opening a conversation. The taller of the two, called
+"Verney" by his friend, advised for the afternoon an expedition up the
+Cornice Road to the "Pont St. Louis," and on "to Italy."
+
+"But that will be too far, will it not?" said Mrs. Trescott.
+
+"Oh no; to Italy! to Italy!" said Janet, with enthusiasm. Verney now
+explained that Italy was but ten minutes' walk from the hotel, and Janet
+was, of course, duly astonished. But not more astonished than the
+Professor, who, having told her the same fact not a half-hour before,
+could not comprehend how she should so soon have forgotten it.
+
+"And if we _are_ but 'ten minutes' walk from Italy'--a phrase so often
+repeated--what of it?" said Miss Graves to Margaret. "We are simply ten
+minutes' walk from a most uncleanly land." Miss Graves always wore a
+gray worsted shawl, and took no wine; in spite of the sunshine,
+therefore, she preserved a frosty appearance.
+
+After breakfast Miss Elaine introduced herself to Mrs. Trescott. She had
+met some Americans the year before; they were charming; they were from
+Brazil; perhaps we knew them? She had always felt ever since that all
+Americans were her dear, dear friends. She had an invalid mother
+up-stairs (sharing her good opinion of Americans) who would be "very
+pleased" to make our acquaintance; and hearing Pont St. Louis mentioned,
+she assured Janet that it was a "very jolly place--very jolly indeed."
+It ended in our going to the "jolly place," accompanied by the two
+artists and Miss Elaine herself, who smiled upon us all, upon the rocks,
+the sky, and the sea, in the most amiable and continuous manner. This
+time we were not all on foot; one of the loose-jointed little Mentone
+phaetons, with a great deal of driver and whip and very little horse,
+had been engaged for Mrs. Trescott and Margaret. This left Mrs. Clary
+and myself together (Miss Graves having remained at home), and Inness,
+Baker, the Professor, Verney, and the other artist, whose name was
+Lloyd, all trying to walk with Janet, while Miss Elaine devoted herself
+in turn to the unsuccessful ones, and never from first to last perceived
+the real situation.
+
+We went eastward. Presently we passed a small house bearing the
+following naive inscription in French on the side towards the road: "The
+first villa built at Mentone, in 1855, to attract hither the strangers.
+The sun, the sea, and the soft air combined are benefactions bestowed
+upon us by the good God. Thanks be to Him, therefore, for His mercies in
+thus favoring us."
+
+"Mentone is said to have been 'discovered by the English' in 1857," said
+Mrs. Clary. "Dr. Bennet, the London physician, may be called its real
+discoverer, as Lord Brougham was the discoverer of Cannes. From a
+sleepy, unknown little Riviera village it has grown into the winter
+resort we now see, with fifty hotels and two hundred villas full of
+strangers from all parts of the world."
+
+The Professor was discoursing upon the climate. "It is very beneficial
+to all whose lungs are delicate," he said. "Also" (checking off the
+different classes on his fingers) "to the aged, to those who need
+general renovating, to the rheumatic, and to those afflicted with gout."
+
+"Where, then, do I come in?" said Janet, sweetly, as he finished the
+left hand.
+
+"Nowhere," answered the Professor, meaning to be gallant, but not quite
+succeeding. Perceiving this, he added, slowly, and with solemnity, "But
+the fair and healthy flower should be willing to shine upon the less
+endowed for the pure beneficence of the act."
+
+[Illustration: THE BONE CAVERNS]
+
+Baker and Inness sat down on the sea-wall behind him to recover from
+this. The two Englishmen were equally amused, although Miss Elaine,
+who was walking with them, did not discover it. However, Miss Elaine
+seldom discovered anything save herself. We now began to ascend, passing
+between the high walls of villa gardens along a smooth, broad, white
+road.
+
+"This is the Cornice," said Mrs. Clary; "it winds along this coast from
+Marseilles to Genoa."
+
+"From Nice to Genoa," said the Professor, turning to correct her. But by
+turning he lost his place. Inness slipped into it, and not only that,
+but into his information also. In the leisure hour or two before and
+after "breakfast," Inness had carried out his threat of "studying up,"
+and we soon became aware of it.
+
+"The genius of Napoleon, Miss Trescott," he began, "caused this
+wonderful road to spring from the bosom of the mighty rock."
+
+"Before it there was no road, only a mule track," said the Professor
+from behind.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Inness, suavely, "but there was a road, the
+old Roman way, called Via Julia Augusta, traces of which are still to be
+seen at more than one point in this neighborhood."
+
+"Ah!" said the Professor, surprised by this unexpected antiquity, "you
+are going back to the Roman period. I have omitted that."
+
+"But I have not," replied Inness. "The Romans were a remarkable people,
+and all their relics are penetrated with the profoundest interest for
+me. I am aware, however, that other minds are more modern," he added,
+carelessly, with an air of patronage, which so delighted Baker that he
+fell behind to conceal it.
+
+"The Cornichy, Miss Trescott, as we pronounce the Italian word (Corniche
+in French), is almost our own word cornice," pursued Inness, "meaning a
+shelf or ledge along the side of the mountain. It was begun by Napoleon,
+and has been finished by the energy of successive governments since the
+death of that wonderful man, who was all governments in one."
+
+"You surprise me," said Janet, breaking into laughter.
+
+"Not more than you do me," I said, joining her.
+
+The Professor (who had rather neglected the Cornice in his Cyclopean
+information) gazed at us inquiringly, surprised at our merriment.
+
+"The best description of the Cornice, I think, is the one in Ruffini's
+novel called _Doctor Antonio_" said Mrs. Clary. "The scene is laid at
+Bordighera, you know, that little white town on the eastern point so
+conspicuous from Mentone. Of course you all remember _Doctor Antonio_?"
+
+Presently our road wound around a curve, and we came upon a wild gorge,
+spanned by a bridge with a sentinel's box at each end; one side was
+France and the other Italy. The bridge, the official boundary line
+between the two countries, is a single arch thrown across the gorge,
+which is singularly stern, great masses of bare gray rock rising
+perpendicularly hundreds of feet into the air, with a little rill of
+water trickling down on one side, trying to create a tiny line of
+verdure. Below was an old aqueduct on arches, which the Professor
+hastened to say was "Roman."
+
+"The Romans must have been enormous drinkers of water," observed Baker,
+as we looked down. "The first thing they made in every conquered country
+was an aqueduct. What could have given the name to Roman punch?"
+
+"Do you see that narrow track cut in the face of the rock?" said Mrs.
+Clary, pointing out a line crossing one side of the gorge at a dizzy
+height. "It is a little path beside a watercourse, and so narrow that in
+some places there is not room for one's two feet. The wall of rock
+rises, as you see, perpendicularly hundreds of feet on one side, and
+falls away hundreds of feet perpendicularly on the other; there is
+nothing to hold on by, and in addition the glancing motion of the little
+stream, running rapidly downhill along the edge, makes the path still
+more dizzy. Yet the peasants coming down from Ciotti--a village above
+us--use it, as it shortens the distance to town. And there are those
+among the strangers too who try it, generally, I must confess, of our
+race. The French and Italians say, with a shrug, 'It is only the English
+and Americans who enjoy such risks.'"
+
+"It does not look so narrow," said Janet. Then, as we exclaimed, she
+added, "I mean, not wide enough for one's two feet."
+
+"Feet," remarked Inness, in a general way, as if addressing the gorge,
+"are not all of the same size."
+
+We happened to be standing in a row, with our backs against the southern
+parapet of the bridge, looking up at the little path; the result was
+that eighteen feet were plainly visible on the white dust of the bridge,
+and, naturally enough, at Inness's speech eighteen eyes looked downward
+and noted them. There were the Professor's boots, the laced shoes of the
+younger men, the comfortable foot-gear of Mrs. Clary and myself, the
+broad substantial soles of Miss Elaine, and a certain dainty little pair
+of high-arched, high-heeled boots, which, small as they were, were yet
+quite large enough for the pretty feet they contained. I thought Miss
+Elaine would be vexed; but no, not at all. It never occurred to Miss
+Elaine to doubt the perfection of any of her attributes. But now Mrs.
+Trescott's phaeton, which had started later, reached the bridge, and the
+gorge, path, and aqueduct had to be explained to her. Lloyd undertook
+this.
+
+"I wonder how many girls have thrown themselves off that rock?" said
+Janet, gazing at an isolated peak, shaped like a sugar-loaf, which
+stood alone within the ravine.
+
+"What a holocaust you imagine, Miss Trescott!" said Verney. "How could
+they climb up there, to begin with?"
+
+"I do not know. But they always do. I have never known a rock of that
+kind which has succeeded in evading them," answered Janet. "They
+generally call them 'Lovers' Leaps.'"
+
+After a while we went on "to Italy," passing the square Italian
+custom-house perched on its cliff, and following the road by the little
+Garibaldi inn, and on towards the point of Mortola.
+
+"This is the Italian frontier," said Verney. "In old times, during the
+Prince's reign, no one could leave the domain without buying a passport;
+any one, therefore, who wished to take an afternoon walk was obliged to
+have one. But things are altered now in Menton."
+
+"Are we to call the place Menton or Mentone?" asked Janet. "We might as
+well come to some decision."
+
+"Menton is correct," said the Professor; "it is now a French town."
+
+"Oh no! let us keep to the dear old names, and say Men-to-ne," said Mrs.
+Clary.
+
+"_I_ have even heard it pronounced to rhyme with bone," said Verney,
+smiling. Inness and Baker now looked at each other, and fell behind, but
+after a few minutes they came forward again, and, advancing to the
+front, faced us, and delivered the following epic:
+
+     Inness:
+
+    "What shall we call thee? Shall we give our own
+    Plain English vowels to thee, fair Mentone?"
+
+[Illustration: THE PROFESSOR DISCOURSES]
+
+
+     Baker:
+
+    "Or shall we yield thee back thy patrimony,
+    The lost Italian sweetness of Mentone?"
+
+     Inness:
+
+    "Or, with French accent, and the n's half gone,
+    Try the Parisian syllables--Men-ton?"
+
+We all applauded their impromptu. The Professor, seeing that poetry held
+the field, walked apart musingly. I think he was trying to recall, but
+without success, an appropriate Latin quotation.
+
+The view from the point above Mortola is very beautiful. On the west,
+Mentone with its three spires, the green of Cap Martin; and beyond, the
+bold dark forehead of the Dog's Head rising above Monaco.
+
+"Do you see that blue line of coast?" said Verney. "That is the island
+where lived the Man with the Iron Mask."
+
+"Bazaine was confined there also," said the Professor.
+
+But none of us cared for Bazaine. We began to talk about the Mask, and
+then diverged to Kaspar Hauser, finally ending with Eleazer Williams, of
+"Have we a Bourbon among us?" who had to be explained to the Englishmen.
+It was some time before we came back to the view; but all the while
+there it was before us, and we were unconsciously enjoying it. On the
+east was, first, the little village of Mortola at our feet; then
+fortified Ventimiglia; and beyond, Bordighera, gleaming whitely on its
+low point out in the blue sea.
+
+"Blanche Bordighera," said Mrs. Clary; "it is to me like
+paradise--always silvery and fair. No matter where you go, there it is;
+whether you look from Cap Martin or St. Agnese, from Ciotti or
+Roccabruna, you can always see Bordighera shining in the sunlight. Even
+when there is a mist, so that Mentone itself is veiled and Ventimiglia
+lost, Bordighera can be seen gleaming whitely through. And finally you
+end by not wanting to go there; you dread spoiling the vision by a less
+fair reality, and you go away, leaving it unvisited, but carrying with
+you the remembrance of its shining and its feathery palms."
+
+"Is it palmy?" asked Janet.
+
+"There are probably now more palms at Bordighera than in the Holy Land
+itself," said Verney, who had wound himself into a place beside her. I
+say "wound," because Verney was so long and lithe that he could slip
+gracefully into places which other men could not obtain. Lloyd was not
+with us. He had not left his post of duty beside the phaeton, which was
+coming slowly up the hill behind us; but I noticed that he had selected
+Margaret's side of it.
+
+"Palms would grow at Mentone, or at any other sheltered spot on this
+coast," said the Professor, at last abandoning the obstinate quotation,
+and coming back to the present. "But the cultivation is not remunerative
+save at Bordighera, where they own the monopoly of supplying the palm
+branches used on Palm-Sunday at Rome."
+
+"Excuse me," said Inness; "but I think you did not mention the origin of
+that monopoly?"
+
+"A monkish legend," said the Professor, contemptuously.
+
+"In those days everything was monkish," replied Inness; "architecture,
+knowledge, and religion. If we had lived then, no doubt we should all
+have been monks."
+
+"Ah, yes!" said Miss Elaine, fervently. "Do tell us the legend, Mr.
+Inness. I adore legends, especially if ecclesiastical."
+
+"Well," said Inness, "a good while ago--in 1586--the Pope decided to
+raise and place upon a pedestal an Egyptian obelisk, which, transported
+to Rome by Caligula, had been left lying neglected upon the ground. An
+apparatus was constructed to lift the huge block, and with the aid of
+one hundred and fifty horses and nine hundred men it was raised, poised,
+and then let down slowly towards its position, amid the breathless
+silence of a multitude, when suddenly it was seen that the ropes on one
+side failed to bring it into place. All, including the engineer in
+charge, stood stupefied with alarm, when a voice from the crowd called
+out, 'Wet the ropes!' It was done; the ropes shortened; the obelisk
+reached its place in safety. The Pope sent for the man whose timely
+advice had saved the lives of many, and asked him what reward would
+please him most. He was a simple countryman, and with much timidity he
+answered that he lived at Bordighera, and that if the palms of
+Bordighera could be used in Rome on Holy Palm-Sunday he should die
+happy. His wish was granted," concluded Inness, "and--he died."
+
+"I hope not immediately," I said, laughing.
+
+On our way back, Verney showed us a path leading up the cliff. "Let me
+give you a glimpse of a lovely garden," he said. We looked up, and there
+it was on the cliff above us, like the hanging gardens of Babylon, green
+terraces clothing the bare gray rock with beautiful verdure. Margaret
+left the phaeton and went up the winding path with us, Mrs. Trescott and
+Mrs. Clary remaining below. The gate of the garden, which bore the
+inscription "Salvete Amici," opened upon a long columned walk; from
+pillar to pillar over our heads ran climbing vines, and on each side
+were ranks of rare and curious plants, the lovely wild flowers of the
+country having their place also among the costlier blossoms. "Before you
+go farther turn and look at the tower," said Verney. "It has been made
+habitable within, but otherwise it is unchanged. It was built either as
+a lookout in which to keep watch for the Saracens, or else by the
+Saracens themselves when they held the coast."
+
+"By the Sarrasins themselves, of course--always with two r's," said
+Janet. "Think of it--a Sarrasin tower! I would rather own it than
+anything else in the whole world."
+
+Whereupon Verney, Inness, the Professor, Lloyd, and Baker all wished to
+know what she would do with it.
+
+"Do with it?" repeated Janet. "Live in it, of course. I have always had
+the greatest desire to live in a tower; even light-houses tempt me."
+
+"I shall tell Dr. Bennet," said Verney, laughing. "This is his garden,
+you know."
+
+At the end of the columned walk we went around a curve by a smaller
+tower, and descended to a lower path bordered with miniature groves of
+hyacinth, whose dense sweetness, mingled with that of heliotrope, filled
+the air. Here Margaret seated herself to enjoy the fragrance and
+sunshine, while we went onward, coming to a magnificent array of
+primulas, rank upon rank, in every shade of delicate and gorgeous
+coloring, a pomp of tints against a background of ferns. Below was a
+little vine-covered terrace with thick, soft, English grass for its
+velvet flooring; here was another paradisiacal little seat, like the one
+where we had left Margaret, overlooking the blue sea. On terraces above
+were camellias, roses, and numberless other blossoms, mingled with
+tropical plants and curious growths of cacti; behind was a lemon grove
+rising a little higher; then the background of gray rocks from which all
+this beauty had been won inch by inch; then the great peaks of the
+mountain amphitheatre against the sky--in all, beauty enough for a
+thousand gardens here concentrated in one enchanting spot.
+
+[Illustration: THE WASHER-WOMEN]
+
+"That picturesque village on the height is Grimaldi," said Verney.
+
+"The original home of the clowns, I suppose," said Baker.
+
+"English and Americans always say that; they can never think of anything
+but the great circus Hamlet," replied Verney. "In reality, however,
+Grimaldi is one of the oldest of the noble names on this coast--the
+family name of the Princes of Monaco."
+
+"Who are worse than clowns," said the Professor, sternly. "The Grimaldi
+who was a clown at least honestly earned his bread, but the Grimaldis of
+the present day live by the worst dishonesty. Monaco, formerly called
+the Port of Hercules, may now well be called the Port of Hell."
+
+"Well," said Inness, "if Monaco, on one side of us, represents
+l'Inferno, Bordighera, on the other, represents Paradiso, and so we are
+saved."
+
+"It depends upon which way you go, young man," said the Professor, still
+sternly.
+
+After a while we came back to the bench among the hyacinths where we had
+left Margaret, and found Lloyd with her, looking at the sea; the lovely
+garden overhangs the sea, whose beautiful near blue closes every
+blossoming vista. It had been decided that we were to go homeward by way
+of the Bone Caverns, and as Mrs. Trescott was fond of bones, and wished
+to see their abode, I offered to remain and drive home with Margaret.
+
+"Let me accompany Miss Severin," said Lloyd. "I have seen the caverns,
+and do not care to see them again."
+
+I looked at Margaret, thinking she would object; she seldom cared for
+the society of strangers. But in some way Mr. Lloyd no longer seemed a
+stranger; he had crossed the numerous little barriers which she kept
+erected between herself and the outside world, crossed them probably
+without even seeing them. But none the less were they crossed.
+
+So we left them in the sunny garden to return homeward at their leisure,
+and, descending to the road, went eastward a short distance, and turned
+down a narrow path leading to the beach. It brought us under the
+enormous mass of the Red Rocks, rising perpendicularly three hundred
+feet from the water. Inness, who was in advance, had paused on a little
+bridge of one arch over a hollow, and was holding it, as it were, when
+we came up. "Behold a fragment of the ancient Roman way, Via Julia
+Augusta," he began, introducing the bridge with a wave of his cane.
+"When we think of this road in the past, what visions rise in the
+mind--visions like--like mists on the mountain-tops floating away,
+which--which merge in each other at dawning of day! In comparison with
+the ancient Romans, the builders of this bridge, Hercules, the Lascaris,
+even the Sarrasins (always with two r's), are _nowhere_. Roman feet
+touched this very archway upon which my own unworthy shoes now stand."
+
+We looked at his shoes with respect, the Professor (who had gone onward
+to the Bone Caverns) not being there to contradict.
+
+"The Romans," continued Inness, "never stayed long. They dropped here a
+tomb, there an aqueduct, and then moved on. They were the first great
+pedestrians. We cannot _see_ them, but we can imagine them. As Pope well
+says,
+
+    "'While fancy brings the vanished piles to view,
+    And builds imaginary Rome anew.'"
+
+"Ah, yes," said Mrs. Trescott, "the Romans, the Romans, how dreamy they
+were! They always remind me of those lines:
+
+    "'Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
+        And let the young lambs bound
+        As to the tabor's sound,
+        The primal sympathy,
+    Which, having been, must ever be!'"
+
+This finished the bridge. As we had no idea what she meant, even Inness
+deserted it, and we all went onward to the Bone Caverns. The caverns
+were dark hollows in the cliff some distance above the road. From the
+entrance of one of them issued a cloud of dust; the Professor was in
+there digging.
+
+"Let us ascend at once," said Mrs. Trescott, enthusiastically. "I wish
+to stand in the very abode of the primitive man."
+
+But it was something of a task to get her up; there was always a great
+deal of loose drapery about Mrs. Trescott, which had a way of catching
+on everything far and near. With her veil, her plumes, her lace shawl,
+her long watch-chain, her dangling fan, her belt bag and scent bottle,
+her parasol and basket, it was difficult to get her safely through any
+narrow or bushy place. But to-day Verney gallantly undertook the feat:
+he knew the advantages of propitiating the higher powers.
+
+Men were quarrying the face of the Red Rocks at a dizzy height, hanging
+suspended in mid-air by ropes in order to direct the blasting; below,
+the patient horses were waiting to convey the great blocks of stone to
+the town, and destroy, by their daily procession, the last traces of the
+Julia Augusta.
+
+"I hope these rocks are porphyry," said Janet, gazing upward; "it is
+such a lovely name."
+
+"Yes, they are," said the unblushing Inness. "The Troglodytes, whose
+homes are beneath, were fond of porphyry. They were very aesthetic, you
+know."
+
+We now reached the entrance of one of the caverns and looked in.
+
+"The Troglodytes," continued Inness, "were the original, _really_
+original, proprietors of Mentone. They lived here, clad in bear-skins,
+and their voices are said to have been not sweet. See Pliny and Strabo.
+The bones of their dinners left here, and a few of their own (untimely
+deaths from fighting with each other for more), have now become the most
+precious treasures of the scientific world, equalling in richness the
+never-to-be-sufficiently-prized-and-investigated kitchen refuse of the
+Swiss lakes."
+
+But the Professor, overhearing something of this frivolity at the sacred
+door, emerged from the hole in which he had been digging, and, covered
+with dust, but rich in the possession of a ball and socket joint of some
+primeval animal, came to the entrance, and forcibly, if not by force,
+addressed us:
+
+"At a recent period it has been discovered that these five caverns in
+this limestone rock--"
+
+"Alas, my porphyry!" murmured Janet.
+
+"--contain bones of animals mixed with flint instruments imbedded in
+sand. The animals were the food and the flint instruments the weapons of
+a race of men who must have existed far back in prehistoric times. This
+was a rich discovery; but a richer was to come. In 1872 a human
+skeleton, all but perfect, a skeleton of a tall man, was discovered in
+the fourth cavern, surrounded by bones which prove its great
+antiquity--which prove, in fact, almost beyond a doubt, that it belonged
+to--the--_Paleolithic epoch_!" And the Professor paused, really overcome
+by the tremendous power of his own words.
+
+[Illustration: OIL MILL]
+
+But I am afraid we all gazed stupidly enough, first at him, then into
+the cave, then at him again, with only the vaguest idea of
+"Paleolithic's" importance. I must except Verney; he knew more. But
+he had gone inside, and was now digging in the hole in his turn to find
+flints for Janet.
+
+Mrs. Trescott, who was our bone-master (she had studied anatomy, and
+highly admired "form"), asked if the skeleton had been "painted in
+oils."
+
+Miss Elaine hoped that they buried it again "reverently," and "in
+consecrated ground."
+
+The Professor gazed at them in turn; he literally could not find a word
+for reply.
+
+Then I, coming to the rescue, said: "I am very dull, I know, but pity my
+dulness, and tell me why the skeleton was so important, and how they
+knew it was so old."
+
+The poor man, overcome by such crass ignorance, gazed at his ball and
+socket joint and at our group in silence. Then, in a spiritless voice,
+he said, "The bones surrounding the skeleton were those of animals now
+extinct--animals that existed at a period heretofore supposed to have
+been before that of man; but by their presence here they prove a
+contemporary, and we therefore know that he existed at a much earlier
+age of the world's history than we had imagined."
+
+Verney now gave Janet the treasures he had found--some pieces of flint
+about an inch long, rudely pointed at one end. "These," he said, "are
+the knives of the primitive man."
+
+"They are very disappointing," said Janet, surveying them as they lay in
+the palm of her slender gray glove, buttoned half-way to the elbow.
+
+"Did you expect carved handles and steel blades?" I said, smiling.
+
+"And here are some nummulites," pursued Verney, taking a quantity of the
+round coin-like shells from his pocket. "You might have a necklace made,
+with the nummulites above and the flints below as pendants."
+
+"And label it prehistoric; it would be quite as attractive as
+preraphaelite," said Inness. "I don't know what _you_ think," he
+continued, turning to Verney, "but to me there is nothing so ugly as the
+way some of the girls--generally the tall ones--are getting themselves
+up nowadays in what they call the preraphaelite style--a general effect
+of awkward lankness as to shape and gown, a classic fillet, hair to the
+eyebrows, and a gait not unlike that which would be produced by having
+the arms tied together behind at the elbows. If your Botticelli is
+responsible for this, his canvases should be demolished."
+
+Verney laughed; he was at heart, I think, a strong preraphaelite both of
+the present and the past; but how could he avow it when a reality so
+charming and at the same time so unlike that type stood beside him?
+Janet's costumes were not at all preraphaelite; they were
+American-French.
+
+We left the Red Rocks, and went slowly onward along the sea-shore
+towards home. Miss Elaine, having first taken me aside to ask if I
+thought it "quite proper," had challenged Inness to a rapid walk, and
+soon carried him away from us and out of sight. On our way we passed the
+St. Louis brook, where the laundresses were at work in two rows along
+the stream, each kneeling at the edge in a broad open basket like a
+boat, and bending over the low pool, alternately soaping and beating her
+clothes with a flat wooden mallet. It was a picturesque sight--the long
+rows of figures in baskets, the heads decked with bright-colored
+handkerchiefs. But to a housewifely mind like my own the idea which most
+forcibly presented itself was the small amount of water. Of a celebrated
+trout fisherman it was once said that all he required was a little damp
+spot, and forthwith he caught a trout; and the Mentone laundresses seem
+to consider that only a little damp spot is needed for their daily
+labors.
+
+But in truth they cannot help themselves; the crying fault of Mentone is
+the want of water. A spring is more precious than the land itself, and
+is divided between different proprietors for stated periods of each day.
+The poor little rills do a dozen tasks before they reach the laundresses
+and the beach. The beautiful terrace vegetation which clothes the sides
+of the mountains is supported by an elaborate and costly system of tanks
+and watercourses which would dishearten an American proprietor at the
+outset. The Mentone laundresses work for wages which a New World
+laundress would scorn; but there is one marked difference between them
+and between all the French and Italian working-people and those of
+America, and that is that among these foreigners there seems to be not
+one too poor to have his daily bottle of wine. We saw the necks of these
+bottles peeping from the rough dinner-baskets of the laundresses, and
+afterwards from those also of the quarry-men, vine-dressers,
+olive-pickers, and lemon-gatherers. It was an inexpensive "wine of the
+country"; still, it was wine.
+
+The sun was now sinking into the water, and exquisite hues were stealing
+over the soft sea. The picturesque Mediterranean boats with lateen-sails
+were coming towards home, and one whose little sail was crimson made a
+lovely picture on the water. At the sea-wall we met Miss Graves gloomily
+taking a walk, and presently the phaeton with Margaret and Lloyd stopped
+near us as we stood looking at the hues. Two ships in the distance
+sailed first on blue water, then on rose, on lilac, on purple, violet,
+and gold. Over the sea fell a pink flush, met on the horizon by salmon
+in a broad band, then next above it amber, then violet edged with rose,
+and higher still a zone of clear pale green bordered with gold. At the
+same moment the Red Rocks were flooded with rose light which extended in
+a lovely flush up the high gray peaks behind far in the sky, lingering
+there when all the lower splendor was gone, and the sea and shore veiled
+in dusky twilight gray.
+
+[Illustration: A MEDITERRANEAN BOAT]
+
+"It is almost as beautiful at sunrise," said Mrs. Clary; "and then, too,
+you can see the Fairy Island."
+
+"What is that?" I asked.
+
+"Never mind what it is in reality," answered Mrs. Clary. "I consider it
+enchanted--the Fortunate Land, whose shores and mountain-peaks can be
+seen only between dawn and sunrise, when they loom up distinctly, soon
+fading away, however, mysteriously into the increasing daylight, and
+becoming entirely invisible when the sun appears."
+
+"I saw it this morning," said Miss Graves, soberly. "It is only
+Corsica."
+
+"Brigands and vendetta," said Inness.
+
+"Napoleon," said all the rest of us.
+
+"My idea of it is much the best," said Mrs. Clary; "it is Fairy-land,
+the lost Isles of the Blest."
+
+After that each morning at breakfast the question always was, who had
+seen Corsica. And a vast amount of ingenious evasion was displayed in
+the answers. However, I did see it once. It rose from the water on the
+southeastern horizon, its line of purple mountain-peaks and low shore so
+distinctly visible that it seemed as if one could take the little boat
+with the crimson sail and be over there in an hour, although it was
+ninety miles away; but while I gazed it faded slowly, melted, as it
+were, into the gold of the awakening day.
+
+The weeks passed, and we rode, drove, walked, and climbed hither and
+thither, looking at the carouba-trees, the stiff pyramidal cypresses,
+the euphorbias in woody bushes five feet high, the great planes, the
+grotesque naked figs, the aloes and oleanders growing wild, and the
+fantastic shapes of the cacti. We searched for ferns, finding the rusty
+ceterach, the little trichomanes, and _Adiantum nigrum_, but especially
+the exquisite maiden-hair of the delicate variety called _Capillus
+veneris_, which fringed every watercourse and bank and rock where there
+is the least moisture with its lovely green fretwork. There is a phrase
+current in Mentone and applied to this fern, as well as to the violets
+which grow wild in rich profusion, starring the ground with their blue;
+unthinking people say of them that they are "so common they become
+weeds." This phrase should be suppressed by a society for the
+cultivation of good taste and the prevention of cruelty to plants. Ivy
+was everywhere, growing wild, and heather in bloom.
+
+Miss Graves was brought almost to tears one day by finding her old
+friend the wild climbing smilax of Florida on these Mediterranean rocks,
+and only recovered her self-possession because Lloyd would call it
+"sarsaparilla," and she felt herself called upon to do battle. But the
+profusion of the violets, the pomp of the red anemones, the perfume of
+the white narcissus, the hyacinths and sweet alyssum, all growing wild,
+who shall describe them? There were also tulips, orchids, English
+primroses, and daisies. Even when nothing else could grow there was
+always the demure rosemary. Of course, too, we made close acquaintance
+with the olive and lemon, the characteristic trees of Mentone, whose
+foliage forms its verdure, and whose fruit forms its commerce. The
+orange groves were insignificant and the oranges sour compared with
+those of Florida; but the olive and lemon groves were new to us, and in
+themselves beautiful and luxuriant. Our hotel stood on the edge of an
+old olive grove climbing the mountain-side slowly on broad terraces
+rising endlessly as one looked up. After some weeks' experience we found
+that we represented collectively various shades of opinion concerning
+olive groves in general, which may be given as follows:
+
+Mrs. Clary: "These old trees are to me so sacred! When I walk under
+their great branches I always think of the dove bringing the leaf to the
+ark, of the olive boughs of the entry into Jerusalem, and of the Mount
+of Olives."
+
+[Illustration: BRINGING LEMONS FROM THE TERRACE]
+
+The Professor: "Olives are interesting because their manner of growth
+allows them to attain an almost indefinite age. The trunk decays and
+splits, but the bark, which still retains its vigor, grows around the
+dissevered portions, making, as it were, new trunks of them, although
+curved and distorted, so that three or four trees seem to be growing
+from the same root. It is this which gives the tree its characteristic
+knotted and gnarled appearance. This species of olive attains a very
+fine development in the neighborhood of Mentone; there are said to be
+trees still alive at Cap Martin which were coeval with the Roman
+Empire."
+
+Verney: "The light in an old olive grove is beautiful and peculiar; it
+is like nothing but itself. It is quite impossible to give on canvas the
+gray shade of the long aisles without making them dim, and they are not
+in the least dim. I have noticed, too, that the sunshine never filters
+through sufficiently to touch the ground in a glancing beam, or even a
+single point of yellow light; and yet the leaves are small, and the
+foliage does not appear thick."
+
+Baker: "Olives and olive oil, the groundwork of every good dinner! I
+wonder how much a grove would cost?"
+
+Mrs. Trescott: "How they murmur to us--like doves! My one regret now is
+that I did not name my child Olive. She would then have been so
+Biblical."
+
+Inness: "I should think more of the groves if I did not know that they
+were fertilized with woollen rags, old boots, and bones."
+
+Janet: "The inside tint of the leaves would be lovely for a summer
+costume. I have never had just that shade."
+
+Miss Graves: "Live-oak groves draped in long moss are much more
+imposing."
+
+Miss Elaine: "It is so jolly, you know, to sit under the trees with
+one's embroidery, and have some one read aloud--something sweet, like
+Adelaide Procter."
+
+Margaret: "Sitting here is like being in a great cathedral in Lent."
+
+Lloyd: "Shall we go quietly on, Miss Severin?"
+
+And Lloyd, I think, had the best of it. I mean that he knew how to
+derive the most pleasure from the groves. This English use of "quietly,"
+by-the-way, always amused Margaret and myself greatly. Lloyd and Verney
+were constantly suggesting that we should go here or there "quietly," as
+though otherwise we should be likely to go with banners, trumpets, and
+drums. The longer one remains in Mentone, the stronger grows attachment
+to the olive groves. But they do not seem fit places for the young,
+whose gay voices resound through their gray aisles; neither are they for
+the old, who need the cheer and warmth of the sun. But they are for the
+middle-aged, those who are beyond the joys and have not yet reached the
+peace of life, the poor, unremembered, hard-worked middle-aged. The
+olives of Mentone are small, and used only for making oil. We saw them
+gathered: men were beating the boughs with long poles, while old women
+and children collected the dark purple berries and placed them in sacks,
+which the patient donkeys bore to the mill. The oil mills are venerable
+and picturesque little buildings of stone, placed in the ravines where
+there is a stream of water. We visited one on the side hill; its only
+light came from the open door, and its interior made a picture which
+Gerard Douw might well have painted. The great oil jars, the old hearth
+and oven, the earthen jugs, hanging lamps with floating wicks, and the
+figures of the men moving about, made a picturesque scene. The fruit was
+first crushed by stone rollers, the wheel being turned by water-power;
+the pulp, saturated with warm water, was then placed in flat, round rope
+baskets, which were piled one upon the other, and the whole subjected to
+strong pressure, which caused the clear yellow oil to exude through the
+meshes of the baskets, and flow down into the little reservoir below.
+
+"Our manners would become charmingly suave if we lived here long," said
+Inness. "It would be impossible to resist the influence of so much oil."
+
+The lemon terraces were as unlike the olive groves as a gay love song is
+unlike a Gregorian chant. The trees rose brightly and youthfully from
+the grassy hill-side steps, each leaf shining as though it was
+varnished, and the yellow globes of fruit gleaming like so much
+imprisoned sunshine. Here was no shade, no weird grayness, but
+everything was either vivid gold or vivid green. Janet said this.
+
+"_I_ am the latter, I think," said Baker, "to be caught here again on
+these terraces. I don't know what your experience has been, but for my
+part I detest them; I have been lost here again and again. You get into
+them and you think it all very easy, and you keep going on and on. You
+climb hopefully from one to the next by those narrow sidling little
+stone steps, only to find it the exact counterpart of the one you have
+left, with still another beyond. And you keep on plunging up and up
+until you are worn out. At last you meet a man, and you ask him
+something or other beginning with 'Purtorn'--"
+
+"What in the world do you mean?" said Janet, breaking into laughter.
+
+"I am sure I don't know; but that is what you all say."
+
+"Perhaps you mean 'Peut-on,'" suggested Margaret.
+
+"Well, whatever I mean, the man always answers 'Oui,' and so I am no
+better off than I was before, but keep plunging on," said Baker,
+ruefully.
+
+But the Professor now opened a more instructive subject. "Lemons are the
+most important product of Mentone," he began. "As they can be kept
+better than those of Naples and Sicily, they command a large price. The
+tree flowers all the year through, and the fruit is gathered at four
+different periods. The annual production of lemons at Mentone is about
+thirty millions."
+
+"Thirty millions of lemons!" I said, appalled. "What an acid idea!"
+
+"The idea may be acid, but the air is not," said Margaret. "It is
+singularly delicious, almost intoxicating."
+
+And in truth there was a subtle fragrance which had an influence upon
+me, although no doubt it had much more upon Margaret, who was peculiarly
+sensitive to perfumes.
+
+"Have you heard the legend of the Mentone lemons?" said Verney.
+
+"No; what is it? We should be _very_ pleased to hear it," said Miss
+Elaine, throwing herself down upon the grass in what she considered a
+rural way. She was bestowing her smiles upon Verney that day; she had
+mentioned to me on the way up the hill that she did not approve of
+giving too much of one's attention "to one especial gentleman
+exclusively"--it was so "conspicuous." I was smiling inwardly at this,
+since the only "conspicuous" person among us, as far as attention to
+"the gentlemen" was concerned, was Miss Elaine herself, when I caught
+her glance directed towards Margaret and Lloyd. This set me to thinking.
+Could she be referring to them? They had been much together, without
+doubt, for Margaret liked him, and he was very kind to her. My poor
+Margaret, she was very precious, to me; but to others she was only a
+pale, careworn woman, silent, quiet, and no longer young. With the
+remembrance of Miss Elaine's words in my mind, I now looked around for
+Margaret as we sat down on the grass to hear Verney's legend; but she
+had strolled off down the long green and gold aisle with Lloyd.
+
+"Miss Severin is so well informed that she does not care for our simple
+little amusements," said Miss Elaine, in her artless way.
+
+[Illustration: ON THE WAY TO L' ANNUNZIATA]
+
+"Once upon a time, as we all know," began Verney, "Adam and Eve were
+banished from the garden of Paradise. Poor Eve, sobbing, put up her hand
+just before passing through the gate and plucked a lemon from the last
+tree beside the angel. The two then wandered through the world together,
+wandered far and wide, and at last, following the shores of the
+Mediterranean, they came to Mentone. Here the sea was so blue, the
+sunshine so bright, and the sky so cloudless, that Eve planted her
+treasured fruit. 'Go, little seed,' she said; 'grow and prosper. Make
+another Eden of this enchanting spot, so that those who come after may
+know at least something of the tastes and the perfumes of Paradise.'"
+
+The Professor had not remained to hear the legend; he had gone up the
+mountain, and we now heard him shouting; that is, he was trying to
+shout, although he produced only a sort of long, thin hoot.
+
+"What can that be?" I said, startled.
+
+"It is the Professor," answered Mrs. Trescott. "It is his way of
+calling. He has his own methods of doing everything."
+
+It turned out that he had found a path down which the lemon girls were
+coming from the terraces above. We went up to this point to see them
+pass. They were all strong and ruddy, and walked with wonderful
+erectness, balancing the immense weight of fruit on their heads without
+apparent effort; they were barefooted, and moved with a solid, broad
+step down the steep, stony road. The load of fruit for each one was one
+hundred and twenty pounds; they worked all day in this manner, and
+earned about thirty cents each! But they looked robust and cheerful, and
+some of them smiled at us under their great baskets as they passed.
+
+One afternoon not long after this we went to the Capuchin monastery of
+the Annunziata. Some of us were on donkeys and some on foot, forming
+one of those processions so often seen winding through the streets of
+the little Mediterranean town. We passed the shops filled with the
+Mentone swallow, singing his "Je reviendrai" upon articles in wood, in
+glass, mosaic, silver, straw, canvas, china, and even letter-paper, with
+continuous perseverance; we passed the venders of hot chestnuts, which
+we not infrequently bought and ate ourselves. Then we came to the
+perfume distilleries, where thousands of violets yield their sweetness
+daily.
+
+"They cultivate them for the purpose, you know," said Verney. "It's a
+poetical sort of agriculture, isn't it? Imagination can hardly go
+further, I think, than the idea of a violet farm."
+
+We passed small chapels with their ever-burning lamps; the new villas
+described by the French newspapers as "ravishing constructions"; and
+then, turning from the road, we ascended a narrow path which wound
+upward, its progress marked here and there by stone shrines, some
+freshly repainted, others empty and ruined, pointing the way to the holy
+church of the Annunziata.
+
+"The only way to appreciate Mentone is to take these excursions up the
+valleys and mountains," said Mrs. Clary. "Those who confine themselves
+to sitting in the gardens of the hotels or strolling along the Promenade
+du Midi have no more idea of its real beauty than a man born blind has
+of a painting. Descriptions are nothing; one must _see_. I think the
+mountain excursions may be called the shibboleth of Mentone; if you do
+not know them, you are no true Israelite."
+
+Verney had a graceful way of gathering delicate little sprays and
+blossoms here and there and silently giving them to Janet. The Professor
+had noticed this, and to-day emulated him by gathering a bunch of
+mallow with great care--a bunch nearly a yard in circumference--which
+he presented to Janet with much ceremony.
+
+"Oh, thanks; I am _so_ fond of flowers!" responded that young person.
+"Is it asphodel? I long to see asphodel."
+
+Now asphodel was said to grow in that neighborhood, and Janet knew it;
+by expressing a wish to see the classic blossom she sent the poor
+Professor on a long search for it, climbing up and down and over the
+rocks, until I, looking on from my safe donkey's back, felt tired for
+him. And it was not long before our donkeys' steady pace left him far
+behind.
+
+"With its pale, dusty leaves and weakly lavender flowers, it is, I
+think, about as depressing a flower as I have seen," said Inness,
+looking at the mammoth bouquet.
+
+"I might fasten it to the saddle, and relieve your hands, Miss
+Trescott," suggested Verney. So the delicate gray gloves relinquished
+the pound of mallow, which was tied to the saddle, and there hung
+ignominiously all the remainder of the day.
+
+The church and convent of L'Annunziata crown an isolated vine-clad hill
+between two of the lovely valleys behind Mentone. The church was at the
+end of a little plaza, surrounded by a stone-wall; in front there was an
+opening towards the south, where stood an iron cross twenty feet high,
+visible, owing to its situation, for many a mile. The stone monastery
+was on one side; and the whole looked like a little fortification on the
+point of the hill. We went into the church, and looked at the primitive
+ex-votos on the wall, principally the offerings of Mediterranean sailors
+in remembrance of escape from shipwreck--fragments of rope and chain,
+pictures of storms at sea, and little wooden models of ships. In
+addition to these marine souvenirs, there were also some tokens of
+events on dry land, generally pictures of run-aways, where such
+remarkable angels were represented sitting unexpectedly but calmly on
+the tops of trees by the road-side that it was no wonder the horses ran.
+But the lovely view of sea and shore at the foot of the great cross in
+the sunshine was better than the dark, musty little church, and we soon
+went out and seated ourselves on the edge of the wall to look at it.
+While we were there one of the Capuchins, clad in his long brown gown,
+came out, crossed the plaza, gazed at us slowly, and then with equal
+slowness stooped and kissed the base of the cross, and returned, giving
+us another long gaze as he passed.
+
+[Illustration: THE MONASTERY OF L'ANNUNZIATA]
+
+"Was that piety or curiosity?" I said.
+
+"I think it was Miss Trescott," said Baker.
+
+Now as Miss Elaine was present, this was a little cruel; but I learned
+afterwards that Baker had been rendered violent that day by hearing that
+his American politeness regarding Miss Elaine's self-bestowed society
+had been construed by that young lady into a hidden attachment to
+herself--an attachment which she "deeply regretted," but could not
+"prevent." She had confided this to several persons, who kept the secret
+in that strict way in which such secrets are usually kept. Indeed, with
+all the strictness, it was quite remarkable that Baker heard it. But not
+remarkable that he writhed under it. However, his remarks and manners
+made no difference to Miss Elaine; she attributed them to despair.
+
+While we were sitting on the wall the Professor came toiling up the
+hill; but he had not found the asphodel. However, when Janet had given
+him a few of her pretty phrases he revived, and told us that the plaza
+was the site of an ancient village called Podium-Pinum, and that the
+Lascaris once had a chateau there.
+
+"The same Lascaris who lived in the old castle at Mentone?" said Janet.
+
+"The same."
+
+"These old monks have plenty of wine, I suppose," said Inness, looking
+at the vine terraces which covered the sunny hill-side.
+
+"Very good wine was formerly made around Mentone," said the Professor;
+"but the vines were destroyed by a disease, and the peasants thought it
+the act of Providence, and for some time gave up the culture. But lately
+they have replanted them, and wine is now again produced which, I am
+told, is quite palatable."
+
+"That is but a cold phrase to apply to the _bon petit vin blanc_ of
+Sant' Agnese, for instance," said Verney, smiling.
+
+Soon we started homeward. While we were winding down the narrow path, we
+met a Capuchin coming up, with his bag on his back; he was an old man
+with bent shoulders and a meek, dull face, to whom the task of patient
+daily begging would not be more of a burden than any other labor. But
+when we reached the narrow main street, and found a momentary block,
+another Capuchin happened to stand near us who gave me a very different
+impression. Among the carriages was a phaeton, with silken canopy, fine
+horses, and a driver in livery; upon the cushioned seat lounged a young
+man, one of Fortune's favorites and Nature's curled darlings, a little
+stout from excess of comfort, perhaps, but noticeably handsome and
+noticeably haughty--probably a Russian nobleman. The monk who stood near
+us with his bag of broken bread and meat over his back was of the same
+age, and equally handsome, as far as the coloring and outline bestowed
+by nature could go. His dark eyes were fixed immovably upon the occupant
+of the phaeton, and I wondered if he was noting the difference; it
+seemed as if he must be noting it. It was a striking tableau of life's
+utmost riches and utmost poverty.
+
+That evening there was music in the garden; a band of Italian singers
+chanted one or two songs to the saints, and then ended with a gay
+Tarantella, which set all the house-maids dancing in the moonlight. We
+listened to the music, and looked off over the still sea.
+
+"Isn't it beautiful?" said Mrs. Clary. "I think loving Mentone is like
+loving your lady-love. To you she is all beautiful, and you describe her
+as such. But perhaps when others see her they say: 'She is by no means
+all beautiful; she has this or that fault. What do you mean?' Then you
+answer: 'I love her; therefore to me she is all beautiful. As for her
+faults, they may be there, but I do not see them: I am blind.'"
+
+[Illustration: CAPUCHIN MONKS]
+
+That same evening Margaret gave me the following verses which she had
+written:
+
+MENTONE.
+
+"_And there was given unto them a short time before they went forward._"
+
+              Upon this sunny shore
+    A little space for rest. The care and sorrow,
+      Sad memory's haunting pain that would not cease,
+    Are left behind. It is not yet to-morrow.
+      To-day there falls the dear surprise of peace;
+    The sky and sea, their broad wings round us sweeping,
+    Close out the world, and hold us in their keeping.
+    A little space for rest. Ah! though soon o'er,
+    How precious is it on the sunny shore!
+
+              Upon this sunny shore
+    A little space for love, while those, our dearest,
+      Yet linger with us ere they take their flight
+    To that far world which now doth seem the nearest,
+      So deep and pure this sky's down-bending light
+    Slow, one by one, the golden hours are given
+    A respite ere the earthly ties are riven.
+    When left alone, how, 'mid our tears, we store
+    Each breath of their last days upon this shore!
+
+              Upon this sunny shore
+    A little space to wait: the life-bowl broken,
+      The silver cord unloosed, the mortal name
+    We bore upon this earth by God's voice spoken,
+      While at the sound all earthly praise or blame,
+    Our joys and griefs, alike with gentle sweetness
+    Fade in the dawn of the next world's completeness.
+    The hour is thine, dear Lord; we ask no more,
+    But wait thy summons on the sunny shore.
+
+
+II
+
+    "Thy skies are blue, thy crags as wild,
+    Thine olive ripe, as when Minerva smiled."
+
+    --BYRON.
+
+
+"So having rung that bell once too often, they were all carried off,"
+concluded Inness, as we came up.
+
+"Who?" I asked.
+
+"Look around you, and divine."
+
+We were on Capo San Martino. This, being interpreted, is only Cape
+Martin; but as we had agreed to use the "dear old names," we could not
+leave out that of the poor cape only because it happened to have six
+syllables. We looked around. Before us were ruins--walls built of that
+unintelligible broken stone mixed at random with mortar, which confounds
+time, and may be, as a construction, five or five hundred years old.
+
+"They--whoever they were--lived here?" I said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And it was from here that they were carried off?"
+
+"It was."
+
+"Were they those interesting Greek Lascaris?" said Mrs. Trescott.
+
+"No."
+
+"The Troglodytes?" suggested Mrs. Clary.
+
+"No."
+
+"The poor old ancient gods and goddesses of the coast?" said Margaret.
+
+"No."
+
+"But who carried them off?" I said. "That is the point. It makes all the
+difference in the world."
+
+"I know it does," replied Inness; "especially in the case of an
+elopement. In this case it happened to be Miss Trescott's friends
+(always with two r's), the Sarrasins. The story is but a Mediterranean
+version of the boy and the wolf. These ruins are the remains of an
+ancient convent built in--in the remote Past. The good nuns, after
+taking possession (perhaps they were inland nuns, and did not know what
+they were coming to when they came to a shore), began to be in great
+fear of the sea and Sarrasin sails. They therefore besought the men of
+Mentone and Roccabruna to fly to their aid if at any time they heard the
+bell of the chapel ringing rapidly. The men promised, and held
+themselves in readiness to fly. One night they heard the bell. Then
+westward ran the men of Mentone, and down the hill came those of
+Roccabruna, and together they flew out on Capo San Martino to this
+convent--only to find no Sarrasins at all, but only the nuns in a row
+upon their knees entreating pardon: they had rung the bell as a test.
+Not long afterwards the bell rang again, but no one went. This time it
+really was the Sarrasins, and the nuns were all carried off."
+
+"Very dramatic. The slight discrepancy that this happened to be a
+monastery for monks makes no difference: who cares for details!" said
+Verney, who, under the pretence of sketching the ruins, was making his
+eighth portrait of Janet. He said of these little pencil portraits that
+he "threw them in." Janet was therefore thrown into the Red Rocks, the
+"old town," the Bone Caverns, the Pont St. Louis, Dr. Bennet's garden,
+the cemetery, Capo San Martino, and before we finished into Roccabruna,
+Castellare, Monaco, Dolce Acqua, Sant' Agnese, and the old Roman Trophy
+at Turbia.
+
+Leaving the ruins, we went down to the point, where the cape juts out
+sharply into the sea, forming the western boundary of the Mentone bay.
+Opposite, on the eastern point, lay blanche Bordighera, fair and silvery
+as ever in the sunshine. We found the Professor on the point examining
+the rocks.
+
+"This is a formation similar to that which we may see in process of
+construction at the present moment off the coast of Florida," he
+explained.
+
+"Not _coquina_?" cried Miss Graves, instantly going down and selecting a
+large fragment.
+
+"It is conglomerate," replied the Professor, disappearing around the
+cliff corner, walking on little knobs of rock, and almost into the
+Mediterranean in his eagerness.
+
+"That word conglomerate is one of the most useful terms I know," said
+Inness. "It covers everything: like Renaissance."
+
+"The rock is also called pudding-stone," said Verney.
+
+"Away with pudding-stone! we will have none of it. We are nothing if not
+dignified, are we, Miss Elaine?" said Inness, turning to that young
+lady, who was bestowing upon him the boon of her society for the happy
+afternoon.
+
+"I am sure I have always thought you had a _great_ deal of dignity, Mr.
+Inness," replied Miss Elaine, with her sweetest smile.
+
+We sat down on the rocks and looked at the blue sea. "It is commonplace
+to be continually calling it blue," I said; "but it is inevitable, for
+no one can look at it without thinking of its color."
+
+"It has seen so much," said Mrs. Clary, in her earnest way; "it has
+carried the fleets of all antiquity. The Egyptians, the Greeks, the
+Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, and the Romans passed to and fro
+across it; the Apostles sailed over it; yet it looks as fresh and young
+and untraversed as though created yesterday."
+
+[Illustration: MONACO]
+
+"It certainly is the fairest water in the world," said Janet. "It must
+be the reflection of heaven."
+
+"It is the proportion of salt," said the Professor, who had come back
+around the rock corner on the knobs. "A larger amount of salt is held in
+solution in the Mediterranean than in the Atlantic. It is a very deep
+body of water, too, along this coast: at Nice it was found to be three
+thousand feet deep only a few yards from the shore."
+
+"These Mediterranean sailors are such cowards," said Inness. "At the
+first sign of a storm they all come scudding in. If the Phoenicians
+were like them, another boyhood illusion is gone! However, since they
+demolished William Tell, I have not much cared."
+
+"The Mediterranean sailors of the past were probably, like those of the
+present, obliged to come scudding in," said Verney, "because the winds
+were so uncertain and variable. They use lateen-sails for the same
+reason, because they can be let down by the run; all the coasting xebecs
+and feluccas use them."
+
+"Xebecs and feluccas--delicious words!" said Janet.
+
+"I still maintain that they are cowards," resumed Inness. "The other
+day, when there was that capful of wind, you know, twenty of these
+delicious xebecs came hurrying into our little port, running into each
+other in their haste, and crowding together in the little pool like
+frightened chickens under a hen's wings. And they were not all delicious
+xebecs, either; there were some good-sized sea-going vessels among them,
+brig-rigged in front with the seven or eight small square sails they
+string up one above the other, and a towel out to windward."
+
+"The winds of Mentone are wizards," said Margaret; "they never come from
+the point they seem to come from. If they blow full in your face from
+the east, make up your mind that they come directly from the west. They
+are enchanted."
+
+"They are turned aside by the slopes of the mountains," said Baker,
+practically.
+
+"But the Mediterranean has not lived up to its reputation, after all,"
+said Janet. "I expected to see fleets of nautilus, and I have not seen
+one. And not a porpoise!"
+
+"For porpoises," said Miss Graves, who had knotted a handkerchief around
+her conglomerate, and was carrying it tied to a scarf like a
+shawl-strap--"for porpoises you must go to Florida."
+
+We left the cape and went inland through the woods, looking for the old
+Roman tomb. We found it at last, appropriately placed in a gray old
+olive grove, some of whose trees, no doubt, saw its foundations laid.
+The fragment of old roadway near it was introduced by Inness as "the
+Julia Augusta, lifting up its head again." It had laid it down last at
+the Red Rocks. The tomb originally was as large as a small chapel; one
+of the side walls was gone, but the front remained almost perfect. This
+front was in three arches; traces of fresco decoration were still
+visible under the curves. Below were lines of stone in black and white
+alternately, and the same mosaic was repeated above, where there was
+also a cornice stretching from the sides to a central empty space, once
+filled by the square marble slab bearing the inscription. We found Lloyd
+here, sketching; but as we came up he closed his sketch-book, joined
+Margaret, and the two strolled off through the old wood, which had, as
+Inness remarked, "as many moving associations" as we chose to recall,
+"from the feet of the Roman legions to those of the armies of Napoleon."
+
+"I wish we knew what the inscription was," said Janet, who was sitting
+on the grass in front of the old tomb. "I should like to know who it was
+who was laid here so long, long ago."
+
+"Some old Roman," said Baker.
+
+"He might not have been old," said Verney, who was now sketching in his
+turn. "There is another Roman tomb, or fragment of one, above us on the
+side of the mountain, and the inscription on that one gives the name of
+a youth who died, 'aged eighteen years and ten months,' two thousand
+years ago, 'much sorrowed for by his father and his mother.'"
+
+"Love then was the same as now, and will be the same after we are gone,
+I suppose," said Janet, thoughtfully, leaning her pretty head back
+against an old olive-tree.
+
+"A reason why we should take it while we can," observed Inness.
+
+The Professor and Miss Graves now appeared in sight, for we had come
+across from the cape in accidental little groups, and these two had
+found themselves one of them. As the Professor had his sack of specimens
+and Miss Graves her conglomerate, we thought they looked well together;
+but the Professor evidently did not think so, for he immediately joined
+Janet.
+
+"I do not know that there is any surer sign of advancing age in a man
+than a growing preference for the society of very young girls--mere
+youth _per se_, as the Professor himself would say," said Mrs. Clary to
+me in an undertone.
+
+Meanwhile the Professor, unconscious of this judgment, was telling Janet
+that she was standing upon the site of the old Roman station "Lumone,"
+mentioned in Antony's Itinerary, and that the tomb was that of a
+patrician family.
+
+Mrs. Trescott was impressed by this. She said it was "a paean moment" for
+us all, if we would but realize it; and she plucked a fern in
+remembrance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One bright day not long after this we went to Mentone's sister city,
+Roccabruna, a little town looking as if it were hooked on to the side
+of the mountain. As we passed through the "old town" on our donkeys we
+met a wedding-party, walking homeward from the church, in the middle of
+the street. The robust bride, calm and majestic, moved at the head of
+the procession with her father, her white muslin gown sweeping the
+pavement behind her. Probably it would have been considered undignified
+to lift it. The father, a small, wizened old man, looked timorous, and
+the bridegroom, next behind with the bride's mother, still more so, even
+the quantity of brave red satin cravat he wore failing to give him a
+martial air. Next came the relatives and friends, two and two, all the
+gowns of the women sweeping out with dignity. In truth this seemed to be
+the feature of the occasion, since at all other times their gowns were
+either short or carefully held above the dust. There was no music, no
+talking, hardly a smile. A christening party we had met the day before
+was much more joyous, for then the smiling father and mother threw from
+the carriage at intervals handfuls of sugar-plums and small copper
+coins, which were scrambled for by a crowd of children, while the
+gorgeously dressed baby was held up proudly at the window.
+
+We were going first to Gorbio. The Gorbio Valley is charming. Of all the
+valleys, the narrow Val de Menton is the loveliest for an afternoon
+walk; but for longer excursions, and compared with the valleys of Carrei
+and Borrigo, that of Gorbio is the most beautiful, principally because
+there is more water in the stream, which comes sweeping and tumbling
+over its bed of flat rock like the streams of the White Mountains,
+whereas the so-called "torrents" of Carrei and Borrigo are generally but
+wide, arid torrents of stone. We passed olive and lemon groves, mills,
+vineyards, and millions upon millions of violets. Then the path, which
+constantly ascended, grew wilder, but not so wild as Inness. I could not
+imagine what possessed him. He sang, told stories, vaulted over Baker,
+and laughed until the valley rang again; but as his voice was good and
+his stories amusing, we enjoyed his merriment. Miss Elaine looked on, I
+thought, with an air of pity; but then Miss Elaine pitied everybody. She
+would have pitied Jenny Lind at the height of her fame, and no doubt
+when she was in Florence she pitied the Venus de' Medici.
+
+We found Gorbio a little village of six hundred inhabitants, perched on
+the point of a rock, with the ground sloping away on all sides; the
+remains of its old wall and fortified gates were still to be seen. We
+entered and explored its two streets--narrow passageways between the old
+stone houses, whose one idea seemed to be to crowd as closely together
+and occupy as little of the ground space as possible. Above the
+clustered roofs towered the ruined walls of what was once the castle,
+the tower only remaining distinct. This tower bore armorial bearings,
+which I was trying to decipher, when Verney came up with Janet. "Nothing
+but those same arms of the Lascaris," he said.
+
+"Why do you say 'nothing but'?" said Janet. "To be royal, and Greek, and
+have three castles--for this is the third we have seen--is not nothing,
+but something, and a great deal of something. How I wish _I_ had lived
+in those days!"
+
+As the Professor was not with us, we knew nothing of the story of
+Gorbio, and walked about rather uncomfortable and ill-informed in
+consequence. But it turned out that Gorbio, like the knife-grinder, had
+no story. "Story? Lord bless you! I have none to tell, sir." Inness,
+however, had reserved one fact, which he finally delivered to us under
+the great elm in the centre of the little plaza, where we had assembled
+to rest. "This peaceful village," he began, "whose idyllic children now
+form a gazing circle around us, was the scene of a sanguinary combat
+between the French and Spanish-Austrian armies in 1746."
+
+"Oh, modern! modern!" said Verney from behind (where he was throwing
+Janet into Gorbio).
+
+"Your pardon," said Inness, with majesty; "not modern at all. In 1746,
+as I beg to remind you, even the foundation-stones of our great republic
+were not laid, yet the man who ventures to say that it is not, as a
+construction, absolutely venerable, from exceeding merit, will be a rash
+one. In America, Time is not old or slow; he has given up his
+hour-glass, and travels by express. Each month of ours equals one of
+your years, each year a century. Therefore have we all a singularly
+mature air--as exemplified in myself. But to return. Upon this spot,
+then, my friends, there was once--carnage! The only positive and
+historical carnage in the neighborhood of Mentone. Therefore all warlike
+spirits should come to Gorbio, and breathe the inspiring air."
+
+We did not stay long enough in the inspiring air to become belligerent,
+however, but, on the contrary, went peacefully past a quiet old shrine,
+and took the path to Roccabruna--one of the most beautiful paths in the
+neighborhood of Mentone. By-and-by we came to a tall cross on the top of
+a high ridge. We had seen it outlined against the sky while still in the
+streets of Gorbio. These mountain-side crosses were not uncommon. They
+are not locally commemorative, as we first supposed, but seem to be
+placed here and there, where there is a beautiful view, to remind the
+gazer of the hand that created it all. Some distance farther we found a
+still wider prospect; and then we came down into Roccabruna, and spread
+out our lunch on the battlements of the old castle. From this point our
+eyes rested on the coast-line stretching east and west, the frowning
+Dog's Head at Monaco, and the white winding course of the Cornice Road.
+The castle was on the side of the mountain, eight hundred feet above the
+sea. Although forming part of the village, it was completely isolated by
+its position on a high pinnacle of rock, which rose far above the roofs
+on all sides.
+
+[Illustration: STREET IN ROCCABRUNA]
+
+"How these poor timid little towns clung close to and under their lords'
+walls!" said Baker, with the fine contempt of a young American. "They
+are all alike: the castle towering above; next the church and the
+priest; and the people--nowhere!"
+
+"The people were happy enough, living in this air," said Mrs. Clary.
+"How does it strike you? To me it seems delicious; but many persons find
+it too exciting."
+
+"It certainly gives me an appetite," I said, taking another sandwich.
+
+Miss Elaine found it "too warm." Miss Graves found it "too cold." Mrs.
+Trescott, having been made herself again by a glass of the "good little
+white wine" of Gorbio, said that it was "almost too idealizing." Lloyd
+remarked that it was not "too anything unless too delightful," and that,
+for his part, he wished that, with the present surroundings, he might
+"breathe it forever!" This was gallant. Janet looked at him: he was the
+only one who had not bowed at her shrine, and it made her pensive.
+Meanwhile Inness's gayety continued; he made a voyage of discovery
+through the narrow streets below, coming back with the legend that he
+had met the prettiest girl he had seen since his "pretty girl of Arles,"
+whose eyes, "enshrined beside those of Miss Trescott" (with a grand
+bow), had remained ever since in his "heart's inmost treasury." This,
+like Baker's L' Annunziata speech, was both un-American and unnecessary
+in the presence of a second young lady, and I looked at Inness,
+surprised. But Miss Elaine only smiled on.
+
+The Professor now appeared, having come out from Mentone on a donkey. We
+immediately became historical. It appeared that the castle upon whose
+old battlements we were idly loitering was one of the "homes" of the
+Lascaris, Counts of Ventimiglia, who in 1358 transferred it with its
+domains to the Grimaldis, Princes of Monaco.
+
+"These Lascaris and Grimaldis seem to have played at seesaw for the
+possession of this coast," said Baker. "Now one is up, and now the
+other, but never any one else."
+
+But Janet was impressed. "_Again_ the Lascaris!" she murmured.
+
+"What is your idea of them?" said Verney.
+
+"I hardly know; but of course they were knights in armor; and of course,
+being Greeks, they had classic profiles. They were impulsive, and they
+were generous; but if any one seriously displeased them, they
+immediately ordered him cast into that terrible _oubliette_ we saw
+below."
+
+"That," said the Professor, mildly, "is only the well." Then, as if to
+strengthen her with something authentic, he added, "The village was
+sacked by the Duke of Guise towards the end of the sixteenth century,
+when this castle was reduced to the ruined condition in which we find it
+now."
+
+"Happily it is not altogether ruined," said Mrs. Trescott, putting up
+her eye-glass; "one of the--the apartments seems to be roofed, and to
+possess doors."
+
+"That," said the Professor, "is a donkey-stable, erected--or rather
+adapted--later."
+
+"Do the donkeys come up all these stairs?" I said, amused.
+
+"I believe they do," replied the Professor. "Indeed, I have seen them
+coming up after the day's work is over."
+
+"I am sorry, Janet, but I shall never be able to think of this home of
+your Lascaris after this without seeing a procession of donkeys coming
+up-stairs on their way to their high apartments," I said, laughing.
+
+"The _procession_ might have been the same in the days of the Lascaris,"
+suggested Baker.
+
+Roccabruna--brown rock--is an appropriate name for the village, which is
+so brown and so mixed with and built into the cliff to which it clings
+that it is difficult to tell where man's work ends and that of nature
+begins.
+
+"The town was the companion of Mentone in its rebellion against the
+Princes of Monaco," said the Professor. "Mentone and Roccabruna freed
+themselves, but Monaco remained enslaved."
+
+"They are all now in France," said Baker.
+
+"Sir!" replied the Professor, with heat, "it is in a much worse place
+than France that wretched Monaco now finds herself!"
+
+We went homeward down the mountain-side, passing the little chapel of
+the Madonna della Pausa--a pause being indeed necessary when one is
+ascending. Here, where the view was finest, there was another way-side
+cross. Farther on, as we entered the old olive wood below, Margaret
+dismounted; she always liked to walk through the silver-gray shade; and
+Lloyd seemed to have adopted an equal fondness for the same tint.
+
+That evening, when we were alone, Margaret explained the secret of
+Inness's remarkable and unflagging gayety. It seemed that Miss Elaine
+had, during the day before, confided to Verney--as a fellow-countryman,
+I suppose--her self-reproach concerning "that poor young American
+gentleman, Mr. Inness." What _should_ she do? Would he advise her? She
+must go to some one, and she did not feel like troubling her dear mamma.
+It was true that Mr. Inness had been with her a good deal, had helped
+her wind her worsteds in the evening, but she never meant
+anything--never dreamed of anything. And now, she could not but
+feel--there was something in his manner that forced her to see--In
+short, had not Mr. Verney noticed it?
+
+Now I have no doubt but that Verney told her he had "seen" and had
+"noticed" everything she desired. But in the meanwhile he could not
+resist confiding the story to Baker, who having been already a victim,
+was overcome with glee, and in his turn hastened to repeat the tale to
+Inness.
+
+Inness raged, but hardly knew what to do. He finally decided to become a
+perfect Catharine-wheel of gayety, shooting off laughter and jokes in
+all directions to convince the world that he remained heart-whole.
+
+"But it will be of no avail," I said to Margaret, laughing, as I
+recalled the look of soft pity on Miss Elaine's face all day; "she will
+think it but the gayety of desperation." Then, more soberly, I added:
+"Mr. Lloyd told you this, I suppose? You are with him a great deal, are
+you not?"
+
+"You see that I am, aunt. But it is only because she has not come yet."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The brighter and younger woman who will take my place." But I did not
+think she believed it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On another day we went to Castellare, a little stone village much like
+Gorbio, perched on its ridge, and rejoicing in an especial resemblance
+to one of Caesar's fortified camps. The castle here was not so much a
+castle as a chateau; its principal apartment was adorned with frescos
+representing the history of Adam and Eve. We should not have seen these
+frescos if it had not been for Miss Graves: I am afraid we should have
+(there is no other word) shirked them. But Miss Graves had heard of the
+presence of ancient works of art, and was bent upon finding them. In
+vain Lloyd conducted her in and out of half a dozen old houses,
+suggesting that each one was "probably" all that was left of the
+"chateau." Miss Graves remained inflexibly unconvinced, and in the end
+gained her point. We all saw Adam and Eve.
+
+"Why did they want frescos away out here in this primitive little
+village to which no road led, hardly even a donkey path?" I said.
+
+"That is the very reason," replied Margaret. "They had no society,
+nothing to do; so they looked at their frescos exhaustively."
+
+"What do those eagles at the corners represent?" said Janet.
+
+"They are the device of the Lascaris," replied the Professor.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that _this_ was one of their homes also?" she
+exclaimed. "Let a chair be brought, and all of you leave me. I wish to
+remain here alone, and imagine that I am one of them."
+
+"Couldn't you imagine two?" said Inness. And he gained his point.
+
+On our way home we found another block in the main street, and paused.
+We were near what we called the umbrella place--an archway opening down
+towards the old port; here against the stone wall an umbrella-maker had
+established his open-air shop, and his scarlet and blue lined parasols
+and white umbrellas, hung up at the entrance, made a picturesque spot of
+color we had all admired. This afternoon we were late; it was nearly
+twilight, and, in this narrow, high-walled street, almost night. As we
+waited we heard chanting, and through the dusky archway came a
+procession. First a tall white crucifix borne between two swinging
+lamps; then the surpliced choir-boys, chanting; then the incense and the
+priests; then a coffin, draped, and carried in the old way on the
+shoulders of the bearers, who were men robed in long-hooded black gowns
+reaching to the feet, their faces covered, with only two holes for the
+eyes. These were members of the Society of Black Penitents, who, with
+the White Penitents, attend funerals by turn, and care for the sick and
+poor, from charitable motives alone, and without reward. Behind the
+Penitents walked the relatives and friends, each with a little lighted
+taper. As the procession came through the dark archway, crossed the
+street, and wound up the hill into the "old town," its effect, with
+the glancing lights and chanting voices, was weirdly picturesque. It was
+on its way to the cemetery above.
+
+[Illustration: THE KING OF THE OLIVES]
+
+"Did you ever read this, Mr. Lloyd?" I heard Margaret say behind me, as
+we went onward towards home:
+
+    "'One day, in desolate wind-swept space,
+      In twilight-land, in no-man's-land,
+    Two hurrying Shapes met face to face,
+      And bade each other stand.
+    "And who art thou?" cried one, agape,
+      Shuddering in the gloaming light.
+    "I do not know," said the second Shape:
+      "I only died last night."'"
+
+I turned. Lloyd was looking at her curiously, or rather with wonder.
+
+"Come, Margaret," I said, falling behind so as to join them, "the
+English are not mystical, as some of us are. They are content with what
+they can definitely know, and they leave the rest."
+
+During the next week, after a long discussion, we decided to go up the
+valley of the Nervia. The discussion was not inharmonious: we liked
+discussions.
+
+"This is by no means one of the ordinary Mentone excursions," said Mrs.
+Clary, as our three carriages ascended the Cornice Road towards the
+east, on a beautiful morning after one of the rare showers. "Many
+explore all of the other valleys, and visit Monaco and Monte Carlo; but
+comparatively few go up the Nervia."
+
+The scene of the instalment of our twelve selves in these three
+carriages, by-the-way, was amusing. Between the inward determination of
+Inness, Verney, Baker, and the Professor to be in the carriage which
+held Janet, and the equally firm determination of Miss Elaine to be in
+the carriage which held _them_, it seemed as if we should never be
+placed. But no one said what he or she wished; far from it. Everybody
+was very polite, wonderfully polite; everybody offered his or her place
+to everybody else. Lloyd, after waiting a few moments, calmly helped
+Margaret into one of the carriages, handed in her shawl, and then took a
+seat himself opposite. But the rest of us surged helplessly to and fro
+among the wheels, not quite knowing what to do, until the arrival of the
+hotel omnibus hurried us, when we took our places hastily, without any
+arrangement at all, and drove off as follows: in the first carriage,
+Mrs. Trescott, Janet, Miss Elaine, and myself; in the second, Miss
+Graves, Inness, Verney, and Baker; in the third, Mrs. Clary, Margaret,
+Lloyd, and the Professor. This assortment was so comical that I laughed
+inwardly all the way up the first hill. Miss Elaine looked as if she was
+on the point of shedding tears; and the Professor, who did not enjoy the
+conversation of either Margaret or Mrs. Clary, was equally discomfited.
+As for the faces of the three young men shut in with Miss Graves, they
+were a study. However, it did not last long. The young men soon
+preferred "to walk uphill." Then we stopped at Mortola to see the
+Hanbury garden, and took good care not to arrange ourselves in the same
+manner a second time. Still, as four persons cannot, at least in the
+present state of natural science, occupy at the same moment the space
+only large enough for one, there was all day more or less manoeuvring.
+From Mortola to Ventimiglia I was in the carriage with Janet, Inness,
+and Verney.
+
+"What ruin is that on the top of the hill?" said Janet. "It looks like a
+castle."
+
+"It is a castle--Castel d'Appio," said Verney; "a position taken by the
+Genoese in 1221 from the Lascaris, who--"
+
+"Stop the carriage!--I must go up," said Janet.
+
+"I assure you, Miss Trescott, that, Lascaris or no Lascaris, you will
+find yourself mummied in mud after this rain," said Inness. "_I_ went up
+there in a dry time, and even then had to wade."
+
+Now if there is anything which Janet especially cherishes, it is her
+pretty boots; so Castel d'Appio remained unvisited upon its height, in
+lonely majesty against the sky. The next object of interest was a square
+tower, standing on the side-hill not far above the road; it was not
+large on the ground, rather was it narrow, but it rose in the air to an
+imposing height. I could not imagine what its use had been: it stood too
+far from the sea for a lookout, and, from its shape, could hardly have
+been a residence; in its isolation, not a fortress. Inness said it
+looked like a steeple with the church blown away; and then, inspired by
+his own comparison, he began to chant an ancient ditty about
+
+    "'The next thing they saw was a barn on a hill:
+            One said 'twas a barn;
+            The other said "Na-ay;"
+    And t'other 'twas a church with its steeple blown away:
+                    Look--a--there!'"
+
+This extremely venerable ballad delighted Miss Graves in the carriage
+behind so that she waved her black parasol in applause. She asked if
+Inness could not sing "Springfield Mountain."
+
+"There is nothing left now," I said, laughing, "but the 'Battle of the
+Nile.'"
+
+Verney, who had sketched the tower early in the winter, explained that
+the old road to Ventimiglia passed directly through the lower story,
+which was built in the shape of an arch. All the carriages were now
+together, as we gazed at the relic.
+
+"The road goes through?" said Miss Graves. "Probably, then, it was a
+toll-gate."
+
+[Illustration: FEUDAL TOWER NEAR VENTIMIGLIA]
+
+This was so probable, although unromantic, that thereafter the venerable
+structure was called by that name, or, as Inness suggested, "not to be
+too disrespectful, the mediaeval T.G."
+
+Ventimiglia, seven miles from Mentone, was "one of the most ancient
+towns in Liguria," the Professor remarked. Mrs. Trescott, Mrs. Clary,
+and I looked much wiser after this information, but carefully abstained
+from saying anything to each other of the cloudy nature of our ideas
+respecting the geographical word. However, we noticed, unaided, that its
+fortifications were extensive, for we rolled over a drawbridge to enter
+it, passing high stone-walls, bastions, and port-holes, while on the
+summit of the hill above us frowned a large Italian fort. The Roya, a
+broad river which divides the town into two parts, is crossed by a long
+bridge; and we were over this bridge and some distance beyond before we
+discovered that we had left the old quarter on the other side, its
+closely clustering roofs and spires having risen so directly over our
+heads on the steep side-hill that we had not observed them. Should we go
+back? The carriages drew up to consider. We had still "a long drive
+before us;" these "old Riviera villages" were "all alike;" the hill
+seemed "very steep;" and "we can come here, you know, at any time"--were
+some of the opinions given. The Professor, who really wished to stop,
+gallantly yielded. Miss Graves, alone in the opposition, was obliged to
+yield also; but she was deeply disappointed. The cathedral, formerly
+dedicated to Jupiter, "'possesses a white marble pulpit incrusted with
+mosaics, and an octagon font, very ancient,'" she read, mournfully,
+aloud, from her manuscript note-book. "'The Church of St. Michael, also,
+guards Roman antiquities of surpassing interest.'" This word "guards"
+had a fine effect.
+
+But, "we can come here at any time, you know," carried the day; and we
+drove on. I may as well mention that, as usual in such cases, we never
+did "come here at any time," save on the one occasion of our departure
+for Florence--an occasion which no railway traveller going to Italy by
+this route is likely soon to forget, the Ventimiglia custom-house being
+modelled patriotically upon the circles of Dante's "Inferno."
+
+When we were at a safe distance--"I suppose you know, Miss Trescott,
+that Ventimiglia was the principal home of your Lascaris?" said Verney.
+"First of all, they were Counts of Ventimiglia: that Italian port stands
+on the site of their old castle. I have been looking into their
+genealogy a little on your account; and I find that the first count of
+whom we have authentic record was a son of the King of Italy, A.D. 950.
+His son married the Princess Eudoxie, daughter of Theodore Lascaris,
+Emperor of Greece, and assumed the arms and name of his wife's family.
+Their descendants, besides being Counts of Ventimiglia, became Seigniors
+of Mentone, Castellare, Gorbio, Peille, Tende, and Briga, Roccabruna,
+and what is now L'Annunziata. They also had a chateau at Nice."
+
+"Let us go back!" said Janet.
+
+"To Nice?" I asked, smiling.
+
+But Verney appeased her with an offering--nothing less than a sketch he
+had made. "The Lascaris," he said, as if introducing them. And there
+they were, indeed, a group of knights on horseback, dressed in velvet
+doublets and lace ruffles, with long white plumes, followed by a train
+of pages and squires with armor and led-horses. All had Greek profiles:
+in truth, they were but various views of the Apollo Belvedere. This
+splendid party was crossing the drawbridge of a castle, and, from a
+latticed casement above, two beautiful and equally Greek ladies, attired
+in ermine, with long veils and golden crowns, waved their scarfs in
+token of adieu.
+
+"Charming!" said Janet, much pleased. (And in truth it was, if fanciful,
+a very pretty sketch.) "But who are those ladies above?"
+
+"I suppose they had wives and sisters, did they not?" said Verney.
+
+"I suppose they did--of _some_ sort," said Janet, disparagingly.
+
+But Verney now produced a second sketch; "another study of the same
+subject," he called it. This was a picture of the same number of men,
+clad in clumsy armor, with rough, coarse faces, attacking a pass and
+compelling two miserable frightened peasants with loaded mules to yield
+up what they had, while, from a rude tower above, like our mediaeval T.
+G., two or three swarthy women with children were watching the scene.
+The wrappings of the two sketches being now removed, we saw that one was
+labelled, "The Lascaris--her Idea of them;" and the other, "The
+Lascaris--as they were."
+
+We all laughed. But I think Janet was not quite pleased. After the next
+change Verney found himself, by some mysterious chance, left to occupy
+the seat beside Miss Elaine, while Baker had his former place.
+
+The Nervia, a clear rapid little snow-formed river, ran briskly down
+over its pebbles towards the sea. Our road followed the western bank,
+and before long brought us to Campo Rosso, a little village with a
+picturesque belfry, a church whose facade was decorated with old
+frescos, two marble sirens spouting water, and numberless "bits" in the
+way of vistas through narrow arched passages and crooked streets, which
+are the delight of artists. But Campo Rosso was not our destination, and
+entering the carriage again, we went onward through an olive wood whose
+broad terraces extended above, below, and on all sides as far as eye
+could reach. When we had stopped wondering over its endlessness, and had
+grown accustomed to the gray light, suddenly we came out under the open
+sky again, with Dolce Acqua before us, its castle above, its church
+tower below, and, far beyond, our first view of snow-capped peaks rising
+high and silvery against the deep blue sky. Inness and Baker threw up
+their hats and saluted the snow with an American hurrah. "What with
+those white peaks and this Italian sky, I feel like the Merry Swiss Boy
+and the Marble Faun rolled into one," said Baker.
+
+We drove up to the Locanda Desiderio, or "Desired Inn," as Inness
+translated it. It was now noon, and in the brick-floored apartment below
+a number of peasants were eating sour bread and drinking wine. But the
+host, a handsome young Italian, hastened to show us an upper chamber,
+where, with the warm sunshine flooding through the open windows across
+the bare floor, we spread our luncheon on a table covered with coarse
+but snowy homespun, and decked with remarkable plates in brilliant hues
+and still more brilliant designs. The luncheon was accompanied by
+several bottles of "the good little white wine" of the neighborhood--an
+accompaniment we had learned to appreciate.
+
+Upon the chimney-piece of a room adjoining ours, whose door stood open,
+there was an old brass lamp. In shape it was not unlike a high
+candlestick crowned with an oval reservoir for oil, which had three
+little curving tubes for wicks, and an upright handle above ending in a
+ring; it was about a foot and a half high, and from it hung three brass
+chains holding a brass lamp-scissors and little brass extinguishers.
+Mrs. Clary, Mrs. Trescott, Miss Graves, Miss Elaine, and myself all
+admired this lamp as we strolled about the rooms after luncheon before
+starting for the castle. It happened that Janet was not there; she had
+gone, by an unusual chance, with Lloyd, to look at some cinque-cento
+frescos in an old church somewhere, and was, I have no doubt, deeply
+interested in them. When she returned she too spied the old lamp, and
+admired it. "I wish I had it for my own room at home," she exclaimed. "I
+feel sure it is Aladdin's."
+
+[Illustration: DOLCE ACQUA]
+
+"Come, come, Janet," called Mrs. Trescott from below. "The castle
+waits."
+
+"It has waited some time already," said Inness--"a matter of six or
+seven centuries, I believe."
+
+"And looks as though it would wait six or seven more," I said, as we
+stood on the arched bridge admiring the massive walls above.
+
+"It has withstood numerous attacks," said the Professor. "Genoese armies
+came up this valley more than once to take it, and went back
+unsuccessful."
+
+"To me it is more especially distinguished by _not_ having been a home
+of the Lascaris," said Baker.
+
+"To whom, then, did it belong?" said Janet, contemptuously.
+
+We all, in a chorus, answered grandly, "To the Dorias!" (We were so glad
+to have reached a name we knew.)
+
+The castle crowned the summit of a crag, ruined but imposing; in shape a
+parallelogram, it had in front square towers, five stories in height,
+pierced with round-arched windows. It was the finest as well as largest
+ruin we lately landed Americans had seen, and we went hither and thither
+with much animation, telling each other all we knew, and much that we
+did not know, about ruined towers, square towers, drawbridges, moats,
+donjon keeps, and the like; while Miss Elaine, who had placed herself
+beside Verney on the knoll where he was sketching, looked on in a kindly
+patronizing way, as much as to say: "Enjoy yourselves, primitive
+children of the New World. We of England are familiar with ruins."
+
+Margaret and Lloyd found a seat in one of the ruined windows of the
+south tower; I stood beside them for a few moments looking at the view.
+On the north the narrow valley curved and went onward, while over its
+dark near green rose the glittering snowy peaks so far away. In the
+south, the blue of the Mediterranean stretched across the mouth of the
+valley, whose sides were bold and high; the little river gleamed out in
+spots of silver here and there, and the white belfry of Campo Rosso rose
+picturesquely against the dark olive forest. Directly under us were the
+roofs of the village, and the old stone bridge of one high arch. "Do you
+notice that many of these roofs are flat, with benches, and pots of
+flowers?" said Lloyd. "You do not see that in Mentone. It is thoroughly
+Italian."
+
+Janet, Mrs. Trescott, Inness, Baker, and the Professor were up on the
+highest point of the crag, where the Professor was giving a succinct
+account of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. His words floated down to us,
+but to which of those celebrated and eternally quarrelling factions
+these Dorias belong I regret to say I cannot now remember. But it was
+evident that he was talking eloquently, and Inness, who was quite
+distanced, by way of diversion threw pebbles at the north tower.
+
+We came down from the castle after a while, and strolled through the
+village streets--all of us save Margaret and Lloyd, who remained sitting
+in their window. Mrs. Trescott, seeing a vaulted entrance, stopped to
+examine it, and the broad doors being partly open, she peeped within. As
+there was more vaulting and no one to forbid, she stepped into the old
+hall, and we all followed her. We were looking at the massive, finely
+proportioned stairway, when a little girl appeared above gazing down
+curiously. She was a pretty child of seven or eight, and held some
+little thumbed school-books under her arm.
+
+"Is this a school?" asked Verney, in Italian.
+
+She nodded shyly, and ran away, but soon returned accompanied by a
+Sister, or nun, who, with a mixture of politeness and timidity, asked if
+we wished to see their schools. Of course we wished to see everything,
+and going up the broad stairway, we were ushered into an unexpected and
+remarkable apartment.
+
+"We came to see an infant school, and we find a row of noblemen," said
+Baker. "They must be all the Dorias upon their native heath!"
+
+The "heath" was the wall, upon which, in black frames, were ranged
+forty-two portraits in a long procession going around three sides of the
+great room, which must have been fifty feet in length. At the head of
+the apartment was a picture seven feet square, representing a
+full-blooming lady in a long-bodied white satin dress, with an
+extraordinary structure of plumes and pearls on her head, accompanied by
+a stately little heir in a pink satin court suit, and several younger
+children. One grim, dark old man in red, farther down the hall, was
+"Roberto: Seigneur Dolce Acqua. Anno 1270." A dame in yellow brocade,
+with hoop, ruff, and jewels, and a little curly dog under her arm, was
+"Brigida: Domina Dolce Acqua. 1290."
+
+"So they carried dogs in that way then as well as now," observed Janet.
+
+The Mother Superior now came in. She informed us that this was the
+chateau of the Dorias, built after their castle was destroyed, and
+occupied by descendants of the family until a comparatively recent
+period. Its plain exterior, extending across one end of the little
+square, we had not especially distinguished from the other buildings
+which joined it, forming the usual continuous wall of the Riviera towns.
+The chateau was now a convent and school. There were benches across one
+side of the large apartment where the village children were already
+assembled under the black-framed portraits, but there was not much
+studying that day, I think, save a study of strangers.
+
+"Here is the real treasure," said Verney.
+
+It was a chimney-piece of stone, extending across one end of the room,
+richly carved with various devices in relief, figures, and ornaments,
+and a row of heads on shields across the front, now the profile of an
+old bearded man looking out, and now that of a youth in armor. It was
+fifteen feet high, and a remarkably fine piece of work.
+
+"Quite thrown away here," said Miss Graves.
+
+"Oh, I don't know; the portraits can see it," replied Janet.
+
+The Mother Superior conducted us all over the chateau, reserving only
+the corridor where were her own and the Sisters' apartments. The
+dignified stone stairway with its broad stone steps extended unchanged
+to the top of the house.
+
+"In the matter of stairways," I said, "I must acknowledge that our New
+World ideas are deficient. We have spacious rooms, broad windows, high
+ceilings, but such a stairway as this is beyond us."
+
+The empty sunny rooms above were gayly painted in fresco. At one end of
+the house a door opened into a little latticed balcony, into which we
+stepped, finding ourselves in an adjoining church, high up on the wall
+at one side of the altar. Here the Sisters came to pray, and as we
+departed, one of them glided in and knelt down in the dusky corner.
+
+"Perhaps she is going to pray for us," said Inness.
+
+"I am sure we need it," replied Janet, seriously.
+
+In the garret was a Sedan-chair, once elaborately gilded.
+
+"I suppose they went down to Ventimiglia in that," said Baker--"those
+fine old dames below."
+
+From one of the rooms on the second floor opened a little cell or
+closet, part of whose flooring had been removed, showing a hollow space
+beneath following the massive exterior wall.
+
+[Illustration: PIFFERARI]
+
+"Here," said the Mother Superior, "the papers of the family were
+concealed at the approach of the first Napoleon, and not taken out for a
+number of years. The flooring has never been replaced."
+
+The Mother Superior spoke only Italian, which Verney translated, much to
+the envy of the younger men. The Professor was not with us, for as soon
+as he learned that the place was "papist" he departed, although Inness
+suggested that the street was papist also, and likewise the very air
+must be redolent of Rome. But the Professor was an example of "coelum,
+non animum, mutant, qui trans mare currunt," and quite determined to be
+as Protestant in Italy as he was in Connecticut. He would not desert his
+colors because under a foreign sky, as so many Americans desert them.
+
+The Mother now conducted us to a little square parlor, with south
+windows opening upon a balcony full of pots of flowers; the walls and
+ceiling of this little room were glowing with color--paintings in fresco
+more suited to the Dorias, I fancy, than to the "Sisters of the Snow,"
+for this was the poetical name of the little black-robed band. In this
+worldly little room we found wine waiting for us, and grapes which were
+almost raisins: we had never seen them in transition before. The wine
+was excellent, and Mrs. Trescott partook with much graciousness. After
+partaking, she employed Verney in translating to the Mother a number of
+her own characteristic sentences. But Verney must have altered them
+somewhat en route, for I hardly think the Mother would have remained so
+calmly placid if she had comprehended that "this whole scene--the
+grapes, the wine, and the frescos"--reminded Mrs. Trescott of
+"Cleopatra, and of Sardanapalus and his golden flagons." Presently two
+of the Sisters entered with coffee which they had prepared for us; after
+serving it, they retired to a corner, where they stood gently regarding
+us. Then another entered, and then another, unobtrusively taking their
+places beside the others. It was interesting to notice the simplicity of
+their mild gaze; although brown and middle-aged, their expression was
+like that of little children. When they learned that some of us were
+from America they were much impressed, and looked at each other
+silently.
+
+"I suppose it does not seem to them but a little while since Columbus
+discovered us," said Baker.
+
+At last it was time for us to go: we bade the little group farewell, and
+left some coins "for their poor."
+
+"Though we may not meet on earth, we shall see you all again in heaven,"
+said the Mother, and all the Sisters bowed assent. They accompanied us
+down to the outer door, and waved their hands in adieu as we crossed the
+little square. When, at the other side, we turned to look back, we saw
+their black skirts retiring up the stairway to their little school.
+
+"Farewell, Sisters of the Snow," said Janet. "May we all so live as to
+keep that rendezvous you have given us!"
+
+The carriages were now ordered, and Margaret and Lloyd summoned from the
+castle tower. We were standing at the door of the Desired Inn,
+collecting our baskets and wraps, when the Professor appeared with a
+long narrow parcel in his hand. This he stowed away carefully in one of
+the carriages, changing its position several times, as if anxious it
+should be carried safely. While he was thus engaged in his absorbed,
+near-sighted way, Inness came down the stone stairs from the upper
+chamber, and going across to Janet, who was leaning on the parapet
+looking at the river, he was on the point of presenting something to
+her, when his little speech was stopped by the appearance of Baker
+coming around the corner from the front of the house, with a parcel
+exactly like his own.
+
+[Illustration: MONACO--THE PALACE AND PORT]
+
+"Two!" cried Inness, bursting into a peal of laughter; and then we
+saw, as he tore off the paper, that he had the old brass lamp which
+Janet had admired. Meanwhile Baker had another, the Desired Inn having
+been evidently equal to the occasion, and to driving a good bargain. Our
+laughter aroused the Professor, who turned and gazed at our group from
+the step of the carriage. But having no idea of losing the credit of his
+unusual gallantry simply because some one else had had the same thought,
+he now extracted his own parcel and silently extended it.
+
+"A third!" cried Inness. And then we all gave way again.
+
+"I am so much obliged to you," said Janet, sweetly, when there was a
+pause, "but I am sorry you took the trouble. Because--because Mr. Verney
+has already kindly given me one, which is packed in one of the baskets."
+
+At this we laughed again, more irresistibly than before--all, I mean,
+save Miss Elaine, who merely said, in the most unamused voice, "How
+_very_ amusing!" As we had all admired the ancient lamp (although no one
+thought of offering it to _us_), the superfluous gifts easily found
+places among us, and were not the less thankfully received because
+obtained in that roundabout way.
+
+We now left the "Sweet Waters" behind us, and went down the valley
+towards the sea.
+
+"There is another town as picturesque as Dolce Acqua some miles farther
+up the valley," said Verney. "I have a sketch of it. It is called
+Pigna."
+
+"Oh, let us go there!" said Janet.
+
+"We cannot, my daughter, spend the entire remainder of our earthly
+existence among the Maritime Alps," said Mrs. Trescott.
+
+Inness had the place beside Janet all the way home.
+
+On the Cornice, a few miles from Mentone, we came upon a boy and girl
+sitting by the road-side; they had a flageolet and a sort of bagpipe,
+and wore the costume of Italian peasants, their foot-coverings being the
+complicated bands and strings which are, in American eyes (the strings
+transmuted into ribbons), indelibly associated with bandits. "They are
+pifferari," said Verney; and we stopped the carriages and asked them to
+play for us. The boy played on his flageolet, and the girl sang. As she
+stood beside us in the dust, her brown hands clasped before her, her
+great dark eyes never once stopped gazing at Janet, who, clad that day
+in a soft cream-white walking costume, with gloves, round hat, and plume
+of the same tint, looked not unlike a lily on its stem. The Italian girl
+was of nearly the same age in years, and of fully the same age in
+womanhood, and it seemed as if she could not remove her fascinated gaze
+from the fair white stranger. Inness and Verney both tried to attract
+her attention; but the boy gathered up the coins they dropped, and the
+girl gazed on. As the Professor was tired, and did not care for music,
+we drove onward; but, as far as we could see, the Italian girl still
+stood in the centre of the road, gazing after the carriages.
+
+"What do you suppose is in her mind?" I said. "Envy?"
+
+"Hardly," said Verney. "To her, probably, Miss Trescott is like a being
+from another world--a saint or Madonna."
+
+"Ah, Mr. Verney, what exaggerated comparisons!" said Miss Elaine, in
+soft reproach. "Besides, it is irreligious, and you _promised_ me you
+would not be irreligious."
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE PALACE, MONACO]
+
+Verney looked somewhat aghast at this revelation, of course overheard by
+Mrs. Clary and myself. It was rather hard upon him to have his misdeeds
+brought up in this way--the little sentimental speeches he had made
+to Miss Elaine in the remote past--i.e., before Janet arrived. But he
+was obliged to bear it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I suppose," said Inness, one morning, "that you are not all going away
+from Mentone without even _seeing_ Mon--Monaco?"
+
+"It can be _seen_ from Turbia," answered the Professor, grimly. "And
+that view is near enough."
+
+Inness made a grimace, and the subject was dropped. But it ended in our
+seeing Turbia from Monaco, and not Monaco from Turbia.
+
+"There is no use in fighting against it," said Mrs. Clary, shrugging her
+shoulders. "You will have to go once. Every one does. There is a fate
+that drives you."
+
+"And the joke is," said Baker, in high glee, "that the Professor is
+going too. It seems that the view from Turbia was not near enough for
+him, after all."
+
+"I am not surprised," said Mrs. Clary. "I thought he would go: they all
+do. I have seen English deans, Swiss pastors, and American Presbyterian
+ministers looking on in the gambling-rooms, under the principle, I
+suppose, of knowing something of the evil they oppose. They do not go
+but once; but that once they are very apt to allow themselves."
+
+The views along the Cornice west of Mentone are very beautiful. As we
+came in sight of Monaco, lying below in the blue sea, we caught its
+alleged resemblance to a vessel at anchor.
+
+"Monaco, or Portus Herculis Monoeci, was well known to the ancients,"
+said the Professor. "Its name appears in Virgil, Tacitus, Pliny, Strabo,
+and other classical writers. Before the invention of gunpowder its
+situation made it impregnable. It was one of the places of refuge in the
+long struggle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines" (we were rather
+discouraged by the appearance of these names so early in the day), "and
+it is mentioned by an Italian historian as having become in the
+fourteenth century a 'home for criminals' and a 'gathering-place for
+pirates'--terms equally applicable at the present day." The Professor's
+voice was very sonorous.
+
+Inness, the Professor, Janet, and myself were in a carriage together. As
+Mrs. Clary and Miss Graves did not accompany us that day, we had two
+carriages and a phaeton, the latter occupied by Lloyd and Verney.
+
+"As to Monaco history," remarked Inness, carelessly, when the Professor
+ceased, "I happen to remember a few items. The Grimaldis came next to
+Hercules, and have had possession here since A.D. 980. Marshal
+Boucicault, who was extremely devout, and never missed hearing two
+masses a day, besieged the place and took it before Columbus and the
+other Boucicault discovered America. In the reign of Louis the
+Fourteenth a Prince of Monaco was sent as ambassador to Rome, and
+entered that city with horses shod in silver, the shoes held by one nail
+only, so that they might drop the sooner. Another Prince of Monaco went
+against the Turks with his galleys, and brought back to this shore the
+inestimable gift of the prickly-pear, for which we all bless his memory
+whenever we brush against its cheerful thorns. _Three_ Princes of Monaco
+were murdered in their own palace, which of course was much more
+home-like than being murdered elsewhere. The Duke of York died there
+also: not murdered, I believe, although there is a ghost in the story.
+The principality is now three miles long, and the present prince retains
+authority under the jurisdiction of France. To preserve this authority
+he maintains a strictly disciplined standing army (they never sit down)
+of ten able-bodied men."
+
+These sentences were rolled out by Inness with such rapidity that I was
+quite bewildered; as for the Professor, he was hopelessly stranded
+half-way down the list, and never came any farther.
+
+Passing Monte Carlo, we drove over to the palace.
+
+"Certainly there is no town on the Riviera so beautifully situated as
+Monaco," I said, as the road swept around the little port and ascended
+the opposite slope. "The high rock on which it stands, jutting out
+boldly into the sea, gives it all the isolation of an island, and yet
+protects by its peninsula this clear deep little harbor within."
+
+The old town of Monaco proper is on the top of this rocky presqu'ile,
+three hundred feet above the sea, and west of Monte Carlo, the suburb of
+Condamine, and the chapel of St. Devote. Leaving the carriages, we
+entered the portal of the palace, conducted by a tenth of the standing
+army.
+
+"My first living and roofed palace," said Janet, as we ascended the
+broad flight of marble steps leading to the "Court of Honor," which was
+glowing with recently renewed frescos. A solemn man in black received
+us, and conducted us with much dignity through thirteen broad, long
+rooms, with ceilings thirty feet high--a procession of stately
+apartments which left upon our minds a blurred general impression of
+gilded vases, crimson curtains, slippery floors, ormolu clocks, wreaths
+of painted roses, fat Cupids, and uninhabitableness. The only trace of
+home life in all the shining vista was a little picture of the present
+Prince, taken when he was a baby, a life-like, chubby little fellow,
+smiling unconcernedly out on all this cold splendor. It was amusing to
+see how we women gathered around this little face, with a sort of
+involuntary comfort.
+
+In the Salle Grimaldi there was a vast chimney-piece of one block of
+marble covered with carved devices.
+
+In the room where the Duke of York died there was a broad bed on a
+platform, curtained and canopied with heavy damask, and surrounded by a
+gilded railing. We stood looking at this structure in silence.
+
+"It is very impressive," murmured Mrs. Trescott at last. Then, with a
+long reminiscent sigh, as if she had been present and chief mourner on
+the occasion, she added: "There is nothing more inscrutable than the
+feet of the flying hours: they are winged!--winged!"
+
+[Illustration: THE SALLE GRIMALDI, IN THE PALACE, MONACO]
+
+"On the whole," said Janet, as we went down the marble steps towards
+the army--"on the whole, taking it as a _palace_, I am disappointed."
+
+"What did you expect?" said Verney.
+
+"Oh, all the age of chivalry," she answered, smiling.
+
+"The so-called age of chivalry--" began the Professor; but he never
+finished; because, by some unexpected adjustment of places, he found
+himself in the phaeton with Baker, and that adventurous youth drove him
+over to Monte Carlo at such a speed that he could only close his eyes
+and hold on.
+
+The Casino of Monte Carlo is now the most important part of the
+principality of Monaco; instead of being subordinate to the palace, the
+latter has become but an appendage to the modern splendor across the
+bay. Monte Carlo occupies a site as beautiful as any in the world. In
+front the blue sea laves its lovely garden; on the east the soft
+coast-line of Italy stretches away in the distance; on the west is the
+bold curving rock of Monaco, with its castle and port, and the great
+cliff of the Dog's Head. Behind rises the near mountain high above; and
+on its top, outlined against the sky, stands the old tower of Turbia in
+its lonely ruined majesty, looking towards Rome.
+
+"That tower is nineteen hundred feet above the sea," said the Professor.
+"It was built by the Romans, on the boundary between Liguria and Gaul,
+to commemorate a victory gained by Augustus Caesar over the Ligurians. It
+was called Tropaeum Augusti, from which it has degenerated into Turbia.
+Fragments of the inscription it once bore have been found on stones
+built into the houses of the present village. The inscription itself is,
+fortunately, fully preserved in Pliny, as follows: 'To Caesar, son of the
+divine Caesar Augustus, Emperor for the fourteenth time, in the
+seventeenth year of his reign, the Senate and the Roman people have
+decreed this monument, in token that under his orders and auspices all
+the Alpine races have been subdued by Roman arms. Names of the
+vanquished:' and here follow the names of forty-five Alpine races."
+
+At first we thought that the Professor was going to repeat them all; but
+although no doubt he knew them, he abstained.
+
+"The village behind the tower--we cannot see it from here--seems to be
+principally built of fragments of the old Roman stone-work," said Lloyd.
+"I have been up there several times."
+
+"Then we do not see the Trophy as it was?" I said.
+
+"No; it is but a ruin, although it looks imposing from here. It was used
+as a fortress during the Middle Ages, and partially destroyed by the
+French at the beginning of the last century."
+
+"It must have been majestic indeed, since, after all its dismemberment,
+it still remains so majestic now," said Margaret.
+
+We were standing on the steps of the Casino during this conversation; I
+think we all rather made ourselves stand there, and talk about Turbia
+and the Middle Ages, because the evil and temptation we had come to see
+were so near us, and we knew that they were. We all had a sentence ready
+which we delivered impartially and carelessly; but none the less we knew
+that we were going in, and that nothing would induce us to remain
+without.
+
+[Illustration: THE RIDE TO SANT' AGNESE]
+
+From a spacious, richly decorated entrance-hall, the gambling-rooms
+opened by noiseless swinging doors. Entering, we saw the tables
+surrounded by a close circle of seated players, with a second circle
+standing behind, playing over their shoulders, and sometimes even a
+third behind these. Although so many persons were present, it was very
+still, the only sounds being the chink, chink, of the gold and silver
+coins, and the dull, mechanical voices of the officials announcing
+the winning numbers. There were tables for both roulette and trente et
+quarante, the playing beginning each day at eleven in the morning and
+continuing without intermission until eleven at night. Everywhere was
+lavished the luxury of flowers, paintings, marbles, and the costliest
+decoration of all kinds; beyond, in a superb hall, the finest orchestra
+on the Continent was playing the divine music of Beethoven; outside, one
+of the loveliest gardens in the world offered itself to those who wished
+to stroll awhile. And all of this was given freely, without restriction
+and without price, upon a site and under a sky as beautiful as earth can
+produce. But one sober look at the faces of the steady players around
+those tables betrayed, under all this luxury and beauty, the real horror
+of the place; for men and women, young and old alike, had the gambler's
+strange fever in the expression of the eye, all the more intense
+because, in almost every case, so governed, so stonily repressed, so
+deadly cold! After a half-hour of observation, we left the rooms, and I
+was glad to breathe the outside air once more. The place had so struck
+to my heart, with its intensity, its richness, its stillness, and its
+terror, that I had not been able even to smile at the Professor's
+demeanor; he had signified his disapprobation (while looking at
+everything quite closely, however) by buttoning his coat up to the chin
+and keeping his hat on. I almost expected to see him open his umbrella.
+
+"To me, they seemed all mad," I said, with a shudder, looking up at the
+calm mountains with a sense of relief.
+
+"It is a species of madness," said Verney. Miss Elaine was with him; she
+had taken his arm while in the gambling-room; she said she felt "so
+timid." Margaret and Lloyd meanwhile had only looked on for a moment or
+two, and had then disappeared; we learned afterwards that they had gone
+to the concert-room, where music beautiful enough for paradise was
+filling the perfumed air.
+
+"For those who care nothing for gambling, that music is one of the
+baits," said Lloyd. "When you really love music, it is very hard to keep
+away from it; and here, where there is no other music to compete with
+it, it is offered to you in its divinest perfection, at an agreeable
+distance from Nice and Mentone, along one of the most beautiful
+driveways in the world, with a Parisian hotel at its best to give you,
+besides, what other refreshment you need. Hundreds of persons come here
+sincerely 'only to hear the music.' But few go away without 'one look'
+at the gambling tables; and it is upon that 'one look' that the
+proprietors of the Casino, knowing human nature, quietly and securely
+rely."
+
+The Professor, having seen it all, had no words to express his feeling,
+but walked across to call the carriages with the air of a man who shook
+off perdition from every finger. And yet I felt sure, from what I knew
+of him, that he had appreciated the attractions of the place less than
+any one of us--had not, in fact, been reached by them at all. Those who
+do not feel the allurements of a temptation are not tempted. Not a grain
+in the Professor's composition responded to the invitation of the siren
+Chance; they were not allurements to him; they were but the fantastic
+phantasmagoria of a dream. The lovely garden he appreciated only
+botanically; the view he could not see; abstemious by nature, he cared
+nothing for the choice rarities of the hotel; while the music, the
+heavenly music, was to him no more than the housewife's clatter of tin
+pans. Yet I might have explained this to him all the way home, he would
+never have comprehended it, but would have gone on thinking that it was
+simply, on his part, superior virtue and self-control.
+
+But I had no opportunity to explain, since I was not in the carriage
+with him, but with Janet, Inness, and Baker. Margaret and Lloyd drove
+homewards together in the phaeton; and as they did not reach the hotel
+until dusk--long after our own arrival--I asked Margaret where they had
+been.
+
+"We stopped at the cemetery to watch the sunset beside my statue, aunt."
+
+"Why do you care so much for that marble figure?"
+
+"I do not think she is quite marble," answered Margaret, smiling. "When
+I look at her, after a while she becomes, in a certain sense,
+responsive. To me she is like a dear friend."
+
+Another week passed, and another. And now the blossoms of the
+fruit-trees--a cloud of pink and snowy white--were gone, and the winter
+loiterers on the sunny shore began to talk of home; or, if they were
+travellers who had but stopped awhile on the way to Italy, they knew now
+that the winds of the Apennines no longer chilled the beautiful streets
+of Florence, and that all the lilies were out.
+
+"Why could it not go on and on forever? Why must there always come that
+last good-bye?" quoted Mrs. Clary.
+
+"Because life is so sad," said Margaret.
+
+"But I like to look forward," said Janet.
+
+"We shall meet again," said Lloyd.
+
+"The world," I remarked, sagely, "is composed of three classes of
+persons--those who live in the present, those who live in the past, and
+those who live in the future. The first class is the wisest."
+
+[Illustration: VIEW FROM SANT' AGNESE]
+
+Our last excursion was to Sant' Agnese. This little mountain village was
+the highest point we attained on our donkeys, being two thousand two
+hundred feet above the sea. Its one rugged little street, cut in the
+side of the cliff, had an ancient weather-beaten little church at one
+end and a lonely chapel at the other, with the village green in the
+centre--a "green" which was but a smooth rock amphitheatre, with a
+parapet protecting it from the precipice below. From this "green" there
+was a grand view of the mountains, with the sharp point of the Aiguille
+towering above them all. It was a village fete day, and we met the
+little procession at the church door. First came the priests and
+choir-boys, chanting; then the village girls, dressed in white, and
+bearing upon a little platform an image of Saint Agnes; then youths with
+streamers of colored ribbons on their arms; and, last, all the
+villagers, two and two, dressed in their best, and carrying bunches of
+flowers. Through the winding rocky street they marched, singing as they
+went. When they arrived at the lonely chapel, Saint Agnes was borne in,
+and prayers were offered, in which the village people joined, kneeling
+on the ground outside, since there was not place for them within. Then
+forth came Saint Agnes again, a hymn was started, in which all took
+part, the little church bell pealed, and an old man touched off small
+heaps of gunpowder placed at equal distances along the parapet, their
+nearest approach, I suppose, to cannon. When the saint had reached her
+shrine again in safety, her journeyings over until the next year, the
+procession dissolved, and feasting began, the simple feasting of Italy,
+in which we joined so far as to partake of a lunch in the little inn,
+which had a green bush as a sign over the narrow door--the "wine of the
+country" proving very good, however, in spite of the old proverb. Then,
+refreshed, we climbed up the steep path leading to the peak where was
+perched the ruin of the old castle which is so conspicuous from Mentone,
+high in the air. This castle, the so-called "Saracen stronghold" of
+Sant' Agnese, pronounced, as Baker said, "either Frenchy to rhyme with
+lace, or Italianly to rhyme with lazy," seemed to me higher up in the
+sky than I had ever expected to be in the flesh.
+
+"As our interesting friend" (she meant the Professor) "is not here,"
+said Mrs. Trescott, sinking in a breathless condition upon a Saracen
+block, "there is no one to tell us its history."
+
+"There is no history," said Verney, "or, rather, no one knows it; and to
+me that is its chief attraction. There are, of course, legends in
+stacks, but nothing authentic. The Saracens undoubtedly occupied it for
+a time, and kept the whole coast below cowering under their cruel sway.
+But it is hardly probable that they built it; they did not build so far
+inland; they preferred the shore."
+
+Our specified object, of course, in climbing that breathless path was
+"the view."
+
+Now there are various ways of seeing views. I have known "views" which
+required long gazing at points where there was nothing earthly to be
+seen: in such cases there was probably something heavenly. Other "views"
+reveal themselves only to two persons at a time; if a third appears,
+immediately there is nothing to be seen. As to our own manner of looking
+at the Sant' Agnese view, I will mention that Mrs. Trescott looked at it
+from a snug corner, on a soft shawl, with her eyes closed. Mrs. Clary
+looked at it retrospectively, as it were; she began phrases like these:
+"When I was here three years ago--" pause, sigh, full stop. "Once I was
+here at sunset--" ditto. Janet, on a remote rock, looked at it, I think,
+amid a little tragedy from Inness, interrupted and made more tragic by
+the incursions of Baker, who would not be frowned away. Verney looked at
+it from a high niche in which he had incautiously seated himself for a
+moment, and now remained imprisoned, because Miss Elaine had placed
+herself across the entrance so that he could not emerge without asking
+her to rise; from this niche, like the tenor of _Trovatore_ in his
+tower, he occasionally sent across a Miserere to Janet in the distance,
+like this: "Do you ob--serve, Miss Trescott, the col--ors of the
+lem--ons below?" And Janet would gesture an assent. Lloyd and Margaret
+had found a place on a little projecting plateau, where, with the warm
+sunshine flooding over them, they sat contentedly talking. Meanwhile
+having neither sleep, retrospect, tragedy, Miserere, nor conversation
+with which to entertain myself, I really looked at the view, and
+probably was the only person who did. I had time enough for it. We
+remained there nearly two hours.
+
+[Illustration: FETE, VILLAGE OF SANT' AGNESE]
+
+At last our donkey-driver came up to tell us that dancing was going on
+below, and that there was not much time if we wished to see it, since
+the long homeward journey still lay before us. So we elders began to
+call: "Janet!" "Janet!" "Margaret!" "Mr. Verney!" And presently from the
+rock, the niche, and the plateau they came slowly in, Janet flushed, and
+Inness very pale, Baker like a thunder-cloud, Miss Elaine smiling and
+conscious, Verney annoyed, Lloyd just as usual, and Margaret with a
+younger look in her face than I had seen there for months. In the little
+rock amphitheatre below we found the villagers merrily dancing; and some
+strangers like ourselves, who had come out from Mentone later, were
+amusing themselves by dancing also. Janet joined the circle with Baker,
+and Inness, after leaning on the parapet awhile, with his back to the
+dancers, gazing into space, disappeared. I think he went homeward by
+another path across the mountains. Miss Elaine admired "so much" Miss
+Trescott's courage in dancing before "so many strangers." She (Miss
+Elaine) was far "too shy to attempt it." But I did not notice that she
+was violently urged to the attempt. In the meantime Lloyd was looking at
+an English girl belonging to the other party, who was dancing near us.
+She was tall and shapely, with the beautiful English rose-pink
+complexion, and abundant light hair which had the glint of bronze where
+the sun shone across it. After a while, as the others came near, he
+recognized in one of them an acquaintance, who turned out to be the
+brother of the young lady who had been dancing.
+
+When, as we returned, we reached the main street of Mentone, Margaret
+and I, who were behind, stopped a moment and looked back. The far peak
+of Sant' Agnese was flushed with rose-light, although where we were it
+was already night.
+
+"It does not seem as if we could have been there," I said. "It looks so
+far away."
+
+"Yes, we have been there," said Margaret; "we _have_ been there. But
+already it _is_ far, far away."
+
+[Illustration: VESTIGES OF ROMAN MONUMENTS]
+
+Mrs. Trescott found a letter awaiting her which made her decide to go
+forward to Florence on the following day. A great deal can happen in a
+short time when there is the pressure of a near departure. That evening
+Janet, who was dressed in white, had a great bunch of the sweet wild
+narcissus at her belt. I do not know anything certainly, of course, but
+I _did_ meet Inness in the hall, about eleven o'clock, with a radiant,
+happy face, and some of that same narcissus in his button-hole. He went
+with the Trescott's to Florence the next day. And Baker, with disgust,
+went to Nice. Soon afterwards Verney said that he felt that he required
+"a closer acquaintance with early art," and departed without saying
+exactly whither. "Etruscan art, I believe, is considered extremely
+'early,'" remarked Mrs. Clary.
+
+The Professor was to join the Trescotts later; at present he was much
+engaged with some cinerary urns. Miss Elaine, who was to remain a month
+longer with her mother, remarked to me, on one of the last mornings,
+that "really, for his age," he was a "very well preserved man."
+
+Margaret and I remained for two weeks after Mrs. Trescott's departure.
+We saw Mr. Lloyd now and then; but he was more frequently off with the
+English party.
+
+One afternoon I went with Margaret to watch the sunset from her favorite
+post beside the statue. She sought the place almost every evening now,
+and occasionally I went with her. We had never found any one there at
+that hour; but this evening we heard voices, and came upon Lloyd and the
+English girl of Sant' Agnese, strolling to and fro.
+
+"I have brought Miss Read to see the view here, Miss Severin," he said;
+and then introductions followed, and we stood there together watching
+the beautiful tints of sky and sea. The English girl talked in her
+English voice with its little rising and falling inflections, so
+different from our monotonous American key. Margaret answered
+pleasantly, and, indeed, talked more than usual; I was glad to see her
+interested.
+
+After a while Lloyd happened to stroll forward where he could see the
+face of the statue. Then, suddenly, "Wonderful!" he exclaimed. "Strange
+that I never thought of it before! Do come here, please, and see for
+yourselves. There is the most extraordinary resemblance between this
+statue and Miss Read."
+
+Then, as we all went forward, "Wonderful!" he repeated.
+
+Margaret said not a word. The English girl only laughed. "Surely you
+_see_ it?" he said.
+
+"There may be a little something about the mouth--" I began.
+
+But he interrupted me. "Why, it is perfect! The statue is her portrait
+in marble. Miss Read, will you not let me place you in the same
+position, just for an instant?" And, leading her to a little mound, he
+placed her in the required pose; she had thrown off her hat to oblige
+him, and now clasped her hands and turned her eyes over the sea towards
+the eastern horizon. What was the result?
+
+The only resemblance, as I had said, was about the mouth; for the
+beautifully cut lips of the statue turned downward at the corners, and
+the curve of Miss Read's sweet baby-like mouth was the same. But that
+was all. Above was the woman's face in marble, beautiful, sad, full of
+the knowledge and the grief of life; below was the face of a young girl,
+lovely, fresh, and bright, and knowing no more of sorrow than a
+blush-rose upon its stem.
+
+"Exact!" said Lloyd.
+
+Miss Read laughed, rose, and resumed her straw hat; presently they went
+away.
+
+[Illustration: THE STATUE IN THE CEMETERY]
+
+"There was not the slightest resemblance," I said, almost with
+indignation.
+
+"People see resemblances differently," answered Margaret. Then, after a
+pause, she added, "She is, at least, much more like the statue than I
+am."
+
+"Not in the spirit, dear," I said, much touched; for I saw that as she
+spoke the rare tears had filled her eyes. But they did not fall;
+Margaret had a great deal of self-control; perhaps too much.
+
+Then there was a silence. "Shall we go now, aunt?" she said, after a
+time. And we never spoke of the subject again.
+
+"Look, look, Margaret! the palms of Bordighera!" I said, as our train
+rushed past. It was our last of Mentone.
+
+
+
+
+CAIRO IN 1890
+
+
+I
+
+[Illustration: CONTEMPORARY PORTRAIT OF CLEOPATRA
+
+On the wall of the Temple at Denderah.--From a photograph by Sebah,
+Cairo.]
+
+"The way to Egypt is long and vexatious"--so Homer sings; and so also
+have sung other persons more modern. A chopping sea prevails off Crete,
+and whether one leaves Europe at Naples, Brindisi, or Athens, one's
+steamer soon reaches that beautiful island, and consumes in passing it
+an amount of time which is an ever-fresh surprise. Crete, with its long
+coast-line and soaring mountain-tops, appears to fill all that part of
+the sea. However, as the island is the half-way point between Europe and
+Africa, one can at least feel, after finally leaving it behind, that the
+Egyptian coast is not far distant. This coast is as indolent as that of
+Crete is aggressive; it does not raise its head. You are there before
+you see it or know it; and then, if you like, in something over three
+hours more you can be in Cairo.
+
+The Cairo street of the last Paris Exhibition, familiar to many
+Americans, was a clever imitation. But imitations of the Orient are
+melancholy; you cannot transplant the sky and the light.
+
+The real Cairo has been sacrificed to the Nile. Comparatively few among
+travellers in the East see the place under the best conditions; for upon
+their arrival they are preoccupied with the magical river voyage which
+beckons them southward, with the dahabeeyah or the steamer which is to
+carry them; and upon their return from that wonderful journey they are
+planning for the more difficult expedition to the Holy Land. It is safe
+to say that to many Americans Cairo is only a confused memory of donkeys
+and dragomans, mosquitoes and dervishes, and mosques, mosques, mosques!
+This hard season probably must be gone through by all. The wise are
+those who stay on after it is over, or who return; for the true
+impression of a place does not come when the mind is overcrowded and
+confused; it does not come when the body is wearied; for the descent of
+the vision, serenity of soul is necessary--one might even call it
+idleness. It is during those days when one does nothing that the reality
+steals noiselessly into one's comprehension, to remain there forever.
+
+But is Cairo worth this? is asked. That depends upon the temperament. If
+one must have in his nature somewhere a trace of the poet to love
+Venice, so one must be at heart something of a painter to love Cairo.
+Her colors are so softly rich, the Saracenic part of her architecture is
+so fantastically beautiful, the figures in her streets are so
+picturesque, that one who has an eye for such effects seems to himself
+to be living in a gallery of paintings without frames, which stretch off
+in vistas, melting into each other as they go. If, therefore, one loves
+color, if pictures are precious to him, are important, let him go to
+Cairo; he will find pleasure awaiting him. Flaubert said that one could
+imagine the pyramids, and perhaps the Sphinx, without an actual sight of
+them, but that what one could not in the least imagine was the
+expression on the face of an Oriental barber as he sits cross-legged
+before his door. That is Cairo exactly. You must see her with the actual
+eyes, and you must see her without haste. She does not reveal herself to
+the Cook tourist nor even to Gaze's, nor to the man who is hurrying off
+to Athens on a fixed day which nothing can alter.
+
+
+THE NEW QUARTER
+
+(One must begin with this, and have it over.) Cairo has a population of
+four hundred thousand souls. The new part of the town, called Ismailia,
+has been persistently abused by almost all writers, who describe it as
+dusty, as shadeless, as dreary, as glaring, as hideous, as blankly and
+broadly empty, as adorned with half-built houses which are falling into
+ruin--one has read all this before arriving. But what does one find in
+the year of grace 1890? Streets shaded by innumerable trees; streets
+broad indeed, but which, instead of being dusty, are wet (and over-wet)
+with the constant watering; well-kept, bright-faced houses, many of them
+having beautiful gardens, which in January are glowing with giant
+poinsettas, crimson hibiscus, and purple bougainvillea--flowers which
+give place to richer blooms, to an almost over-luxuriance of color and
+perfumes, as the early spring comes on. If the streets were paved, it
+would be like the outlying quarters of Paris, for most of the houses are
+French as regards their architecture. Shadeless? It is nothing but
+shade. And the principal drives, too, beyond the town--the Ghezireh
+road, the Choubra and Gizeh roads, and the long avenue which leads to
+the pyramids--are deeply embowered, the great arms of the trees which
+border them meeting and interlacing overhead. Consider the stony streets
+of Italian cities (which no one abuses), and then talk of "shadeless
+Cairo"!
+
+
+THE CLIMATE
+
+If one wishes to spend a part of each day in the house, engaged in
+reading, writing, or resting; if the comfortable feeling produced by a
+brightly burning little fire in the cool of the evening is necessary to
+him for his health or his pleasure--then he should not attempt to spend
+the entire winter in the city of the Khedive. The mean temperature there
+during the cold season--that is, six weeks in January and February--is
+said to be 58 deg. Fahrenheit. But this is in the open air; in the houses
+the temperature is not more than 54 deg. or 52 deg., and often in the evening
+lower. The absence of fires makes all the difficulty; for out-of-doors
+the air may be and often is charming; but upon coming in from the bright
+sunshine the atmosphere of one's sitting-room and bedroom seems chilly
+and prison-like. There are, generally speaking, no chimneys in Cairo,
+even in the modern quarter. Each of the hotels has one or two open
+grates, but only one or two. Southern countries, however, are banded
+together--so it seems to the shivering Northerner--to keep up the
+delusion that they have no cold weather; as they have it not, why
+provide for it? In Italy in the winter the Italians spread rugs over
+their floors, hang tapestries upon their walls, pile cushions
+everywhere, and carpet their sofas with long-haired skins; this they
+call warmth. But a fireless room, with the thermometer on its walls
+standing at 35 deg., is not warm, no matter how many cushions you may put
+into it; and one hates to believe, too, that necessary accompaniments
+of health are roughened faces and frost-bitten noses, and the extreme
+ugliness of hands swollen and red. "Perhaps if one could have in Cairo
+an open hearth and three sticks, it would, with all the other pleasures
+which one finds here, be too much--would reach wickedness!" was a remark
+we heard last winter. A still more forcible exclamation issued from the
+lips of a pilgrim from New York one evening in January. Looking round
+her sitting-room upon the roses gathered that day in the open air, upon
+the fly-brushes and fans and Oriental decorations, this misguided person
+moaned, in an almost tearful voice: "Oh, for a blizzard and a _fire_!"
+The reasonable traveller, of course, ought to remember that with a
+climate which has seven months of debilitating heat, and three and a
+half additional months of summer weather, the attention of the natives
+is not strongly turned towards devices for warmth. This consideration,
+however, does not make the fireless rooms agreeable during the few weeks
+that remain.
+
+[Illustration: THE NILE BRIDGE, CAIRO
+
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
+
+Another surprise is the rain. "In our time it rained in Egypt," writes
+Strabo, as though chronicling a miracle. Either the climate has changed,
+or Strabo was not a disciple of the realistic school, for in the January
+of this truthful record the rain descended in such a deluge in Cairo
+that the water came above the knees of the horses, and a ferry-boat was
+established for two days in one of the principal streets. Later the rain
+descended a second time with almost equal violence, and showers were by
+no means infrequent. (It may be mentioned in parenthesis that there was
+heavy rain at Luxor, four hundred and fifty miles south of Cairo, on the
+19th of February.) One does not object to these rains; they are in
+themselves agreeable; one wishes simply to note the impudence of the
+widely diffused statement that Egypt is a rainless land. So far nothing
+has been said against the winter climate of Cairo; objection has been
+made merely to the fireless condition of the houses--a fault which can
+be remedied. But now a real enemy must be mentioned--namely, the kamsin.
+This is a hot wind from the south, which parches the skin and takes the
+life out of one; it fills the air with a thick grayness, which you
+cannot call mist, because it is perfectly dry, and through which the sun
+goes on steadily shining, with a light so weird that one can think of
+nothing but the feelings of the last man, or the opening of the sixth
+seal. The regular kamsin season does not begin before May; the
+occasional days of it that bring suffering to travellers occur in
+February, March, and April. But what are five or six days of kamsin amid
+four winter months whose average temperature is 58 deg. Fahrenheit? It is
+human nature to detect faults in climates which have been greatly
+praised, just as one counts every freckle on a fair face that is
+celebrated for its beauty. Give Cairo a few hearth fires, and its winter
+climate will seem delightful; although not so perfect as that of
+Florida, in our country, because in Florida there are no January
+mosquitoes.
+
+
+MOSQUES
+
+It must be remembered that Cairo is Arabian. "The Nile is Egypt," says a
+proverb. The Nile is mythical, Pharaonic, Ptolemaic; but Cairo owes its
+existence solely to the Arabian conquerors of the country, who built a
+fortress and palace here in A.D. 969.
+
+Very Arabian is still the call to prayer which is chanted by the
+muezzins from the minarets of the mosques several times during the day.
+We were passing through a crowded quarter near the Mooski one afternoon
+in January, when there was wafted across the consciousness a faint,
+sweet sound. It was far away, and one heard it half impatiently at
+first, unwilling to lift one's attention even for an instant from the
+motley scenes nearer at hand. But at length, teased into it by the very
+sweetness, we raised our eyes, and then it was seen that it came from a
+half-ruined minaret far above us. Round the narrow outer gallery of this
+slender tower a man in dark robes was pacing slowly, his arms
+outstretched, his face upturned to heaven. Not once did he look below as
+he continued his aerial round, his voice giving forth the chant which we
+had heard--"Allah akbar; Allah akbar; la Allah ill' Allah. Heyya
+alas-salah!" (God is great; God is great; there is no God but God, and
+Mohammed is his prophet. Come to prayer.) Again, another day, in the old
+Touloun quarter, we heard the sound, but it was much nearer. It came
+from a window but little above our heads, the small mosque within the
+quadrangle having no minaret. This time I could note the muezzin
+himself. As he could not see the sky from where he stood, his eyes were
+closed. I have never beheld a more concentrated expression of devotion
+than his quiet face expressed; he might have been miles away from the
+throng below, instead of three feet, as his voice gave forth the same
+strange, sweet chant. The muezzins are often selected from the ranks of
+the blind, as the duties of the office are within their powers; but this
+singer at the low window had closed his eyes voluntarily. The last time
+I saw the muezzin was towards the end of the season, when the spring was
+far advanced. Cairo gayety was at its height, the streets were crowded
+with Europeans returning from the races, the new quarter was as modern
+as Paris. But there are minarets even in the new quarter, or near it;
+and on one of the highest of these turrets, outlined against the glow of
+the sunset, I saw the slowly pacing figure, with its arms outstretched
+over the city--"Allah akbar; Allah akbar; come, come to prayer."
+
+There are over four hundred mosques in Cairo, and many of them are in a
+dilapidated condition. Some of these were erected by private means to
+perpetuate the name and good deeds of the founder and his family; then,
+in the course of time, owing to the extinction or to the poverty of the
+descendants, the endowment fund has been absorbed or turned into another
+channel, and the ensuing neglect has ended in ruin. When a pious Muslim
+of to-day wishes to perform a good work, he builds a new mosque. It
+would never occur to him to repair the old one near at hand, which
+commemorates the generosity of another man. It must be remembered that
+a mosque has no established congregation, whose duty it is to take care
+of it. A mosque, in fact, to Muslims has not an exclusively religious
+character. It is a place prepared for prayer, with the fountain which is
+necessary for the preceding ablutions required by Mohammed, and the
+niche towards Mecca which indicates the position which the suppliant
+must take; but it is also a place for meditation and repose. The poorest
+and most ragged Muslim has the right to enter whenever he pleases; he
+can say his prayers, or he can simply rest; he can quench his thirst; he
+can eat the food which he has brought with him; if he is tired, he can
+sleep. In mosques not often visited by travellers I have seen men
+engaged in mending their clothes, and others cooking food with a
+portable furnace. In the church-yard of Charlton Kings, England, there
+is a tombstone of the last century with an inscription which concludes
+as follows: "And his dieing request to his Sons and Daughters was, Never
+forsake the Charitys until the Poor had got their Rites." In the Cairo
+mosques the poor have their rites--both with the _gh_ and without. The
+sacred character of a mosque is, in truth, only made conspicuous when
+unbelievers wish to enter. Then the big shuffling slippers are brought
+out to cover the shoes of the Christian infidels, so that they may not
+touch and defile the mattings reserved for the faithful.
+
+[Illustration: BEFORE THE LITTLE MOSQUE
+
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
+
+After long neglect, something is being done at last to arrest the ruin
+of the more ancient of these temples. A commission has been appointed by
+the present government whose duty is the preservation of the monuments
+of Arabian art; occasionally, therefore, in a mosque one finds
+scaffolding in place and a general dismantlement. One can only hope for
+the best--in much the same spirit in which one hopes when one sees the
+beautiful old front of St. Mark's, Venice, gradually encroached upon by
+the new raw timbers. But in Cairo, at least, the work of repairing goes
+on very slowly; three hundred mosques, probably, out of the four hundred
+still remain untouched, and many of these are adorned with a delicate
+beauty which is unrivalled. I know no quest so enchanting as a search
+through the winding lanes of the old quarters for these gems of
+Saracenic taste, which no guide-book has as yet chronicled, no dragoman
+discovered. The street is so narrow that your donkey fills almost all
+the space; passers-by are obliged to flatten themselves against the
+walls in response to the Oriental adjurations of your donkey-boy behind:
+"Take heed, O maid!" "Your foot, O chief!" Presently you see a
+minaret--there is always a minaret somewhere; but it is not always easy
+to find the mosque to which it belongs, hidden, perhaps, as it is,
+behind other buildings in the crowded labyrinth. At length you observe a
+door with a dab or two of the well-known Saracenic honeycomb-work above
+it; instantly you dismount, climb the steps, and look in. You are almost
+sure to find treasures, either fragments of the pearly Cairo mosaic, or
+a wonderful ceiling, or gilded Kufic (old Arabian text) inscriptions and
+arabesques, or remains of the ancient colored glass which changes its
+tint hour by hour. Best of all, sometimes you find a space open to the
+sky, with a fountain in the centre, the whole surrounded by arcades of
+marble columns adorned with hanging lamps (or, rather, with the bronze
+chains which once carried the lamps), and with suspended ostrich
+eggs--the emblems of good-luck. One day, when my donkey was making his
+way through a dilapidated region, I came upon a mosque so small that it
+seemed hardly more than a base for its exquisite minaret, which towered
+to an unusual height above it. Of course I dismounted. The little mosque
+was open; but as it was never visited by strangers, it possessed no
+slippers, and without coverings of some kind it was impossible that
+unsanctified shoes, such as mine, should touch its matted floor; the
+bent, ancient guardian glared at me fiercely for the mere suggestion.
+One sees sometimes (even in 1890) in the eyes of old men sitting in the
+mosques the original spirit of Islam shining still. Once their religion
+commanded the sword; they would like to grasp it again, if they could.
+It was suggested that the matting might, for a backsheesh, be rolled up
+and put away, as the place was small. But the stern old keeper remained
+inflexible. Then the offer was made that so many piasters--ten (that is,
+fifty cents)--would be given to the blind. Now the blind are sacred in
+Cairo; this offer, therefore, was successful; all the matting was
+carefully rolled and stacked in a corner, the three or four Muslims
+present withdrew to the door, and the unbeliever was allowed to enter.
+She found herself in a temple of color which was incredibly rich. The
+floor was of delicate marble, and every inch of the walls was covered
+with a mosaic of porphyry and jasper, adorned with gilded inscriptions
+and bands of Kufic text; the tall pulpit, made of mahogany-colored wood,
+was carved from top to bottom in intricate designs, and ornamented with
+odd little plaques of fretted bronze; the sacred niche was lined with
+alabaster, turquoise, and gleaming mother-of-pearl; the only light came
+through the thick glass of the small windows far above, in
+downward-falling rays of crimson, violet, and gold. The old mosaic-work
+of the Cairo mosques is composed of small plates of marble and of
+mother-of-pearl arranged in geometrical designs; the delicacy of the
+minute cubes employed, and the intricacy of the patterns, are
+marvellous; the color is faint, unless turquoise has been added; but the
+glitter of the mother-of-pearl gives the whole an appearance like that
+of jewelry. Upon our departure five blind men were found drawn up in a
+line at the door. It would not have been difficult to collect fifty.
+
+[Illustration: TOMB-MOSQUE OF KAIT BEY]
+
+Another day, as my donkey was taking me under a stone arch, I saw on one
+side a flight of steps which seemed to say "Come!" At the top of the
+steps I found a picture. It was a mosque of the early pattern, with a
+large square court open to the sky. In the centre of this court was a
+well, under a marble dome, and here grew half a dozen palm-trees. Across
+the far end extended the sanctuary, which was approached through arcades
+of massive pillars painted in dark red bands. The pulpit was so old that
+it had lost its beauty; but the entire back wall of this Mecca side
+was covered with beautiful tiles of the old Cairo tints (turquoise-blue
+and dark blue), in designs of foliage, with here and there an entire
+tree. This splendid wall was in itself worth a journey. A few single
+tiles had been inserted at random in the great red columns, reminding
+one of the majolica plates which tease the eyes of those who care for
+such things--set impossibly high as they are--in the campaniles of old
+Italian churches along the Pisan coast.
+
+It may be asked, What is the shape of a mosque--its exterior? What is it
+like? You are more sure about this shape before you reach the Khedive's
+city than you are when you have arrived there; and after you have
+visited three or four mosques each day for a week, the clearness of your
+original idea, such as it was, has vanished forever. The mosques of
+Cairo are so embedded in other structures, so surrounded and pushed and
+elbowed by them, that you can see but little of their external form;
+sometimes a facade painted in stripes is visible, but often a doorway is
+all. One must except the mosque of Sultan Hassan (which, to some of us,
+is dangerously like Aristides the Just). This mosque stands by itself,
+so that you can, if you please, walk round it. The chief interest of the
+walk (for the exterior, save for the deep porch, which can hardly be
+called exterior, is not beautiful) lies in the thought that as the walls
+were constructed of stones brought from the pyramids, perhaps among
+them, with faces turned inward, there may be blocks of that lost outer
+coating of the giant tombs--a coating which was covered with
+hieroglyphics. Now that hieroglyphics can be read, we may some day learn
+the true history of these monuments by pulling down a dozen of the Cairo
+mosques. But unless the commission bestirs itself, that task will not be
+needed for the edifice of Sultan Hassan; it is coming down, piece by
+piece, unaided. The mosques of Cairo are not beautiful as a Greek temple
+or an early English cathedral is beautiful; the charm of Saracenic
+architecture lies more in decoration than in the management of massive
+forms. The genius of the Arabian builders manifested itself in ornament,
+in rich effects of color; they had endless caprices, endless fancies,
+and expressed them all--as well they might, for all were beautiful. The
+same free spirit carved the grotesques of the old churches of France and
+Germany. But the Arabians had no love for grotesques; they displayed
+their liberty in lovely fantasies. Their one boldness as architects was
+the minaret.
+
+It is probably the most graceful tower that has ever been devised. In
+Cairo the rich fretwork of its decorations and the soft yellow hue of
+the stone of which it is constructed add to this beauty. Invariably
+slender, it decreases in size as it springs towards heaven, carrying
+lightly with it two or three external galleries, which are supported by
+stalactites, and ending in a miniature cupola and crescent. These
+stalactites (variously named, also, pendentives, recessed clusters, and
+honey-combed work) may be called the distinctive feature of Saracenic
+architecture. They were used originally as ornaments to mask the
+transition from a square court to the dome. But they soon took flight
+from that one service, and now they fill Arabian corners and angles and
+support Arabian curves so universally that for many of us the mere
+outline of one scribbled on paper brings up the whole pageant of the
+crescent-topped domes and towers of the East.
+
+The Cairo mosques are said to show the purest existing forms of
+Saracenic architecture. One hopes that this saying is true, for a
+dogmatic superlative of this sort is a rock of comfort, and one can
+remember it and repeat it. With the best of memories, however, one
+cannot intelligently see all these specimens of purity, unless, indeed,
+one takes up his residence in Cairo (and it is well known that when one
+lives in a place one never pays visits to those lions which other
+persons journey thousands of miles to see). Travellers, therefore, very
+soon choose a favorite and abide by it, vaunting it above all others, so
+that you hear of El Ghouri, with its striking facade and magnificent
+ceiling, as "the finest," and of Kalaoon as "the finest," and of Moaiyud
+as ditto; not to speak of those who prefer the venerable Touloun and
+Amer, and the undiscriminating crowd that is satisfied, and rightly,
+with Aristides the Just--that is, the mosque of Sultan Hassan. For
+myself, after acknowledging to a weakness for the mosques which are not
+in the guide-books, which possess no slippers, I confess that I admire
+most the tomb-mosque of Kait Bey. It is outside of Cairo proper, among
+those splendid half-ruined structures the so-called tombs of the
+Khalifs. It stands by itself, its chiselled dome and minaret, a
+lace-work in stone, clearly revealed. It would take pages to describe
+the fanciful beauty of every detail, both without and within, and there
+must, in any case, come an end of repeating the words "elegance,"
+"mosaic," "minaret," "arabesque," "jasper," and "mother-of-pearl." The
+chief treasures of this mosque are two blocks of rose granite which bear
+the so-called impressions of the feet of Mohammed; the legend is that he
+rests here for a moment or two at sunset every Thursday. "How well I
+understand this fancy of the prophet!" exclaimed an imaginative visitor.
+"How I wish I could do the same!"
+
+
+THE GIZEH MUSEUM
+
+One of the great events of the winter of 1890 was the opening of the new
+Museum of Egyptian Antiquities at Gizeh. This magnificent collection,
+which until recently has been ill-housed at Boulak, is now installed in
+another suburb, Gizeh, in one of the large summer palaces built by the
+former Khedive, Ismail. To reach it one passes through the new quarter
+and crosses the handsome Nile bridge. Not only are all these streets
+watered, but the pedestrian also can have water if he likes. Large
+earthen jars, propped by framework of wood, stand here and there, with
+the drinking-bottle, or kulleh, attached; these jars are replenished by
+the sakkahs, who carry the much-loved Nile water about the streets for
+sale. One passes at regular intervals the light stands, made of split
+sticks, upon which is offered for sale, in flat loaves like pancakes,
+the Cairo bread. There are also the open-air cook shops--small furnaces,
+like a tin pan with legs; spread out on a board before them are saucers
+containing mysterious compounds, and the cook is in attendance, wearing
+a white apron. These cooks never lack custom; a large majority of the
+poorer class in Cairo obtains its hot food, when it obtains it at all,
+at these impromptu tables. Before long one is sure to meet a file of
+camels. The camel ought to appreciate travellers; there is always a
+tourist murmuring "Oh!" whenever one of these supercilious beasts shows
+himself near the Ezbekiyeh Gardens. The American, indeed, cannot keep
+back the exclamation; perhaps when he was a child he attended (oh, happy
+day!) the circus, and watched with ecstasy the "Grande Orientale Rentree
+of the Lights of the Harem"--two of these strange steeds, ridden by
+dazzling houris in veils of glittering gauze. The camel has remained in
+his mind ever since as the attendant of sultanas; though this impression
+may have become mixed in later years with the constantly recurring
+painting (in a dead-gold frame and red mat) of a camel and an Arab in
+the desert, outlined against a sunset sky. In either case, however,
+the animal represents something which is as far as possible from an
+American street traversed by horse-cars, and when the inhabitant of this
+street sees the identical creature passing him, engaged not in making
+rentrees or posing against the sunset, but diligently at work carrying
+stones and mortar for his living, no wonder he feels that he has reached
+a land of dreams.
+
+[Illustration: A SELLER OF WATER-JUGS, CAIRO. From a photograph by
+Sebah, Cairo]
+
+Most of us do not lose our admiration for the Orientalness of the camel.
+But we learn in time that he has been praised for qualities which he
+does not possess. He is industrious, but he continually scolds about his
+industry; he may not trouble one with his thirst, but he revenges
+himself by his sneer. The smile of a camel is the most disdainful thing
+I know. On the other side of the Nile bridge one comes sometimes upon an
+acre of these beasts, all kneeling down in the extraordinary way
+peculiar to them, with their hind-legs turned up; here they chew as they
+rest, and put out their long necks to look at the passers-by. But the
+way to appreciate the neck of a camel is to be on a donkey; then, when
+the creature comes up behind and lopes past you, his neck seems to be
+the highest thing in Cairo--higher than a mosque.
+
+Beyond the bridge the road to Gizeh follows the river. Gizeh itself is
+the typical Nile village, with the low, clustered houses built of Nile
+mud (which looks like yellow-brown stucco), and beautiful feathery palms
+with a minaret or two rising above. The palace stands apart from the
+village, and is surrounded by large gardens. Opposite the central
+portico is the tomb of Mariette Pasha, the founder of the museum--a high
+sarcophagus designed from an antique model. Mariette Pasha (it may be
+mentioned here that the title Pasha means General, and that of Bey,
+Colonel) was a native of Boulogne. A mummy case in the museum of that
+town of schools first attracted his attention towards Egyptian
+antiquities, and in 1850 he came to Egypt. Khedive Said authorized him
+to found a museum; and Said's successor, Ismail, conferred upon him the
+exclusive right to make excavations, placing in his charge all the
+antiquities of Egypt. Mariette used these powers with intelligence and
+energy, giving the rest of his life to the task--a period of thirty
+years. He died in Cairo, at the age of sixty-one, in January, 1882. This
+Frenchman made many important discoveries, and he preserved to Egypt her
+remaining antiquities; before his time her treasures had been stolen and
+bought by all the world. A thought which haunts all travellers in this
+strange country is, how many more rich stores must still remain hidden!
+The most generally interesting among the recent discoveries was the
+finding of the Pharaohs, in 1881. The story has been given to the world
+in print, therefore it will be only outlined here. But by far the most
+fortunate way is to hear it directly from the lips of the keeper of the
+museum, Emil Brugsch Bey himself, his vivid, briefly direct narration
+adding the last charm to the striking facts. By the museum authorities
+it had been for several years suspected that some one at Luxor (Thebes)
+had discovered a hitherto unopened tomb; for funeral statuettes, papyri,
+and other objects, all of importance, were offered for sale there, one
+by one, and bought by travellers, who, upon their return to Cairo,
+displayed the treasures, without comprehending their value. Watch was
+kept, and suspicion finally centred upon a family of brothers; these
+Arabs at last confessed, and one of them led the way to a place not far
+from the temple called Deir-el-Bahari, which all visitors to Thebes will
+remember. Here, filled with sand, there was a shaft not unlike a well,
+which the man had discovered by chance. When the sand was removed, the
+opening of a lateral tunnel was visible below, and this tunnel led into
+the heart of the hill, where, in a rude chamber twenty feet high, were
+piled thirty or more mummy cases, most of them decorated with the royal
+asp. The mummies proved to be those of Sethi the First, the conqueror
+who carried his armies as far into Asia as the Orontes; and of Rameses
+the Great (called Sesostris by the Greeks), the Pharaoh who oppressed
+the Israelites; and of Sethi the Second, the Pharaoh of the Exodus,
+together with other sovereigns and members of their families, princes,
+princesses, and priests. At some unknown period these mummies had been
+taken from the magnificent rock tombs in that terrible Apocalyptic
+Valley of the Kings, not far distant, and hidden in this rough chamber.
+No one knows why this was done; a record of it may yet be discovered.
+But in time all knowledge of the hiding-place was lost, and here the
+Pharaohs remained until that July day in 1881. They were all transported
+across the burning plain and down the Nile to Cairo. Now at last they
+repose in state in an apartment which might well be called a
+throne-room. You reach this great cruciform hall by a handsome double
+stairway; upon entering, you see the Pharaohs ranged in a majestic
+circle, and careless though you may be, unhistorical, practical, you are
+impressed. The features are distinct. Some of the dark faces have
+dignity; others show marked resolution and power. Curiously enough, one
+of them closely resembles Voltaire. This, however, is probably due to
+the fact that Voltaire closely resembled a mummy while living. How would
+it seem, the thought that beings who are to come into existence A.D.
+5000 should be able, in the land which we now call the United States of
+America (what will it be called then?), to gaze upon the features of
+some of our Presidents--for instance, George Washington and Abraham
+Lincoln? I am afraid that the fancy is not as striking as it should be,
+for New World ambition grasps without difficulty all futures, even A.D.
+25,000; it is only when our eyes are turned towards the past, where we
+have no importance and represent nothing, that an enumeration of
+centuries overpowers us--a little. But in any case, after visiting
+Egypt, we all learn to hate the art of the embalmer; those who have been
+up the Nile, and beheld the poor relics of mortality offered for sale on
+the shores, become, as it were by force, advocates of cremation.
+
+[Illustration: STATUE OF PRINCE RAHOTEP'S WIFE
+
+Gizeh Museum.--Discovered in 1870 in a tomb near Meydoom.--According to
+the chronological table of Mariette, it is 5800 years old.--From a
+photograph by Sebah, Cairo.
+
+]
+
+The Gizeh Museum is vast; days are required to see all its treasures.
+Among the best of these are two colored statues, the size of life,
+representing Prince Rahotep and his wife; these were discovered in 1870
+in a tomb near Meydoom. Their rock-crystal eyes are so bright that the
+Arabs employed in the excavation fled in terror when they came upon the
+long-hidden chamber. They said that two afreets were sitting there,
+ready to spring out and devour all intruders. Railed in from his
+admirers is the intelligent, well-fed, highly popular wooden man, whose
+life-like expression raises a smile upon the faces of all who approach
+him. This figure is not in the least like the Egyptian statues of
+conventional type, with unnaturally placed eyes. As regards the head, it
+might be the likeness of a Berlin merchant of to-day, or it might be a
+successful American bank president after a series of dinners at
+Delmonico's. Yet, strange to say, this, and the wonderful diorite statue
+of Chafra, are the oldest sculptured figures in the world.
+
+One is tempted to describe some of the other treasures of this precious
+and unrivalled collection, as well as to note in detail the odd
+contrasts between Ismail's gayly flowered walls and the solemn
+antiquities ranged below them. "But here is no space," as Lady Mary
+Wortley Montagu would have expressed it. And one of the curious facts
+concerning description is that those who have with their own eyes seen
+the statue, for instance, which is the subject of a writer's pen (and it
+is the same with regard to a landscape, or a country, or whatever you
+please)--such persons sometimes like to read an account of it, though
+the words are not needed to bring up the true image of the thing
+delineated, whereas those who have never seen the statue--that is, the
+vast majority--are, as a general rule, not in the least interested in
+any description of it, long or short, and, indeed, consider all such
+descriptions a bore.
+
+At present the one fault of Gizeh is the absence of a catalogue. But
+catalogues are a mysterious subject, comprehended only by the elect.
+
+[Illustration: THE WOODEN MAN
+
+Gizeh Museum, near Cairo.--According to the chronological table of
+Marlette, this statue is over 6000 years old.--From a photograph by
+Brugsch Bey]
+
+One day when I was passing the hot hours in the shaded rooms of the
+museum, surrounded by seated granite figures with their hands on their
+knees (the coolest companions I know), I heard chattering and laughter.
+These are unusual sounds in those echoing halls, where unconsciously
+everybody whispers, partly because of the echo, and partly also, I
+think, on account of the mystic mummy cases which stand on end and look
+at one so queerly with their oblique eyes. Presently there came into
+view ten or twelve Cairo ladies, followed by eunuchs, and preceded by a
+guide. The eunuchs were (as eunuchs generally are) hideous, though they
+represented all ages, from a tall lank boy of seventeen to a withered
+old creature well beyond sixty. The Cairo eunuchs are negroes; one
+distinguishes them always by the extreme care with which they are
+dressed. They wear coats and trousers of black broadcloth made in the
+latest European style, with patent-leather shoes, and they are decorated
+with gold chains, seal rings, and scarf-pins; they have one merit as
+regards their appearance--I know of but one--they do look clean. The
+ladies were taking their ease; the muffling black silk outer cloaks,
+which all Egyptian women of the upper class wear when they leave the
+house, had been thrown aside; the white face veils had been loosened so
+that they dropped below the chin. It was the hareem of the Minister for
+Foreign Affairs; their carriages were waiting below. The most modest of
+men--a missionary, for instance, or an entomologist--would, I suppose,
+have put them to flight; but as the tourist season was over, and as it
+was luncheon-time for Europeans, no one appeared but myself, and the
+ladies strayed hither and thither as they chose, occasionally stopping
+to hear a few words of the explanations which the guide (a woman also)
+was vainly trying to give before each important statue. With one
+exception, these Cairo dames were, to say the least, extremely plump;
+their bare hands were deeply dimpled, their cheeks round. They all
+had the same very white complexion without rose tints; their features
+were fairly good, though rather thick; the eyes in each case were
+beautiful--large, dark, lustrous, with sweeping lashes. Their figures,
+under their loose garments, looked like feather pillows. They were
+awkward in bearing and gait, but this might have been owing to the fact
+that their small plump feet (in white open-work cotton stockings) were
+squeezed into very tight French slippers with abnormally high heels,
+upon which it must have been difficult to balance so many dimples. The
+one exception to the rule of billowy beauty was a slender, even meagrely
+formed girl, who in America would pass perhaps for seventeen; probably
+she was three years younger. Her thin, dark, restless face, with its
+beautiful inquiring eyes, was several times close beside mine as we both
+inspected the golden bracelets and ear-rings, the necklaces and fan, of
+Queen Ahhotpu, our sister in vanity of three thousand five hundred years
+ago. I looked more at her than I did at the jewels, and she returned my
+gaze; we might have had a conversation. What would I not have given to
+have been able to talk with her in her own tongue! After a while they
+all assembled in what is called the winter garden, an up-stairs
+apartment, where grass grows over the floor in formal little plots.
+Chairs were brought, and they seated themselves amid this aerial verdure
+to partake of sherbet, which the youngest eunuch handed about with a
+business-like air. While they were still here, much relaxed as regards
+attire and attitude, my attention was attracted by the rush through the
+outer room (where I myself was seated) of the four older eunuchs. They
+had been idling about; they had even gone down the stairs, leaving to
+the youngest of their number the task of serving the sherbet; but now
+they all appeared again, and the swiftness with which they crossed the
+outer room and dashed into the winter-garden created a breeze. They
+called to their charges as they came, and there was a general smoothing
+down of draperies. The eunuchs, however, stood upon no ceremony; they
+themselves attired the ladies in the muffling cloaks, and refastened
+their veils securely, as a nurse dresses children, and with quite as
+much authority. I noticed that the handsomer faces showed no especial
+haste to disappear from view; but there was no real resistance; there
+was only a good deal of laughter.
+
+I dare say that there was more laughter still (under the veils) when the
+cause of all this haste appeared, coming slowly up the stairs. It was a
+small man of sixty-five or seventy, one of my own countrymen, attired in
+a linen duster and a travel-worn high hat; his silver-haired head was
+bent over his guide-book, and he wore blue spectacles. I don't think he
+saw anything but blue antiquities, safely made of stone.
+
+Hareem carriages (that is, ladies' carriages) in Cairo are large,
+heavily built broughams. The occupants wear thin white muslin or white
+tulle veils tied across the face under the eyes, with an upper band of
+the same material across the forehead; but these veils do not in reality
+hide the features much more closely than do the dotted black or white
+lace veils worn by Europeans. The muffling outer draperies, however,
+completely conceal the figure, and this makes the marked difference
+between them and their English, French, and American sisters in the
+other carriages near at hand. On the box of the brougham, with the
+coachman, the eunuch takes his place. To go out without a eunuch would
+be a humiliation for a Cairo wife; to her view, it would seem to say
+that she is not sufficiently attractive to require a guardian. The
+hareem carriage of a man of importance has not only its eunuch, but also
+its sais, or running footman; often two of them. These winged creatures
+precede the carriage; no matter how rapid the pace of the horses, they
+are always in advance, carrying, lightly poised in one hand, high in the
+air, a long lance-like wand. Their gait is the most beautiful motion I
+have ever seen. The Mercury of John of Bologna; the younger gods of
+Olympus--will these do for comparisons? One calls the sais winged not
+only because of his speed, but also on account of his large white
+sleeves (in English, angel sleeves), which, though lightly caught
+together behind, float out on each side as he runs, like actual wings.
+His costume is rich--a short velvet jacket thickly embroidered with
+gold; a red cap with long silken tassel; full white trousers which end
+at the knee, leaving the legs and feet bare; and a brilliant scarf
+encircling the small waist. These men are Nubians, and are admirably
+formed; often they are very handsome. Naturally one never sees an old
+one, and it is said that they die young. Their original office was to
+clear a passage for the carriage through the narrow, crowded streets;
+now that the streets are broader, they are not so frequently seen,
+though Egyptians of rank still employ them, not only for their hareem
+carriages, but for their own. They are occasionally seen, also, before
+the victoria or the landau of European residents; but in this case their
+Oriental dress accords ill with the stiff, tight Parisian costumes
+behind them. Now and then one sees them perched on the back seat of an
+English dog-cart, and here they look well; they always sit sidewise,
+with one hand on the back of the seat, as though ready at a moment's
+notice to spring out and begin flying again.
+
+If the figures of the Cairo ladies are always well muffled, one has at
+least abundant opportunity to admire the grace and strength of the women
+of the working classes. When young they have a noble bearing. Their
+usual dress is a long gown of very dark blue cotton, a black head veil,
+and a thick black face veil that is kept in its place below the eyes by
+a gilded ornament which looks like an empty spool. Often their
+beautifully shaped slender feet are bare; but even the poorest are
+decked with anklets, bracelets, and necklaces of beads, imitation silver
+or brass. The men of the working classes wear blue gowns also, but the
+blue is of a much lighter hue; many of them, especially the farmers and
+farm laborers (called fellaheen), have wonderfully straight flat backs
+and broad, strong shoulders. Europeans, when walking, appear at a great
+disadvantage beside these loosely robed people; all their movements seem
+cramped when compared with the free, effortless step of the Arab beside
+them.
+
+
+THE BAZAARS
+
+One spends half one's time in the bazaars, perhaps. One admires them and
+adores them; but one feels that their attraction cannot be made clear to
+others by words. Nor can it be by the camera. There are a thousand
+photographic views of Cairo offered for sale, but, with the exception of
+an attempt at the gateway of the Khan Khaleel, not one copy of these
+labyrinths, which is a significant fact. Their charm comes from color,
+and this can be represented by the painter's brush alone. But even the
+painter can render it only in bits. From a selfish point of view we
+might perhaps be glad that there is one spot left on this earth whose
+characteristic aspect cannot be reproduced, either upon the wall or the
+pictured page, whose shimmering vistas must remain a purely personal
+memory. We can say to those who have in their minds the same fantastic
+vision, "Ah, _you_ know!" But we cannot make others know. For what is
+the use of declaring that a collection of winding lanes, some of them
+not more than three feet broad, opening into and leading out of each
+other, unpaved, dirty, roofed far above, where the high stone houses
+end, with a lattice-work of old mats--what is the use of declaring that
+this maze is one of the most delightful places in the world? There is no
+use; one must see it to believe it.
+
+[Illustration: AN EGYPTIAN WOMAN
+
+From a photograph by Abdullah Freres, Cairo]
+
+We approach the bazaars by the Mooski, a street which has lost all its
+ancient attraction--which is, in fact, one of the most commonplace
+avenues I know. But near its end the enchantment begins, and whether we
+enter the flag bazaar, the lemon-colored-slipper bazaar, the
+gold-and-silver bazaar, the bazaar of the Soudan, the bazaar of silks
+and embroideries, the bazaar of Turkish carpets, or the lane of perfumes
+felicitously named by the donkey-boys the smell bazaar, we are soon in
+the condition of children before a magician's table. I defy any one to
+resist it. The most tired American business man looks about him with
+awakened interest, the lines of his face relax and turn into the
+wrinkles we associate with laughter, as he sees the small, frontless
+shops, the long-skirted merchants, and the sewing, embroidering,
+cross-legged crowd. The best way, indeed, to view the bazaars is to
+relax--to relax your ideas of time as well as of pace, and not be in a
+hurry about anything. Accompany some one who is buying, but do not buy
+yourself; then you can have a seat on the divan, and even (as a friend
+of the purchaser) one of those wee cups of black coffee which the
+merchant offers, and which, whether you like it or not, you take,
+because it belongs to the scene. Thus seated, you can look about at your
+ease.
+
+In these days, when every one is rereading the _Arabian Nights_, the
+learned in Burton's translation, the outside public in Lady Burton's,
+even the most unmethodical of writers feels himself, in connection with
+Cairo, forced towards the inevitable allusion to Haroun. But once within
+the precincts of the Khan Khaleel, he does not need to have his fancy
+jogged by Burton or any one else; he thinks of the _Arabian Nights_
+instinctively, and "it's a poor tale," indeed, to quote Mrs. Poyser, if
+he does not meet the one-eyed calendar in the very first booth. But, as
+has already been said, it is useless to describe. All one can do is to
+set down a few impressions. One of the first of these is the charming
+light. The sunshine of Egypt has a great radiance, but it has also--and
+this is especially visible when one looks across any breadth of
+landscape--a pleasant quality of softness; it is a radiance which is
+slightly hazy and slightly golden brown, being in these respects quite
+unlike the pellucid white light of Greece. The Greeks frown; even the
+youngest of the handsome men who go about in ballet-like white
+petticoats and the brimless cap, has the ugly little perpendicular line
+between the eyes, produced by a constant knitting of the brows. Like the
+Greek, the Egyptian also is without protection for his eyes; the
+dragoman wears a small shawl over the fez, which covers the back of the
+neck and sides of the face, the Bedouins have a hood, but the large
+majority of the natives are unprotected. It is said that a Mohammedan
+can have no brim to his turban or tarboosh, because he must place his
+bare forehead upon the ground when he says his prayers, and this without
+removing his head-gear (which would be irreverent). However this may be,
+he goes about in Egypt with the sun in his eyes, though, owing to the
+softer quality of the light, he does not frown as the Greek frowns. For
+those who are not Egyptians, however, the light in Cairo sometimes seems
+too omnipresent; then, for refuge, they can go to the bazaars. The
+sunshine is here cut off horizontally by thick walls, and from above it
+is filtered through mats, whose many interstices cause a checker of
+light and shade in an infinite variety of unexpected patterns on the
+ground. This ground is watered. Somehow the air is cool; coming in from
+the bright streets outside is like entering an arbor. The little shops
+resemble cupboards; their floors are about three feet above the street.
+They have no doors at the back. When the merchant wishes to close his
+establishment, he comes out, pulls down the lid, locks it, and goes
+home. A picturesque characteristic is that in many cases the wares are
+simply sold here; they are also made, one by one, upon the spot. You can
+see the brass-workers incising the arabesques of their trays; you can
+see the armorers making arms, the ribbon-makers making ribbons, the
+jewellers blowing their forges, the ivory-carvers bending over their
+delicate task. As soon as each article is finished, it is dusted and
+placed upon the little shelf above, and then the apprentice sets to work
+upon a new one. In addition to the light, another thing one notices is
+the amazing way in which the feet are used. In Cairo one soon becomes as
+familiar with feet as one is elsewhere with hands; it is not merely that
+they are bare; it is that the toes appear to be prehensile, like
+fingers. In the bazaars the embroiderers hold their cloth with their
+toes; the slipper-makers, the flag-cutters, the brass-workers, the
+goldsmiths, employ their second set of fingers almost as much as they
+employ the first. Both the hands and feet of these men are well formed,
+slender, and delicate, and, by the rules of their religion, they are
+bathed five times each day.
+
+Mosques are near where they can get water for this duty. For the bazaars
+are not continuous rows of shops: one comes not infrequently upon the
+ornamental portal of an old Arabian dwelling-house, upon the forgotten
+tomb of a sheykh, with its low dome; one passes under stone arches;
+often one sees the doorway of a mosque. Humble-minded dogs, who look
+like jackals, prowl about. The populace trudges through the narrow
+lanes, munching sugar-cane whenever it can get it. Another favorite food
+is the lettuce-plant; but the leaves, which we use for salad, the
+Egyptians throw away; it is the stalk that attracts them.
+
+Lettuce-stalks are not rich food, but the bazaars of the people who eat
+them convey, on the whole, an impression of richness; this is owing to
+the sumptuousness of the prayer carpets, the gold embroideries, the
+gleaming silks, the Oriental brass-work with sentences from the Koran,
+the ivory, the ostrich plumes, the little silver bottles for kohl, the
+inlaid daggers, the turquoises and pearls, and the beautiful gauzes, a
+few of them embroidered with the motto, "I do this work for you," and on
+the reverse side, "And this I do for God." To some persons, the
+far-penetrating mystic sweetness from the perfume bazaar adds an element
+also. Here sit the Persian merchants in their delicate silken robes;
+they weigh incense on tiny scales; they sort the gold-embossed vials of
+attar of roses; their taper fingers move about amid whimsically small
+cabinets and chests of drawers filled with ambrosial mysteries. There is
+magic in names; these merchants are doubly interesting because they come
+from Ispahan! Scanderoun--there is another; how it rolls off the tongue!
+We do not wish for exact geographical descriptions of these places; that
+would spoil all. We wish to chant, like Kit Marlowe's Tamburlaine (and
+with similar indefiniteness):
+
+    "Is it not passing brave to be a king,
+    And march in triumph through Persepolis?"
+
+    "So will I ride through Samarcanda streets,
+    ... to Babylon, my lords; to Babylon!"
+
+[Illustration: THE NILE--COMING DOWN TO GET WATER
+
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
+
+When we leave Cairo we cannot take with us the light of these
+labyrinths; we cannot take their colors; but one traveller, last May,
+having found in an antiquity-shop an ancient perfume-burner, had the
+inspiration of bargaining with these Persians, seated cross-legged in
+their aromatic niches (said traveller on a white donkey outside), for
+small packages of sandal and aloes wood, of myrrh, of frankincense and
+ambergris, of benzoin, of dried rose leaves, and of other Oriental twigs
+and sticks, for the purpose of summing up, later, and in less congenial
+climes perhaps, the spicy atmosphere, at least, of the Cairo bazaars.
+What would be the effect of breathing always this fragrant air? Would it
+give a richer life, would it tinge the cheek with warmer hues? These
+merchants have complexions like cream-tinted tea-roses; their dark eyes
+are clear, and all their movements graceful; they are very tranquil, but
+not in the least sleepy; they look as if they could take part in subtle
+arguments, and pursue the finest chains of reasoning. Would an
+atmosphere perfumed by these Eastern woods clarify and rarefy our denser
+Occidental minds?
+
+
+THE NILE
+
+As every one who comes to Cairo goes up the Nile, the river is seldom
+thought of as it appears during its course past the Khedive's city. This
+simple vision of it is overshadowed by memories of Abydos, of Karnak and
+Thebes, and Philae--the great temples on its banks which have impressed
+one so profoundly. Perhaps they have over-impressed; possibly the
+tension of continuous gazing has been kept up too long. In this case the
+victim, with his head in his hands, is ready to echo the (extremely
+true) exclamation of Dudley Warner, "There is nothing on earth so
+tiresome as a row of stone gods standing to receive the offerings of a
+Turveydrop of a king!" This was the mental condition of a lady who last
+winter, on a Nile boat, suddenly began to sew. "I have spent nine long
+days on this boat, staring from morning till night. One cannot stare at
+a river forever, even if it _is_ the Nile! Give me my thimble."
+
+One is not obliged to leave Cairo in order to see examples of the
+smaller silhouettes of the great river--the shadoofs or irrigating
+machines, the rows of palm-trees, the lateen yards clustered near a
+port, and always and forever the women coming down the bank to get water
+from the yellow tide. These processions of women are the most
+characteristic "Nile scene with figures" of the present day. I am not
+sure but that one of their jars, or the smaller gray kulleh (which by
+evaporation keeps the water deliciously cool), would evoke "Egypt" more
+quickly in the minds of most of us than even the portrait of Cleopatra
+herself on the back wall at Denderah. If one is staying in Cairo after
+the tremendous voyage is over, one wanders to the banks every now and
+then to gaze anew at the broad, monotonous stream. It comes from the
+last remaining unknown territory of our star, and this very year has
+seen that space grow smaller. Round about it stand to-day five or six of
+the civilized nations, who have formed a battue, and are driving in the
+game. The old river had a secret, one of the three secrets of the world;
+but though the North and South Poles still remain unmapped, the annual
+rise of its waters will be strange no longer when Lado is a second
+Birmingham. How will it seem when we can telephone to Sennaar (perhaps
+to that ambassador beloved by readers of the Easy Chair), or when there
+is early closing in Darfur?
+
+[Illustration: THE DOCK AT OLD CAIRO
+
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
+
+At Cairo, when one rides or drives, one almost always crosses the Nile;
+but Cairo herself does not cross. Her more closely built quarters do not
+even come down to the shore. The Nile and Cairo are two distinct
+personalities; they are not one and indivisible, as the Nile and Thebes
+are one, the Nile and Philae.
+
+The river at Cairo has a dull appearance. Its only beauty comes from the
+towering snow-white sails of the dahabeeyahs and trading craft that
+crowd the stream. It is true that these have a great charm.
+
+
+DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE
+
+In the old quarters this is Arabian. The beauty lies largely in the
+latticed balconies called mouchrabiyehs, which overhang the narrow
+roadways. These bay-windows sometimes stud the facades thickly, now
+large, now small, but always a fretwork of delicate wood-carving. Often
+from the bay projects a second and smaller oriel, also latticed. This is
+the place for the water jar, the current of air through the lattices
+keeping the water cool. An Arabian house has no windows on the
+ground-floor in its outer wall save small air-holes placed very high,
+but above are these mouchrabiyehs, which are made of bits of cedar
+elaborately carved in geometrical designs. The small size of the pieces
+is due to the climate, the heats of the long summer would warp larger
+surfaces of wood; but the delicacy and intricacy of the carving are a
+work of supererogation due to Arabian taste. From the mouchrabiyehs the
+inmates can see the passers-by, but the passers-by cannot see the
+inmates, an essential condition for the carefully guarded privacy of the
+family.
+
+There is in Cairo a personage unconnected with the government who, among
+the native population, is almost as important as the Khedive himself;
+this is the Sheykh Ahmed Mohammed es Sadat, the only descendant in the
+direct line of the Prophet Mohammed now living. He has the right to many
+native titles, though he does not put them on his quiet little
+visiting-card, which bears only his name and a mysterious monogram in
+Arabic. By Europeans he is called simply the Sheykh (the word means
+chief) es Sadat. The ancestral dwelling of the sheykh shares in its
+master's distinction. It is pointed out, and, when permission can be
+obtained, visited. It is a typical specimen of Saracenic domestic
+architecture, and has always remained in the possession of the family,
+for whom it was first erected eight hundred years ago. There are in
+Cairo other Arabian houses as beautiful and as ancient as this. By
+diplomatic (and mercenary) arts I gained admittance to three, one of
+which has walls studded with jasper and mother-of-pearl. But these
+exquisite chambers, being half ruined, fill the mind with wicked
+temptations. One longs to lay hands upon the tiles, to bargain for an
+inscription or for a small oriel with the furtive occupants, who have no
+right to sell, the real owners being Arabs of ancient race, who would
+refuse to strip their walls, however crumbling, for unbelievers from
+contemptible, paltry lands beyond the sea. The house of the Sheykh es
+Sadat may not leave one tranquil, for it is tantalizingly picturesque,
+but at least it does not inspire larceny; the presence of many servitors
+prevents that. To reach this residence one leaves (gladly) the Boulevard
+Mohammed Ali, and takes a narrower thoroughfare, the Street of the
+Sycamores, which bends towards the south. This lane winds as it goes,
+following the course of the old canal, the Khaleeg, and one passes many
+of the public fountains, or sebeels, which are almost as numerous in
+Cairo as the mosques. A fountain in Arab signification does not mean a
+jet of water, but simply a place where water can be obtained. The
+sebeels are beautiful structures, often having marble walls, a dome, and
+the richest kind of ornament. The water is either dipped with a cup from
+the basin within, or drawn from the brass mouth-pieces placed
+outside. Nothing could represent better, I think, the difference between
+the East and the West than one of these elaborate fountains, covering,
+in a crowded quarter, the space which might have been occupied by two or
+three small houses, adorned with carved stone-work, slabs of porphyry,
+and long inscriptions in gilt, and an iron town pump, its erect
+slenderness taking up no space at all, and its excellent if unbeautiful
+handle standing straight out against the sky.
+
+[Illustration: MOUCHRABIYEHS IN THE OLD QUARTER]
+
+A narrow lane, leaving the Street of the Sycamores, burrows still more
+deeply into the heart of the quarter, and at last brings us to a porch
+which juts into the roadway, masking, as is usual in Cairo, the real
+doorway, which is within. Upon entering, one finds himself in a
+quadrilateral court, which is open to the sky. An old sycamore shades
+several latticed windows, among them one which contains three of the
+smaller oriels; this portion of the second story rests upon an antique
+marble column. On one side of the column is the low, rough archway
+leading to the porch; on the other, the high decorated marble entrance
+of the reception-hall. For in Arabian houses all the magnificence is
+kept for the interior. In the streets one sees only plain stone walls,
+which are often hidden under a stucco of mud, more or less peeled off,
+so that they look half ruined. In the old quarters of Cairo, among the
+private houses, one obtains, indeed (unless one has an invitation to
+enter), a general impression of ruin. At the back of the sheykh's court
+is the stairway to the hareem, the entrance masked by a gayly colored
+curtain. Across another side extends the private mosque, only half
+hidden by an ornamented grating. One can see the interior and the high
+pulpit decked with the green flag of the Prophet. The walls which
+encircle the court, and which are embellished here and there with Arabic
+inscriptions, are of differing heights, as they form parts of separate
+structures which have been erected at various periods through the eight
+centuries. The place is, in fact, an agglomeration of houses, and some
+of the older chambers are crumbling and roofless. The central court
+(which shows its age only in a picturesque trace or two) is adorned with
+at least twenty beautiful mouchrabiyehs, some large, some small, and no
+two on the same level. A charm of Saracenic architecture is that you can
+always make discoveries, nothing is stereotyped; of a dozen delicate
+rosettes standing side by side under a balcony, no two are carved in the
+same design.
+
+[Illustration: INTERIOR COURT OF A NATIVE HOUSE, CAIRO
+
+From a photograph by Abdullah Freres, Cairo]
+
+In a room which stretches back to the garden--and which at the time of
+our visit was empty, save for a row of antique silver-gilt coffee-pots
+standing on the marble floor--there is a long, low window, like a band
+in the wall, formed of small carved lattices. The hand of Abbey only, I
+think, could reproduce the beauty of this casement; but instead of the
+charming seventeenth-century English girls whom he would wish to place
+there, realism would demand the hideous eunuchs, with their gold chains
+and scarf-pins; or else (and this would be better) the dignified old
+Arab in a white turban who sat cross-legged in the court with his long
+pipe, his half-closed eyes expressing his disdain for the American
+visitors. The courtesy of the master of the house, however, made up for
+his servitor's scorn. The sheykh is a tall man, somewhat too portly,
+with amiable dark eyes, and a gleam of humor in his face. One scans his
+features with interest, as if to catch some reflection of the Prophet;
+but the rays from an ancestor who walked the earth twelve hundred years
+ago are presumably faint. There is nothing modern in the sheykh's
+attire; his handsome flowing gown is of silk; he wears a turban,
+slippers, and an India shawl wound round his waist like a sash. When the
+air is cool, he shrouds himself in a large outer cloak of fine dark
+blue cloth, which is lined with white fur. Sometimes Signor Ahmed
+carries in his hand the Mohammedan rosary. This string of beads appears
+to be used as Madame de Stael used her "little stick," as the English
+called it (in Italy, more poetically, they named it "a twig of laurel").
+Corrinne must always have this beside her plate at dinner to play with
+before she conversed, or rather declaimed. Her maid, in confidence,
+explained that it was necessary to madame "to stimulate her ideas." One
+often sees the rosary on duty when two Turks are conversing. After a
+while, their subjects failing them, they fall into silence. Then each
+draws out his string from a pocket, and they play with their beads for a
+moment or two, until, inspiration reviving, they begin talking again.
+One hopes that poor Ahmed Mohammed has not been driven to his string too
+often as mental support during dumb visits from Anglo-Saxon tourists,
+who can do nothing but stare at him. The sheykh's reception-hall is
+forty feet wide and sixty feet long. The ceiling, which has the
+Saracenic pendentives in the corners and under the beams, is of wood,
+gilded and painted and carved in the characteristic style which one
+vainly tries to describe. Travellers have likened it to an India shawl;
+to me it seemed to approach more nearly the wrong side of a Persian
+scarf, which shows the many-hued silken ravellings. The effect, as a
+whole, though extraordinarily rich, is yet subdued. The walls are
+encrusted with old blue tiles which mount to the top. At one end of the
+room there is a beautiful wall-fountain. And now comes the other side of
+the story. To enjoy all this beauty, you must not look down; for, alas!
+the marble floor is tightly covered with a modern French carpet; chairs
+and tables of the most ordinary modern designs have taken the place of
+the old divans; and these tables, furthermore, are ornamented with
+hideous bouquets of artificial flowers under glass. Finally, the tiles
+which have fallen from the lower part of the walls have not been
+replaced by others; a coarse fresco has been substituted. What would not
+one give to see the sheykh, who is himself a purely Oriental figure,
+seated in this splendid hall of his fathers as it once was, on one of
+the now superseded divans, the marbles of his floor uncovered save for
+his discarded Turkish rugs, the fountain sending forth its rose-water
+spray, perfume burning in the silver receivers, and no encumbering
+furniture save piles of brocaded cushions and a jar or two on the gilded
+shelf.
+
+But we shall never see this. In 1889, 180,594 travellers crossed Egypt
+by way of the Suez Canal. In this item of statistics we have the reason.
+
+
+THE PYRAMIDS
+
+For those who have fair eyesight the pyramids of Gizeh are a part of
+Cairo; their gray triangles against the sky are visible from so many
+points that they soon become as familiar as a neighboring hill. In
+addition, they have been pictured to us so constantly in paintings,
+drawings, engravings, and photographs that one views them at first more
+with recognition than surprise. "There they are! How natural!" And this
+long familiarity makes one shrink from arranging phrases about them.
+
+One thing, however, can be said: when we are in actual fact under them,
+when we can touch them, our easy acquaintance vanishes, and we suddenly
+perceive that we have never comprehended them in the least. The strange
+geometrical walls effect a spiritual change in us; they free us from
+ourselves for a moment, and unconsciously we look back across the past
+to which they belong, and into the future, of which they are a part
+much more than we are, as unmindful of our own little cares and
+occupations, and even our own small lives, as though we had never been
+chained to them. It is but a fleeting second, perhaps, that this mental
+emancipation lasts, but it is a second worth having!
+
+One drives to the pyramids in an hour, over a macadamized road. The
+perennial stories about trouble with the Bedouins belong to the past.
+Soldiers and policemen guard the sands as they guard the Cairo streets,
+and the proffer of false antiquities is not more pressing, perhaps, than
+the demands of the beggars in town. These three pyramids of Gizeh are
+those we think of before we have visited Egypt. But there are others;
+including the small ones and those which are ruined, seventy have been
+counted in twenty-five miles from Cairo to Meydoom, and pyramids are to
+be seen in other parts of Egypt. The stories concerning Gizeh and the
+travellers who, from Herodotus down, have visited the colossal tombs,
+are innumerable. I do not know why the one about Lepsius should seem to
+me amusing. This learned man and his party, who were sent to Egypt by
+King Frederick William of Prussia in 1842, celebrated that king's
+birthday by singing in chorus the Prussian national anthem in the centre
+of Cheops. The Bedouins in attendance reported outside that they had
+"prayed all together a loud general prayer."
+
+In connection with the pyramids, the English may be said to have devoted
+themselves principally to measurements. The genius of the French, which
+is ever that of expression, has invented the one great sentence about
+them. So far, the Americans have done nothing by which to distinguish
+themselves; but their time will come, perhaps. One fancies that Edison
+will have something to do with it. In the meanwhile modernity is already
+there. There is a hotel at the foot of Cheops, and one hardly knows
+whether to laugh or to cry when one sees lawn-tennis going on there
+daily.
+
+But no matter what lies before us--even if they should pave the desert,
+and establish an English tramway (or a line of American horse-cars) to
+the Sphinx--these mighty masses cannot be belittled. There is something
+in the pyramids which overawes our boasted civilization. In their
+presence this seems trivial; it seems an impertinence.
+
+
+THE COPTS
+
+The most interesting of the Coptic churches are at Old Cairo, a mother
+suburb, where the first city was founded by the conquering Arabian army.
+Here, ensconced amid hill-like mounds of rubbish, concealed behind mud
+walls, hidden at the end of blind alleys, one finds the temples of these
+native Christians, who are the descendants of the converts of St. Mark.
+The exterior walls have no importance. In truth, one seldom sees them,
+for the churches are within other structures. Some of them form part of
+old fortified convents; one is reached by passing through the
+dwelling-rooms of an inhabited house; another is up-stairs in a Roman
+tower. You arrive somehow at a door. When this is opened, you find
+yourself in a church whose general aspect is rough, and whose aisles are
+adorned with dust and sometimes with dirt. But these temples have their
+treasures. Chief among them are the high choir screens of dark wood,
+elaborately carved in panels, and decorated with morsels of ivory which
+have grown yellow from age. The sculpture is not open-work; it does not
+go through the panel; it is done in relief. The designs are Saracenic,
+but these geometrical patterns are interrupted every now and then by
+Christian emblems and by the Coptic cross. The style of this
+wood-carving is unique; no other sculpture resembles it. If it does not
+quite attain beauty, it is at least very odd and rich. There are also
+carved doors representing Scriptural subjects, marble pulpits, singular
+bronze candlesticks, brass censers adorned with little bells,
+silver-gilt gospel-cases, embroidered vestments, silver marriage-diadems,
+ostrich eggs in metal cases, and old Byzantine paintings, often
+representing St. George, for St. George is the patron saint of the
+Copts.
+
+[Illustration: A DONKEY RIDE]
+
+These people esteem themselves to be the true descendants of the ancient
+Egyptians, as distinguished from the conquering race of Arabians who
+have now overrun their land. It is a comical idea, but they call upon
+us to note their close resemblance to the mummies. Early converts to
+Christianity, they have remained faithful to their belief amid the
+Mohammedan population all about them. It must be mentioned, however,
+that they had been pronounced heretics by the Council of Chalcedon
+before the Arabian conquest; for they had refused to worship the human
+nature of Christ, revering His divine nature alone. They are the
+guardians of the Christian legends of Egypt. In a crypt under one of
+their churches they show two niches. One, they say, was the
+sleeping-place of Joseph, and the other of the Virgin and Child, during
+the flight into Egypt. Near Heliopolis is an ancient tree, under whose
+branches the Holy Family are supposed to have rested when the sunshine
+was too hot for further travelling.
+
+There are between four and five hundred thousand Copts in Egypt. It may
+be mentioned here that the Christians of the country, including all
+branches of the faith, number to-day about six hundred thousand, or
+one-tenth of the population. The Copts are the book-keepers and scribes;
+they are also the jewellers and embroiderers. Their ancient tongue has
+fallen into disuse, and is practically a dead language. They now use
+Arabic, like all the rest of the nation; but the speech survives in
+their church service, a part of which is still given in the old tongue,
+though it is said that even the priests themselves do not always
+understand what they are saying, having merely learned the sentences by
+heart, so that they can repeat them as a matter of form. Copts have been
+converted to Protestantism during these latter days by the American
+missionaries.
+
+They are not, in appearance, an attractive people. Their convents and
+churches, at least in Cairo and its neighborhood, are so hidden away,
+inaccessible, and dirty that they are but slightly appreciated by the
+majority of travellers, who spend far more of their time among the
+mosques of Mohammed. But both the people and their ancient language are
+full of interest from an historical point of view. They form a field for
+research which will give some day rich results. A little has been done,
+and well done; but much still remains hidden. It has yet to be dug out
+by the learned. Then it must be translated by the middle-men into those
+agreeable little histories which, with agreeable little tunes, agreeable
+little stories, and agreeable little pictures, are the delight of the
+many.
+
+
+KIEF
+
+The large modern cafes of Cairo are imitations of the cafes of Paris.
+They are uninteresting, save that one sees under their awnings, or at
+the little tables within, the stambouline in all its glory and
+ugliness--that is, the heavy black frock-coat with stiff collar, which,
+with the fez or tarboosh, is the appointed costume for all persons who
+are employed by the government. The stranger, observing the large number
+of men of all ages in this attire, is led to the conclusion that the
+government must employ many thousands of persons in Cairo alone; but
+probably there is a permitted usage in connection with it, like that
+mysterious legend--"By especial appointment to the Queen"--which one
+sees so often in England inscribed over the doors of little shops in
+provincial High Streets, where the inns have names which to Americans
+are as fantastic as anything in "Tartarin;" the "White Horse;" the "Crab
+and Lobster;" the "Three Choughs;" and the "Five Alls."
+
+The native cafes have much more local color than the homes of the
+stambouline. Outside are rows of high wooden settees, upon which the
+patrons of the establishment sit cross-legged, their slippers left on
+the ground below. One often sees a row of Arabs squatting here, holding
+no communication with each other, hearing nothing, seeing nothing,
+enjoying for the moment an absolute rest. This period of daily repose,
+called kief, is a necessity for Egyptians. It has its overweight, its
+excess, in the smoking of hasheesh, which is one of the curses of the
+land; but thousands of the people who never touch hasheesh would
+understand as little how to get through their day without this
+interregnum as without eating; in fact, eating is less important to
+them.
+
+The Egyptian often takes his rest at the cafe. When the American sees
+Achmet and Ibrahim, who have attended to some of his errands for
+infinitesimal wages--men whose sole possessions are the old cotton gowns
+on their backs--when he sees them squatted in broad daylight at the
+cafe, smoking the long pipes and slowly drinking the Mocha coffee, it
+appears to him an inexplicable idleness, an incurable self-indulgence.
+It is idleness, no doubt, but associations should not be mixed with the
+subject. To the American the little cup of after-dinner coffee seems a
+luxury. He does not always stop to remember that Achmet's coffee is,
+very possibly, all the dinner he is to have; that it has been preceded
+by nothing since daylight but a small piece of Egyptian bread, and that
+it will be followed by nothing before bedtime but a mouthful of beans or
+a lettuce-stalk. The daily rest is by no means taken always at the cafe.
+Egyptians also take it at the baths, where, after the final douche, they
+spend half an hour in motionless ease. For those who have not the paras
+for the cafe or the bath, the mosques offer their shaded courts. When
+there is no time to seek another place, the men take their rest wherever
+they are. One often sees them lying asleep, or apparently asleep, in
+their booths at the bazaars. The very beggars draw their rags round
+them, cover their faces, and lie down close to a wall in the crowded
+lanes.
+
+[Illustration: AN ARAB CAFE
+
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
+
+At the cafes, during another stage of the rest, games are played, the
+favorites being dominos, backgammon, and chess. Sometimes a story-teller
+entertains the circle. He narrates the deeds of Antar and legends of
+adventure; he also tells stories from the Bible, such as the tale of the
+flood, or of Daniel in the den of lions. Sometimes he recites, in
+Arabic, the poems of Omar Khayyam.
+
+    "I sent my soul through the invisible,
+      Some letter of that after-life to spell;
+    And by-and-by my soul returned to me,
+      And answered, 'I myself am heaven and hell!'"
+
+This verse of the Persian poet might be taken as the motto of kief; for
+if the heaven or hell of each person is simply the condition of his own
+mind, then if he is able every day to reduce his mind, even for a
+half-hour only, to a happy tranquillity which has forgotten all its
+troubles, has he not gained that amount of paradise?
+
+
+II
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: arabic]
+
+"I love the Arabian language for three reasons: because I am an Arab
+myself; because the Koran is in Arabic; because Arabic is the language
+of Paradise." This hadith, or saying, of Mohammed might be put upon the
+banner of the old university of Cairo, El Azhar; that is, the Splendid.
+El Azhar was founded in the tenth century, when Cairo itself was hardly
+more than a name. In its unmoved attachment to the beliefs of its
+founders, to their old enthusiasms, their methods and hates, El Azhar
+has opposed an inflexible front to the advance of European ideas,
+sending out year after year its hundreds of pupils to all parts of Egypt
+and to Nubia, to the Soudan and to Morocco, to Turkey, Arabia, and
+Syria, to India and Ceylon, and to the borders of Persia, believing that
+so long as it could keep the education of the young in its grasp the
+reign of the Prophet was secure. It is to-day the most important
+Mohammedan college in the world; for though it has no longer the twenty
+thousand students who crowded its courts in the thirteenth and
+fourteenth centuries, there is still an annual attendance of from seven
+to ten thousand; by some authorities the number is given as twelve
+thousand. The twelve thousand have no academic groves; they have not
+even one tree. There is nothing sequestered about El Azhar; it is near
+the bazaars in the old part of the town, where the houses are crowded
+together like wasps' nests. One sees nothing of it as one approaches
+save the minarets above, and in the narrow, crowded lane an outer
+portal. Here the visitor must show his permit and put on the
+mosque-shoes, for El Azhar was once a mosque, and is now mosque and
+university combined. After the shoes are on he steps over the low bar,
+and finds himself within the porch, which is a marvel as it stands, with
+its fretwork, carved stones, faded reds, and those old plaques of
+inscription which excite one's curiosity so desperately, and which no
+dragoman can ever translate, no matter in how many languages he can
+complacently ask, "You satisfi?" One soon learns something of the older
+tongue; hieroglyphics are not difficult; any one with eyes can discover
+after a while that the A of the ancient Egyptians is, often, a bird who
+bears a strong resemblance to a pigeon; that their L is a lion; and that
+the name of the builder of the Great Pyramid, for instance, is
+represented by a design which looks like two freshly hatched chickens, a
+football, and a horned lizard (speaking, of course, respectfully of them
+all). But one can never find out the meaning of the tantalizing
+characters, so many thousand years nearer our own day, which confront
+us, surrounded by arabesques, over old Cairo gateways, across the fronts
+of the street fountains, or inscribed in faded gilt on the crumbling
+walls of mosques. It is probable that they are Kufic, and one would
+hardly demand, I suppose, that an English guide should read
+black-letter? But who can be reasonable in the land of Aladdin's Lamp?
+
+The porch leads to the large central court, which is open to the sky,
+the breeze, and the birds; and this last is not merely a possibility,
+for birds of all kinds are numerous in Egypt, and unmolested. On the
+pavement of this court, squatting in groups, are hundreds of the
+turbaned students, some studying aloud, some reading aloud (it is always
+aloud), some listening to a professor (who also squats), some eating
+their frugal meals, some mending their clothes, and some merely
+chatting. These groups are so many and so close together that often the
+visitor can only make the circuit of the place on its outskirts; he
+cannot cross. There is generally a carrier of drinking-water making his
+rounds amid the serried ranks. "For whoever is thirsty, here is water
+from God," he chants. One is almost afraid to put down the melodious
+phrase, for the street cries of Cairo have become as trite as the _Ranz
+des Vaches_ of Switzerland. Still, some of them are so imaginative and
+quaint that they should be rescued from triteness and made classic. Here
+is one which is chanted by the seller of vegetables--the best beans, it
+should be explained, come from Embebeh, beyond Boulak--"Help, O Embebeh,
+help! The beans of Embebeh are better than almonds. Oh-h, how _sweet_
+are the little sons of the river!" (This last phrase makes poetical
+allusion to the soaking in Nile water, which is required before the
+beans can be cooked.) Certain famous baked beans nearer home also
+require preliminary soaking. Let us imagine a huckster calling out in
+Boston streets, as he pursues his way: "Help, O Beverly, help! The beans
+of Beverly are better than peaches. Oh-h, how _sweet_ are the little
+sons of Cochituate!"
+
+[Illustration: PORCH OF EL AZHAR
+
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
+
+The central court of the Splendid is surrounded by colonnades, whose
+walls are now undergoing repairs; but the propping beams do not appear
+to disturb either the pupils or teachers. On the east side is the
+sanctuary, which is also a school-room, but a covered one; it is a
+large, low-ceilinged hall, covering an area of thirty-six hundred square
+yards; by day its light is dusky; by night it is illuminated by twelve
+hundred twinkling little lamps suspended from the ceiling by bronze
+chains. The roof is supported by three hundred and eighty antique
+columns of marble and granite placed in irregular ranges; there are so
+many of these pillars that to be among them is like standing in a grove.
+The pavement is smoothly covered with straw matting; and here also are
+assembled throngs of pupils--some studying, some reciting, some asleep.
+I paid many visits to El Azhar, moving about quietly with my venerable
+little dragoman, whom I had selected for an unusual accomplishment--silence.
+One day I came upon an arithmetic class; the professor, a thin,
+ardent-eyed man of forty, was squatted upon a beautiful Turkish rug at
+the base of a granite column; his class of boys, numbering thirty, were
+squatted in a half-circle facing him, their slates on the matting before
+them. The professor had a small black-board which he had propped up so
+that all could see it, and there on its surface I saw inscribed that
+enemy of my own youth, a sum in fractions--three-eighths of seven-ninths
+of twelve-twentieths of ten-thirty-fifths, and so on; evidently the
+terrible thing is as savage as ever! The professor grew excited; he
+harangued his pupils; he did the sum over and over, rubbing out and
+rewriting his ferocious conundrum with a bit of chalk. Slender Arabian
+hands tried the sum furtively on the little slates; but no one had
+accomplished the task when, afraid of being remarked, I at last turned
+away.
+
+The outfit of a well-provided student at El Azhar consists of a rug, a
+low desk like a small portfolio-easel, a Koran, a slate, an inkstand,
+and an earthen dish. Instruction is free, and boys are admitted at the
+early age of eight years. The majority of the pupils do not remain after
+their twelfth or fourteenth year; a large number, however, pursue their
+studies much longer, and old students return from time to time to obtain
+further instruction, so that it is not uncommon to see a gray-bearded
+pupil studying by the side of a child who might be his grandson. To me
+it seemed that two-thirds of the students were men between thirty and
+forty years of age; but this may have been because one noticed them
+more, as collegians so mature are an unusual sight for American eyes.
+
+All the pupils bow as they study, with a motion like that of the bowing
+porcelain mandarins. The custom is attributed to the necessity for
+bending the head whenever the name of Allah is encountered; as the first
+text-book is always the Koran, children have found it easier to bow at
+regular intervals with an even motion than to watch for the numerous
+repetitions of the name. The habit thus formed in childhood remains, and
+one often sees old merchants in the bazaars reading for their own
+entertainment, and bowing to and fro as they read. I have even beheld
+young men, smartly dressed in full European attire, who, lost in the
+interest of a newspaper, had forgotten themselves for the moment, and
+were bending to and fro unconsciously at the door of a French cafe. A
+nation that enjoys the rocking-chair ought to understand this. Some of
+the students of El Azhar have rooms outside, but many of them possess no
+other shelter than these two courts, where they sleep upon their rugs
+spread over the matting or pavement. Food can be brought in at pleasure,
+but those two Oriental time-consumers, pipes and coffee, are not allowed
+within the precincts. In one of the porches barbers are established;
+there is generally a row of students undergoing the process of
+head-shaving. The fierce, fanatical blind pupils, so often described in
+the past by travellers, are no longer there; the porter can show only
+their empty school-room. Blindness is prevalent in Egypt; no doubt the
+sunshine of the long summer has something to do with it, but another
+cause is the neglected condition of young children. There is no belief
+so firmly established in the minds of Egyptian mothers as the
+superstition that the child who is clean and well-dressed will
+inevitably attract the dreaded evil-eye, and suffer ever afterwards from
+the effects of the malign glance. I have seen women who evidently
+belonged to the upper ranks of the middle class--women dressed in silk,
+with gold ornaments, and a following servant--who were accompanied by a
+poor baby of two or three years of age, so dirty, so squalid and
+neglected, that any one unacquainted with the country would have
+supposed it to be the child of a beggar.
+
+In addition to the bowing motion, instruction at El Azhar is aided by a
+mnemonic system, the rules of grammar, and other lessons also, being
+given in rhyme. I suppose our public schools are above devices of this
+sort; but there are some of us among the elders who still fly mentally,
+when the subject of English history comes up, to that useful poem
+beginning "First, William the Norman;" and I have heard of the rules for
+the use of "shall" and "will" being properly remembered only when set to
+the tune of "Scotland's burning!" Surely any tune--even "Man the
+Life-boat"--would become valuable if it could clear up the bogs of the
+subjunctive.
+
+It must be mentioned that El Azhar did not invent its mnemonics; it has
+inherited them from the past. All the mediaeval universities made use of
+the system.
+
+The central court is surrounded on three sides by chambers, one of which
+belongs to each country and to each Egyptian province represented at the
+college. These sombre apartments are filled with oddly-shaped wardrobes,
+which are assigned to the students for their clothes. There is a legend
+connected with these rooms: At dusk a man whose heart is pure is
+sometimes permitted to see the elves who come at that hour to play
+games in the inner court under the columns; here they run races, they
+chase each other over the matting, they climb the pillars, and indulge
+in a thousand antics. The little creatures are said to live in the
+wardrobes, and each student occasionally places a few flowers within, to
+avert from himself the danger that comes from their too great love of
+tricks. There are other inhabitants of these rooms who also indulge in
+tricks. These are little animals which I took to be ferrets; twice I had
+a glimpse of a disappearing tail, like a dark flash, as I passed over a
+threshold. Probably they are kept as mouse-hunters, for pets are not
+allowed; if they were, it would be entertaining to note those which
+would be brought hither by homesick pupils from the Somali coast, or
+Yemen.
+
+In beginning his education the first task for a boy is to commit the
+Koran to memory. As he learns a portion he is taught to read and to
+write those paragraphs; in this way he goes through the entire volume.
+Grammar comes next; at El Azhar the word includes logic, rhetoric,
+composition, versification, elocution, and other branches. Then follows
+law, secular and religious. But the law, like the logic, like all the
+instruction, is founded exclusively upon the Koran. As there is no
+inquiry into anything new, the precepts have naturally taken a fixed
+shape; the rules were long ago established, and they have never been
+altered; the student of 1890 receives the information given to the
+student of 1490, and no more. But it is this very fact which makes El
+Azhar interesting to the looker-on; it is a living relic, a survival in
+the nineteenth century of the university of the fourteenth and
+fifteenth. It is true that when we think of those great colleges of the
+past, the picture which rises in the mind is not one of turbaned, seated
+figures in flowing robes; it is rather of aggressively agile youths,
+with small braggadocio caps perched on their long locks, their
+slender waists outlined in the shortest of jackets, and their long legs
+incased in the tightest of party-colored hose. But this is because the
+great painters of the past have given immortality to these astonishing
+scholars of their own lands by putting them upon their canvases. They
+confined themselves to their own lands too, unfortunately for us; they
+did not set sail, with their colors and brushes, upon Homer's "misty
+deep." It would be interesting to see what Pinturicchio would have made
+of El Azhar; or how Gentile da Fabriano would have copied the crowded
+outer court.
+
+[Illustration: STUDENTS IN THE OUTER COURT, EL AZHAR From a photograph
+by Abdullah Freres, Cairo]
+
+The president of El Azhar occupies, in native estimation, a position of
+the highest authority. Napoleon, recognizing this power, requested the
+aid of his influence in inducing Cairo to surrender in 1798. The sheykh
+complied; and a month later the wonderful Frenchman, in full Oriental
+costume, visited the university in state, and listened to a recitation
+from the Koran.
+
+Now that modern schools have been established by the government in
+addition to the excellent and energetic mission seminaries maintained by
+the English, the Americans, the Germans, and the French, one wonders
+whether this venerable Arabian college will modify its tenets or shrink
+to a shadow and disappear. There are hopeful souls who prophesy the
+former; but I do not agree with them. Let us aid the American schools by
+all the means in our power. But as for El Azhar, may it fade (as fade it
+must) with its ancient legends draped untouched about it.
+
+All who visit Cairo see the Assiout ware--pottery made of red and black
+earth, and turned on a wheel; it comes from Assiout, two hundred and
+thirty miles up the Nile, and the simple forms of the vases and jugs,
+the rose-water stoups and narrow-necked perfume-throwers, are often
+very graceful. Assiout ware is offered for sale in the streets; but the
+itinerant venders are sent out by a dealer in the bazaars, and the
+fatality which makes it happen that the vender has two black stoups and
+one red jug when you wish for one black stoup and two red jugs sent us
+to headquarters. But the crowded booth did not contain our heart's
+desire, and as we still lingered, making ourselves, I dare say, too
+pressing for the Oriental ease of the proprietor, it was at last
+suggested that Mustapha might perhaps go to the store-room for more--?
+(the interrogation-point meaning backsheesh). Seizing the opportunity,
+we asked permission to accompany the messenger. No one objecting--as the
+natives consider all strangers more or less mad--we were soon following
+our guide through a dusky passageway behind the shop, the darkness lit
+by the gleam of his white teeth as he turned, every now and then, to
+give us an encouraging smile and a wink of his one eye, over his
+shoulder. At length--still in the dark--we arrived at a stairway, and,
+ascending, found ourselves in a second-story court, which was roofed
+over with matting. This court was surrounded by chambers fitted with
+rough, sliding fronts: almost all of the fronts were at the moment
+thrown up, as a window is thrown up and held by its pulleys. In one of
+these rooms we found Assiout ware in all its varieties; but we made a
+slow choice. We were evidently in a lodging-house of native Cairo; all
+the chambers save this one store-room appeared to be occupied as
+bachelors' apartments. The two rooms nearest us belonged to El Azhar
+students, so Mustapha said: he could speak no English, but he imparted
+the information in Arabic to our dragoman. Seeing that we were more
+interested in the general scene than in his red jugs, Mustapha left the
+Assiout ware to its fate, and, lighting a cigarette, seated himself on
+the railing with a disengaged air, as much as to say: "Two more mad
+women! But it's nothing to me." One of the students was evidently an
+ascetic; his room contained piles of books and pamphlets, and almost
+nothing else; his one rug was spread out close to the front in order to
+get the light, and placed upon it we saw his open inkstand, his pens,
+and a page of freshly copied manuscript. When we asked where he was,
+Mustapha replied that he had gone down to the fountain to wash himself,
+so that he could say his prayers. The second chamber belonged to a
+student of another disposition; this extravagant young man had three
+rugs; clothes hung from pegs upon his walls, and he possessed an extra
+pair of lemon-colored slippers; in addition we saw cups and saucers upon
+a shelf. Only two books were visible, and these were put away in a
+corner; instead of books he had flowers; the whole place was adorned
+with them; pots containing plants in full bloom were standing on the
+floor round the walls of his largely exposed abode, and were also drawn
+up in two rows in the passageway outside, where he himself, sitting on a
+mat, was sewing. His blossoms were so gay that involuntarily we smiled.
+Whereupon he smiled too, and gave us a salam. Opposite the rooms of the
+students there was a large chamber, almost entirely filled with white
+bales, like small cotton bales; in a niche between these high piles, an
+old man, kneeling at the threshold, was washing something in a large
+earthen-ware tub of a pink tint. His body was bare from the waist
+upward, and, as he bent over his task, his short chest, with all the
+ribs clearly visible, his long brown back with the vertebrae of the spine
+standing out, and his lean, seesawing arms, looked skeleton-like, while
+his head, supported on a small wizened throat, was adorned with such an
+enormous bobbing turban, dark green in hue, that it resembled vegetation
+of some sort--a colossal cabbage. Directly behind him, also on the
+threshold, squatted a large gray baboon, whose countenance expressed a
+fixed misanthropy. Every now and then this creature, who was secured by
+a long, loose cord, ascended slowly to the top of the bales and came
+down on the other side, facing his master. He then looked deeply into
+the tub for several minutes, touched the water carefully with his small
+black hand, withdrew it, and inspected the palm, and then returned
+gravely, and by the same roundabout way over the bales, to resume his
+position at the doorsill, looking as if he could not understand the
+folly of such unnecessary and silly toil.
+
+In another chamber a large, very black negro, dressed in pure white, was
+seated upon the floor, with his feet stretched out in front of him, his
+hands placed stiffly on his knees, his eyes staring straight before him.
+He was motionless; he seemed hardly to breathe.
+
+"What is he doing?" I said to the dragoman.
+
+"He? Oh, he _berry_ good man; he pray."
+
+In a chamber next to the negro two grave old Arabs were playing chess.
+They were perched upon one of those Cairo settees which look like square
+chicken-coops. One often sees these seats in the streets, placed for
+messengers and porters, and for some time I took them for actual
+chicken-coops, and wondered why they were always empty. Chickens might
+well have inhabited the one used by the chess-players, for the central
+court upon which all these chambers opened was covered with a layer of
+rubbish and dirt several inches thick, which contained many of their
+feathers. It was upon this same day that we made our search for the Khan
+of Kait Bey. No dragoman knows where it is. The best way, indeed, to see
+the old quarters is to select from a map the name of a street as remote
+as possible from the usual thoroughfares beloved by these tasselled
+guides, and then demand to be conducted thither.
+
+[Illustration: BEFORE THE SACRED NICHE
+
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
+
+We did this in connection with the Khan of Kait Bey. But when we had
+achieved the distinction of finding it, we discovered that it was
+impossible to see it. The winding street is so narrow, and so constantly
+crowded with two opposed streams of traffic, that your donkey cannot
+pause to give you a chance to inspect the portion which is close to your
+eyes, and there is no spot where you can get a view in perspective of
+the whole. So you pass up the lane, turn, and come down again; and, if
+conscientious, you repeat the process, obtaining for all your pains only
+a confused impression of horizontal plaques and panels, with ruined
+walls tottering above them, and squalid shops below. There is a fine
+arched gateway adorned with pendentives; that, on account of its size,
+you can see; it leads into the khan proper, where were once the chambers
+for the travelling merchants and the stalls for their beasts; but all
+this is now a ruin. One of the best authorities on Saracenic art has
+announced that this khan is adorned with more varieties of exquisite
+arabesques than any single building in Cairo. This may be true. But to
+appreciate the truth of the statement one needs wings or a ladder. The
+word ladder opens the subject of the two ways of looking at
+architecture--in detail or as a whole. The natural power of the eye has
+more to do with this than is acknowledged. If one can distinctly see,
+without effort and aid, a whole facade at a glance, with the general
+effect of its proportions, the style of its ornament, the lights and
+shadows, the outline of the top against the sky, one is more interested
+in this than in the small traceries, for instance, over one especial
+window. There are those of us who remember the English cathedrals by
+their great towers rising in the gray air, with the birds flying about
+them. There are others who, never having clearly seen this vision--for
+no opera-glass can give the whole--recall, for their share of the
+pleasure, the details of the carvings over the porches, or of the old
+tombs within. It is simply the far-sighted and the near-sighted view.
+Another authority, a master who has had many disciples, has (of late
+years, at least) devoted himself principally to the near-sighted view.
+In his maroon-colored Tracts on Venice he has given us a minute account
+of the features of the small faces of the capitals of the columns of the
+Doge's palace (all these ofs express the minuteness of it); but when we
+stand on the pavement below the palace--and naturally we cannot stand in
+mid-air--we find that it is impossible to follow him: I speak of the old
+capitals, some of which are still untouched. The solution lies in the
+ladder. And Ruskin, as regards his later writings, may be called the
+ladder critic. The poet Longfellow, arriving in Verona during one of his
+Italian journeys, learned that Ruskin was also there, and not finding
+him at the hotel, went out in search of his friend. After a while he
+came upon him at the Tombs of the Scaligers. Here high in the air, at
+the top of a long ladder, with a servant keeping watch below, was a
+small figure. It was Ruskin, who, nose to nose with them, was making a
+careful drawing of some of the delicate terminal ornaments of those
+splendid Gothic structures. One does not object to the careful drawings
+any more than to the descriptions of the little faces at Venice. They
+are good in their way. But one wishes to put upon record the suggestion
+that architectural beauty as viewed from a ladder, inch by inch, is not
+the only aspect of that beauty; nor is it, for a large number of us, the
+most important aspect. A man who is somewhat deaf, if talking about a
+symphony, will naturally dwell upon the strains which he has heard--that
+is, the louder portions; but he ought not therefore to assume that the
+softer notes are insignificant.
+
+
+THE DERVISHES
+
+On the 31st of January, 1890, we took part in a horse-race. It was a
+long race of great violence, and the horses engaged in it were
+disgracefully thin and weak. "Very Mohammedan--that," some one comments.
+The race was Mohammedan from one point of view, for it was connected
+with the dervishes, Mohammedans of fanatical creed. The dervishes,
+however, remained in their monasteries--with their fanaticism; the race
+was made by Christians, who, crowded into rattling carriages, flew in a
+body from the square of Sultan Hassan through the long, winding lanes
+that lead towards Old Cairo at a speed which endangered everybody's
+life, with wheels grating against each other, coachmen standing up and
+yelling like demons, whiplashes curling round the ribs of the wretched,
+ill-fed, galloping horses, and natives darting into their houses on each
+side to save themselves from death, as the furious procession, in clouds
+of dust, rushed by. The cause of this sudden madness is found in the
+fact that the two best-known orders of these Mohammedan monks (one calls
+them monks for want of a better name; they have some resemblance to
+monks, and some to Freemasons) go through their rites once a week only,
+and upon the same afternoon; by making this desperate haste it is
+possible to see both services; and as travellers, for the most part,
+make but a short stay in Cairo, they find themselves taking part,
+_nolens volens_, in this frantic progress, led by their ambitious
+dragomans, who appear to enjoy it. The service of the Dancing Dervishes
+takes place in their mosque, which is near the square of Sultan Hassan.
+Here they have a small circular hall; round this arena, and elevated
+slightly above it, is an aisle where spectators are allowed to stand;
+over the aisle is the gallery. This January day brought a crowd of
+visitors who filled the aisle completely. Presently a dervish made the
+circuit of the empty arena, warning, by a solemn gesture, those who had
+seated or half-seated themselves upon the balustrade that the attitude
+was not allowed. As soon as he had passed, some of the warned took their
+places again. Naturally, these were spectators of the gentler sex. I am
+even afraid that they were pilgrims from the land where the gentler sex
+is accustomed from its earliest years to a profound deference. Two of
+these pretty pilgrims transgressed in this way four times, and at last
+the dervish came and stood before them. They remained seated, returning
+his gaze with amiable tranquillity. What he thought I do not know--this
+lean Egyptian in his old brown cloak and conical hat. I fancied,
+however, that it had something to do with the great advantages of the
+Mohammedan system regarding the seclusion of women. He did not conquer.
+
+At length began the music. The band of the dervishes is placed in one of
+the galleries; we could see the performers squatting on their rugs, the
+instruments being flutes or long pipes, and small drums like tambourines
+without the rattles. Egyptian music has a marked time, but no melody; no
+matter how good an ear one has, it is impossible to catch and resing its
+notes, even though one hears them daily. Pierre Loti writes: "The
+strains of the little flutes of Africa charm me more than the most
+perfect orchestral harmonies of other lands." If by this he means that
+the flutes recall to his memory the magic scenes of Oriental life, that
+is one thing; but if he means that he really loves the sounds for
+themselves, I am afraid we must conclude that this prince of verbal
+expression has not an ear for music (which is only fair; a man cannot
+have everything). The band of the dervishes sends forth a high wail,
+accompanied by a rumble. Neither, however, is distressingly loud.
+
+[Illustration: OUTER ENTRANCE OF THE CITADEL, CAIRO
+
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
+
+Meanwhile the dervishes have entered, and, muffled in their cloaks, are
+standing, a silent band, round the edge of the arena; their sheykh--a
+very old man, much bent, but with a noble countenance--takes his place
+upon the sacred rug, and receives with dignity their obeisances. All
+remain motionless for a while. Then the sheykh rises, heads the
+procession, and, with a very slow step, they all move round the arena,
+bowing towards the sacred carpet as they pass it. This opening ceremony
+concluded, the sheykh again takes his seat, and the dervishes, divesting
+themselves of their cloaks, step one by one into the open space, where,
+after a prayer, each begins whirling slowly, with closed eyes. They are
+all attired in long, full white skirts, whose edges have weights
+attached to them; as the speed of the music increases, their whirl
+becomes more rapid, but it remains always even; though their eyes are
+closed, they never touch each other. From the description alone, it is
+difficult to imagine that this rite (for such it is) is solemn. But
+looked at with the actual eyes, it seemed to me an impressive ceremony;
+the absorbed appearance of the participants, their unconsciousness of
+all outward things, the earnestness of the aspiration visible on their
+faces--all these were striking. The zikr, as this species of religious
+effort is named, is an attempt to reach a state of ecstasy
+(hallucination, we should call it), during which the human being, having
+forgotten the existence of its body, becomes for the moment spirit only,
+and can then mingle with the spirit world. The Dancing Dervishes
+endeavor to bring on this trance by the physical dizziness which is
+produced by whirling; the Howling Dervishes try to effect the same by
+swinging their heads rapidly up and down, and from side to side, with a
+constant shout of "Allah!" "Allah!". The latter soon reach a state of
+temporary frenzy. For this reason the dancers are more interesting;
+their ecstasy, being silent, seems more earnest. The religion of the
+Hindoos has a similar idea in another form--namely, that the highest
+happiness is a mingling with God, and an utter unconsciousness of one's
+humanity. Christian hermits, in retiring from the world, have sought, as
+far as possible, the same mental condition; but for a lifetime, not,
+like the dervishes, for an hour. These enthusiasts marry, if they
+please; many of them are artisans, tradesmen, and farm laborers, and
+only go at certain times to the monasteries to take part in the zikrs.
+There are many different orders, and several other kinds of zikr besides
+the two most commonly seen by travellers.
+
+[Illustration: A MECCA DOOR]
+
+Travellers see also the Mohammedan prayers. These prayers, with
+alms-giving, fasting during the month Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to
+Mecca, are the important religious duties of all Muslims. The excellent
+new hotel, the Continental, where we had our quarters, a hotel whose
+quiet and comfort are a blessing to Cairo, overlooked a house which was
+undergoing alteration; every afternoon at a certain hour a plasterer
+came from his work within, and, standing in a corner under our windows,
+divested himself of his soiled outer gown; then, going to a wall-faucet,
+he turned on the water, and rapidly but carefully washed his face, his
+hands and arms, his feet, and his legs as far as his knees, according to
+Mohammed's rule; this done, he took down from a tree a clean board which
+he kept there for the purpose, and, placing it upon the ground, he
+kneeled down upon it, with his face towards Mecca, and went through his
+worship, many times touching the ground with his forehead in token of
+self-humiliation. His devotions occupied five or six minutes. As soon as
+they were over, the board was quickly replaced in the tree, the soiled
+gown put on again, and the man hurried back to his work with an
+alertness which showed that he was no idler. On the Nile, at the
+appointed hour, our pilot gave the wheel to a subordinate, spread out
+his prayer-carpet on the deck, and said his prayers with as much
+indifference to the eyes watching him as though they did not exist. In
+the bazaars the merchants pray in their shops; the public cook prays in
+the street beside his little furnace; on the shores of the river at
+sunset the kneeling figures outlined against the sky are one of the
+pictures which all travellers remember. The official pilgrimage to Mecca
+takes place each year, the departure and return of the pilgrim train
+being celebrated with great pomp; the most ardent desire of every
+Mohammedan is to make this journey before he dies. When a returning
+Cairo pilgrim reaches home, it is a common custom to decorate his
+doorway with figures, painted in brilliant hues, representing his
+supposed adventures. The designs, which are very primitive in outline,
+usually show the train of camels, the escort of soldiers, wonderful wild
+beasts in fighting attitudes, nondescript birds and trees, and garlands
+of flowers. One comes upon these Mecca doorways very frequently in the
+old quarters. Sometimes the gay tints show that the journey was a recent
+one; often the faded outlines speak of the zeal of an ancestor.
+
+
+THE REIGNING DYNASTY
+
+[Illustration: THE ROAD TO CHOUBRA.
+
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
+
+While in the city of the Khedive, if one has a wish for the benediction
+of a far-stretching view, he must go to the Citadel. The prospect from
+this hill has been described many times. One sees all Cairo, with her
+minarets; the vivid green of the plain, with the Nile winding through
+it; the desert meeting the verdure and stretching back to the red hills;
+lastly, the pyramids, beginning with those of Gizeh, near at hand, and
+ending, far in the distance, with the hazy outlines of those of Abouseer
+and Sakkarah. The Citadel was built by Saladin in the twelfth century.
+Saladin's palace, which formed part of it, was demolished in 1824 to
+make room for the modern mosque, whose large dome and attenuated
+minarets are now the last objects which fade away when the traveller
+leaves Cairo behind him. This rich Mohammedan temple was the work of
+Mehemet Ali, the founder of the present dynasty. It is not beautiful, in
+spite of its alabaster, but Mehemet himself would probably admire it,
+could he return to earth (the mosque was not completed until after
+his death), as he had to the full that bad taste in architecture and art
+which, for unexplained reasons, so often accompanies a new birth of
+progress in an old country. Mehemet was born in Roumelia; he entered the
+Turkish army, and after attaining the rank of colonel he was sent to
+Egypt. Here he soon usurped all power, and had it not been for the
+intervention of Russia and France, and later of England and Austria, it
+is probable that he would have succeeded in freeing himself and the
+country whose leadership he had grasped from the domination of Turkey.
+Every one has heard something of the terrible massacre of the Memlooks
+by his order, in this Citadel, in 1811. The Memlooks were opposed to all
+progress, and Mehemet was bent upon progress. Freed from their power,
+this ferocious liberator built canals; he did his best to improve
+agriculture; he established a printing-office and founded schools; he
+sent three hundred boys to Europe to be educated as civil engineers, as
+machinists, as printers, as naval officers, and as physicians; his idea
+was that, upon their return, they could instruct others. When the first
+class came back, he filled his public schools by the simple method of
+force. The translators of the French text-books which had been selected
+for the use of the schools were taken from the ranks of the returned
+students. A text-book was given to each, and all were kept closely
+imprisoned in the Citadel a period of four months, until they had
+completed their task. Mehemet had a dream of an Arabian kingdom in Egypt
+which should in time rival the European nations without joining them. It
+is this dream which makes him interesting. He was the first modern. A
+Turk by birth, and remaining a Turk as regards his private life, he had
+great ideas. Undoubtedly he possessed genius of a high order.
+
+As to his private life, one comes across a trace of it at Choubra. This
+was Mehemet's summer residence, and the place remains much as it was
+during his lifetime. The road to Choubra, which was until recently the
+favorite drive of the Cairenes, is now deserted. The palace stands on
+the banks of the Nile, three miles from town, and its gardens, which
+cover nine acres, are beautiful even in their present neglected
+condition; in the spring the fragrance from the mass of blossoms is
+intoxicatingly sweet. But the wonder of Choubra is a richly decorated
+garden-house, containing, in a marble basin, a lake which is large
+enough for skiffs. Here Mehemet often spent his evenings. Upon these
+occasions the whole place was brilliantly lighted, and the hareem
+disported itself in little boats on the fairy-like pool, and in
+strolling up and down the marble colonnades, unveiled (as Mehemet was
+the only man present), and in their richest attire. The marbles have
+grown dim, the fountains are choked, the colonnades are dusty, and the
+lake has a melancholy air. But even in its decay Choubra presents to the
+man of fancy--a few such men still exist--a picture of Oriental scenes
+which he has all his life imagined, perhaps, but whose actual traces he
+no more expected to see with his own eyes in 1890 than to behold the
+silken sails of Cleopatra furled among Cook's steamers on the Nile.
+Mehemet's last years were spent at Choubra, and here he died, in 1849,
+at the age of eighty-one. As he had forced from Turkey a firman
+assigning the throne to his own family, he was succeeded by one of his
+sons.
+
+
+ISMAIL
+
+In 1863 (after the short reign of Ibrahim, five years of Abbas, and
+eight of Said), Ismail, Mehemet's grandson, ascended the throne. He had
+received his education in Paris.
+
+[Illustration: GARDEN-HOUSE AT CHOUBRA, SHOWING PART OF THE LAKE NEAR
+CAIRO
+
+From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
+
+Much has been written about this man. The opening, in 1869, of the Suez
+Canal turned the eyes of the entire civilized world upon Egypt. The
+writers swooped down upon the ancient country in a flock, and the canal,
+the land, and its ruler were described again and again. The ruler was
+remarkable. Ismail was short (one speaks of him in the past tense,
+although he is not dead), with very broad shoulders; his hands were
+singularly thick; his ears also were thick, and oddly placed; his feet
+were small, and he always wore finically fine French shoes. There was
+nothing of the Arab in his face, and little of the Turk. One of his
+eyelids had a natural droop, and vexed diplomatists have left it upon
+record that he had the power of causing the other to droop also, thus
+making it possible for him to study the faces of his antagonists at his
+leisure, he, meanwhile, presenting to them in return a blind mask. The
+mask, however, was amiable; it was adorned almost constantly with a
+smile. The man must have had marked powers of fascination. At the
+present day, when some of the secrets of his reign are known--though by
+no means all--it is easy to paint him in the darkest colors; but during
+the time of his power his great schemes dazzled the world, and people
+liked him--it is impossible to doubt the testimony of so many pens;
+European and American visitors always left his presence pleased.
+
+There are in Cairo black stories of cruelty connected with his name.
+These for the most part are unwritten; they are told in the native cafes
+and in the bazaars. It does not appear that he loved cruelty for its own
+sake, as some of the Roman emperors loved it; but if any one rebelled
+against his power or his pleasure, that person was sacrificed without
+scruple. In some cases it took the form of a disappearance in the night,
+without a sound or a trace left behind. This is the sort of thing we
+associate with the old despotic ages. But 1869 is not a remote date,
+and at that time the present Emperor of Austria, the late Emperor
+Frederick (then Crown-Prince of Prussia), the Empress Eugenie, Prince
+Oscar of Sweden, Prince Louis of Hesse, the Princess of the Netherlands,
+the Duke and Duchess of Aosta, and other distinguished Europeans, were
+the guests of this enigmatic host, eating his sumptuous dinners and
+attending his magnificent balls. The festivities in connection with the
+opening of the canal are said to have cost Ismail twenty-one millions of
+dollars. The sum seems large; but it included the furnishing of palaces,
+lavish hospitality to an army of guests besides the sovereigns and their
+suites, and an opera to order--namely, Verdi's _Aida_, which was given
+with great brilliancy in Cairo, in an opera-house erected for the
+occasion. Ismail, like Mehemet, had his splendid dream. He, too, wished
+to free Egypt from the power of Turkey; but, unlike his grandfather, he
+wished to take her bodily into the circle of the civilized nations, not
+as a rival, but as an ally and friend. An Egyptian kingdom, under his
+rule, was to extend from the Mediterranean to the equator; from the Red
+Sea westward beyond Darfur. His bold ambition ended in disaster. His
+railways, telegraphs, schools, harbors, and postal-service, together
+with his personal extravagance, brought Egypt to the verge of
+bankruptcy. All Europe now had a vital interest in the Suez Canal, and
+the powers therefore united in a demand that the Sultan should stop the
+career of his audacious Egyptian Viceroy. The Viceroy might perhaps have
+resisted the Porte; he could not resist the united powers. In 1879 he
+was deposed, and his son Tufik appointed in his place. Ismail left
+Egypt. For several years he travelled, residing for a time in Naples; at
+present he is living in a villa near Constantinople. There is a rumor in
+Cairo that he is more of a prisoner there than he supposes. But this may
+be only one of the legends that are always attached to Turkish
+affairs. His dream has come true in one respect at least: Egypt has
+indeed joined the circle of the European nations, but not in the manner
+which Ismail intended; she is only a bondwoman--if the pun can be
+permitted.
+
+[Illustration: THE KHEDIVE. From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
+
+
+THE HAUNTED PALACE
+
+The Gezireh road is to-day the favorite afternoon drive of the Cairenes.
+It is a broad avenue, raised above the plain, and overarched by trees
+throughout its course. At many points it commands an uninterrupted view
+of the pyramids. Two miles from town the Gezireh Palace rises on the
+right, surrounded by gardens, which, unlike those of Choubra, are
+carefully tended. It was built by Ismail. Of all these Cairo palaces it
+must be explained that they have none of the characteristics of castles
+or strongholds; they are merely lightly built residences, designed for a
+climate which has ten months of summer. The central hall and grand
+staircase of Gezireh are superb; alabaster, onyx, and malachite adorn
+like jewels the beautiful marbles, which came from Carrara. The
+drawing-rooms and audience-chambers have a splendid spaciousness: the
+state apartments of many a royal palace in Europe sink into
+insignificance in this respect when compared with them. Much of the
+furniture is rich, but again (as in the old house of the Sheykh es
+Sadat) one finds it difficult to forgive the tawdry French carpets and
+curtains, when the bazaars close at hand could have contributed fabrics
+of so much greater beauty. But Ismail's taste was French--that is, the
+lowest shade of French--as French is still the taste of modern Egypt
+among the upper classes. It remains to be seen whether the English
+occupation will change this. During the festivities at the time of the
+opening of the canal, Ismail's royal guests were entertained at
+Gezireh. On the upper floor are the rooms which were occupied by the
+Empress Eugenie, the walls and ceilings covered with thick satin, tufted
+like the back of an arm-chair, its tint the shade of blue which is most
+becoming to a blond complexion--Ismail's compliment to his beautiful
+guest. During these days there were state dinners and balls at Gezireh,
+with banks of orchids, myriads of wax-lights, and orchestras playing
+strains from _La Belle Helene_ and _La Grande Duchesse_. During one of
+these balls the Emperor of Austria made a progress through the rooms
+with Ismail, band after band taking up the Austrian national anthem as
+the imperial guest entered. The vision of the stately, grave Franz Josef
+advancing through these glittering halls by the side of the waddling
+little hippopotamus of the Nile, to the martial notes of that fine hymn
+(which we have appropriated for our churches under another name, and
+without saying "By your leave"), is one of the sinister apparitions with
+which this rococo palace, a palace half splendid, half shabby, is
+haunted.
+
+[Illustration: CHIEF WIFE OF EX-KHEDIVE ISMAIL, WITH HER PRIVATE BAND
+
+From a photograph by Schoefft, Cairo]
+
+In the garden there is a kiosk whose proportions charm the eye. The
+guide-books inform us that this ornamentation is of cast-iron; that it
+is an imitation of the Alhambra; that it is "considered the finest
+modern Arabian building in the world"--all of which is against it.
+Nevertheless, viewed from any point across the gardens, its outlines are
+exquisite. Within there are more festal chambers, and a gilded
+dining-room, which was the scene of the suppers (they were often orgies)
+that were given by Ismail upon the occasion of his private masked balls.
+At some distance from the palace, behind a screen of trees, are the
+apartments reserved for the hareem. This smaller palace has no beauty,
+unless one includes its enchanting little garden; such attraction as it
+has comes from the light it sheds upon the daily life of Eastern
+women. Occidental travellers are always curious about the hareem. The
+word means simply the ladies, or women, of the family, and the term is
+made to include also the rooms which they occupy, as our word "school"
+might mean the building or the pupils within it. At Gezireh the hareem,
+save that its appointments are more costly, is much like those
+caravansaries which abound at our inland summer resorts. There are long
+rows of small chambers opening from each side of narrow halls, with a
+few sitting-rooms, which were held in common. The carpets, curtains, and
+such articles of furniture as still remain are all flowery, glaring, and
+in the worst possible modern taste, save that they do not exhibit those
+horrible hues, surely the most hideous with which this world has been
+cursed--the so-called solferinos and magentas. Besides their private
+garden, the women and children of the hareem had for their entertainment
+a small menagerie, an aviery, and a confectionery establishment, where
+fresh bonbons were made for them every day, especially the sugared rose
+leaves so dear to the Oriental heart. The chief of Ismail's four wives
+had a passion for jewels. She possessed rubies and diamonds of unusual
+size, and so many precious stones of all kinds that her satin dresses
+were embroidered with them. She had her private band of female
+musicians, who played for her, when she wished for music, upon the
+violin, the flute, the zither, and the mandolin. The princesses of the
+royal house, Ismail's wives and his sisters-in-law, could not bring
+themselves to admire the Empress of the French. They were lost in wonder
+over what they called her "pinched stiffness." It is true that the
+uncorseted forms of Oriental beauties have nothing in common with the
+rigid back and martial elbows of modern attire. Dimples, polished limbs,
+dark, long-lashed eyes, and an indolent step are the ideals of the
+hareem.
+
+The legends of these jewelled sultanas, of the masked balls, of the long
+train of royal visitors, of the orchids, the orchestras, and the
+wax-lights, are followed at Gezireh by a tale of murder which is
+singularly ghastly. Ismail's Minister of Finance was his foster-brother
+Sadyk, with whom he had lived upon terms of closest intimacy all his
+life. The two were often together; frequently they drove out to Gezireh
+to spend the night. One afternoon in 1878 Ismail's carriage stopped at
+the doorway of the palace in Cairo occupied by his minister. Sadyk came
+out. "Get in," Ismail was heard to say. "We will go to Gezireh. There
+are business matters about which I must talk with you." The two men went
+away together. Sadyk never came back. When the carriage reached Gezireh,
+Ismail gave orders that it should stop at the palace, instead of going
+on to the kiosk, where they generally alighted. He himself led the way
+within, crossing the reception-room to the small private salon which
+overlooks the Nile. Here he seated himself upon a sofa, drawing up his
+feet in the Oriental fashion, which was not his usual custom. Sadyk was
+about to follow his example, when he found himself seized suddenly from
+behind. The doors were now locked from the outside, leaving within only
+the two foster-brothers and the man who had seized Sadyk. This was a
+Nubian named Ishak, a creature celebrated for his strength. He now
+proceeded to murder Sadyk after a fashion of his own country, a process
+of breaking the bones of the chest and neck in a manner which leaves on
+the skin no sign. Sadyk fought for his life; he dragged the Nubian over
+the white velvet carpet, and finally bit off two of his fingers. But he
+was not a young man, and in the end he was conquered. During this
+struggle Ismail remained motionless on the sofa, with his feet drawn up
+and his arms folded. A steamer lay at anchor outside, and during the
+night Sadyk's body was placed on board; at dawn the boat started up the
+river. At the same hour Ismail drove back to Cairo, where, in the course
+of the morning, it was officially announced that the Minister of
+Finance, having been detected in colossal peculations, had been banished
+to the White Nile, and was already on his way thither. Sadyk's body
+rests somewhere at the bottom of the river. But Ismail's little drama of
+banishment and the steamer were set at naught when, after he had left
+Cairo, Ishak the Nubian returned, with his mutilated hand and his story.
+Such is the tale as it is told in the bazaars. Ismail's motive in
+murdering a man he liked (he was incapable of true affection for any
+one) is found in the fact that he could place upon the shoulders of the
+missing minister the worst of the financial irregularities which were
+trying the patience of the European powers. It did him no good. He was
+deposed the next year.
+
+During the spring of 1890 Gezireh awoke to new life for a time. A French
+company had purchased the place, with the intention of opening it as an
+Egyptian Monte Carlo. But Khedive Tufik, who has prohibited gambling
+throughout his domain, forbade the execution of this plan. So the
+tarnished silks remain where they were, and the faded gilded ceilings
+have not been renewed. When we made our last visit, during the heats of
+early summer, the blossoms were as beautiful as ever, and the ghosts
+were all there--we met them on the marble stairs: the European princes,
+led by poor Eugenie; the sultanas, with their jewels and their band;
+Ismail, with his drooping eyelids; and Sadyk, followed by the Nubian.
+
+
+TUFIK
+
+The present Khedive (or Viceroy) is thirty-eight years of age. Well
+proportioned, with fine dark eyes, he may be called a handsome man; but
+his face is made heavy by its expression of settled melancholy. It is
+said in Cairo that he has never been known to laugh. But this must apply
+to his public life only, for he is much attached to his family--to his
+wife and his four children; in this respect he lives strictly in the
+European manner, never having had but this one wife. He is a devoted
+father. Determined that the education of his sons should not be
+neglected as his own education was neglected by Ismail, he had for them,
+at an early age, an accomplished English tutor. Later he sent them to
+Geneva, Switzerland; they are now in Vienna. Tufik's chief interest, if
+one may judge by his acts, is in education. In this direction his
+strongest efforts have been made; he has improved the public schools of
+Egypt, and established new ones; he has given all the support possible
+to that greatest of modern innovations in a Mohammedan country, the
+education of women. With all this, he is a devout Mohammedan; he is not
+a fanatic; but he may be called, I think, a Mohammedan Puritan. He
+receives his many European and American visitors with courtesy. But they
+do not talk about him as they talked about Ismail; he excites no
+curiosity. This is partly owing to his position, his opinions and
+actions having naturally small importance while an English army is
+taking charge of his realm; but it is also owing, in a measure, to the
+character of the man himself. One often sees him driving. On Sunday
+afternoons his carriage in semi-state leads the procession along the
+Gezireh Avenue. First appear the outriders, six mounted soldiers; four
+brilliantly dressed saises follow, rushing along with their wands high
+in the air; then comes the open carriage, with the dark-eyed, melancholy
+Khedive on the back seat, returning mechanically the many salutations
+offered by strangers and by his own people. Behind his carriage are four
+more of the flying runners; then the remainder of the mounted escort,
+two and two. At a little distance follows the brougham of the
+Vice-reine; according to Oriental etiquette, she never appears in public
+beside her husband. Her brougham is preceded and followed by saises, but
+there is no mounted escort. The Vice-reine is pretty, intelligent, and
+accomplished; in addition, she is brave. Several years ago, when the
+cholera was raging in Cairo, and the Khedive, almost alone among the
+upper classes, remained there in order to do what he could for the
+suffering people, his wife also refused to flee. She stayed in the
+plague-stricken town until the pestilence had disappeared, exerting her
+influence to persuade the frightened women of the lower classes to
+follow her example regarding sanitary precautions. Tufik is accused of
+being always undecided; he was not undecided upon this occasion at
+least. It is probable that some of his moments of indecision have been
+caused by real hesitations. And this brings us to Arabi.
+
+Arabi (he is probably indifferent to the musical sound of his name) was
+the leader of the military revolt which broke out in Egypt in 1881--a
+revolt with which all the world is familiar, because it was followed by
+the bombardment of Alexandria by the English fleet. Arabi had studied at
+El Azhar; he knew the Koran by heart. To the native population he seemed
+a wonderful orator; he excited their enthusiasm; he roused their
+courage; he almost made them patriotic. The story of Arabi is
+interesting; there were many intrigues mixed with the revolt, and a
+dramatic element throughout. But these slight impressions--the idle
+notes merely of one winter--are not the place for serious history. Nor
+is the page completed so that it can be described as a whole. Egypt at
+this moment is the scene of history in the actual process of making, if
+the term may be so used--making day by day and hour by hour. Arabi has
+been called the modern Masaniello. The watchword of his revolt was,
+"Egypt for the Egyptians"; and there is always something touching in
+this cry when the invaded country is weak and the incoming power is
+strong. But it may be answered that the Egyptians at present are
+incapable of governing themselves; that the country, if left to its own
+devices, would revert to anarchy in a month, and to famine, desolation,
+and barbarism in five years. Americans are not concerned with these
+questions of the Eastern world. But if a similar cry had been
+successfully raised about two hundred years ago on another
+coast--"America for the Americans"--would the Western continent have
+profited thereby? Doubtless the original Americans--those of the red
+skins--raised it as loudly as they could. But there was not much
+listening. The comparison is stretched, for the poor Egyptian fellah is
+at least not a savage; but there is a grain of resemblance large enough
+to call for reflection, when the question of occupation and improvement
+of a half-civilized land elsewhere is under discussion. The English put
+down the revolt, and sent Arabi to Ceylon, a small Napoleon at St.
+Helena. The rebel colonel and his fellow-exiles are at present enjoying
+those spicy breezes which are associated in our minds with foreign
+missions and a whole congregation singing (and dragging them fearfully)
+the celebrated verses. Arabi has complained of the climate in spite of
+the perfumes, and it is said that he is to be transferred to some other
+point in the ocean; there are, indeed, many of them well adapted for the
+purpose. The English newspapers of to-day are dotted with the word
+"shadowed," which signifies, apparently, that certain persons in Ireland
+are followed so closely by a policeman that the official might be the
+shadow. Possibly the melancholy Khedive is shadowed by the memory of the
+exile of Ceylon. For Tufik did not cast his lot with Arabi. He turned
+towards the English. To use the word again, though with another
+signification, though ruler still, he has but a shadowy power.
+
+[Illustration: AN EGYPTIAN DANCING-GIRL]
+
+
+THE ARAB MUSEUM
+
+Near the city gate named the Help of God, on the northeastern border of
+Cairo, is the old mosque El Hakim. Save its outer walls, which enclose,
+like the mosques of Touloun and Amer, a large open square, there is not
+much left of it; but within this square, housed in a temporary building,
+one finds the collection of Saracenic antiquities which is called the
+Arab Museum.
+
+This museum is interesting, and it ought to be beautiful. But somehow it
+is not. The barrack-like walls, sparsely ornamented with relics from the
+mosques, the straight aisles and glass show-cases, are not inspiring;
+the fragments of Arabian wood-carving seem to be lamenting their fate;
+and the only room which is not desolate is the one where old tiles lie
+in disorder upon the floor, much as they lie on broken marble pavements
+of the ancient houses which, half ruined and buried in rubbish, still
+exist in the old quarters. Why one should be so inconsistent as to find
+no fault with Gizeh, where rows of antiquities torn from their proper
+places confront us, where show-cases abound, and yet at the same time
+make an outcry over this poor little morsel at El Hakim, remains a
+mystery. Possibly it is because the massive statues and the solid little
+gods of ancient Egypt do not require an appropriate background, as do
+the delicate fancies of Saracenic taste. However this may be, to some of
+us the Arab Museum looks as if a New England farmer's wife had tried her
+best to make things orderly within its borders, poor soul, in spite of
+the strangeness of the articles with which she was obliged to deal. It
+must, however, be added that the museum will not make this impression
+upon persons who are indifferent to the general aspect of an aisle, or
+of a series of walls--persons who care only for the articles which adorn
+them--the lovers of detail, in short. And it is well for all of us to
+join this class as soon as our feet have crossed the threshold. For we
+shall be repaid for it. The details are exquisite.
+
+The Arab Museum has been established recently. Every one is grateful to
+the zeal which has rescued from further injury so many specimens of a
+vanishing art. One covets a little chest for the Koran which is made of
+sandal-wood. It is incrusted with arabesques carved in ivory, and has
+broad hasps and locks of embossed silver. There are many koursis, or
+small, stool-like tables; one of these has panels of silver filigree,
+and fretted medallions bearing the name of the Sultan Mohammed ebn
+Kalaoon, thus showing that it once belonged to the mosque at the Citadel
+which was built by that Memlook ruler--the mosque whose minarets are
+ornamented with picturesque bands of emerald-hued porcelain. The
+illuminated Korans are not here; they are kept in the Public Library in
+the Street of the Sycamores. Perhaps the most beautiful of the museum's
+treasures are the old lamps of Arabian glass. In shape they are vases,
+as they were simply filled with perfumed oil which carried a floating
+wick; the colors are usually a pearly background, faintly tinged
+sometimes by the hue we call ashes of roses; upon this background are
+ornaments of blue, gold, and red; occasionally these ornaments are
+Arabic letters forming a name or text. These lamps were made in the
+thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; the glass, which has as marked
+characteristics of its own as Palissy ware, so that once seen it can
+never be confounded with any other, has a delicate beauty which is
+unrivalled.
+
+
+HELIOPOLIS
+
+Like the pyramids, Heliopolis belongs to Cairo. On the way thither, one
+first traverses the pleasant suburb of Abbasieh. How one traverses it
+depends upon his taste. The most enthusiastic pedestrian soon gives up
+walking in the city of the Khedive save in the broad streets of the new
+quarter. The English ride, one meets every day their gallant mounted
+bands; but these are generally residents and their visitors, and the
+horses are their own; for the traveller there are only the street
+carriages and the donkeys. The carriages are dubiously loose-jointed,
+and the horses (whose misery has already been described) have but two
+gaits--the walk of a dying creature and the gallop of despair; unless,
+therefore, one wishes to mount a dromedary, he must take a donkey. But
+the "must" is not a disparagement; the white and gray donkeys of
+Cairo--the best of them--are good-natured, gay-hearted, strong, and even
+handsome. They have a coquettish way of arching their necks and holding
+their chins (if a donkey can be said to have a chin), which always
+reminded me of George Eliot's description of Gwendolen's manner of
+poising her head in _Daniel Deronda_. George Eliot goes on to warn other
+young ladies that it is useless to try to imitate this proud little air,
+unless one has a throat like Gwendolen's. And, in the same spirit, one
+must warn other donkeys that they must be born in Cairo to be beautiful.
+Upon several occasions I recognized vanity in my donkey. He knew
+perfectly when he was adorned with his holiday necklaces--one of
+imitation sequins, the other of turquoise-hued beads. I am sure that he
+would have felt much depressed if deprived of his charm against
+magic--the morsel of parchment inscribed with Arabic characters which
+decorated his breast. His tail and his short mane were dyed fashionably
+with henna, but his legs had not been shaved in the pattern which
+represents filigree garters, and whenever a comrade who had this
+additional glory passed him, he became distinctly melancholy, and
+brooded about it for several minutes. There is nothing in the world so
+deprecating as the profile of one of these Cairo donkeys when he finds
+himself obliged, by the pressure of the crowd, to push against a
+European; his long nose and his polite eye as he passes are full of
+friendly apologies. The donkey-boy, in his skull-cap and single garment,
+runs behind his beast. These lads are very quick-witted. They have ready
+for their donkeys five or six names, and they seldom make a mistake in
+applying them according to the supposed nationality of their patrons of
+the moment, so that the Englishman learns that he has Annie Laurie; the
+Frenchman, Napoleon; the German, Bismarck; the Italian, Garibaldi; and
+the Americans, indiscriminately, Hail Columbia, Yankee Doodle, and
+General Grant.
+
+In passing through the Abbasieh quarter, we always came, sooner or
+later, upon a wedding. The different stages of a native marriage
+require, indeed, so many days for their accomplishment that nuptial
+festivities are a permanent institution in Cairo, like the policemen and
+the water-carts, rather than an occasional event, as in other places.
+One day, upon turning into a narrow street, we discovered that a long
+portion of it had been roofed over with red cloth; from the centre of
+this awning four large chandeliers were suspended by cords, and at each
+end of the improvised tent were hoops adorned with the little red
+Egyptian banners which look like fringed napkins. In the roadway, placed
+against the walls of the houses on each side, were rows of wooden
+settees; one of these seats was occupied by the band, which kept up a
+constant piping and droning, and upon the others were squatted the
+invited guests. Every now and then a man came from a gayly adorned door
+on the left, which was that of the bridegroom, bringing with him a tray
+covered with the tiny cups of coffee set in their filigree stands; he
+offered coffee to all. In the meanwhile, in the centre of the roadway
+between the settees, an Egyptian, in his long blue gown, was dancing.
+The expression of responsibility on his face amounted to anxiety as he
+took his steps with great care, now lifting one bare foot as high as he
+could, and turning it sidewise, as if to show us the sole; now putting
+it down and hopping upon it, while he displayed to us in the same way
+the sole of the other. This formal dancing is done by the guests when no
+public performers are employed. Some one must dance to express the
+revelry of the occasion; those who are invited, therefore, undertake the
+duty one by one. When at last we went on our way we were obliged to ride
+directly through the reception, our donkeys brushing the band on one
+side and the guests on the other; the dancer on duty paused for a
+moment, wiping his face with the tail of his gown.
+
+The road leading to Heliopolis has a charm which it shares with no other
+in the neighborhood of Cairo: at a certain point the desert--the real
+desert--comes rolling up to its very edge; one can look across the sand
+for miles. The desert is not a plain, the sand lies in ridges and
+hillocks; and this sand in many places is not so much like the sand of
+the sea-shore as it is like the dust of one of our country roads in
+August. The contrast between the bright green of the cultivated fields
+(the land which is reached by the inundation) and those silvery,
+arrested waves is striking, the line of their meeting being as sharply
+defined as that between sea and shore. I have called the color silvery,
+but that is only one of the tints which the sand assumes. An artist has
+jotted down the names of the colors used in an effort to copy the hues
+on an expanse of desert before him; beginning with the foreground, these
+were brown, dark red, violet, blue, gold, rose, crimson, pale green,
+orange, indigo blue, and sky blue. Colors supply the place of shadows,
+for there is no shade anywhere; all is wide open and light; and yet the
+expanse does not strike one in the least as bare. For myself, I can say
+that of all the marvels which one sees in Egypt, the desert produced the
+most profound impression; and I fancy that, as regards this feeling, I
+am but one of many. The cause of the attraction is a mystery. It cannot
+be found in the roving tendencies of our ancestor, since he was
+arboreal, and there are no trees in the strange-tinted waste. The old
+legend says that Adam's first wife, Lilith, fled to Egypt, where she was
+permitted to live in the desert, and where she still exists:
+
+    "It was Lilith, the wife of Adam;
+    Not a drop of her blood was human."
+
+Perhaps it is Lilith's magic that we feel.
+
+[Illustration: THE INUNDATION NEAR CAIRO]
+
+Heliopolis, the City of the Sun, the On of the forty-first chapter of
+Genesis, is five miles from Cairo. Nothing of it is now left above
+ground save an obelisk and a few ruined walls. The obelisk, which is the
+oldest yet discovered, bears the name of the king in whose reign it was
+erected; this gives us the date--5000 years ago; that is, more than a
+millennium before the days of Moses. At Heliopolis was the Temple of the
+Sun, and the schools which Herodotus visited "because the teachers are
+considered the most accomplished men in Egypt." When Strabo came hither,
+four hundred years later, he saw the house which Plato had occupied;
+Moses here learned "all the wisdom of the Egyptians." Papyri describe
+Heliopolis as "full of obelisks." Two of these columns were carried to
+Alexandria 1937 years ago, and set up before the Temple of Caesar.
+According to one authority, this temple was built by Cleopatra; in
+any case, the two obelisks acquired the name of Cleopatra's Needles, and
+though the temple itself in time disappeared, they remained where they
+had been placed--one erect, one prostrate--until, in recent years, one
+was given to London and the other to New York. One recites all this in a
+breath in order to bring up, if possible, the associations which rush
+confusedly through the mind as one stands beside this red granite column
+rising alone in the green fields at Heliopolis. No myth itself, it was
+erected in days which are to us mythical--days which are the jumping-off
+place of our human history; yet they were not savages who polished this
+granite, who sculptured this inscription; ages of civilization of a
+certain sort must have preceded them. Beginning with the Central Park,
+we force our minds backward in an endeavor to make these dates real.
+"Homer was a modern compared with the designers of this pillar," we say
+to ourselves. "The Mycenae relics were _articles de Paris_ of centuries
+and centuries later." But repeating the words (and even rolling the
+_r's_) are useless efforts; the imagination will not rise; it is crushed
+into stupidity by such a vista of years. As reaction, perhaps as
+revenge, we flee to geology and Darwin; here, at least, one can take
+breath.
+
+Near Heliopolis there is an ostrich yard. The giant birds are very
+amusing; they walk about with long steps, and stretch their necks. If
+allowed, they would tap us all on the head, I think, after the fashion
+of the ostriches in that vivid book, _The Story of an African Farm_.
+
+
+FRENCH AND ENGLISH
+
+Gerard de Nerval begins his volume on Egypt by announcing that the women
+of Cairo are so thickly veiled that the European (_i.e._, the
+Frenchman?) becomes discouraged after a very few days, and, in
+consequence, goes up the Nile. This, at least, is one effort to explain
+why strangers spend so short a time in Cairo. The French, as a nation,
+are not travellers; they have small interest in any country beyond their
+own borders. A few of their writers have cherished a liking for the
+East; but it has been what we may call a home-liking. They give us the
+impression of having sincerely believed that they could, owing to their
+extreme intelligence, imagine for themselves (and reproduce for others)
+the entire Orient from one fez, one Turkish pipe, and a picture of the
+desert. Gautier, for instance, has described many Eastern landscapes
+which his eyes have never beheld. Pictures are, indeed, much to
+Frenchmen. The acme of this feeling is reached by one of the Goncourt
+brothers, who writes, in their recently published journal, that the true
+way to enjoy a summer in the country is to fill one's town-house during
+the summer months with beautiful paintings of green fields, wild
+forests, and purling brooks, and then stay at home, and look at the
+lovely pictured scenes in comfort. French volumes of travels in the East
+are written as much with exclamation-points as with the letters of the
+alphabet. Lamartine and his disciples frequently paused "to drop a
+tear." Later Gallic voyagers divided all scenery into two classes; the
+cities "laugh," the plains are "amiable," or they "smile"; if they do
+not do this, immediately they are set down as "sad." One must be bold
+indeed to call Edmond About, the distinguished author of _Tolla_,
+ridiculous. The present writer, not being bold, is careful to abstain
+from it. But the last scene of his volume on Egypt (_Le Fellah_,
+published in 1883), describing the hero, with all his clothes rolled
+into a gigantic turban round his head, swimming after the yacht which
+bears away the heroine--a certain impossible Miss Grace--from the
+harbor of Port Said, must have caused, I think, some amused reflection
+in the minds of English and American readers. It is but just to add that
+among the younger French writers are several who have abandoned these
+methods. Gabriel Charmes's volume on Cairo contains an excellent account
+of the place. Pierre Loti and Maupassant have this year (1890) given to
+the world pages about northwestern Africa which are marvels of actuality
+as well as of unsurpassed description.
+
+The French at present are greatly angered by the continuance of the
+English occupation of Egypt. Since Napoleon's day they have looked upon
+the Nile country as sure to be theirs some time. They built the Suez
+Canal when the English were opposed to the scheme. They remember when
+their influence was dominant. The French tradesmen, the French milliners
+and dressmakers in Cairo, still oppose a stubborn resistance to the
+English way of counting. They give the prices of their goods and render
+their accounts in Egyptian piasters, or in napoleons and francs; they
+refuse to comprehend shillings and pounds. And here, by-the-way,
+Americans would gladly join their side of the controversy. England
+alone, among the important countries of the world, has a currency which
+is not based upon the decimal system. The collected number of sixpences
+lost each year in England, by American travellers who mistake the
+half-crown piece for two shillings, would make a large sum. The
+bewilderment over English prices given in a coin which has no existence
+is like that felt by serious-minded persons who read _Alice in
+Wonderland_ from a sense of duty. Talk of the English as having no
+imagination when the guinea exists!
+
+France lost her opportunity in Egypt when her fleet sailed away from
+Alexandria Harbor in July, 1882. Her ships were asked to remain and take
+part in the bombardment; they refused, and departed. The English, thus
+being left alone, quieted the country later by means of an army of
+occupation. An English army of occupation has been there ever since.
+
+At present it is not a large army. The number of British soldiers in
+1890 is given as three thousand; the remaining troops are Egyptians,
+with English regimental officers. During the winter months the
+short-waisted red coat of Tommy Atkins enlivens with its cheerful blaze
+the streets of Cairo at every turn. The East and the West may be said to
+be personified by the slender, supple Arabs in their flowing draperies,
+and by these lusty youths of light complexion, with straight backs and
+stiff shoulders, who walk, armed with a rattan, in the centre of the
+pavement, wearing over one ear the cloth-covered saucer which passes for
+a head-covering. Tommy Atkins patronizes the donkeys with all his heart.
+One of the most frequently seen groups is a party of laughing
+scarlet-backed youths mounted on the smallest beasts they can find, and
+careering down the avenues at the donkey's swiftest speed, followed by
+the donkey-boys, delighted and panting. As the spring comes on, Atkins
+changes his scarlet for lighter garments, and dons the summer helmet.
+This species of hat is not confined to the sons of Mars; it is worn in
+warm weather by Europeans of all nationalities who are living or
+travelling in the East. It may be cool. Without doubt, aesthetically
+considered, it is the most unbecoming head-covering known to the
+civilized world. It has a peculiar power of causing its wearer to appear
+both ignoble and pulmonic; for, viewed in front, the most distinguished
+features, under its tin-pan-like visor, become plebeian; and, viewed
+behind, the strongest masculine throat looks wizened and consumptive.
+
+[Illustration: A MOHAMMEDAN CEMETERY, CAIRO]
+
+The English have benefited Egypt. They have put an end to the open
+knavery in high places which flourished unchecked; they have taught
+honesty; they have so greatly improved the methods of irrigation that a
+bad Nile (_i.e._, a deficient inundation) no longer means starvation;
+finally, they have taken hold of the mismanaged finances, disentangled
+them, set them in order, and given them at least a start in the right
+direction. The natives fret over some of their restrictions. And they
+say that the English have, first of all, taken care of their own
+interests. In addition, they greatly dislike seeing so many Englishmen
+holding office over them. But this last objection is simply the other
+side of the story. If the English are to help the country, they must be
+on the spot in order to do it; and it appears to be a fixed rule in all
+British colonies that the representatives of the government, whether
+high or low, shall be made, as regards material things, extremely
+comfortable. Egypt is not yet a British colony; she is a viceroyalty
+under the suzerainty of the Porte. But practically she is to-day
+governed by the English; and, to the American traveller at least
+(whatever the French may think), it appears probable that English
+authority will soon be as absolute in the Khedive's country as it is now
+in India.
+
+In Cairo, in 1890, the English colony played lawn-tennis; it attended
+the races; when Stanley returned to civilization it welcomed him with
+enthusiasm; and when, later, Prince Eddie came, it attended a gala
+performance of _Aida_ at the opera-house--a resurrection from the time
+of Ismail ordered by Ismail's son for the entertainment of the
+heir-presumptive (one wonders whether Tufik himself found entertainment
+in it).
+
+In the little English church, which stands amid its roses and vines in
+the new quarter, is a wall tablet of red and white marble--the memorial
+of a great Englishman. It bears the following inscription: "In memory of
+Major-General Charles George Gordon, C.B. Born at Woolwich, Jan. 28,
+1833. Killed at the defence of Khartoum, Jan. 26, 1885." Above is a
+sentence from Gordon's last letter: "I have done my best for the honor
+of our country."
+
+St. George of Khartoum, as he has been called. If objection is made to
+the bestowal of this title, it might be answered that the saints of old
+lived before the age of the telegraph, the printer, the newspaper, and
+the reporter; possibly they too would not have seemed to us faultless if
+every one of their small decisions and all their trivial utterances had
+been subjected to the electric-light publicity of to-day. Perhaps Gordon
+was a fanatic, and his discernment was not accurate. But he was
+single-hearted, devoted to what he considered to be his duty, and brave
+to a striking degree. When we remember how he faced death through those
+weary days we cannot criticise him. The story of that rescuing army
+which came so near him and yet failed, and of his long hoping in vain,
+only to be shot down at the last, must always remain one of the most
+pathetic tales of history.
+
+
+SOUVENIRS
+
+As the warm spring closes, every one selects something to carry
+homeward. Leaving aside those fortunate persons who can purchase the
+ancient carved woodwork of an entire house, or Turkish carpets by the
+dozen, the rest of us keep watch of the selections of our friends while
+we make our own. Among these we find the jackets embroidered in silver
+and gold; the inevitable fez; two or three blue tiles of the thirteenth
+century; a water-jug, or kulleh; a fly-brush with ivory handle; attar of
+roses and essence of sandal-wood; Assiout ware in vases and stoups; a
+narghileh; the gauze scarfs embroidered with Persian benedictions; a
+koursi inlaid with mother-of-pearl; Arabian inkstands--long cases of
+silver or brass, to be worn like a dagger in the belt; a keffiyeh, or
+delicate silken head-shawl with white knotted fringe; the Arabian
+finger-bowls; the little coffee-cups; images of Osiris from the tombs; a
+native bracelet and anklet; and, finally, a scarab or two, whose
+authenticity is always exciting, like an unsolved riddle. A picture of
+these mementos of Cairo would not be complete for some of us without two
+of those constant companions of so many long mornings--the dusty,
+shuffling, dragging, slipping, venerable, abominable mosque shoes.
+
+HOMEWARD-BOUND
+
+              "We who pursue
+    Our business with unslackening stride,
+      Traverse in troops, with care-fill'd breast,
+    The soft Mediterranean side,
+              The Nile, the East,
+    And see all sights from pole to pole,
+      And glance and nod and bustle by,
+    And never once possess our soul
+              Before we die."
+
+So chanted Matthew Arnold of the English of to-day. And if we are to
+believe what is preached to us and hurled at us, it is a reproach even
+more applicable to Americans than to the English themselves. One
+American traveller, however, wishes to record modestly a disbelief in
+the universal truth of this idea. Many of us are, indeed, haunted by our
+business; many of us do glance and nod and bustle by; it is a class, and
+a large class. But these hurried people are not all; an equal number of
+us, who, being less in haste, may be less conspicuous perhaps, are the
+most admiring travellers in the world. American are the bands who
+journey to Stratford-upon-Avon, and go down upon their knees--almost--when
+they reach the sacred spot; American are the pilgrims who pay reverent
+visits to all the English cathedrals, one after the other, from Carlisle
+to Exeter, from Durham to Canterbury. In the East, likewise, it is the
+transatlantic travellers who are so deeply impressed by the strangeness
+and beauty of the scenes about them that they forget to talk about their
+personal comforts (or, rather, the lack of them).
+
+There is another matter upon which a word may be said, and this is the
+habit of judging the East from the stand-point of one's home customs,
+whether the home be American or English. It is, of course, easy to find
+faults in the social systems of the Oriental nations; they have laws and
+usages which are repugnant to all our feelings, which seem to us
+horrible. But it is well to remember that it is impossible to comprehend
+any nation not our own unless one has lived a long time among its
+people, and made one's self familiar with their traditions, their
+temperament, their history, and, above all, with the language which they
+speak. Anything less than this is observation from the outside alone,
+which is sure to be founded upon misapprehension. The French and the
+English are separated by merely the few miles of the Channel, and they
+have, to a certain extent, a common language; for though the French do
+not often understand English, the English very generally understand
+something of French. Yet it is said that these two nations have never
+thoroughly comprehended each other either as nations or individuals; and
+it is even added that, owing to their differing temperaments, they will
+never reach a clear appreciation of each other's merits; demerits, of
+course, are easier. Our own country has a language which is, on the
+whole, nearer the English tongue perhaps than is the speech of France;
+yet have we not felt now and then that English travellers have
+misunderstood us? If this is the case among people who are all
+Occidentals together, how much more difficult must be a thorough
+comprehension by us of those ancient nations who were old before we were
+born?
+
+[Illustration: SOUVENIRS OF CAIRO]
+
+The East is the land of mystery. If one cares for it at all, one loves
+it; there is no half-way. If one does not love it, one really (though
+perhaps not avowedly) hates it--hates it and all its ways. But for those
+who love it the charm is so strong that no surprise is felt in reading
+or hearing of Europeans who have left all to take up a wandering
+existence there for long years or for life--the spirit of Browning's
+"What's become of Waring?"
+
+All of us cannot be Warings, however, and the time comes at last when we
+must take leave. The streets of Cairo have been for some time adorned
+with placards whose announcements begin, in large type, "Travellers
+returning to Europe." We are indeed far away when returning to Europe is
+a step towards home. We wait for the last festival--the Shem-en-Neseem,
+or Smelling of the Zephyr--the annual picnic day, when the people go
+into the country to gather flowers and breathe the soft air before the
+opening of the regular season for the Khamsin. Then comes the journey by
+railway to Alexandria. We wave a handkerchief (now fringed on all four
+sides by the colored threads of the laundresses) to the few friends
+still left behind. They respond; and so do all the Mustaphas, Achmets,
+and Ibrahims who have carried our parcels and trotted after our donkeys.
+Then we take a seat by the window, to watch for the last time the flying
+Egyptian landscape--the green plain, the tawny Nile, the camels on the
+bank, the villages, and the palm-trees, and behind them the solemn line
+of the desert.
+
+At sunset the steamer passes down the harbor, and, pushing out to sea,
+turns westward. A faint crescent moon becomes visible over the
+Ras-et-Teen palace. It is the moon of Ramadan. Presently a cannon on the
+shore ushers in, with its distant sound, the great Mohammedan fast.
+
+
+
+
+CORFU AND THE IONIAN SEA
+
+[Illustration]
+
+    Sad eyes! the blue sea laughs, as heretofore.
+    Ah, singing birds, your happy music pour;
+        Ah, poets, leave the sordid earth awhile;
+    Flit to these ancient gods we still adore:
+        "It may be we shall touch the happy isle!"
+
+    --_Translated by Andrew Lang._
+
+
+Not long before Christmas, last year, I found myself travelling from
+Ancona down the Adriatic coast of Italy by the fast train called the
+Indian Mail. There was excitement in the very name, and more in the
+conversation of the people who sat beside me at the table of a queer
+little eating-house on the shore, before whose portal the Indian Mail
+stopped late in the evening. We all descended and went in. A dusky
+apartment was our discovery, and a table illuminated by guttering
+candles that flared in the strong currents of air. Roast chickens were
+stacked on this table in a high pile, and loaves of dark-colored bread
+were placed here and there, with portly straw-covered flasks of the wine
+of the country. No one came to serve us; we were expected to serve
+ourselves. A landlord who looked like an obese Don Juan was established
+behind a bench in a distant corner, where he made coffee with
+amiability and enthusiasm for those who desired it. It was supposed
+that we were to go to him, before we returned to the train, and pay for
+what we had consumed; and I hope that his trust in us was not misplaced,
+for with his objection to exercise, and his dim little lamp which
+illuminated only his smiles, there was nothing for him but trust. The
+Indian Mail carries passengers who are outward-bound for Constantinople,
+Egypt, and India; his confidence rested perhaps in the belief that
+persons about to embark on such dangerous seas would hardly begin the
+enterprise by crime. To other minds, however, it might have seemed the
+very moment to perpetrate enormities. As we attacked the chickens, I
+perceived in the flickering glare that all my companions were English.
+Everybody talked, and the thrill of the one American increased as the
+names of the steamers waiting at Brindisi were mentioned--the
+_Hydaspes_, the _Coromandel_, the _Cathay_, the _Mirzapore_: towards
+what lands of sandal-wood, what pleasure-domes of Kubla-Khan, might not
+one sail on ships bearing those titles! The present voyagers, however,
+were all old travellers; they took a purely practical view of the
+Orient. Nevertheless, their careless "Cairo," "Port Said," "Bombay,"
+"Ceylon," "Java," were as fascinating as the shining balls of a juggler
+when a dozen are in the air at the same moment. My right-hand neighbor,
+upon learning that my destination was Corfu, good-naturedly offered the
+information that the voyage was an easy one. "Corfu, however, is _not_
+what it has been!"
+
+"But, Polly, it is looking up a little, now that the Empress of Austria
+is building a villa there," suggested a sister correctively.
+
+After this outburst of talk, we all climbed back into the waiting train,
+and went flying on towards the south, following the lonely, wild-looking
+coast, with the wind from the Adriatic crying over our heads like a
+banshee. It was midnight when we reached Brindisi. At present this, the
+ancient Brundusium, is the jumping-off place for the traveller on his
+way to the East; here he must leave the land and trust himself to an
+enigmatical deep. But if he wishes to have the sensation in full force,
+he must not delay his journey; for, presently, the Indian Mail will rush
+through Greece and meet the steamers at Cape Colonna; and then, before
+long, there will be another spurt, and Pullman trains will go through to
+Calcutta, with a ferry over the Bosporus.
+
+At Brindisi I became the prey of five barelegged boatmen, who, owing to
+the noise of the wind and the water, communicated with each other by
+yells. The Austrian-Lloyd steamer from Trieste, outward-bound for
+Constantinople, which carried the friends I was expecting to meet, was
+said to be lying out in the stream, and I enjoyed the adventure of
+setting forth alone on the dark sea in search of her, in a small boat
+rowed by my Otranto crew. During the transit there was not much time to
+think of Brundusium, with its memories of Horace and Virgil. But there
+was another opportunity to reflect upon the question, perplexing to the
+unskilled mind--namely, Why it is that an American abroad is constantly
+called upon to praise the wharves, piers, and landing-stages, and with
+the same breath to condemn as disgraces to civilization the like
+nautical platforms of his own country, when he is so often obliged, on
+foreign shores, to embark and disembark by means of a tossing small boat
+or a crowded tender, whereas at home, with the aid of those same
+makeshift constructions for whose short-comings he is supposed to blush,
+he walks on board of his steamship with no trouble whatever?
+
+Early the next morning, awakening on a shelf in a red velvet cupboard, I
+was explaining to myself vaguely that the cupboard was a dream, when
+there appeared through the port-hole a picture of such fairy-tale beauty
+that the dream became lyrical--it began to sing:
+
+    "Far and few, far and few,
+      Are the lands where the Jumblies live!"
+
+At last those famous lines were actualities, for surely this was the sea
+of the Jumblies, and those heights without doubt were "the hills of
+Chankly Bore." (There are people, I believe, who do not care for the
+Jumblies. There are persons who do not care for Alice in Wonderland, nor
+for Brer Rabbit, when he played on his triangle down by the brook.)
+
+The sea which I saw was of a miraculously blue tint; in the distance the
+cliffs of a mountainous island rose boldly from the water, their color
+that of a violet pansy; a fishing-boat with red sails was crossing the
+foreground; over all glittered an atmosphere so golden that it was like
+that of sunset in other lands, though the sky, at the same time, had
+unmistakably the purity of early morning. Later, on the deck, during the
+broadly practical time of after breakfast, this view, instead of
+diminishing in attraction, grew constantly more fair. The French
+novelist of to-day, Paul Bourget, describes Corfu as "so lovely that one
+wants to take it in one's arms!" Another Frenchman, who was not given to
+the making of phrases, no less a personage than Napoleon Bonaparte, has
+left upon record his belief that Corfu has "the most beautiful situation
+in the world." What, then, is this beauty? What is this situation?
+
+[Illustration: PART OF THE TOWN OF CORFU]
+
+First, there is the long and charming approach, with the snow-capped
+mountains of Albania, in European Turkey, looming up against the sky at
+the end; then comes the landlocked harbor; then the picturesque old
+town, its high stone houses, all of creamy hue, crowded together on the
+hill-side above the sea-wall, with here and there a bell-tower shooting
+into the blue. Below is the busy, many-colored port. Above towers the
+dark double fortress on its rock. And, finally, the dense, grove-like
+vegetation of the island encircles all, and its own mountain-peaks rise
+behind, one of them attaining a height of three thousand feet. There are
+other islands of which all this, or almost all, can be said--Capri, for
+instance. But at Corfu there are two attributes peculiar to the region;
+these are: first, the color; second, the transparency. Although the
+voyage from Brindisi hardly occupies twelve hours, the atmosphere is
+utterly unlike that of Italy; there is no haze; all is clear. Some of us
+love the Italian haze (which is not in the least a mist), that soft veil
+which makes the mountains look as if they were covered with velvet. But
+a love of this softness need not, I hope, make us hate everything that
+is different. Greece (and Corfu is a Greek island) seemed to me all
+light--the lightest country in the world. In other lands, if we climb a
+high mountain and stand on its bald summit at noon, we feel as if we
+were taking a bath in light; in Greece we have this feeling everywhere,
+even in the valleys. Euripides described his countrymen as "forever
+delicately tripping through the pellucid air," and so their modern
+descendants trip to this day. This dry atmosphere has an exciting effect
+upon the nervous energy, and the faces of the people show it. It has
+also, I believe, the defect of this good quality--namely, an
+over-stimulation, which sometimes produces neuralgia. In some respects
+Americans recognize this clearness of the atmosphere, and its influence,
+good and bad; the air of northern New England in the summer, and of
+California at the same season, is not unlike it. But in America the
+transparency is more white, more blank; we have little of the coloring
+that exists in Greece, tints whose intensity must be seen to be
+believed. The mountains, the hills, the fields, are sometimes bathed in
+lilac. Then comes violet for the plains, while the mountains are rose
+that deepens into crimson. At other times salmon, pink, and purple
+tinges are seen, and ochre, saffron, and cinnamon brown. This
+description applies to the whole of Greece, but among the Ionian Islands
+the effect of the color is doubled by the wonderful tint of the
+surrounding sea. I promise not to mention this hue again; hereafter it
+can be taken for granted, for it is always present; but for this once I
+must say that you may imagine the bluest blue you know--the sky, lapis
+lazuli, sapphires, the eyes of some children, the Bay of Naples--and the
+Ionian Sea is bluer than any of these. And nowhere else have I seen such
+dear, queer little foam sprays. They are so small and so very white on
+the blue, and they curl over the surface of the water even when the sea
+is perfectly calm, which makes me call them queer. You meet them miles
+from land. And all the shores are whitened with their never-ceasing
+play. It is a pygmy surf.
+
+It was eleven o'clock in the morning when our steamer reached her
+anchorage before the island town. Immediately she was surrounded by
+small boats, whose crews were perfectly lawless, demanding from
+strangers whatever they thought they could get, and obtaining their
+demands, because there was no way to escape them except by building a
+raft. Upon reaching land one forgets the extortion, for the windows of
+the hotel overlook the esplanade, and this open space amiably offers to
+persons who are interested in first impressions a panoramic history of
+two thousand five hundred years in a series of striking mementos. Let me
+premise that as regards any solid knowledge of these islands, only a
+contemptible smattering can be obtained in a stay so short as mine.
+Corfu and her sisters have borne a conspicuous part in what we used to
+call ancient history. Through the Roman days they appear and reappear.
+In the times of the Crusaders their position made them extremely
+important. Years of study could not exhaust their records, nor months of
+research their antiquities. To comprehend them rightfully one must
+indeed be an historian, an archaeologist, and a painter at one and the
+same time, and one must also be good-natured. Few of us can hope to
+unite all these. The next best thing, therefore, is to go and see them
+with whatever eyes and mind we happen to possess. Good-nature will
+perhaps return after the opening encounter with the boatmen is over.
+
+From our windows, then, we could note, first, the Citadel, high on its
+rock, three hundred feet above the town. The oldest part of the present
+fortress was erected in 1550; but the site has always been the
+stronghold. Corinthians, Athenians, Spartans, Macedonians, and Romans
+have in turn held the island, and this rock is the obvious keep. Later
+came four hundred years of Venetian control, and I am ashamed to add
+that the tokens of this last-named period were to me more delightful
+than any of the other memorials. I say "ashamed," for why should one be
+haunted by Venice in Greece? With the Parthenon to look forward to, why
+should the lion of St. Mark, sculptured on Corfu facades, be a thing to
+greet with joy? Many of us are familiar with the disconsolate figures of
+some of our fellow-countrymen and countrywomen in the galleries of
+Europe, tired and dejected tourists wandering from picture to picture,
+but finding nothing half so interesting as the memory of No. 4699
+Columbus Avenue at home. I am afraid it is equally narrow to be scanning
+Corfu, Athens, Cairo, and the sands of the desert itself for something
+that reminds one of another place, even though that place be the
+enchanting pageant of a town at the head of the Adriatic. History,
+however, as related by the esplanade, pays no attention to these
+aberrations of the looker-on; its story goes steadily forward. The lions
+of St. Mark on the facades, and another memento of the Doges--namely,
+the statue of Count von der Schulenburg, who commanded the Venetian
+forces in the great defence of Corfu in 1716--these memorials have as
+companions various tokens of the English occupation, which, following
+that of Venice, continued through forty-nine years--that is, from 1815
+to 1863. Before this there had been a short period of French dominion;
+but the esplanade, so far as I could discover, contains no memorial of
+it, unless Napoleon's phrase can stand for one--and I think it can. The
+souvenirs of the British rule are conspicuous. The first is the palace
+built for the English Governor, a functionary who bore the sonorous
+official name of Lord High Commissioner, a title which was soon
+shortened to the odd abbreviation "the Lord High." This palace is an
+uninteresting construction stretching stiffly across the water-side of
+the esplanade, and cutting off the view of the harbor. It is now the
+property of the King of Greece, but at present it is seldom occupied.
+While we were at Corfu its ghostliness was enlivened for a while; Prince
+Henry of Prussia was there with his wife. They had left their yacht (if
+so large a vessel as the _Irene_ can be called a yacht), and were
+spending a week at the palace. An hour after their departure entrance
+was again permitted, and an old man, still trembling from the excitement
+of the royal sojourn, conducted us from room to room. All was ugly.
+Fading flowers in the vases showed that an attempt had been made to
+brighten the place; but the visitors must have been endowed with a
+strong natural cheerfulness to withstand with success such a mixture of
+the commonplace and the dreary as the palace presents. They had the
+magnificent view to look at, and there was always the graceful
+silhouette of the _Irene_ out on the water. She could come up at any
+time and take them away; it was this, probably, that kept them alive.
+
+[Illustration: THE PALACE]
+
+[Illustration: UNIVERSITY OF THE IONIAN ISLANDS]
+
+If the palace is ordinary, what shall be said of another memento which
+adorns the esplanade? This is a high, narrow building, so uncouth that
+it causes a smile. It looks raw, bare, and so primitive that if it had a
+pulley at the top it might be taken for a warehouse erected on the bank
+of a canal in one of our Western towns; one sees in imagination
+canal-boats lying beneath, and bulging sacks going up or down. Yet this
+is nothing less than that University of the Ionian Islands which was
+founded by the Earl of Guildford early in this century, the epoch of
+English enthusiasm for Greece, the days of the Philhellenes. Lord
+Guildford, who was one of the distinguished North family, gave largely
+of his fortune and of his time to establish this university.
+Contemporary records speak of him as "an amiable nobleman." But after
+seeing his touchingly ugly academy and his bust (which is not ugly) in
+the hall of the extinct Ionian Senate at the palace, one feels sure that
+he was more than amiable--he must have been original also. The English
+are called cold; but as individuals they are capable sometimes of
+extraordinary enthusiasms for distant causes and distant people.
+Adventurous travellers as they are, does the charm lie in the word
+"distant"? The defunct academy now shelters a school where vigorous
+young Greeks sit on benches, opposite each other, in narrow, doorless
+compartments which resemble the interior of a large omnibus; this, at
+least, was the arrangement of the ground-floor on the day of our visit.
+Although it was December, the boys looked heated. The teachers, who
+walked up and down, had a relentless aspect. Even the porter,
+white-haired and bent, had a will untouched by the least decay; he would
+not show us the remains of the university library, nor the Roman
+antiquities which are said to be stored somewhere in a lumber-room,
+among them "fifty-nine frames of mosaic representing a bustard in
+various attitudes." He had not the power, apparently, to exhibit these
+treasures while the school exercises were going on, and as soon as they
+were ended--instantly, that very minute--he intended to eat his dinner,
+and nothing could alter this determination; his face grew ferocious at
+the mere suggestion. So we were obliged to depart without seeing the
+souvenirs of Lord Guildford's enthusiasm; and owing to the glamour which
+always hangs over the place one has failed to see, I have been sure ever
+since that we should have found them the most fascinating objects in
+Corfu.
+
+At the present school the teaching is done, no doubt, in a tongue which
+would have made the old university shudder. In a letter written by Sir
+George Bowen in 1856, from one of the Ionian Islands, there is the
+following anecdote: "Bishop Wilberforce told me that he recently had, as
+a candidate at one of his ordinations, Mr. M., the son of an English
+merchant settled in Greece. 'I examined him myself,' said the bishop,
+'when he gave what was to me an unknown pronunciation.' 'Oh, Mr. M.,' I
+said, 'where _did_ you learn Greek?' 'In Athens, my lord,' replied the
+trembling man." Classical scholars who visit Greece to-day are not able
+to ask the simplest questions; or, rather, they may ask, but no one will
+understand them. Several of these gentlemen have announced to the world
+that the modern speech of Athens is a barbarous decadence. It is not for
+an American, I suppose, to pass judgment upon matters of this sort. But
+when these authorities continue as follows: "And even in pronunciation
+modern Greek is hopelessly fallen; the ancients never pronounced in this
+way," may we not ask how they can be so sure? They are not, I take it,
+inspired, and the phonograph is a modern invention. The voice of Robert
+Browning is stored for coming generations; the people A.D. 3000 may hear
+him recite "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix." Possibly
+the tones of Lord Salisbury and of Mr. Balfour are already garnered and
+arranged in cylinders for the future orators of the South Seas. But we
+cannot know how Pindar spoke any more than we can know the song the
+Sirens sang; the most learned scholar cannot, alas! summon from the past
+the articulation of Plato.
+
+[Illustration: SMALL TEMPLE, MEMORIAL TO SIR THOMAS MAITLAND]
+
+In the esplanade the period of English rule is further kept in mind by
+monuments to the memory of three of the Lords High--a statue, an
+obelisk, and (of all things in the world) an imitation of a Greek
+temple. This temple--it is so small that they might call it a
+templette--was erected in honor of Sir Thomas Maitland, a Governor whose
+arbitrary rule gained for him the title of King Tom. The three memorials
+are officially protected, an agreement to that effect having been made
+between the governments of Great Britain and Greece. They were never in
+danger, probably, as the English protection was a friendly one. In spite
+of its friendliness, the Corfiotes voted as follows with enthusiasm
+when an opportunity was offered to them: "The single and unanimous will
+of the Ionian people has been and is for their reunion with the Kingdom
+of Greece." England yielded to this wish and withdrew--a disinterested
+act which ought to have gained for her universal applause. Since 1864
+Corfu and her sister islands, happily freed at last from foreign
+control, have filled with patriotic pride and contentment their proper
+place as part of the Hellenic kingdom.
+
+The esplanade also contains the one modern monument erected by the
+Corfiotes themselves--a statue of Capo d'Istria. John Capo d'Istria, a
+native of Corfu, was the political leader of Greece when she succeeded
+in freeing herself from the Turkish yoke. The story of his life is a
+part of the exciting tale of the Greek revolution. His measures, after
+he had attained supreme power, were thought to be high-handed, and he
+was accused also of looking too often towards that great empire in the
+North whose boundaries are stretching slowly towards Constantinople; he
+was resisted, disliked; finally he was assassinated. Time has softened
+the remembrance of his faults, whatever they were, and brought his
+services to the nation into the proper relief; hence this statue,
+erected in 1887, fifty-six years after his death, by young Greece. It is
+a sufficiently imposing figure of white marble, the face turned towards
+the bay with a musing expression. Capo d'Istria--a name which might have
+been invented for a Greek patriot! The Eastern question is a complicated
+one, and I have no knowledge of its intricacies. But a personal
+observation of the hatred of Turkey which exists in every Greek heart,
+and a glance at the map of Europe, lead an American mind towards one
+general idea or fancy--namely, that Capo d'Istria was merely in advance
+of his time, and that an alliance between Russia and Greece is now one
+of the probabilities of the near future. It is unexpected--at least, to
+the non-political observer--that Hellas should be left to turn for help
+and comfort to the Muscovites, a race to whom, probably, her ancient art
+and literature appeal less strongly than they do to any other European
+people. But she has so turned. "Wait till _Russia_ comes down here!" she
+appears to be saying, with deferred menace, to Turkey to-day.
+
+These various monuments of the esplanade do not, however, make Corfu in
+the least modern. They are unimportant, they are inconspicuous, when
+compared with the old streets which meander over the slopes behind them,
+fringed with a net-work of stone lanes that lead down to the water's
+edge. It has been said that the general aspect of the place is Italian.
+It is true that there are arcades like those of Bologna and Padua; that
+some of the byways have the look of a Venetian calle, without its canal;
+and that the neighborhood of the gay little port resembles, on a small
+scale, the streets which border the harbor of Genoa. In spite of this,
+we have only to look up and see the sky, we have only to breathe and
+note the quality of the air, to perceive that we are not in Italy. Corfu
+is Greek, with a coating of Italian manners. And it has also caught a
+strong tinge from Asia. Many of the houses have the low door and masked
+entrance which are so characteristic of the East; at the top of the
+neglected stairway, as far as possible from public view, there may be
+handsome, richly furnished apartments; but if such rooms exist, the
+jealous love of privacy keeps them hidden. This inconspicuous entrance
+is as universal in the Orient as the high wall, shutting off all view of
+the garden or park, is universal in England.
+
+[Illustration: STATUE OF CAPO D'ISTRIA]
+
+The town of Corfu has 26,000 inhabitants. Among the population are
+Dalmatians, Maltese, Levantines, and others; but the Greeks are the
+dominant race. There is a Jews' quarter, and Jews abound, or did
+abound at the time of my visit. Since then fanaticism has raised its
+head again, and there have been wild scenes at Corfu. Face to face with
+the revival of persecution for religious opinions which is now visible
+in Russia, and not in Russia alone, are we forced to acknowledge that
+our century is not so enlightened as we have hoped that it was. I
+remember when I believed that in no civilized country to-day could there
+be found, among the educated, a single person who would wish to
+persecute or coerce his fellow-beings solely on account of their
+religious opinions; but I am obliged to confess that, without going to
+Russia or Corfu, I have encountered within the last dozen years
+individuals not a few whose flashing eyes and crimson cheeks, when they
+spoke of a mental attitude in such matters which differed from their
+own, made me realize with a thrill that if it were still the day of the
+stake and the torch they would come bringing fagots to the pile with
+their own hands.
+
+In spite of these survivals, ceremonial martyrdom for so-called
+religion's sake is, we may hope, at an end among the civilized nations;
+we have only its relics left. Corfu has one of these relics, a martyr
+who is sincerely honored--St. Spiridion, or, as he is called in loving
+diminutive, Spiro. Spiro, who died fifteen hundred years ago, was bishop
+of a see in Cyprus, I believe. He was tortured during the persecution of
+the Christians under Diocletian. His embalmed body was taken to
+Constantinople, and afterwards, in 1489, it was brought to Corfu by a
+man named George Colochieretry. Some authorities say that Colochieretry
+was a monk; in any case, what is certain is that the heirs of this man
+still own the saint--surely a strange piece of property--and derive
+large revenues from him. St. Spiro reposes in a small dim chapel of the
+church which is called by his name; his superb silver coffin is lighted
+by the rays from a hanging lamp which is suspended above it. When we
+paid our visit, people in an unbroken stream were pressing into this
+chapel, and kissing the sarcophagus repeatedly with passionate fervor.
+The nave, too, was thronged; families were seated on the pavement in
+groups, with an air of having been there all day: probably Christmas is
+one of the seasons set apart for an especial pilgrimage to the martyr.
+Three times a year the body is taken from its coffin and borne round the
+esplanade, followed by a long train of Greek clergy, and by the public
+officers of the town; upon these occasions the sick are brought forth
+and laid where the shadow of the saint can pass over them. "Yes, he's
+out to-day, I believe," said a resident, to whom we had mentioned this
+procession. He spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. After seeing it three
+times a year for twenty years, the issuing forth of the old bishop into
+the brilliant sunshine to make a solemn circuit round the esplanade did
+not, I suppose, seem so remarkable to him as it seemed to us. There is
+another saint, a woman (her name I have forgotten), who also reposes in
+a silver coffin in one of the Corfu churches. At first we supposed that
+this was Spiro. But the absence of worshippers showed us our mistake.
+This lonely witness to the faith was also a martyr; she suffered
+decapitation. "They don't think much of _her_," said the same resident.
+Then, explanatorily, "You see--she has no head." This practically minded
+critic, however, was not a native of Corfu. The true Corfiotes are very
+reverent, and no doubt they honor their second martyr upon her appointed
+day. But Spiro is the one they love. The country people believe that he
+visits their fields once a year to bless their olives and grain, and the
+Corfu sailors are sure that he comes to them, walking on the water in
+the darkness, when a storm is approaching. Mr. Tuckerman, in his
+delightful volume, _The Greeks of To-Day_, says, in connection with this
+last legend, that it is believed by the devout that seaweed is often
+found about the legs of the good bishop in his silver coffin, after his
+return from these marine promenades. There is something charming in this
+story, and I shall have to hold back my hand to keep myself from
+alluding (and yet I do allude) to a shrine I know at Venice; it is far
+out on the lagoon, and its name is Our Lady of the Seaweed. The last
+time my gondola passed it I saw that by a happy chance the high tide had
+left seaweed twined about it in long, floating wreaths, like an
+offering.
+
+The name of the national religion of Greece is the Orthodox Church of
+the East, or, more briefly, the Orthodox Church. Western nations call it
+the Greek Church, but they have invented that name themselves. The
+Orthodox Church has rites and ceremonies which are striking and
+sometimes magnificent. I have many memories of the churches of Corfu.
+The temples are so numerous that they seem innumerable; one was always
+coming upon a fresh one; sometimes there is only a facade visible, and
+occasionally nothing but a door, the church being behind, masked by
+other buildings. My impressions are of a series of magnified
+jewel-boxes. There was not much daylight; no matter how radiant the
+sunshine outside, within all was richly dim, owing to the dark tints of
+the stained glass. The ornamentation was never paltry or tawdry. The
+soft light from the wax candles drew dull gleams from the singular
+metal-incrusted pictures. These pictures, or icons, are placed in large
+numbers along the walls and upon the screen which divides the nave from
+the apse. They are generally representations of the Madonna and Child in
+repousse-work of silver, silvered copper, or gilt. Often the face and
+hands of the Madonna are painted on panel; in that case the portrait
+rises from metal shoulders, and the head is surrounded by metal hair.
+The painting is always of the stiff Byzantine school, following an
+ancient model, for any other style would be considered irreverent, and
+nothing can exceed the strange effect produced by these long-eyed,
+small-mouthed, rigid, sourly sweet virgin faces coming out from their
+silver-gilt necks, while below, painted taper fingers of unearthly
+length encircle a silver Child, who in His turn has a countenance of
+panel, often all out of drawing, but hauntingly sweet. These curious
+pictures have great dignity. The churches have no seats. I generally
+took my stand in one of the pew-like stalls which project from the wall,
+and here, unobserved, I could watch the people coming in and kissing the
+icons. This adoration, commemoration, reverence, or whatever the proper
+word for it may be, is much more conspicuous in the Greek places of
+worship than it is in Roman Catholic churches. Those who come in make
+the round of the walls, kissing every picture, and they do it fervently,
+not formally. The service is chanted by the priests very rapidly in a
+peculiar kind of intoning. The Corfu priests did not look as if they
+were learned men, but their faces have a natural and humane expression
+which is agreeable. In the street, with their flowing robes, long hair
+and beards, and high black caps, they are striking figures. The parish
+priest must be a married man, and he does not live apart from his
+people, but closely mingles with them upon all occasions. He is the
+papas, or pope, as it is translated, and a lover of Tourguenieff who
+meets a pope for the first time at Corfu is haunted anew by those
+masterpieces of the great Russian--the village tales across whose pages
+the pope and the popess come and go, and seem, to American readers, such
+strange figures.
+
+[Illustration: THE TOMB OF MENEKRATES]
+
+In the suburb of Castrades is the oldest church of the island. It is
+dedicated to St. Jason, the kinsman of St. Paul. St. Jason's appeared to
+be deserted. Here, as elsewhere, it is not the church most interesting
+from the historical point of view which is the favorite of the people,
+or which they find, apparently, the most friendly. But when I paid my
+visit, there were so many vines and flowers outside, and such a blue sky
+above, that the little Byzantine temple had a cheerful, irresponsible
+air, as if it were saying: "It's not my fault that people won't come
+here. But if they won't, I'm not unhappy about it; the sunshine, the
+vines, and I--we do very well together." The interior was bare, flooded
+also with white daylight--so white that one blinked. And in this
+whiteness my mind suddenly returned to Hellas. For Hellas had been
+forgotten for the moment, owing to the haunting icons in the dark
+churches of the town. Those silver-incrusted images had brought up a
+vision of the uncounted millions to-day in Turkey, Greece, and Russia
+who bow before them, the Christians of whom we know and think
+comparatively so little. But now all these Eastern people vanished as
+silently as they had come, and the past returned--the past, whose spell
+summons us to Greece. For conspicuous in the white daylight of St.
+Jason's were three antique columns, which, with other sculptured
+fragments set in the walls, had been taken from an earlier pagan temple
+to build this later church. And the spell does not break again in this
+part of the island. Not far from St. Jason's is the tomb of Menekrates.
+This monument was discovered in 1843, when one of the Venetian forts was
+demolished. Beneath the foundations the workmen came upon funeral vases,
+and upon digging deeper an ancient Greek cemetery was uncovered, with
+many graves, various relics, and this tomb. It is circular, formed of
+large blocks of stone closely joined without cement, and at present one
+stands and looks down upon it, as though it were in a roofless cellar.
+It bears round its low dome a metrical inscription in Greek, to the
+effect that Menekrates, who was the representative at Corcyra (the old
+name for Corfu) of his native town Eanthus, lost his life accidentally
+by drowning; that this was a great sorrow to the community, for he was a
+friend of the people; that his brother came from Eanthus, and, with the
+aid of the Corcyreans, erected the monument. There is something
+impressive to us in this simple memorial of grief set up before the days
+of AEschylus, before the battle of Marathon--the commemoration of a
+family sorrow in Corfu two thousand five hundred years ago. The
+following is a Latin translation of the inscription:
+
+    "Tlasiadis memor ecce Menecrates hoc monumentum,
+     Ortum OEantheus, populus statuebat at illi,
+     Quippe benignus erat populo patronus, in alto
+     Sed periit ponto, totam et dolor obruit urbem.
+     Praximenes autem patriis huc venit ab oris
+     Cum populo et fratris monumentum hoc struxit adempti."
+
+Two thousand five hundred years ago! That is far back. But it is not the
+oldest date "in the world." Americans are accused of cherishing an
+inordinate love for the superlative--the longest river, the highest
+mountain, the deepest mine in the world, the largest diamond in the
+world; there must always be that tag "in the world" to interest us. When
+ancient objects are in question we are said to rush from one to the
+next, applying our sole test; and we drop at any time a tomb or a
+temple, no matter how beautiful, if there comes a rumor that another has
+been discovered a little farther on which is thought to be a trifle more
+venerable. Thus they chaff us--pilgrims from a land where Nature herself
+works in superlatives, and where there is no antiquity at all. In Italy
+our mania, exercising itself upon smaller objects than temples, brings
+us nearer the comprehension (or non-comprehension) of the contemptuous
+natives. "What hideous" (she called it hee-dee us) "things you _do_
+buy!" I heard an Italian lady exclaim with conviction some years ago, as
+she happened to meet three of her American acquaintances returning from
+a hunt through the antiquity-shops of Naples, loaded with a battered
+lamp, a square of moth-eaten tapestry with an indecipherable
+inscription, and a nondescript broken animal in bronze, without head,
+tail, or legs, who might have been intended for a dragon, or possibly
+for a cow. After a while we pass this stage of antiquity-shops. But we
+never pass the Etruscans, or, rather, I should speak for myself, and say
+that I never passed them; I was perpetually haunted by them. There was
+one road in particular, a lonely track which led from Bellosguardo (at
+Florence) up a steep hill, and I was forever climbing this stony ascent
+because, forsooth, it was set down on an Italian map as "the old
+Etruscan way between Fiesole and Volterra," two strongholds of this
+mysterious people. I was sure that there were tombs with strangely
+painted walls close at hand, and when there was no one in sight I made
+furtive archaeological pokes with my parasol. In Italy an Etruscan tomb
+seems the oldest thing "in the world." And at Corfu the unearthed Greek
+cemetery became doubly interesting when I learned that among the relics
+discovered there was a lioness couchant, concerning which the highest
+authorities have said, "After the lions of the gates of Mycenae, there is
+no Greek sculpture older than this." (The lioness is now in the
+vestibule of the palace in the esplanade.) This was exciting, for Mycenae
+is a name to conjure with still, in spite of the refusal of the learned
+to accept, in all their extent, Dr. Schliemann's splendidly romantic
+theories and dreams. But when one goes on to Egypt, to have searched at
+all for that enticing "oldest" in Greece appears to have been a mistake.
+For what is B.C. 1000, which the German authorities say is an
+approximate date for the Mycenae relics--what is that compared with King
+Menes of the Nile, with his B.C. 4400 according to Brugsch-Bey, and B.C.
+5000 according to Mariette? And there are rumors of civilized times far
+older. But if we can bring ourselves to cease our chase after age and
+turn to beauty, then it is not in the sands of Egypt that we must dig.
+For beauty we must come to the clear light country of the gods.
+
+But leaving history, some of us suffer greatly nowadays from mental
+dislocations of another sort. The Mycenae lions and the grim lioness of
+Corfu are ascribed with a calmness which seems brutal to "pre-Homeric
+times." Surely there were no pre-Homeric times except chaos. Surely
+those were the first days of the world when all the men were
+sure-footed, and all the women white-armed; when the sea was hollow (it
+has remained that to this day), and when the heavenly powers interested
+themselves in human affairs upon the slightest occasion. Leave us our
+faith in them. It can be preserved, if you like, in the purely poetical
+compartment of the mind. For there are all sorts of compartments: I have
+met a learned geologist who turned pale when a mirror was broken by
+accident in his house; I know a disciple of Darwin who always deprecates
+instantly any reference to his good health, lest in some mysterious way
+it should attract ill-luck. It seems to me, therefore, that the dear
+belief that Homer's heroes began the world may coexist even with the
+bicycle. (Not that I myself have much knowledge of this excellent
+vehicle. But, its tandem wheels, swift and business-like, personify the
+spirit of the age.)
+
+[Illustration: THE ISLET CALLED "THE SHIP OF ULYSSES"]
+
+At Corfu one is over one's head in the Odyssey. "The island is not what
+it has been," said the English lady of the Indian Mail. It is not,
+indeed! She referred to the days of the Lords High. But the rest of us
+refer to Nausicaa; for Corfu is the Scheria of the Odyssey, the home of
+King Alcinous. Not far beyond the tomb of Menekrates, at the point
+called Canone, we have a view of a deep bay. On the opposite shore of
+this bay enters the stream upon whose bank Ulysses first met the
+delightful little maiden--"the beautiful stream of the river, where were
+the pools unfailing, and clear and abundant water." And also (but this
+is a work of supererogation, like feminine testimony in a court of
+justice) we have a view of the Phaeacian ship which was turned into stone
+by Neptune: "Neptune s'en approcha, et, le frappant du plat de la main,
+le changea en un rocher qu'il enracina dans le sol," as my copy of the
+Odyssey, which happens rather absurdly to be a French one, translates
+the passage. The ship, therefore, is now an island; its deck is a
+chapel; its masts are trees. Of late the belief that Corfu is the
+Scheria of the Odyssey has been attacked. Appended to the musical
+translation of the episode of Nausicaa, which was published in 1890,
+there is the following note: "It will be seen that the writer declines
+to accept the identification of Corcyra, the modern Corfu, with Scheria.
+In this skepticism he is emboldened by the protecting shield of the Ajax
+among English-speaking Hellenists. See Jebb's Homer." It is not possible
+to contest a point with Ajax. But any one who has seen the gardens and
+groves of this lovely isle, who has watched the crystalline water dash
+against the rocks at Palaeokastrizza, who has strolled down the hill-side
+at Pelleka, or floated in a skiff off the coast at Ipso--any such person
+will say that Corfu is at least an ideal home for the charming girl who
+played ball and washed the clothes on the shore, king's daughter though
+she was. To quote the translation:
+
+    "Father dear, would you make ready for me a wagon, a high one,
+    Strong in the wheels, that I may carry our beautiful garments
+                           ... to be washed in the river?"
+
+One wishes that this primitive princess could have had another name.
+Nausicaa; no matter how one pronounces the syllables, they are not
+melodious. Why could she not have been Aglaia, Daphne, or Artemidora?
+Standing at Canone and looking across at her shore, one is vexed anew
+that she should have given her heart, or even her fancy, to Ulysses--a
+man who was always eating. Instead of Ulysses, we should say Odysseus,
+no doubt. That may pass. But the sentimental, inaccurate persons who
+read Homer in English (or French) will not so easily consent to
+Alkinoos. No; Alcinous (which reminds them vaguely of halcyon) will
+remain in their minds as the name of the king who lived "far removed
+from the trafficking nations," among his blossoming gardens in the
+billowy sea; and to this faith will they cling. The clinging evidently
+exists at Corfu. One of the most comical sights there is a modern
+"detached villa," of course English, which might have come from
+Cheltenham; it is planted close to the glaring road, and over its dusty
+gate is inscribed imperturbably, "Alcinous Lodge."
+
+[Illustration: VILLAGE OF PELLEKA]
+
+One wonders whether the princesses of to-day (who no longer dry clothes
+upon the shore) amuse their leisure hours with Homer's recitals
+concerning their predecessors? One of them, at any rate, has chosen
+Corfu as a place of sojourn; the Empress of Austria, after paying many
+visits to the island, has now built for herself a country residence, or
+villino, at a distance from the town, not far from Nausicaa's stream.
+The house is surrounded by gardens, and from the terrace there is a
+magnificent view in all directions; here she enjoys the solitude which
+she is said to love, and the Corfiotes see only the coming and going
+of her yacht. I don't know why there should be something so delightful,
+to one mind at least, in the selection of this distant Greek island as
+the resting-place of a queen, who takes the long journey down the
+Adriatic year after year to reach her retreat. The preference is perhaps
+due simply to fondness for a sea-voyage, and to the fact that a yacht
+lying at Trieste lies practically at Vienna's door. Lovers of Corfu,
+however, will not be turned aside by any of these reasons; they will
+continue to believe that the choice is made for beauty's sake; they will
+extol this perfect appreciation; they will praise this modern Nausicaa;
+they will purchase her portrait in photographed copies. When they have
+one of these representations, they can note with satisfaction the
+accordance between its outlines and a taste in islands which is surely
+the best in the world.
+
+[Illustration: KING GEORGE OF GREECE]
+
+The casino of the Empress is not the only royal residence at Corfu.
+About a mile from the town is the country-house called "Mon Repos," the
+property of the King of Greece. King George and Queen Olga, with their
+children, have frequently spent summers here. The mansion is ordinary as
+regards its architecture--it was built by one of the Lords High. The
+situation is altogether admirable, with a view of the harbor and town.
+But the especial loveliness of Mon Repos is to be found in its gardens;
+their foliage is tropical, with superb magnolias, palms, bananas, aloes,
+and orange and lemon trees. There are flowers of all kinds, with roses
+clambering everywhere, and blossoming vines. The royal family who rule,
+or rather preside over, the kingdom of the Hellenes are much respected
+and beloved at Corfu. The King, who was Prince William of Denmark--the
+brother of the Czarina of Russia and of the Princess of Wales--took the
+name of George when he ascended the throne in 1863. He was elected by
+the National Assembly. Now that he has been reigning nearly thirty
+years, and has a grandson as well as a son to succeed him, it is amusing
+to turn back to the original candidates and the votes; for it was an
+election (within certain limits) by the people, and all sorts of tastes
+were represented. Prince Alfred of England, the Duke of Edinburgh, was
+at the head of the list; but as it had been stipulated that no member of
+the reigning families of England, France, or Russia should have the
+crown, his name was struck off. There were votes for Prince Jerome
+Napoleon. There were votes for the Prince Imperial. There were even
+votes for "A Republic." But Greece, as she stands, is as near a republic
+as a country with a sovereign can be. Suffrage is universal; there is no
+aristocracy; there are no hereditary titles, no entailed estates; the
+liberty of the press is untrammelled; education is free. Everywhere the
+people are ardently patriotic; they are actively, and one may say almost
+dangerously, interested in everything that pertains to the political
+condition of their country. This interest is quickened by their acute
+intellects. I have never seen faces more sharply intelligent than those
+of the Greek men of to-day. I speak of men who have had some advantages
+in the way of education. But as all are intensely eager to obtain these
+advantages, and as schools are now numerous, education to a certain
+extent is widely diffused. The men are, as a general rule, handsome. But
+they are not in the least after the model of the Greek god, as he exists
+in art and fiction. This model has an ideal height and strength, massive
+shoulders, a statuesque head with closely curling hair, and an unruffled
+repose. The actual Greek possesses a meagre frame, thin face, with high
+cheek-bones, a dry, dark complexion, straight hair, small eyes, and as
+for repose, he has never heard of it; he is overwhelmingly,
+never-endingly restless. With this enumeration my statement that he
+is handsome may not appear to accord. Nevertheless, he is a good-looking
+fellow; his spare form is often tall, the quickly turning eyes are
+wonderfully brilliant, the dark face is lighted by the gleam of white
+teeth, the gait is very graceful, the step light. The Albanian costume,
+which was adopted after the revolution as the national dress for the
+whole country, is amazing. We have all seen it in paintings and
+photographs, where it is merely picturesque. But when you meet it in the
+streets every day, when you see the wearer of it engaged in cooking his
+dinner, in cleaning fish, in driving a cart, in carrying a hod, or
+hanging out clothes on a line, then it becomes perfectly fantastic. The
+climax of my own impressions about it was reached, I think, a little
+later, at Athens, when I beheld the guards walking their beats before
+the King's palace, and before the simple house of the Crown Prince
+opposite; they are soldiers of the regular army, and they held their
+muskets with military precision as they marched to and fro, attired in
+ordinary overcoats (it happened to be a rainy day) over the puffed-out
+white skirts of a ballet-dancer. Robert Louis Stevenson, in one of his
+recent letters from the South Seas, writes that "the mind of the female
+missionary" (British) "tends to be constantly busied about dress; she
+can be taught with extreme difficulty to think any costume decent but
+that to which she grew accustomed on Clapham Common, and, to gratify
+this prejudice, the native is put to useless expense." And here it
+occurs to me that it is high time to explore this Clapham Common. We go
+as worshippers to Shakespeare's Avon; we go to the land of Scott and
+Burns; we know the "stripling Thames at Bablockhithe," where "the punt's
+rope chops round"; but to Clapham Common we make, I think, no
+pilgrimages, although it has as clearly marked a place in English
+literature as the Land of Beulah or the Slough of Despond. I fancy that
+Americans are not so closely tied to a fixed standard in dress as are
+the missionaries who excite Mr. Stevenson's wrath. A half of our
+population seeks its ideal in Paris, but as a whole we are easy-going.
+We accept the Chinese attire in our streets without demur; the lack of
+attire of the Sioux does not disconcert us; when abroad we admire
+impartially the Egyptian gown and the Cossack uniform, and we adorn
+ourselves liberally with the fez. But the Greek costume makes us pause;
+it seems a bravado in whimsicality. One can describe it in detail: one
+can say that it consists of a cap with a long tassel, a full white
+shirt, an embroidered jacket with open sleeves, a tight girdle, the
+white kilt or fustanella, long leggings with bright-colored garters,
+and, usually, shoes with turned-up toes. The enumeration, however, does
+not do away with the one general impression of men striding about in
+short white ballet petticoats.
+
+[Illustration: QUEEN OLGA OF GREECE]
+
+In spite of their skirts, the Greeks have as martial an air as possible;
+an old Greek who is vain, and they are all vain, is even a
+fierce-looking figure. All the men have small waists, and are proud of
+them; their belts are drawn as tightly as those of young girls in other
+countries. From this girdle, or from the embroidered pouch below it,
+comes a gleam which means probably a pistol, though sometimes it is only
+the long, narrow inkhorn of brass or silver. Besides the Albanian, there
+are other costumes. One, which is frequently seen, is partly Turkish,
+with baggy trousers. The Greek men are vain, and with cause; if the
+women are vain, it must be without it; we did not see a single handsome
+face among them. It was not merely that we failed to find the beautiful
+low forehead, full temple, straight nose, and small head of classic
+days; we could not discover any marked type, good or bad; the
+features were those that pass unnoticed everywhere. I speak, of
+course, generally, and from a superficial observation, for I saw only
+the people one meets in the streets, in the churches, in the fields,
+olive groves, and vineyards, on the steamers, and at the house doors.
+But after noting this population for two weeks and more, the result
+remained the same--the men who came under our notice were handsome, and
+the women were not. The dress of the women varies greatly. The Albanian
+costume, which ranks with the fustanellas or petticoats of the men, is
+as flat, narrow, and elongated as the latter are short and protruding.
+It consists of a sheath-like skirt of a woollen material, and over this
+a long, narrow white coat, which sometimes has black sleeves; the head
+is wrapped in loose folds of white. This was the attire worn by the
+girls who were at work in the fields. On Christmas Day I met a number of
+Corfiote women walking about the esplanade arrayed in light-colored
+dresses, with large aprons of white lace or white muslin, and upon their
+heads white veils with bunches of artificial flowers; in addition, they
+wore so many necklaces, pins, clasps, buckles, rings, lockets,
+bracelets, pendants, and other adornments of silver and silver-gilt that
+they clanked as they walked. This was a gala costume of some sort. We
+did not see it again.
+
+The island of Corfu is about forty miles long. Its breadth in the widest
+part is twenty miles. The English, who have a genius for road-making
+which is almost equal to that of the Romans, have left excellent
+highways behind them; it is easy, therefore, to cross the island from
+end to end. In arranging such an expedition, that exhaustive dialogue
+about buying a carriage, which (to one's bewilderment) occupies by far
+the most important place in all the Manuals of Conversation for the
+Traveller, might at last be of some service.
+
+"Have you a carriage?" it begins (in six languages).
+
+"Yes; I have berlins, vis-a-vis, gigs, calashes, and cabriolets." (What
+vehicles are these?)
+
+"Are the axle-trees, the nave, the spokes, the tires, the felloes, and
+the splinter-bars in good condition?" it goes on in its painstaking
+polyglot. Possibly one might be called upon to purchase splinter-bars in
+a remote island of the Ionian Sea.
+
+Seated, then, in a berlin, or perhaps in a calash, one goes out at least
+to visit the olive groves, if not to cross the island. These groves are
+not the ranks of severely pruned, almost maimed, trees which greet the
+traveller in parts of southern Europe--groves without shade, without
+luxuriance; viewed from a distance, their gray-green foliage forms a
+characteristic part of the landscape, but at close quarters they have
+but one expression--namely, how many coins are to be squeezed out of
+each poor tree, whose every bud appears to have been counted. At Corfu
+one strolls through miles of wood whose foliage is magnificent; it is
+possible to lounge in the shade, for there is shade, and to draw a free
+breath. No doubt the Corfiotes keep guard over their leafy domain; but
+the occasional visitor, at least, is not harassed by warnings to
+trespassers set up everywhere, by children following him with suspicious
+eyes, by patrols, dogs, stone walls, and sometimes by stones of another
+kind which do not stay in the walls, but come flying through the air to
+teach him to keep his distance. It is difficult, probably, for people
+from the New World to look upon a forest as something sacred, guarded,
+private; we have taken our pleasure "in the woods" all our lives
+whenever we have felt so inclined; we do not intend to do any harm
+there, but we do wish to be free. In the olive groves of Corfu the wish
+can be gratified. Their aisles are wonderful in every respect: in the
+size of the trees (some of them are sixty feet high), in the
+picturesque shapes of the gnarled trunks, in the extent of the long
+vistas where the light has the color which some of us know at home--that
+silvery green under the great live-oaks at the South, when their
+branches are veiled in the long moss.
+
+[Illustration: "MON REPOS," SUMMER RESIDENCE OF THE KING OF GREECE]
+
+[Illustration: IN THE GROUNDS OF THE NEW VILLA OF THE EMPRESS OF GREECE]
+
+But Athens was before us; we must leave the groves; we must leave
+Nausicaa's shore. We did so at last in the wake of a departing storm.
+For several days the wind had been tempestuous. The signal, which is
+displayed from the Citadel, had become a riddle; it is an arrangement of
+flags by day and of lanterns by night, and no two of us ever deciphered
+it alike. If the order was thus and so, it meant that something
+belonging to the Austrian-Lloyd company was in sight; if so and thus, it
+meant the Florio line; if neither of these, then it might possibly be
+our boat--that is, the Greek coasting steamer which we had decided to
+take because we had been told that it was the best. I have never
+fathomed the mystery as to why our informant told us this. If he had
+been a Greek, it would have been at least a patriotic misrepresentation.
+We were dismayed when we reached the rough tub. But, after all, in one
+sense she was the best, for she dawdled in and out among the islands,
+never in the least hurry, and stopping to gossip with them all; this
+gave us a good chance to see them, if it gave us nothing else. I have
+said "when we reached her," for there were several false starts. We rose
+in the morning in a mood of regretful good-bye, expecting to be far away
+at night. And at night, with our good-bye on our hands, we were still in
+our hotel. But it is only fair to add that with its garlands of flowers
+and myrtle for the Christmas season; with its queer assemblage of
+Levantines in the dining-room; with its bath-room in the depths of the
+earth, to which one descended by stairway leading down underground; with
+its group of petticoated Greeks in the hall, and, in its rooms of honor
+above, a young Austrian princess of historic name and extraordinary
+beauty--with all this, and its cheerful lies, its smiling, gay-hearted
+irresponsibility, the Corfu inn was an entertaining place. The Greek
+steamer came at last. She had been driven out of her course by the gale,
+so said the pirate, ostensibly retired from business, who superintended
+the embarkations from the hotel. This lithe freebooter had presented
+himself at frequent intervals during the baffling days when we watched
+the signal, and he always entered without knocking. He could not grasp
+the idea, probably, that ceremonies would be required by persons who
+intended to sail by the coaster. When we reached this bark ourselves,
+later, we forgave him--a little. Her deck was the most democratic place
+I have ever seen. We think that we approve of equality in the United
+States. But the Greeks carry their approval further than we do. On this
+deck there were no reserved portions, no prohibitions; the persons who
+had paid for a first-class ticket had the same rights as those which
+were accorded to the steerage travellers, and no more; and as the latter
+were numerous, they obtained by far the larger share, eating the
+provisions which they had brought with them, sleeping on their
+coverlids, playing games, and smoking in the best places. There was no
+system, and little discipline; the sailors came up and washed the deck
+(a process which was very necessary) whenever and however they pleased,
+and we had to jump for our lives and mount a bench to escape the stream
+from the hose, as it suddenly appeared without warning from an
+unlooked-for quarter. The passengers, who came on board at various
+points during a cruise of several days, brought with them light personal
+luggage, which consisted of hens tied together by the legs, a live
+sheep, kitchen utensils, and bedding, all of which they placed
+everywhere and anywhere, according to their pleasure. A Greek dressed
+in the full national costume accompanied us all the way to Missolonghi
+so closely that he was closer than a brother; save when we were locked
+in our small sleeping-cabins below (the one extra possession which a
+first-class ticket bestows), we were literally elbow to elbow with him.
+And his elbows were a weapon, like the closed umbrella held under the
+arm in a crowded street--that pleasant habit of persons who are not
+Greeks. The Greek elbow was clothed in a handsome sleeve covered with
+gold embroidery, for our friend was a dandy of dandies. His petticoats
+and his shirt were of fine linen, snowy in its whiteness; his small
+waist was encircled by a magnificent Syrian scarf; his cream-colored
+leggings were spotless; and his conspicuous garters new and brilliantly
+scarlet. He was an athletic young man of thirty, his good looks marred
+only by his over-eager eyes and his restlessness. It was his back which
+he presented to us, for his attention was given entirely to a party of
+his own friends, men and women. He talked to them; he read aloud to them
+from a small newspaper (they all had newspapers, and read them often);
+he stood up and argued; he grew excited and harangued; then he sat down,
+his inflated skirts puffing out over his chair, and went on with his
+argument, if argument it was, until, worn out by the hours of his
+eloquence, some of his companions fell asleep where they sat. His meals
+were astonishingly small. As everything went on under our eyes, we saw
+what they all ate, and it was unmistakable testimony to the Greek
+frugality. Our companion had brought with him from Corfu, by way of
+provisions for several days, a loaf of bread about as large as three
+muffins in one, a vial containing capers, a grapeleaf folded into a
+cornucopia and filled with olives, and a pint bottle of the light wine
+of the country. The only addition which he made to this store was a
+salted fish about four inches long, which he purchased daily from the
+steward. There was always a discussion before he went in search of this
+morsel, which represented, I suppose, the roast meat of his dinner, and
+when he returned after a long absence, bearing it triumphantly on the
+palm of his hand, it was passed from one to the next, turned over,
+inspected, and measured by each member of the group, amid the most
+animated, eager discussion. When comment was at last exhausted, the
+superb orator seated himself (always with his chair against our knees),
+and placed before him, on a newspaper spread over the bench, his
+precious fishlette divided into small slices, with a few capers and
+olives arranged in as many wee heaps as there were portions of fish, so
+that all should come out even. Then, with the diminutive loaf of bread
+by his side and the bottle of wine at his feet, he began his repast,
+using the point of his pocketknife as a fork, eating slowly and
+meditatively, and intently watched by all his friends, who sat in
+silence, following with their eyes each mouthful on its way from the
+newspaper to his lips. They had previously made their own repasts in the
+same meagre fashion, but perhaps they derived some small additional
+nourishment from watching the mastication of their friend. When his fish
+had disappeared, accompanied by one slender little slice of bread, our
+neighbor lifted the wine-bottle, and gave himself a swallow of wine;
+then, after a pause of a minute or two, another. This was all. The
+bottle was recorked, and with the remaining provisions put carefully
+away. All foreign residents in Greece, whether they like the people or
+dislike them, agree in pronouncing them extraordinarily abstemious.
+Drunkenness hardly exists among them.
+
+[Illustration: ALBANIAN MALE COSTUME]
+
+At one of the islands a prisoner was brought on board by two policemen.
+He was a slender youth--an apprentice to a mason, probably, for his poor
+clothes were stained with mortar and lime. He held himself stiffly
+erect, making a determined effort to present a brave countenance to the
+world. He was led to a place in the centre of the deck, and then one of
+his guardians departed, leaving the second in charge. The steamer lay in
+the harbor for an hour or more, and four times skiffs put out from the
+shore, each bringing two or three young men--or, rather, boys--who came
+up the ladder furtively. Reaching the deck, they edged their way along,
+first to the right, then to the left, until they perceived their
+comrade. Even then they did not approach him directly; they assumed an
+air of indifference, and walked about a little among the other
+passengers. But after a while, one by one, they came to him, and, taking
+bread from under their jackets, they put it hastily and silently into
+his pockets, the policeman watching them, but not interfering. Then,
+moving off quickly, they disappeared down the ladder in the same
+stealthy way, and returned to the shore. Through all their manoeuvres
+the prisoner did not once look at them; he kept his eyes fixed upon a
+distant point in the bay, as though there was something out there which
+he was obliged to watch without an instant's cessation. All his pockets
+meanwhile, and the space under his jacket, grew so full that he was
+swathed in bread. Finally came the whistle, and the steamer started.
+Then, as the island began to recede, the set young face quivered, and
+the arm in its ragged sleeve went up to cover the eyes--a touching
+gesture, because it is the child's when in trouble, the instinctive
+movement of the grief-stricken little boy.
+
+Ten miles south of Corfu one meets the second of the Ionian Islands,
+Paxo, with the tiny, severe Anti-Paxo lying off its southern point, like
+a summary period set to any romantic legend which the larger isle may
+wish to tell. As it happens, the legend is a striking one, and we all
+know it without going to Paxo. But it is impossible to pass the actual
+scene without relating it once more, and, for the telling, no modern
+words can possibly approach those of the old annotator. "Here at the
+coast of Paxo, about the time that our Lord suffered His most bitter
+Passion, certain persons sailing from Italy at night heard a voice
+calling aloud: 'Thamus?' 'Thamus?' Who, giving ear to the cry (for he
+was the pilot of the ship), was bidden when he came near to Portus
+Pelodes" (the Bay of Butrinto) "to tell that the great god Pan was dead.
+Which he, doubting to do, yet when he came to Portus Pelodes there was
+such a calm of wind that the ship stood still in the sea, unmoored, and
+he was forced to cry aloud that Pan was dead. Whereupon there were such
+piteous outcries and dreadful shrieking as hath not been the like. By
+the which Pan, of some is understood the great Sathanas, whose kingdom
+was at that time by Christ conquered; for at that moment all oracles
+surceased, and enchanted spirits, that were wont to delude the people,
+henceforth held their peace."
+
+Those of us who read Milton's Ode on Christmas Eve will recall his
+allusion to this Paxo legend:
+
+    "The lonely mountains o'er,
+    And the enchanted shore,
+      A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament;
+    From haunted spring and dale,
+    Edged with poplar pale,
+      The parting Genius is with sighing sent."
+
+[Illustration: ALBANIAN FEMALE COSTUME]
+
+Anti-Paxo is one of the oddest spots I have seen. It is a small, bare,
+stone plain, elevated but slightly above the surface of the water. The
+rock is of a tawny hue, and there is a queer odor of asphaltum. At
+certain seasons of the year it is covered so thickly with quail that
+"you could not put a paper-cutter between them." There were no quail
+when we passed the rock. The sun shone on the flat surface, bringing out
+its rich tint against the azure of the sea, and in its strange
+desolation it looked like a picture which might have been painted by a
+man of genius who had gone mad in his passion for color. Though I
+mention the Ionian group only, it must not be supposed that there were
+no other islands. Those of us who like to turn over maps, to search out
+routes though we may never follow them except on paper--innocent
+stay-at-home geographers of this sort have supposed that it was a simple
+matter to learn the names of the islands which one meets in any
+well-known track across well-known seas. This is a mistake. From Corfu
+to Patras, and, later, on the way to Egypt and Syria, and back through
+the Strait of Messina to Genoa, I saw many islands--it seemed to me that
+they could have been counted by hundreds--which are not indicated in the
+ordinary guide-books, and whose names no one on the steamers appeared to
+know, not even the captains. The captains, the pilots, and all the
+officers were of course aware of the exact position in the sea of each
+one; that was part of their business. But as to names, these mariners,
+whether Englishmen, Germans, Italians, Turks, or Greeks (and we sailed
+with all), appeared to share the common opinion that they had none;
+their manner was that they deserved none. But I have never met a steamer
+captain who felt anything but profound contempt for small islands; he
+appears to regard them simply as interruptions--as some Ohio farmers of
+my acquaintance regard the occasional single tree in their broad, level
+fields.
+
+Abreast of Paxo, on the mainland, is the small village of Parga. The
+place has its own tragic history connected with its cession to the Turks
+in 1815. But I am afraid that its principal association in my mind is
+the frivolous one of a roaring chorus, "Robbers all at Parga!" This song
+may be as much of a libel as that bold ballad concerning the beautiful
+town at the eastern end of Lake Erie; the ladies of that place are not
+in the habit of "coming out to-night, to dance by the light of the
+moon," and in the same way there may never have been any robbers worth
+speaking of at Parga. It is Hobhouse who tells the story. "In the
+evening preparations were made for feeding our Albanians. After eating,
+they began to dance round the fire to their own singing with an
+astonishing energy. One of their songs begins, 'When we set out from
+Parga, there were sixty of us.' Then comes the chorus: 'Robbers all at
+Parga! Robbers all at Parga!' As they roared out this stave, they
+whirled round the fire, dropped to and rebounded from their knees, and
+again whirled round in a wild circle, repeating it at the top of their
+voices:
+
+    "'Robbers all at Parga!
+    Robbers all at Parga!'"
+
+At Parga we met the Byronic legend, which from this point hangs over the
+whole Ionian Sea. Parga is not far from the castle of Suli, and with the
+word "Suliote" we are launched aloft into the resplendent realm of
+Byron's poetry, which seems as beautiful and apparition-like as the
+Oberland peaks viewed from Berne--shining cliffs, so celestially and
+impossibly fair, far up in the sky. (We may note, however, in passing,
+that these lofty limits are, after all, as real as a barn-yard, or as an
+afternoon sewing society.) The country near Parga is described at length
+in the second canto of "Childe Harold."
+
+[Illustration: GALA COSTUME, CORFU]
+
+The third island of the Ionian group is Santa Maura, the Leucadia of the
+ancients. It looks like a chain of mountains set in the sea. Here there
+are earthquakes, as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu would have expressed
+it. The story is that at Santa Maura and at Zante there is a severe
+shock once in twenty years, and a "small roll" twice in every three
+months. It is at least true that slight earthquakes are not uncommon,
+and that the houses are built to resist them, with strong beams crossing
+from side to side to hold the walls together, so that the interiors look
+like the cabins of a ship. The rolling motion, when it comes, must make
+this resemblance very vivid. The impression of Santa Maura which remains
+in my own mind, however, does not concern itself with earthquakes,
+unless, indeed, one means moral ones. I see a long, lofty promontory
+ending in a silvery headland. I see it flushed with the rose-tints of
+sunset, high above a violet sea. Of course I was looking for it; every
+one looks for the rock from which dark Sappho flung herself in her
+despair. But even without Sappho it is a striking cliff; it rises
+perpendicularly from deep water, and it is so white that one fancies
+that it must be visible even upon the darkest night. All day its
+towering opaline crest serves as a beacon from afar. The temple of
+Apollo which once crowned its summit can still be traced in sculptured
+fragments, though there are no marble columns like those that gleam
+across the waves from Sunium. "Leucadia's far-projecting rock of woe,"
+Byron calls it. But it does not look woful. One fancies that exaltation
+must flood the soul of the human creature who springs to meet Death from
+such a place. The memory of the Greek poetess has nothing to do with
+these reflections, unless one refers to the ladies who are announced to
+the public from time to time as "the modern Sappho," in which case one
+might suggest to them the excellent facilities the rock affords. As to
+the greatest of women of letters, I do not know that there is anything
+more to say about her in the language of the United States. If she had
+flourished and perished last year, M. Jules Lemaitre (her name would
+have been Leocadie, probably) would doubtless have written an article
+about her: "The career, literary and other, of Mademoiselle Leocadie, a
+ete des plus distinguees, bien qu'un peu tapageuse."
+
+As the steamer crossed from Santa Maura to Cephalonia we had a clear
+view of little Ithaca, the Ithaca which Ulysses loved, "not because it
+was broad, but because it was his own." Except Paxo, Ithaca is the
+smallest of the sister islands. The guide-book declares "No steamer
+touches at Ithaca, but there is frequent communication by caique." This
+announcement, like others from the same authority, is false, though it
+may have been true thirty years ago. The very steamer that carried us
+stopped regularly at the suitors' island upon her return voyage to
+Corfu. We could not take this voyage; therefore we were free to wish
+(selfishly) that this particular one, among the many deceptive
+statements which we had read, might have been veracious. For
+"communication by caique" is surely a phrase of delight. It brings up
+not only the Ionian, but the AEgean Sea; it carries the imagination
+onward to the Bosporus itself.
+
+Sir William Gell and Dr. Schliemann between them have discovered at
+Ithaca all the sites of the Odyssey, even to the stone looms of the
+nymphs. Other explorers, with colder minds, have decided that at least
+the author of the poem must have had a close acquaintance with the
+island, for many of his descriptions are very accurate. We need no guide
+for Penelope; we can materialize her, as the spiritualists say, for
+ourselves. Hers is a very modern character. One knows without the
+telling that she had much to say, day by day, about her sufferings, her
+feelings, her duty, and her conscience--above all things, her
+conscience. Her confidantes in that upper room were probably extremely
+familiar with her point of view, which was that if she should choose
+any one of her suitors, or if she should cruelly drive the whole throng
+away, suicide on an overwhelming scale would inevitably be the result.
+It would amount to a depopulation of the entire archipelago! Would any
+woman be justified in causing such widespread despair as that?
+
+The next island, Cephalonia, is the largest of the Ionian group. There
+is much to say about it. But I must not say it here. The truth is that
+one sails past these sisters as slippery Ulysses sailed past the sirens;
+they are so beautiful that one must tie one's hands to the mast (or the
+bench) to keep them from writing a volume on the subject. But I must
+permit myself a word about Sir Charles Napier. Sir Charles was Governor
+of Cephalonia during the period of the British Protectorate, and
+officially he was a subordinate of the Lord High at Corfu. One of these
+temporary kings appears to have felt some jealousy regarding the
+vigorous administration of his Cephalonian lieutenant. It was not
+possible to censure his acts; they were all admirable. It was
+permissible, however, to censure a mustache, which at that time was
+considered a wayward appendage, not strictly in accordance with the
+regulations. Ludicrous as it may appear, it is nevertheless true that
+this sapient Lord High actually issued an order saying that the
+offending ornament must be shaved off. The witty lieutenant's answer was
+conveyed in four words: "Obeyed--to a hair." Napier constructed good
+roads throughout his rough, mountainous domain. "I wish I could be
+buried at the little chapel on the top of the mountain," he said to one
+of his friends. "At the last day many a poor mule's soul will say a good
+word for me, I know, when they remember what the old road was." One
+regrets that this wish was not carried out. But as for the souls of the
+poor mules, I for one am sure that they will remember him.
+
+At Zante, for some unexplained cause, the classic associations suddenly
+vanished: Homer faded, Theocritus followed him; Pliny and Strabo
+disappeared. The later memories, too: Lord Guildford and his university,
+Byron and his Suliotes, Napier and his mules--all these left us. We were
+back in the present; we must have some Zante flowers and Zante trinkets;
+we thought of nothing but going ashore. By pushing a bench, with
+semi-unconscious violence, against the Greek, we succeeded in making him
+move a little, so that we could rise. Then we landed (but not in a
+caique), and went roaming through the yellow town. Zante is the most
+cheerful-looking place I have ever seen. The bay ripples and smirks; it
+is so pretty that it knows it is pretty, and it smirks accordingly. The
+town, stretching, with its gayly tinted houses, round a level semicircle
+at the edge of the water, smiles, as one may say, from ear to ear. And
+this joyful expression is carried up the hill, by charming gardens,
+orange groves, and vineyards, to the Venetian fort at the top, which, as
+we saw it in the brilliant sunshine, with the birds flying about it,
+seemed to be throwing its cap into the sky with a huzza.
+
+    "O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!
+    Isola d'oro! Fior di Levante!"
+
+sang Poe, borrowing his chimes this time, however, from an Italian
+song--"Zante, Zante, fior di Levante!" This flower of the Levant exports
+not flowers, but fruit. The currants, which had vaguely presented
+themselves at Santa Maura and Cephalonia, came now decisively to the
+front. One does not think of these little berrylettes (I am certainly
+hunted by "ette") as ponderous. But when one beholds tons of them,
+cargoes for ships, one regards them with a new respect. It was probably
+the brisk commercial aspect of the currants which made the port look so
+modern. All the Ionian Islands except Corfu export currants, but Zante
+throws them out to the world with both hands. I must confess that I have
+always blindly supposed (when I thought of it at all) that the currant
+of the plum-pudding was the same fruit as the currant of our
+gardens--that slightly acrid red berry which grows on bushes that follow
+the lines of back fences--bushes that have patches of weedy ground under
+them where hens congregate. I fancied that by some process unknown to
+me, at the hands of persons equally unknown (perhaps those who bring
+flattened raisins from grapes), these berries were dried, and that they
+then became the well-known ornament of the Christmas-cake. It was at
+Zante that my shameful ignorance was made clear to me. Here I learned
+that the dried fruit of commerce is a dwarf grape, which has nothing in
+common with currant jelly. Its English name, currant, is taken from the
+French "raisin de Corinthe," or Corinth grape, a title bestowed because
+the fruit was first brought into notice at Corinth. We have stolen this
+name in the most unreasonable way for our red berry. Then, to make the
+confusion worse, as soon as we have put the genuine currants into our
+puddings and cakes, we turn round and call them "plums"! The real
+currant, the dwarf grape of Corinth, is about as large as a gooseberry
+when ripe, and its color is a deep violet-black; the vintage takes place
+in August. It is not a hardy vine. It attains luxuriance, I was told,
+only in Greece; and even there it is restricted to the northern
+Peloponnesus, the shores of the Gulf of Corinth, and the Ionian Islands.
+M. About, confronted with the 195,000,000 pounds of currants which were
+exported in 1876, dipped his French pen afresh, and wrote: "Plum-pudding
+and plum-cake are typical pleasures of the English nation, pleasures
+whose charms the Gaul cannot appreciate." He adds that if other
+countries should in time be converted to "these two pure delights,"
+Greece would not need to cultivate anything else; she would become rich
+"enormement."
+
+Zante is the sixth of the islands, and as the steamer leaves her, still
+smiling gayly over her dimpling bay, it seems proper to cast at least
+one thought in the direction of the seventh sister, upon whom we are now
+turning our backs. For "We are seven" the islands declare as
+persistently as the little cottage girl, though the seventh has gone
+away, if not to heaven, at least to the very end of the Peloponnesus.
+Why Cerigo should have been included in the Ionian group I do not know;
+it lies off the southernmost point of Greece, near Cape Malea, and might
+more reasonably be classed with the Cyclades, or with Crete. Birthplace
+of Aphrodite, Cythera of the ancients, though it is, I have never met
+any one who has landed there in actual fact (I do not include dreams).
+People going by sea to Athens from Naples, or from Brindisi, pass it in
+their course, and if they read their Murray or their Baedeker, to say
+nothing of other literature, no doubt their thoughts dwell upon the
+goddess of love for a moment as they pass her favorite shore. A
+photograph of the minds of travellers, as their eyes rest upon this
+celebrated isle, would be interesting. To mention (with due respect)
+typical names only, what would be the vision of Mr. Herbert Spencer, or
+of Prince Bismarck? of the Archbishop of Canterbury, or of Ibsen? of
+General Booth, Tolstoi, or Miss Yonge? We can each of us think of a list
+which would rouse our curiosity in an acute degree. To come down to an
+unexciting level, I know what the apparition in my own mind would
+be--that picture in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence: Botticelli's "Birth
+of Venus." I should inevitably behold the fifteenth-century goddess
+coming over the waves in her very small shell; I should see her high
+cheek-bones, her sad eyes, her discontented mouth, her lank form with
+the lovely slender feet, and her long, thick hair; and at last I should
+know (what I do not know now) whether she is beautiful or ugly. On the
+shore, too, would appear that galloping woman, who, clothed in copiously
+gathered garments which are caught up and tied in the wrong places,
+brings in haste a flowered robe to cover her melancholy mistress. Such
+are the idle fancies that come as one watches the track of churned
+water, like a broad ribbon, stretching from the steamer's stern--water
+forever fleeing backward as the boat advances. Scallops of foam sweep
+out on each side; their cool fringe dips under a little as the wavelet
+which comes from the opposite direction lifts its miniature crest and
+curls over in a graceful sweep.
+
+[Illustration: OLIVE GROVE, CORFU]
+
+The voyage northward to Missolonghi is beautiful. The sea was dotted
+with white wings. The Greeks are bold sailors; one never observes here
+the timidity, the haste to seek refuge anywhere and everywhere, which is
+so conspicuous along the Riviera and the western coast of Italy.
+Throughout the Ionian archipelago, and it was the same later among the
+islands of the AEgean, it was inspiring to note the smallest craft, far
+from land, dashing along under full sail, leaning far over as they flew.
+
+Missolonghi is a small abortive Venice, without the gondolas; it is
+situated on a lagoon, and a causeway nearly two miles long leads to it,
+across the shallow water. Vague and unimportant as it is upon its muddy
+shore, it was the soul of the Greek revolution. It has been through
+terrible sieges. During one of these Marco Botzaris was in command, and
+his grave is outside the western gate. A few years ago all the
+school-boys in America could chant his requiem; perhaps they chant it
+still. After the death of Botzaris, Byron took five hundred of the
+chieftain's needy Suliotes, and formed them into a body-guard, giving
+them generous pay. This is but one of many instances. It is the fashion
+of the day to paint Byron in the darkest colors. But when you stand in
+the squalid, unhealthy little street where he drew his last breath you
+realize that he came here voluntarily; that he offered his life if need
+be, and, in the end, gave it, to the cause which appealed to him; he did
+not stay safely at home and write about it. He died nearly seventy years
+ago, but at Missolonghi he is very real and very present still--with his
+red coat, and his bravery and penetration. Napier said that, of all the
+Englishmen who came to assist the Greek revolution, Byron was the one
+who comprehended best the character of the modern Greek--"all the rest
+expected to find Plutarch's men." It is another fashion of the moment to
+put aside as of small account the glittering cantos which stirred the
+English-speaking world in the early days of this century. But it is not
+while the wild, beautiful Albanian mountains are rising above your head
+that you think meanly of them. "Remember all the splendid things he said
+of Greece," says some one. When you are in Greece, you do remember.
+
+The only brigands we saw we met at Patras. Missolonghi is on the
+northern shore of the bay; to reach Patras the steamer crosses to the
+Peloponnesus side. It was a dark night, and I don't know where we
+stopped, but it must have been far out from land. The barges which came
+to meet us were rough craft, with loose boards for seats and water in
+the bottom. We obtained places in one of them, and after twenty minutes
+of pitching up and down, shouting, tumbling about, and splashing, the
+crew bent to their big oars, and we started. Swaying lights glimmered
+through the darkness here and there; they came from vessels at anchor in
+the roadstead. We plunged and rolled, apparently making no progress; but
+at last a long, wet breakwater, dimly seen, appeared on the right, and
+finally we perceived the lights of the landing-place, which is the
+water-side of one of the squares of the town. Our crew jumped out in the
+surf, and drew the heavy boat up to the steps of the embankment. Here
+were assembled the brigands. There were a hundred of them at least, all
+yelling. Probably they were astonished to see ladies landing from the
+Greek coaster. This was part of our original misconception in the
+selection of that steamer (a mistake, however, which had turned out to
+be such a picturesque success); but it was part also of a general error
+which came from our nationality. For we were natives of the one land on
+earth where to women is always accorded, without question, a first
+place. It had never occurred to us that we could be jostled. After
+Patras we were more careful (and more proud of our country than ever).
+But at the moment, as we were pulled first to the right by men who
+wished to carry us and our travelling-bags in that direction, and then
+to the left by others who had attacked the first party, felled them, and
+captured their prey--at the moment when we were closely pressed by a
+throng of wild-looking, dancing, shrieking figures, dressed in strange
+attire, and carrying pistols, it was not a little alarming. The fray had
+lasted six or seven minutes, and there were no signs of cessation, when
+there appeared on the edge of the throng a neatly dressed little man in
+spectacles. He made his way within, and rescued us by the simple process
+of repeating something that sounded like "La, la, la, _la_! La, la, la,
+_la_!" Breathless, freed, we stood, saved, in the square, while our
+preserver went back and captured our bags, bringing them out and
+depositing them gently, one after the other, on the ground by our side.
+We then waited until a handcart, trundled by a petticoated porter,
+appeared, when the little man led us quietly to the custom-house near
+by, where, after some delay, we obtained our luggage, which was piled
+upon the cart. Followed by this cart, we walked across the square to the
+hotel. Throughout the whole of this process, which lasted twenty
+minutes, the brigands surrounded us in a close, scowling circle that
+moved as we moved. When its line drew too near us the little man walked
+round the ring--"La, la, la, _la_! La, la, la, _la_!"--and it widened
+slightly, but only slightly. We reached refuge at last, and escaped into
+a lighted hall. It was a real escape, and the hotel seemed a paradise.
+It was not until the next day that we recognized it as a mortal inn,
+with the appearance of the well-known tepid soup in the dining-room; but
+the coffee was excellent. And this showed that there was a German
+influence somewhere in the house; it proved to emanate from our
+preserver, who was also the landlord, and an exile from the Rhine. I
+think he was homesick. But at least he had learned the dialect of his
+temporary abode, and also the way to treat the last remnants of the
+pirate and brigand days, as its spirit reappears now and then, though
+faintly, among the hangers-on of a Greek port town.
+
+Though I have talked of brigands, for Greece as a whole, for the young
+nation, I have but one feeling--namely, admiration. The country,
+escaping at last from its bondage to Turkey, after a long and exhausting
+war, had everything to do and nothing to do it with. There was no
+agriculture, no commerce, no money, and only a small population; there
+were no roads, no schools, no industries or trades, and few men of
+education. (I quote the words of Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, written in 1891.) The
+Greeks have done much, and under the most unfavorable conditions. They
+will do more. The struggle upward of an intelligent and ambitious people
+is deeply interesting, and the effort in Greece appeals especially to
+Americans, because the country, in spite of its form of government, is a
+democracy.
+
+When we left Patras we left the Ionian Sea, and I ought therefore to
+bring these slight records to a close. But it was the same blue water,
+after all, that was washing the shores of the long, lake-like gulf
+beyond, and the impression produced by its pure, early-world tint, lasts
+as far as Corinth; here one turns inland, and the next crested waves
+which one meets are AEgean. They rouse other sensations.
+
+There is now a railroad from Patras to Athens. On the morning when we
+made the transit there was given to us for our sole use a saloon on
+wheels, which was much larger than the compartments of an English
+railway carriage, and smaller than an American parlor car. In its centre
+was a long table, and a cushioned bench ran round its four sides; broad
+windows gave us a wide view of the landscape as we rolled (rather
+slowly) along. The track follows the gulf all the way to Corinth, and we
+passed through miles of vineyards. But I did not think of currants here;
+they had been left behind at Zante. There is, indeed, only one thing to
+think of, and the heart beats quickly as Parnassus lifts its head above
+the other snow-clad summits. "The prophetess of Delphi was hypnotized,
+of course." This sudden incursion of modernity was due no doubt to the
+mode of our progress through this sacred country. We ought to have been
+crossing the gulf in a Phaeacian boat, which needs no pilot, or, at the
+very least, in a bark with an azure prow. But even upon an iron track,
+through utilitarian currant fields, the spell descends again when the
+second peak becomes visible at the eastern end of the bay.
+
+    "Not here, O Apollo!
+      Are haunts meet for thee,
+    But where Helicon breaks down
+      In cliff to the sea--"
+
+How many times, in lands far from here, had I read these lines for their
+mere beauty, without hope of more!
+
+And now before my eyes was Helicon itself.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
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