My Unknown Chum: "Aguecheek". Fairbanks Charles Bullard

eyes dare not penetrate, at the foot of your immovable trunks I come to sigh! Cast over me your deep shades, render the darkness more obscure, and the silence more profound! Forests of porphyry and marble! the air which the soul breathes under your arches is full of mystery and of peace! Let love and anxious cares seek shade and solitude under the green shelter of groves, to soothe their secret wounds. O darkness of the sanctuary! the eye of religion prefers thee to the wood which the breeze disturbs! Nothing changes thy foliage; thy still shade is the image of motionless eternity!"

      There was not time to linger long. The pressure of worldly engagements was felt even at the shrine of the apostles. I walked about, and tried to recall the many splendid religious pageants I had there witnessed, and wondered sorrowfully whether I should ever again listen to that matchless choir, or have my heart stirred to its depths by the silver trumpets that reëcho under that sonorous vault in the most solemn moment of religion's holiest rite. Once more out in the clear hot atmosphere which seemed hotter than before. The Supreme Pontiff was absent from his capital, and the Vatican was comparatively empty. The Swiss guards, in their fantastic but picturesque uniform, were loitering about the foot of the grand staircase, and sighing for a breath of the cool air of their Alpine home. I took a last long gaze at that grand old pile of buildings, – the home of all that is most wonderful in art, the abode of that power which overthrew the old Roman empire, inaugurated the civilization of Europe, and planted Christianity in every quarter of the globe, – and then turned my unwilling feet homewards. In my course I passed the foot of the Janiculum Hill: it was too hot, however, to think of climbing up to the convent of Sant' Onofrio – though I would gladly have paid a final visit to that lovely spot where the munificence of Pius IX. has just completed a superb sepulchre for the repose of Tasso. So I crossed the Tiber in one of those little ferry boats which are attached to a cable stretched over the river, and thus are swung across by the movement of the current, – a labour-saving arrangement preëminently Roman in its character, – and soon found myself in my lodgings However warm the weather may be in Rome, one can keep tolerably comfortable so long as he does not move about, – thanks to the thick walls and heavy wooden window shutters of the houses, – so I found my room a cool asylum after my morning of laborious pleasure.

      At last, the good byes having all been said, behold me, with my old portmanteau, (covered with its many-coloured coat of baggage labels, those trophies of many a hard campaign of travel,) at the office of the diligence for Civita Vecchia. The luggage and the passengers having been successfully stowed away, the lumbering vehicle rolled down the narrow streets, and we were soon outside the gate that opens upon the old Aurelian Way. Here the passports were examined, the postilions cracked their whips, and I felt indeed that I was "banished from Rome." It is a sad thing to leave Rome. I have seen people who have made but a brief stay there shed more tears on going away than they ever did on a departure from home; but for one who has lived there long enough to feel like a Roman citizen – to feel that the broken columns of the Forum have become a part of his being – to feel as familiar with St. Peter's and the Vatican as with the King's Chapel and the Tremont House – it is doubly hard to go away. The old city, so "rich with the spoils of time," seems invested with a personality that appeals most powerfully to every man, and would fain hold him back from returning to the world. The lover of art there finds its choicest treasures ever open to him; the artist there finds an abundance of employment for his chisel or his brush; the man of business there finds an asylum from the vexing cares of a commercial career; the student of antiquity or of history can there take his fill amid the "wrecks of a world whose ashes still are warm," and listen to the centuries receding into the unalterable past with their burdens of glory or of crime; the lover of practical benevolence will there be delighted by the inspection of establishments for the relief of every possible form of want and suffering; the enthusiast for education finds there two universities and hundreds of public schools of every grade, and all as free as the bright water that sparkles in Rome's countless fountains; the devout can there rekindle their devotion at the shrines of apostles and martyrs, and breathe the holy air of cloisters in which saints have lived and died, or join their voices with those that resound in old churches, whose pavements are furrowed by the knees of pious generations; the admirer of pomp, and power, and historic associations can there witness the more than regal magnificence of a power, compared to which the houses of Bourbon or of Hapsburg are but of yesterday; the lover of republican simplicity can there find subject for admiration in the facility of access to the highest authorities, and in the perfection of his favourite elective system by which the supreme power is perpetuated. There is, in short, no class of men to whom Rome does not attach itself. People may complain during their first week that it is dull, or melancholy, or dirty; but you generally find them sorry enough to go away, and looking back to their residence there as the happiest period of their existence. Somebody has said, – and I wish that I could recall the exact words, they are so true, – that when we leave Paris, or Naples, or Florence, we feel a natural sorrow, as if we were parting from a cherished friend; but on our departure from Rome we feel a pang like that of separation from a woman whom we love!

      At last Rome disappeared from sight in the dusk of evening, and the discomforts of the journey began to make themselves obtrusive. The night air in Italy is not considered healthy, and we therefore had the windows of the diligence closed. Like Charles Lamb after the oyster pie, we were "all full inside," and a pretty time we had of it. As to respiration, you might as well have expected the performance of that function from a mackerel occupying the centre of a well-packed barrel of his finny comrades, as of any person inside that diligence. Of course there was a baby in the company, and of course the baby cried. I could not blame it, for even a fat old gentleman who sat opposite to me would have cried if he had not known how to swear. But it is useless to recall the anguish of that night: suffice it to say that for several hours the only air we got was an occasional vocal performance from the above-mentioned infant. At midnight we reached Palo, on the sea coast, where I heard "the wild water lapping on the crag," and felt more keenly than before that I had indeed left Rome behind me. The remainder of the journey being along the coast, we had the window open, though it was not much better on that account, as we were choking with dust. It was small comfort to see the cuttings and fillings-in for the railway which is destined soon to destroy those beastly diligences, and place Rome within two or three hours of its seaport.

      At five o'clock in the morning, after ten toilsome hours, I found myself, tired, dusty, and hungry, in Civita Vecchia, a city which has probably been the cause of more profanity than any other part of the world, including Flanders. I was determined not to be fleeced by any of the hotel keepers; so I staggered about the streets until I found a barber's shop open. Having repaired the damage of the preceding night, I hove to in a neighbouring café long enough to take in a little ballast in the way of breakfast. Afterwards I fell in with an Englishman, of considerable literary reputation, whom I had several times met in Rome. He was one of those men who seem to possess all sorts of sense except common sense. He was full of details, and could tell exactly the height of the dome of St. Peter's, or of the great pyramid, – could explain the process of the manufacture of the Minié rifle or the boring of an artesian well, and could calculate an eclipse with Bond or Secchi, – but he could not pack a carpet-bag to save his life. That he should have been able to travel so far from home alone is a fine commentary on the honesty and good nature of the people of the continent. I could not help thinking what a time he would have were he to attempt to travel in America. He would think he had discovered a new nomadic tribe in the cabmen of New York. He had come down to Civita Vecchia in a most promiscuous style, and when I discovered him he was trying to bring about a union between some six or eight irreconcilable pieces of luggage. I aided him successfully in the work, and his look of perplexity and despair gave way to one of gratitude and admiration for his deliverer. Delighted at this escape from the realities of his situation, he launched out into a profound dissertation on the philosophy of language and the formation of provincial dialects, and it was some time before I could bring him down to the common and practical business of securing his passage in the steamer for Marseilles. Ten o'clock, however, found us on board one of the steamers of the Messageries Imperiales, and we were very shortly after under way. We were so unfortunate as to run aground on a little spit of land in getting out of port, as we ran a little too near an English steamer that was lying there. But a Russian frigate sent off a cable to us, and thus established an alliance between their flag and the French, which drew the latter out of