IX. A DAY'S RAMBLE THROUGH GENOA X. ITALIAN SOIREES AND BEAUTY-MARQUIS OF PALAVICINI XXXV. VILLA PAMPHYLIA-VESPERS-BORGHESIAN VILLA-THE TER'S XXXVI. DEPARTURE FROM ROME-PEPPERY ENGLISHMAN XLII. STROLL THROUGH FLORENCE-DOMINICAN FRIAR LETTERS FROM ITALY. LETTER I. A Voyage to Italy-Sea-Sickness-Squalls-A Man Lost Overboard-Peril of the Crew. AT SEA, Sept. 15, 1842. DEAR E.-Why not begin my letter at sea? It is now no more travel-worn than Arabia Petræa. I hate this skipping over the ocean as 66 not worth mentioning" to burst on the reader from the middle of some Continent. It was a beautiful day when we left New York, but it did seem cruel that you were not there to bid me good-bye. The laughter and mirth amid which my fancy painted you, your wife, and cousin A― at Saratoga, seemed a mockery of my grief, as I floated away from the shore on which my heart lay, and refused to come to me. But when the pilot-boat left us, and the last thread of communication was cut off between me and the land that never seemed so dear before, I thought perhaps after all it was better to part so. It was easier to fling you an adieu up the Hudson, than to squeeze your hand over the vessel's side, when the tongue could not utter the farewell the heart spoke so loudly the while. Our vessel was a beautiful Mobile Packet, and Mr. L., consul to Genoa, his wife, two children, myself, and a servant, constituted one family, and the entire corps of passengers, with the exception of Mr. S- of New York, who, like myself, was in search of , health. We sat grouped on deck, trying to laugh and appear indifferent, but it would not do. It was like boys whistling in the dark to keep off danger. But the overwhelming grief I expected to feel as I saw the last blue hill of my father-land sink into the western sky, never came. Nothing ever seemed to me more poetic or pathetic than Byron's farewell to the land of his birth; "Adieu, adieu-my native land Fades o'er the waters blue," &c. And as I saw the dim shores die away in the distance, I expected the thousand fond recollections of home and its quiet joys, perhaps to be mine no more for ever-the deep yearning of heart toward the land I had trod from my infancy, and now left an invalid, together with the uncertainty and solitude of the sea, would quite unman me. But nothing could be farther from the truth. The sadness I had felt when drifting down the bay was fast disappearing, and the slow, heavy rolling of the vessel, soon after we were fairly at sea, brought on that strange sensation in one's head and stomach which entirely upsets his poetry—and by the time Never-sink began to sink beyond the waters, I cared for neither home nor country. Yet as the setting sun left his farewell on the waters, and the blue sky seemed to bend so lovingly over the land I loved, I thought it was quite too Pagan to feel no sadness. So I began to repeat to myself those sweet lines of Byron, but I made more rhymes than the illustrious poet himself. If uttered aloud they would have run : "Adieu, adieu-my native land (ugh, ugh,) I could get no farther, and even when the broad round moon rode up the gorgeous night-heavens, making the sea a floor of silver, the effort was no more successful. Not the sweet moon and sweeter stars, nor the broad heaving sea, nor fading Neversink itself could whip up any sentiment. I fully agreed with Plato for the time that the soul was located in the stomach-at least they sympathized like two brothers. For a whole week we were a most dolorous group. The ladies below sat around the cabin pale and languid—the two gentlemen above lay rolled up like caterpillars to die. Sometimes stretched out in the jolly boat, some. SEA-VOYAGING. times on the rail, I would watch by the hour the passing clouds to escape the dizziness created by the rolling of the ship. "A life on the ocean wave" is a pleasant thing to sing about, especially if you are in a snug warm room and have Russell to sing, but those who try it find the chorus has never yet been written. The sleeping, or rather not sleeping, in a miserable berth six feet by two, holding on to the one above you to prevent being thrown out-the eating like an Eastern devotee bowing over his sacrifice the pitching and tossing of the ship against a headwind on the heavy breakers-the long, monotonous days, and often restless nights-the wearisome calms and fearful storms, and more than all the yearning after the green quiet earth, make a sea-voyage irksome and sickening. It is true there is some relief to this. There is a beauty at times in the ocean, in its changes and caprices, that break its otherwise insufferable tedium. I think I have never enjoyed mere life more keenly, than when sitting in a clear day far out on the flying jib-boom, I have careered with the careering vessel, and looking back a-down the keel, watched the waters part and foam away from the cleaving bows. Next to this I love, when the sea is "gently rough," to sit on the topmost yard, and look abroad on the great solemn ocean, and catching the dim outlines of the vessels that are hovering on the edge of the horizon, send down "Sail ho!" to the dreaming group on deck. It is pleasant also to lean over the taffrail and watch the rainbow-dolphin slowly swimming after the vessel, or the porpoises floundering ahead, while perhaps the black fin of a shark is combing the water in the distance. A clear evening on the quarter deck is sweet, when the moist south wind just fills the sails that are gently swelling in the light of the moon, and the bright sparkles here and there on the water seem the twinkling of the feet of Fairies abroad on their nightly revels. There is a sense of freedom too at sea. The jostling multitude→ the jar of wheels, and the clamors of money-mad men, are not around. The heart is not compelled to retire within itself lest its feelings should be detected, and its emotions mocked. There are also time and room enough to think. Everything seems at leisure even the waves when most excited have a stately motion. |