Foreign Parts
Rome & Naples, Italy

Foreign Parts.

On Tour from New South Wales.

[By H. Rieck.]

Rome, 19th March, 1899.

Man is seldom thankful for or content with what he has; he generally wishes for that which he cannot get. Many of us remember the times when the clamourings of the Italians for Italia libra e unita resounded through the world, and we witnessed the agitations of Mazzini, the organisations of Cavour, the bold executions of Garibaldi, and the herculean recreative works of Victor Emanuel, Humbert, and their able statesmen up to the present time. But instead of rejoicing over the progress of modern young and united Italy, there is—as could be foreseen—the old snake of disharmony and reaction lifting up her head, whispering enviously in the people’s ear of “the jolly good old times of the Roman hierarchy and feudal aristocratic institutions,” and not only the old inborn monkish spirit, but also foreign intriguing machinations appear to be at work to destroy this strong united Italian Empire. Many voices whisper also in my ear of the jolly and poetical good old times of Italia bella, but as I am able to compare the present things we see here with those I saw 12 years ago, I must honestly confess that, through the high duties put on matches, advertisements, salt, tea (in fact, on everything, except perhaps on wine and bread), the jolly piggery of the “good old times”—resounding to our ear through the melodies of the Santa Lucia, Mute of Portici, etc.—has been rapidly swept away, and the stinking, narrow lanes of Naples, etc., are left to oblivion by straight, broad streets, flanked by elegant shops, hotels, palaces of great height and fine architecture, well watered, lighted by electricity as well as any street in any town of the new, modern, healthy, and wide-awake world. But as the soul of the Italian population is very Conservative—no wonder, with her venerable history and rich inheritance of creations of fine art, in architecture, sculpture, music, painting and literature—it is striking to behold how here on especially beautiful and homely spots the poorest population, with the local filth, rags, and shameless vice, still clings, especially on Santa Lucia, Portici, Torre del Greco, etc. In the midst of most brilliant places, before the grandest views of the whole world, the wide Bay of Naples, with the smoking and glaring old Vesuvius, in the mild spring sunshine squat and lay prostrate hundreds of half-naked, dirty women and children amongst ragged and very suspicious-looking men, herds of goats and donkeys, on the broad and narrow pavements, almost blocking the traffic. By this and many other signs we see that the present Government of Italy is not only fearlessly and honestly following the modern progress of our times, but very liberally deals with the dear old customs and wants of the poorest and most miserable class of their subjects as far as a due regard for modern young Italy and the comfort of the millions of very welcome foreign sightseers will allow.

After doing all our sightseeing in interesting jolly old Naples—also after paying a visit to the many thousands of years old, once very charming but now almost desolate lands around Puzzuoli, once the summer residence of the Roman Emperors of old (Julius Caesar, Nero, Carancalla, etc.) as well as of the great Roman statesmen, poets, or artists (Catilina, Cicero, Demosthenes, Horatius, Virgil) and many wealthy aristocrats of that time; the place where a mighty amphitheatre and temples of Diana and Apollo, which lay at present in debris, stood in proud glare; that spot of the earth where on his journey to his brethren in Rome, the Apostle Paulus first put his foot on European ground; the same spot where the early Christians afterwards had to suffer boycotting by the vulgar and torment and cruel death by the legal Romans, and the place where, by volcanic eruptions during these last two millenniums, the territory has been either elevated high above or sunk deep under the surface of the Mediterranean Sea; the place where a big pond, called the Lago Averno, the one said by Homer to have been the road to Hades, the fabulous subterranean abode of the departed souls of mankind—and cramming our memory full of material for reminiscence, we at last decided to move off to Rome.

We started with our three swags in a cab (here called a fiacre) to the railway station, where we found that we had arrived just five hours too early, and five hours too late for a second-class train; the third-class train having left uncomfortably early. As the first-class train was too expensive, I left my companion in the waiting-saloon while I returned to town to change more Italian paper money, and to buy some victuals for the journey. When I returned I found my good little companion busily occupied in writing, of which I give you hereunder a copy:—

Fanny’s narrative

We have been staying in a very nice, homely, clean English house at Del Pillero, Naples. The charge for accommodation for the night and good breakfast (tea, bread, butter and eggs) was 2 francs each, and we took our other meals wherever convenient, but our favourite restaurant (cheap and very good) was near the Nuova Boursa in the Ristorante di Famiglia, where we paid, including mezzo litro vino, 1¼ francs each. Nearly all Italian money is paper, even francs, and the Australian sovereign changes in value every day, as yesterday it was worth 26½ francs, to-day the value is 27 1 9th, therefore one franc or lira is about 9d.

We have been walking in all directions, and I have never before seen such a lot of fat women, girls and babies. I presume it is caused by taking so much oil in their food and drinking nothing but wine. Tea is a very scarce article—good tea 5s per lb, sugar 8d per lb. Coffee, black and without milk, is drunk, but it is rather expensive. Wine is cheap and very good, and scarcely anything else is drunk. We went a long way out along the bay towards Vesuvius to a place called Torre del Greco and came back to Naples in a bus. On the boundary of the town Customs officers came in and searched for dutiable goods, as the products of the country have on entering the town to pay excise duty. There was much laughter and joking as the very civil officers looked under the cushions on the seats. Another day we visited the Naples Museum, and saw thousands of frescos taken from Pompeii, also curiosities of every possible kind, and household utensils and furniture as it is dug out of the ashes of that 2000 years Vesuvius-buried town. There are also sculptures and pictures from all the old masters. It took so long to traverse all the galleries that we were completely tired out. I would like to pay another visit to the picture galleries, but my husband says there are still better in Rome. We hear plenty of brass bands on Sundays in the Piazza del Populo, where thousands of very elegantly-dressed gentry meet in a splendidly laid-out park close to the beach; but as it was bitterly cold, although there was no snow and the spring blossoms and green sprouts of the trees were out, I did not care to wander up and down in the sharp wind.

We have quite taken to the native food macaroni, beans and wine, and quite enjoy it. We sometimes go in the asterias, the native middle-class eating rooms and eat a plate of these, and also fish and meat with tomatoes and wine, and although the food is not cooked in our style we soon get accustomed to it.

On the 8th of March we went to the celebrated Convent of St. Martino, and saw a splendid collection of paintings, sculpture and architecture. This convent is near the Castle St. Elmo, on the highest point of a mountain promontory near Naples. To reach it we had to ascend stone steps for about a mile, and, in spite of the cold, we were perspiring in every pore. We entered the ancient convent, and, after the statues, visited the church, which has many different aisles and naves, all filled with beautiful paintings, far lovelier than any I have seen in any picture gallery. The ceilings and walls are all covered with paintings and marble carvings, and the sacristy set with an abundance of precious stones. But the most beautiful and interesting part of this convent is a grotto showing in terra cotta (burnt clay) figures of highly artistic manufacture the features and dresses of all kinds of country people in Italy, and the way they work in different kinds of landscape, valleys and mountains. There is a territory in Egypt inhabited by all kinds of heathens, also the Cril in Bethlehem and the worshipping of the wise men from the East, with little flying angels. The perspective and the lights and shadows in this grotto are perfect. Another room in this convent shows on the pavement the equator, meridian, equinox, and heavenly bodies in brass and mosaic, also planiglobes in ebony and ivory inlaid work, very ancient, but not more correct than we can expect from the wise men and artisans of that ancient period. There is also a wax figure sitting in a niche of this room showing the most cruel and diabolical face I ever saw. He was, as the guide asserts, one of the mightiest of the Inquisitors, and tormented and burned a great many unbelievers or heretics. All visitors to St. Martino go and view the city from the ramparts, where a lovely panorama is before one, and the humming noise of Naples far below comes up like the noise of a sea surf. As we were standing there the cannon of St. Elmo battery announced midday, and the many different echoes like thunder cracking was really startling, as it sounded for a good while afterwards, echoed around Vesuvius, the opposite Sorento heights, and back to St. Elmo.

We returned to del Pillero via the Posilipo heights, mostly between stone walls, with occasional splendid views over the fertile valley between the Posilipo and Puzzuola Ranges, and thence down a stone stair about a mile long to Santa Lucia, which is a most lovely spot, but full of the most miserable and dirtiest people I ever saw.

Pompeii.

Instead of getting out of the train at Pompeii (March 9) we were recommended to go five minutes further, and visit a R.C. Church there; so as soon as the Valle de Pompeii was reached we left the train and proceeded to the church. The outside was very unostentatious, but when we went inside it was so beautiful it nearly took my breath away. The church was lit for service with many candles of different sizes. The side walls were lined with lovely paintings, and the arches of the ceilings were a “dream of beauty”—so many lovely paintings, gildings, and sculptures were there in different soft lights and shadows. We went specially to hear the organ, but we had to wait so long that we thought we must have been too late; but when on the point of leaving a gentleman beckoned us to wait, and pointed upwards. Just then the organ began to sound, and we returned to our seats. The music from this far-famed organ was really entrancing. It played first recitative, then chorus, full chorus, and then imitated in a miraculous way a female soprano solo voice singing in Latin; even the catching of breath was audible. Then came out in solos and chorus male voices, and so many different renderings of music that I doubt whether such music is elsewhere produced by a single instrument. We enjoyed this more than anything yet in Italy, and we were told the musician who played the organ was a blind man.

We then went on our way to Pompeii, and came first, after visiting a restaurant in the Hotel del Sol, to the amphitheatre, which is so spacious that it accommodated 10,000 spectators. In the arena in the centre is the place where the gladiators fought, where the great tragedies and comedies of old were exhibited, where the early Christians were cast before wild beasts, etc. The wild beasts’ pens, many underground tunnels and many seats are yet in perfect preservation, as they have been so long covered by ashes and slag out of Vesuvius.

We proceeded thence across the fields to the excavations of the town of Pompeii. Although about 30 feet of ashes—which rained in a molten state out of the roaring craters of Vesuvius about 2000 years ago (a splendid description is given in Bulwer Lytton’s “Last Days of Pompeii”)—have now been removed from above and out of the houses, many of the walls are in good preservation. The streets are paved with hard stones, which bear the mark of wheels.

The Museum of Pompeii is very interesting, showing men, women, children, dogs, etc., just as they fell when overtaken by the horrible eruption. Everything was then covered by immense masses of fiery ashes, which later on became hardened around these bodies, and long after the entire decay of the latter formed hollows like a matrix for casting. When the excavators of the present day come across these hollows they cast fluid plaster of paris into them, and thus get horrible casts of the bodies buried so many years ago. There are also loaves of bread, rather overdone by the hot ashes of course, in fact burned to coal, but in perfect shape. Pots, pans, crockery, etc., are still being unearthed every day, especially enormous wine jars, which served in those days instead of casks.

These are all in good preservation, and the marble statuary which has been unearthed is better in its simple and pure beauty than many similar works of the present day, especially the baths, tables, columns, and monuments. Many of raw appearance (out of the early Egyptian portion of the first foundation of the town) are valuable through their antiquity. We admired most the Forum, Temple of Venus, Basilica, public baths, and the very old Temple of Isis. It was a lovely day, and we walked for several hours over the ruined town quite alone, and greatly enjoyed our visit.

We visited the Palazzo Reale, the King’s Palace in Naples, although the Italian Crown Prince was residing there. We were allowed to walk through parts of the great palace, escorted by an old Royal servant, who explained everything to us in French, as he understood neither German or English. We admired the lovely pictures, worked in tapestry-embroidery, and descriptive of all times. These highly artistic works, which appear to be rich oil paintings, cover the immense walls of the numerous Royal chambers and salons. There are also in this palace highly valuable works of Fizian, Michel Angelo, Murillo, Bonaventura, Genelly, etc. The picture of Cain and Abel we will long remember, for it is as grand as it is dreadful. The richly carved and gilded throne room, private theatre, and church were exceptionally beautiful. The ball-room, dining-room, and reception-room of the Foreign Ambassadors contained numerous candelabras, in appearance as if composed of thousands of diamonds; while the walls were formed of mirrors of costly Venetian glass.

Puzzuoli.

We were persuaded, against my desire, to visit this place. I have no doubt it looked much better when the Apostle Paul visited the locality. At present it is a most disagreeable, stinking place, with a nasty, howling, begging population which beats the black heathen Cingalese in Colombo. We were advised to see an old volcano, which is still hard at work, in the bare, rocky ranges around this town, but as my husband likes to keep away from burning brimstone I could not get him to pay 3 francs for a guide and 3 francs more for the entrance to see this volcano, which is called the Salfatara. We wasted 2 francs to see the local amphitheatre, which—after having seen that of Pompeli (which was in much better repair)—had only an historical interest. We met here a German gentleman (Prof. Dr. Knaak), who was also visiting old temples, etc. We visited together some old temple ruins, with high *toredo-eaten pillars, in which my husband and our learned companion were greatly interested; but the lovely ferns growing in the cracks of the old marble temple pleased me most. Many of them I gathered as keepsakes of our pleasant and interesting old companion; not of Puzzuoli, as it is the most disagreeable town we ever were in—even worse than any in Ceylon. *The toredo, a salt-water worm, which eats away the wooden piles of landing jetties along the Australian coast, has—in a time long ago when by volcanic eruptions the land around Puzzuoli was sunk below the sea level—eaten into these gigantic marble pillars (about 80 feet high and 4 feet diameter, out of one single stone) in a similar way to that which we witnessed on the jetty piles at Coff’s Harbour, N.S.W.

On the 14th March we went to see the review of the Italian troops garrisoned in Naples, by the Villa del Populo Gardens. It was the King’s birthday, and the soldiers had donned their best. We saw the Prince (King Humbert’s eldest son), also two ladies (Queen Marguerite and a Princess, a daughter of the Prince of Montenegro). The King remained in Rome. The music was very good, and the uniforms of the officers extremely brilliant, the different hats being very remarkable. My husband said there were too many officers in proportion to the men, and he was not pleased with the Artillery, which had cannon made of brass instead of German Krupp steel. The Bersaglieri soldiers are very small men. They looked very funny with a big bunch of cock’s feathers on the right side of the hat, and they are always running, officers also. My husband thinks they would not run so fast if they had their pouches filled with some hundreds of loaded cartridges. The boys cheered these running mannikins, but no cheers greeted the Prince or royalty. The cavalry had splendid horses, with tails cut ridiculously short, but only a few of the men sat well.

We thoroughly enjoyed this outing, and in the evening went to see the illuminations, which were as brilliant as millions of gas jets could make it, with many coloured lights. On both Sundays we took our walks in the fashionable Villa Gardinos; heard the band play amongst the sprouting elm, oak, and olive trees, where the lovely spring flowers are just peeping out of the soil; and admired the dresses, especially the infant nurse dress, which resembles a peacock. Italian women are very fond of dress, and it appears to be fashionable to be very big round the hips, so as well as being naturally big, they pad themselves all round. They wear skirts so voluminous they must be eight yards round the bottom. The bodies are most elaborately trimmed and tucked, and sleeves also; but not much jewellery is worn. The hair is done up with a padding over the forehead and nape of the neck, and coiled high behind. Even poor women have their hair dressed every day for less than 1 sol (½d). They wear no hats or head covering. The foreign ladies here can almost always be known by their simplicity in dress, and they wear mostly plenty of jewellery. Foreign ladies, of whom there are a large number here, look as a rule very plain alongside the Italians, who are mostly handsome women with large dark eyes. Both men and women are very polite.

A sovereign is now worth 27 francs 13 dts; one franc or liva has 100 centesimi. Five cts. is a small copper piece, and is called 1 solda (½d).

The last few days Naples has been under a dense cloud of quite white smoke. The sun did not appear red like in Australia after bush fires, but very pale, like as if painted over with chalk. There is scarcely any wind, and we believe this smoke arises out of Vesuvius; but the people call this weather Sirocco, and think the dense disagreeable dust clouds come from the south, from the African deserts.

We must now leave this lovely, jolly, fascinating, ancient, interesting, but dirty old place, and visit other lands. To-day we start for Rome, where we will arrive about 8.30, and where we will post this letter.

H. and F. Rieck.