The cries of the dying; the shrieks of those who were half-buried under the ruins; the wild terror with which others, who were still able, attempted to make their escape; the despair of fathers, mothers, and husbands, bereft of those who were dearest to them, — these formed altogether a scene of horror such as can but seldom occur in the history of the calamities of the human race. Amid that fearful scene, instances of the most heroic courage and of the most generous affection were displayed. Mothers, regardless of their own safety, rushed into every danger to snatch their children from death. Conjugal and filial affection prompted deeds not less desperate and heroic. But no sooner did the earthquake cease than the poor wretches who had escaped began to feel the influence of very different passions. When they returned to visit the ruins, to seek out the situation of their fallen dwellings, to inquire into the fate of their families, to procure food and collect some remains of their former fortunes, such as found their circumstances the most wretched became suddenly animated with rage, which nothing but wild despair could inspire. The distinction of ranks and the order of society were disregarded, and property eagerly violated. Murder, rapine, and lawless robbery reigned among the smoking ruins …
In 1848, when the people of Messina rebelled against the king of Naples, the place was mercilessly bombarded, and the Neapolitan forces on entering the town burned whole streets, committing ‘the most unheard-of ravages. Some of the details of their cruelties are really too horrible to be cited.’ The carnage was only stopped when French and British warships standing off-shore — in spite of neutrality having been imposed on them by their governments — intervened in the name of humanity to stop the slaughter. And then in 1908 came the worst disaster of all, when the same earthquake which flattened Reggio killed 96,000 people.
On landing at Messina, Hare tells us that it is almost useless to ask one’s way. ‘One is sure to be answered by — “Who knows?” or with the assertion in reply to any remonstrance, that a housewife has no need to know the way anywhere but to her church or her fountain.’ Should you care to go along the coast to the lighthouse at Cape Pelorus, ‘travellers are beset by the rough, noisy inhabitants of the village, and a dirty begging crowd accompanies them to the lighthouse, and prevents their having any enjoyment’.
As for the travelling in the interior, Bartlett says, with echoes of Charlotte Eaton: ‘I shall spare the reader a detailed account of our progress from Syracuse to Girgenti, in which we made full proof of the deplorable filth and misery of the interior of the island. Suffice it to say that we passed the first night at Palazzolo, the second at Biscari, and the third at Terranova. The first was bad, the second worse, and the third so utterly unsupportable, that to escape the onslaught of the vermin I ordered the mules in the middle of the night and departed. No sooner on horseback, however, than the sense of fatigue returned with increased force, and one rides on half asleep, and at every moment, ready to drop, until the rising sun awakens a forced and feverish activity; and so one goes forward the whole day under the blazing heat.’
Thirty years later the hotels in the larger towns of the island were said by Hare to be excellent, but that if the traveller takes the train to Taormina he will suffer much at the hands of railway officials, ‘who by night thrust emigrants into first and second class carriages’. He also reports that the recent abolition of the rural police has brought insecurity, ‘causing an exaggerated report of brigandage, which has consequently fallen upon the less populated districts, and has deterred most Italian travellers from prolonging their rambles into a country which is nevertheless full of the elements of enjoyment’.
In a later edition he warns travellers, regarding the main cities, ‘not to take the same liberties in the suburbs that he may take with impunity at Florence or Rome: though, for that matter, the lonely or the rash visitor may find himself victimised unpleasantly in those of any large town.’
In climbing the volcanic Mount Etna: ‘The deepest ashes are very fatiguing, and most visitors are grievously overwhelmed by sickness, induced more by the terrible cold than the noxious gases, before reaching the top, where the guides will often cover them up in the warm ashes till they recover.’ At the summit: ‘The desolation is supreme — all vegetation has long ceased: there is no sound from beast, bird, or insect. In later times Etna has been supposed to be a place of torment for Anne Boleyn, perverter of the faith in the person of its “Defender”!’
Of all the perils, however, perhaps the greatest was that which at one time threatened in the catacombs of Syracuse. Hare quotes from Wanderungen in Sicilien by a German traveller, Gregorovius. ‘Twenty years ago a professor, with six pupils, to whom he wished to explain the wonders of the city of tombs, was lost there. They wandered long and despairingly through the horrible labyrinth in search of the entrance till they died of exhaustion, and they were found lying side by side, four miles distant from the gate. Since that time holes for light and air have been pierced in the galleries, through which the dubious daylight shimmers mysteriously into this fearful Hades.’
CHAPTER TEN
THE SOUTH OF FRANCE
Even as early as 1848 Murray had no illusions about the charms of the South of France, nor did he wish his readers to have any, and his comments are repeated in all later editions:
The Englishman who knows the S. of France only from books — who there finds Provence described as the cradle of Poetry and Romance, the paradise of the Troubadours, a land teeming with oil, wine, silk, and perfumes, has probably formed in his mind a picture of a region beautiful to behold, and charming to inhabit. Nothing, however, can differ more widely from reality. Nature has altogether an arid character; — in summer a sky of copper, an atmosphere loaded with dust, the earth scorched rather than parched by the unmitigated rays of the sun, which overspread every thing with a lurid glare. The hills rise above the surface in masses of bare rock, without any covering of soil, like the dry bones of a wasted skeleton. Only on the low grounds, which can be reached by irrigation, does any verdure appear. There is a sombre, melancholy sternness in the landscape of the South. The aching eye in vain seeks to repose on a patch of green, and the inhabitant of the North would not readily purchase the clear cloudless sky of Provence with the verdure of a misty England. Neither the bush-like vine nor the mop-headed mulberry, stripped of its leaves for a great part of the summer, nor the tawny green olive, whose foliage looks as though powdered with dust, will at all compensate in a picturesque point of view for forests of oak, ash, and beech.
After several hundred more words of this, he treats us to a disquisition on the character of the people. ‘Their fervid temperament knows no control or moderation; hasty and headstrong in disposition, they are led by very slight religious or political excitement, on sudden impulses, to the committal of acts of violence unknown in the North. They are rude in manner, coarse in aspect, and harsh in speech, their patois being unintelligible, even to the French themselves, not unlike the Spanish dialect of Catalonia. From loudness of tone, and energy of gesture, they appear always as though going to fight when merely carrying on an ordinary conversation. The traveller who happens to fall into the hands of the ruffianly porters at Avignon will be able to judge if this be an exaggerated picture.’
Murray goes on to say that anyone who thinks the climate of England is bad should try that of the South of France. ‘The variations between summer and winter are marked by the dead olive, and vine trees killed by the frost; and the torrid influence of summer by the naked beds of torrents left without water. In many years not a drop of rain falls in June, July, and August, and the quantity is commonly very smalclass="underline" the great heats occur between the middle of July and the end of September, yet even in summer scorching heat alternates with the most piercing cold; and the vicissitudes are so sudden and severe, that strong persons, much more invalids, should beware how they yield to the temptation of wearing thin clothing, and of abandoning cloaks and great coats.’