Letters of a Traveller - William Cullen Bryant
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[Transcriber's Note: Footnotes have been numbered and moved to the end.]
Letters of a Traveller;
Or, Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America
By William Cullen Bryant.
1850.
To the Reader.
The letters composing this volume were written at various times, during
the last sixteen years, and during journeys made in different countries.
They contain, however, no regular account of any tour or journey made by
the writer, but are merely occasional sketches of what most attracted his
attention. The greater part of them have already appeared in print.
The author is sensible that the highest merit such a work can claim, if
ever so well executed, is but slight. He might have made these letters
more interesting to readers in general, if he had spoken of distinguished
men to whose society he was admitted; but the limits within which this may
be done, with propriety and without offense, are so narrow, and so easily
overstepped, that he has preferred to abstain altogether from that class
of topics. He offers his book to the public, with expectations which will
be satisfied by a very moderate success.
New York, _April_, 1850.
Contents.
To the Reader
Letter I.--First Impressions of an American in France.--Tokens of
Antiquity: churches, old towns, cottages, colleges, costumes, donkeys,
shepherds and their flocks, magpies, chateaux, formal gardens, vineyards,
fig-trees.--First Sight of Paris; its Gothic churches, statues, triumphal
arches, monumental columns.--Parisian gaiety, public cemeteries, burial
places of the poor
Letter II.--Journey from Paris to Florence.--Serenity of the Italian
Climate.--Dreary country between Paris and Chalons on the Saone.--Autun.
--Chalons.--Lyons.--Valley of the Rhine.--Avignon.--Marseilles; its growth
and prosperity.--Banking in France.--Journey along the Mediterranean.--
American and European Institutions
Letter III.--Tuscan Scenery and Climate.--Florence in Autumn.--
Deformities of Cultivation.--Exhibition of the Academy of the Fine
Arts.--Respect of the Italians for Works of Art
Letter IV.--A Day in Florence.--Bustle and Animation of the Place.--Sights
seen on the Bridges.--Morning in Florence.--Brethren of Mercy.--Drive on
the Cascine.--Evening in Florence.--Anecdote of the Passport
System.--Mildness of the Climate of Pisa
Letter V.--Practices of the Italian Courts.--Mildness of the Penal Code in
Tuscany.--A Royal Murderer.--Ceremonies on the Birth of an Heir to the
Dukedom of Tuscany.--Wealth of the Grand Duke
Letter VI.--Venice.--Its peculiar Architecture.--Arsenal and Navy
Yard.--The Lagoons.--Ceneda.--Serravalle.--Lago Morto.--Alpine Scenery.--A
June Snow-Storm in the Tyrol.--Splendor of the Scenery in the
Sunshine.--Landro.--A Tyrolese Holiday.--Devotional Character of the
People.--Numerous Chapels.--Sterzing.--Bruneck.--The Brenner.--Innsbruck.
--Bronze Tomb of Maximilian I.--Entrance into Bavaria
Letter VII.--An Excursion to Rock River in Illinois.--Birds and Quadrupeds
of the Prairies.--Dad Joe's Grove.--Beautiful Landscape.--Traces of the
Indian Tribes.--Lost Rocks.--Dixon.--Rock River; beauty of its banks.--A
Horse-Thief.--An Association of Felons.--A Prairie Rattlesnake.--The
Prairie-Wolf; its habits.--The Wild Parsnip
Letter VIII.--Examples of Lynch Law.--Practices of Horse-Thieves in
Illinois.--Regulators.--A Murder.--Seizure of the Assassins, their trial
and execution.--One of the Accomplices lurking in the Woods.--Another
Horse-Thief shot
Letter IX.--An Example of Senatorial Decorum.--The National Museum at
Washington.--Mount Vernon.--Virginia Plantations.--Beauty of
Richmond.--Islands of James River.--An Old Church.--Inspection of
Tobacco.--Tobacco Factory.--Work and Psalmody.--Howden's Statue of
Washington.
Letter X.--Journey from Richmond to Charleston.--Pine Forests of North
Carolina.--Collection of Turpentine.--Harbor of Charleston.--Aspect of the
City.
Letter XI.--Interior of South Carolina.--Pine Woods.--Plantations.--Swamps.
--Birds.--A Corn-Shucking.--Negro Songs.--A Negro Military Parade.--
Character of the Blacks.--Winter Climate of South Carolina.
Letter XII.--Picolata.--Beauty of the Season.--The St. John's.--A
Hammock.--Voyage from Charleston to Savannah.--City of Savannah.--Quoit
Club.--A Negro Burial-Place.--Curious Epitaphs.--Bonaventure.--Majestic
Avenues of Live-Oaks.--Alligators.--Black Creek.
Letter XIII.--Woods of Florida.--Anecdotes of the Florida War.--Aspect of
St. Augustine.--Its Streets.--Former Appearance of the City.--Orange
Groves.--Fort of St. Mark.--Palm Sunday.--A Frenchman preaching in
Spanish.
Letter XIV.--Climate of St. Augustine.--Tampa Bay.--Melons in
January.--Insects in Southern Florida.--Healthfulness of East Florida.--A
Sugar Plantation.--Island of St. Anastasia.--Quarries of
Shell-Rock.--Customs of the Mahonese.--A Mahonese or Minorcan hymn.
Letter XV.--Florida the "Poor Man's Country."--Settlement of the
Peninsula.--The Indian War.--Its Causes.--Causes of the Peace.--The
Everglades.--St. Mary's in Georgia.--Plague of Sand-Flies.--Alligator
Shooting.--Tobacco Chewing.
Letter XVI.--The Champlain Canal.--Beauty of its Banks.--Whitehall.--
Canadian French.--A Family setting out for the West.--The Michigan Lay.--
Vermont Scenery.
Letter XVII.--Grasshoppers.--White Clover.--Domestic Arrangements of two
unmarried Ladies.--Canadian French Laborers.--Quakers.--A Pretty Mantua
Maker.--Anecdote told by a Quakeress.--Walpole.--Keene.--A Family of
healthy young Women.
Letter XVIII.--A Voyage to Liverpool.--Mountains of Wales.--Growth of
Liverpool.--Aspect of the Place.--Zoological Gardens.--Cemetery among the
Rocks.--Ornamental Cultivation.--Prince's Park.--Chester.--Manchester.
--Calico Printing.
Letter XIX.--Edale in Derbyshire.--A Commercial
Traveller.--Chapel-en-le-Frith.--The Winnets.--Mam Tor.--Heathy
Hills.--The Lark.--Caverns of the Peak of Derbyshire.--Castle of the
Peverils.--People of Derbyshire.--Matlock.--Derby.
Letter XX.--Works of Art.--Power's Greek Slave.--Exhibition of the Royal
Academy.--Turner's late Pictures.--Webster.--Thorburn.--New Houses of
Parliament.--Artists in Water-Colors.
Letter XXI.--The Parks of London.--Their Extent.--Want of Parks in New
York.--Sweeping of the Streets.--Safety from Housebreaking.--Beggars.--
Increase of Poverty.
Letter XXII.--Edinburg.--The Old Town.--The Castle.--Solid Architecture of
the New Town.--Views from the different Eminences.--Poverty in the Wynds
and Alleys.--Houses of Refuge for the Destitute.--Night Asylums for the
Houseless.--The Free Church.--The Maynooth Grant.--Effect of Endowments.
Letter XXIII.--Fishwomen of Newhaven.--Frith of Forth.--Stirling.--
Callander.--The Trosachs.--Loch Achray.--Loch Katrine.--Loch Lomond.
--Glenfalloch.--Dumbarton.--The Leven.
Letter XXIV.--Glasgow.--Its Annual Fair.--Its Public Statues.--The Free
Church.--Free Church College.--Odd Subject of a Sermon.--Alloway.--Burns's
Monument.--The Doon.--The Sea.--Burns's Birthplace.--The River Ayr.
Letter XXV.--Voyage to Ireland.--Ailsa Craig.--County of Down.--County of
Lowth.--Difference in the Appearance of the Inhabitants.--
Peat-Diggers.--A Park.--Samples of different Races of Men.--Round
Towers.--Valley of the Boyne.--Dublin.--Its Parks.--O'Connell.--The Repeal
Question.--Wall, the Artist.--Exhibition of the Royal Hibernian Society.
Letter XXVI.--Lunatic Asylum at Hanwell.--Humanity and Skill.--Quiet
Demeanor of the Patients.--Anecdotes of the Inmates.--The Corn-law
Question.--Coleman's Improvement on the Piano.
Letter XXVII.--Changes in Paris.--Asphaltum Pavements.--New and Showy
Buildings.--Suppression of Gaming-Houses.--Sunday Amusements.--Physical
Degeneracy.--Vanderlyn's Picture of the Landing of Columbus.
Letter XXVIII.--A Journey through the Netherlands.--Brussels.--Waterloo.
--Walloons and Flemings.--Antwerp.--Character of Flemish Art.--The
Scheldt.--Rotterdam.--Country of Holland.--The Hague.--Scheveling.--
Amsterdam.--Broek Saardam.--Utrecht.
Letter XXIX.--American Artists abroad.--Duesseldorf: Leutze.--German
Painters.--Florence: Greenough, Powers, Gray, G. L. Brown.--Rome: H. K.
Brown, Rossiter, Lang.
Letter XXX.--Buffalo.--The New Fort.--Leopold de Meyer.--Cleveland.--
Detroit.
Letter XXXI.--Trip from Detroit to Mackinaw.--The Chippewa Tribe.--The
River St. Clair.--Anecdote.--Chippewa Village.--Forts Huron and
Saranac.--Bob Low Island.--Mackinaw.
Letter XXXII.--Journey from Detroit to Princeton.--Sheboygan.--Milwaukie.
--Chicago.--A Plunge in the Canal.--Aspect of the Country.
Letter XXXIII.--Return to Chicago.--Prairie-Hens.--Prairie Lands of Lee
County.--Rock River District.
Letter XXXIV.--Voyage to Sault Ste. Marie.--Little Fort.--Indian Women
gathering Rice.--Southport.--Island of St. Joseph.--Muddy Lake.--Girdled
Trees.
Letter XXXV.--Falls of the St. Mary.--Masses of Copper and
Silver.--Drunken Indians.--Descent of the Rapids.--Warehouses of the
Hudson Bay Company.--Canadian Half-breeds.--La Maison de Pierre.--Tanner
the Murderer.
Letter XXXVI.--Indians at the Sanlt.--Madeleine Island.--Indian
Dancing-girls.--Methodist Indians.--Indian Families.--Return to Mackinaw.
Letter XXXVII.--The Straits of Mackinaw.--American Fur Company.--Peculiar
Boats.--British Landing.--Battle-field.--Old Mission Church.--Arched Rock.
Letter XXXVIII.--Excursion to Southern New Jersey.--Easton.--The
Delaware.--The Water Gap.--Bite of a Copper-head snake.
Letter XXXIX.--The Banks of the Pocano.--Deer in the Laurel
Swamps.--Cherry Hollow.--The Wind Gap.--Nazareth.--Moravian Burying
Grounds.--A Pennsylvania German.
Letter XL.--Paint on Brick Houses.--The New City of Lawrence.--Oak Grove.
Letter XLI.--Islands of Casco Bay.--The Building of Ships.--A Seal in the
Kennebeck.--Augusta.--Multitude of Lakes.--Appearances of Thrift.
Letter XLII.--The Willey House.--Mount Washington.--Scenery of the White
Mountains.--A Hen Mother of Puppies.
Letter XLIII.--Passage to Savannah.--Passengers in the Steamer.--Old Times
in Connecticut.--Cape Hatteras.--Savannah.--Bonaventure.--Charleston.--
Augusta.
Letter XLIV.--Southern Cotton Mills.--Factory Girls.--Somerville.
Letter XLV.--The Florida Coast.--Key West.--Dangerous Navigation.--A
Hurricane and Flood.--Havana.
Letter XLVI.--Women of Cuba.--Airy Rooms.--Devotion of the Women.--Good
Friday.--Cascarilla.--Cemetery of Havana.--Funerals.--Cock-fighting.--
Valla de Gallos.--A Masked Ball.
Letter XLVII.--Scenery of Cuba.--Its Trees.--Sweet-Potato Plantation.--San
Antonio de los Barios.--Black and Red Soil of Cuba.--A Coffee Estate.--
Attire of the Cubans.
Letter XLVIII.--Matanzas.--Valley of Yumuri.--Cumbre.--Sugar
Estate.--Process of its Manufacture.
Letter XLIX.--Negroes in Cuba.--Execution by the Garrote.--Slave
Market.--African, Indian, and Asiatic Slaves.--Free Blacks in
Cuba.--Annexation of Cuba to the United States.
Letter L.--English Exhibitions of Works of Art.--The Society of
Arts.--Royal Academy.--Jews in Parliament.
Letter LI.--A Visit to the Shetland Isles.--Highland Fishermen.--Lerwick.
--Church-goers in Shetland.--Habitations of the Islanders.--The Noup of
the Noss.--Sheep and Ponies.--Pictish Castle.--The Zetlanders.--A Gale in
the North Sea.--Cathedral of St. Magnus.--Wick.
Letter LII.--Europe under the Bayonet.--Uses of the State of Siege.--The
Hungarians.--Bavaria.--St. Gall.--Zurich.--Target-shooting.--France.--
French Expedition to Rome.
Letter LIII.--Volterra; its Desolation.--The Balza.--Etruscan
Remains.--Fortress of Volterra.
Letters of a Traveller.
Letter I.
First Impressions of an American in France.
Paris, _August_ 9, 1834.
Since we first landed in France, every step of our journey has reminded us
that we were in an old country. Every thing we saw spoke of the past, of
an antiquity without limit; everywhere our eyes rested on the handiwork of
those who had been dead for ages, and we were in the midst of customs
which they had bequeathed to their descendants. The churches were so vast,
so solid, so venerable, and time-eaten; the dwellings so gray, and of such
antique architecture, and in the large towns, like Rouen, rose so high,
and overhung with such quaint projections the narrow and cavernous
streets; the thatched cots were so mossy and so green with grass! The very
hills about them looked scarcely as old, for there was youth in their
vegetation--their shrubs and flowers. The countrywomen wore such high
caps, such long waists, and such short petticoats!--the fashion of
bonnets is an innovation of yesterday, which they regard with scorn. We
passed females riding on donkeys, the Old Testament beast of burden, with
panniers on each side, as was the custom hundreds of years since. We saw
ancient dames sitting at their doors with distaffs, twisting the thread by
twirling the spindle between the thumb and finger, as they did in the days
of Homer. A flock of sheep was grazing on the side of a hill; they were
attended by a shepherd, and a brace of prick-eared dogs, which kept them
from straying, as was done thousands of years ago. Speckled birds were
hopping by the sides of the road; it was the magpie, the bird of ancient
fable. Flocks of what I at first took for the crow of our country were
stalking in the fields, or sailing in the air over the old elms; it was
the rook, the bird made as classical by Addison as his cousin the raven by
the Latin poets.
Then there were the old chateaus on the hills, built with an appearance of
military strength, their towers and battlements telling of feudal times.
The groves by which they were surrounded were for the most part clipped
into regular walls, and pierced with regularly arched passages, leading in
various directions, and the trees compelled by the shears to take the
shape of obelisks and pyramids, or other fantastic figures, according to
the taste of the middle ages. As we drew nearer to Paris, we saw the plant
which Noah first committed to the earth after the deluge--you know what
that was I hope--trained on low stakes, and growing thickly and
luxuriantly on the slopes by the side of the highway. Here, too, was the
tree which was the subject of the first Christian miracle, the fig, its
branches heavy with the bursting fruit just beginning to ripen for the
market.
But when we entered Paris, and passed the Barriere d'Etoile, with its
lofty triumphal arch; when we swept through the arch of Neuilly, and came
in front of the Hotel des Invalides, where the aged or maimed soldiers,
the living monuments of so many battles, were walking or sitting under the
elms of its broad esplanade; when we saw the colossal statues of statesmen
and warriors frowning from their pedestals on the bridges which bestride
the muddy and narrow channel of the Seine; when we came in sight of the
gray pinnacles of the Tuilleries, and the Gothic towers of Notre-Dame, and
the Roman ones of St. Sulpice, and the dome of the Pantheon, under which
lie the remains of so many of the great men of France, and the dark column
of Place Vendome, wrought with figures in relief, and the obelisk brought
from Egypt to ornament the Place Louis Quatorze, the associations with
antiquity which the country presents, from being general, became
particular and historical. They were recollections of power, and
magnificence, and extended empire; of valor and skill in war which had
held the world in fear; of dynasties that had risen and passed away; of
battles and victories which had left no other fruits than their monuments.
The solemnity of these recollections does not seem to press with much
weight upon the minds of the people. It has been said that the French have
become a graver nation than formerly; if so, what must have been their
gayety a hundred years ago? To me they seem as light-hearted and as easily
amused as if they had done nothing but make love and quiz their priests
since the days of Louis XIV.--as if their streets had never flowed with
the blood of Frenchmen shed by their brethren--as if they had never won
and lost a mighty empire. I can not imagine the present generation to be
less gay than that which listened to the comedies of Moliere at their
first representation; particularly when I perceive that even Moliere's
pieces are too much burdened with thought for a Frenchman of the present
day, and that he prefers the lighter and more frivolous vaudeville. The
Parisian has his amusements as regularly as his meals, the theatre, music,
the dance, a walk in the Tuilleries, a refection in the cafe, to which
ladies resort as commonly as the other sex. Perpetual business, perpetual
labor, is a thing of which he seems to have no idea. I wake in the middle
of the night, and I hear the fiddle going, and the sound of feet keeping
time, in some of the dependencies of the large building near the
Tuilleries, in which I have my lodgings.
When a generation of Frenchmen
"Have played, and laughed, and danced, and drank their fill"--
when they have seen their allotted number of vaudevilles and swallowed
their destined allowance of weak wine and bottled small-beer, they are
swept off to the cemetery of Montmartre, or of Pere la Chaise, or some
other of the great burial-places which lie just without the city. I went
to visit the latter of these the other day. You are reminded of your
approach to it by the rows of stone-cutters' shops on each side of the
street, with a glittering display of polished marble monuments. The place
of the dead is almost a gayer-looking spot than the ordinary haunts of
Parisian life. It is traversed with shady walks of elms and limes, and its
inmates lie amidst thickets of ornamental shrubs and plantations of the
most gaudy flowers. Their monuments are hung with wreaths of artificial
flowers, or of those natural ones which do not lose their color and shape
in drying, like the amaranth and the ever-lasting. Parts of the cemetery
seem like a city in miniature; the sepulchral chapels, through the windows
of which you see crucifixes and tapers, stand close to each other beside
the path, intermingled with statues and busts.
There is one part of this repository of the dead which is little visited,
that in which the poor are buried, where those who have dwelt apart from
their more fortunate fellow-creatures in life lie apart in death. Here are
no walks, no shade of trees, no planted shrubbery, but ridges of raw
earth, and tufts of coarse herbage show where the bodies are thrown
together under a thin covering of soil. I was about to walk over the spot,
but was repelled by the sickening exhalations that rose from it.
Letter II.
A Journey to Florence.
Florence, _Sept_ 27, 1834.
I have now been in this city a fortnight, and have established myself in a
suite of apartments lately occupied, as the landlord told me, in hopes I
presume of getting a higher rent, by a Russian prince. The Arno flows, or
rather stands still, under my windows, for the water is low, and near the
western wall of the city is frugally dammed up to preserve it for the
public baths. Beyond, this stream so renowned in history and poetry, is at
this season but a feeble rill, almost lost among the pebbles of its bed,
and scarcely sufficing to give drink to the pheasants and hares of the
Grand Duke's Cascine on its banks. Opposite my lodgings, at the south end
of the _Ponte alla Carraia_, is a little oratory, before the door of which
every good Catholic who passes takes off his hat with a gesture of homage;
and at this moment a swarthy, weasel-faced man, with a tin box in his
hand, is gathering contributions to pay for the services of the chapel,
rattling his coin to attract the attention of the pedestrians, and calling
out to those who seem disposed to pass without paying. To the north and
west, the peaks of the Appenines are in full sight, rising over the
spires of the city and the groves of the Cascine. Every evening I see them
through the soft, delicately-colored haze of an Italian sunset, looking as
if they had caught something of the transparency of the sky, and appearing
like mountains of fairy-land, instead of the bleak and barren ridges of
rock which they really are. The weather since my arrival in Tuscany has
been continually serene, the sky wholly cloudless, and the temperature
uniform--oppressively warm in the streets at noon, delightful at morning
and evening, with a long, beautiful, golden twilight, occasioned by the
reflection of light from the orange-colored haze which invests the
atmosphere. Every night I am reminded that I am in the land of song, for
until two o'clock in the morning I hear "all manner of tunes" chanted by
people in the streets in all manner of voices.
I believe I have given you no account of our journey from Paris to this
place. That part of it which lay between Paris and Chalons, on the Saone,
may be described in a very few words. Monotonous plains, covered with
vineyards and wheat-fields, with very few trees, and those spoiled by
being lopped for fuel--sunburnt women driving carts or at work in the
fields--gloomy, cheerless-looking towns, with narrow, filthy
streets--troops of beggars surrounding your carriage whenever you stop, or
whenever the nature of the roads obliges the horses to walk, and chanting
their requests in the most doleful whine imaginable--such are the sights
and sounds that meet you for the greater part of two hundred and fifty
miles. There are, however, some exceptions as to the aspect of the
country. Autun, one of the most ancient towns of France, and yet retaining
some remains of Roman architecture, lies in a beautiful and picturesque
region. A little beyond that town we ascended a hill by a road winding
along a glen, the rocky sides of which were clothed with an unpruned wood,
and a clear stream ran dashing over the stones, now on one side of the
road and then on the other--the first instance of a brook left to follow
its natural channel which I had seen in France. Two young Frenchmen, who
were our fellow-passengers, were wild with delight at this glimpse of
unspoiled nature. They followed the meanderings of the stream, leaping
from rock to rock, and shouting till the woods rang again.
Of Chalons I have nothing to tell you. Abelard died there, and his tomb
was erected with that of Eloise in the church of St. Marcel; but the
church is destroyed, and the monument has been transported to the cemetery
of Pere la Chaise, and with it all the poetry of the place is vanished.
But if you would make yourself supremely uncomfortable, travel as I did in
a steamboat down the Saone from Chalons to Lyons, on a rainy day. Crowded
into a narrow, dirty cabin, with benches on each side and a long table in
the middle, at which a set of Frenchmen with their hats on are playing
cards and eating _dejeuners a la fourchette_ all day long, and deafening
you with their noise, while waiters are running against your legs and
treading on your toes every moment, and the water is dropping on your head
through the cracks of the deck-floor, you would be forced to admit the
superlative misery of such a mode of travelling. The approach to Lyons,
however, made some amends for these inconveniences. The shores of the
river, hitherto low and level, began to rise into hills, broken with
precipices and crowned by castles, some in ruins and others entire, and
seemingly a part of the very rocks on which they stood, so old and mossy
and strong did they seem. What struck me most in Lyons was the superiority
of its people in looks and features to the inhabitants of Paris--the
clatter and jar of silk-looms with which its streets resounded--and the
picturesque beauty of its situation, placed as it is among steeps and
rocks, with the quiet Saone on one side, and the swiftly-running Rhone on
the other. In our journey from Lyons to Marseilles we travelled by land
instead of taking the steamboat, as is commonly done as far as Avignon.
The common books of travels will tell you how numerous are the ruins of
feudal times perched upon the heights all along the Rhone, remnants of
fortresses and castles, overlooking a vast extent of country and once
serving as places of refuge to the cultivators of the soil who dwelt in
their vicinity--how frequently also are to be met with the earlier yet
scarcely less fresh traces of Roman colonization and dominion, in
gateways, triumphal arches, walls, and monuments--how on entering
Provence you find yourself among a people of a different physiognomy from
those of the northern provinces, speaking a language which rather
resembles Italian than French--how the beauty of the women of Avignon
still does credit to the taste of the clergy, who made that city for more
than half a century the seat of the Papal power--and how, as you approach
the shores of the Mediterranean, the mountains which rise from the
fruitful valleys shoot up in wilder forms, until their summits become mere
pinnacles of rock wholly bare of vegetation.
Marseilles is seated in the midst of a semicircle of mountains of whitish
rock, the steep and naked sides of which scarce afford "a footing for the
goat." Stretching into the Mediterranean they inclose a commodious harbor,
in front of which are two or three rocky islands anchored in a sea of more
vivid blue than any water I had ever before seen. The country immediately
surrounding the city is an arid and dusty valley, intersected here and
there with the bed of a brook or torrent, dry during the summer. It is
carefully cultivated, however, and planted with vineyards, and orchards of
olive, fig, and pomegranate trees. The trees being small and low, the
foliage of the olive thin and pale, the leaves of the fig broad and few,
and the soil appearing everywhere at their roots, as well as between the
rows of vines, the vegetation, when viewed from a little distance, has a
meagre and ragged appearance. The whiteness of the hills, which the eye
can hardly bear to rest upon at noon, the intense blue of the sea, the
peculiar forms of the foliage, and the deficiency of shade and verdure,
made me almost fancy myself in a tropical region.