on my departure from florence, i luxuriated at lucca, the bathing resort of the tuscans. the city is old with stout walls around it. three hours ride in a viturino will bring you to the baths. they are beautifully located, down in a valley with craggy and fertile mountains hanging over. it was quite a place in old times, and counts, and dukes and other nobles used to flock here to gamble, until so much murder was committed, lucca broke up the resort of these monied men, and until very recently it was thought to be destroyed and dead, but the austrians, who occupy all the important places in the government of this part of italy, wishing to resurrect something that has already been in the italians’ mind as a pleasant dream, hotels have been built, and livery stables erected, for the accommodation of the gay portion of florence, pisa, genoa, leghorn, and even milan. on my way from florence to lucca i stopped at pisa. pisa is well known to the world as holding up one of the seven wonders of the world, to the world’s travelers and sight seers. i have reference to the “leaning tower.” in describing the “leaning tower,” i will merely say, that the first vast and solid layer of stone is heavy enough to hold all the others laid upon it. each layer is fastened to the one under, and though it might protrude several feet on the layers protruding side, this few feet of reaching out stone can have no power over all the rest of that same layer around this immense tower. the next layer protrudes on the same perched side of the tower, and straight over the reaching edge of its under layer; as each layer is fastened with iron spikes to its under layer, there can be no chance of even the very top falling down on the side of the tower. it leans so much on each layer as to make the top of the tower reach away over the base on the leaning side, so much so that, were it to break loose, it would fall over to the earth without touching the base or foundation of the leaning side of the tower.
the city of pisa is well known in italian history, by the awful contentions that used to exist among next door neighbors. men used to fight on the top of their own houses, and go on conquering, from house to house, until they would slay as many as twenty lords, whose property would be theirs as spoils of war. one hour and a quarter’s ride from pisa is leghorn, a city full of hats and bonnets. the bay is dotted over with little white houses, and some miles out in the sea; and i see hundreds of small boats rowing towards bath houses. the strongest merchants here are english, who ship leghorn hats and bonnets to foreign ports, as well as their own, but the city belongs to the hapsburg sceptre, and thousands of austrian soldiers stand in the by ways of public places.
twelve hours travel through the sea from here, brought me to the “city of palaces,” genoa. it is a city on the side of a hill, with eight story palaces looking down on the sea. before the fifteenth century it had the inducement for traders that lyons to-day has. silk was manufactured here in a way that astonished that age of pride; but since the invention of steam, all those scientific arts that this trade called for is but as nothing, and italians look at our steam power machines, and then at all their scientific arts, and like the proud fowl that gazed downward, their feathers fall.
i must now pass over many places and their accomplishments, and hasten back to france, to prepare myself for the roughest voyage yet—egypt, arabia and palestine. here is the pyramids, memphis, (now cairo) thebes, the nile, the red sea, the desert of sahara, mount sinai, the tomb of abraham, isaac, jacob and joseph, at hebron, the city of david; and to jerusalem, down to jericho where the jordan’s muddy waters slip under the briny and sulphurous liquid of the grave god dug for sodom and gomorrah; and to olives, carmel, tabor and calvary; and to damascus, the cedars of lebanon, nazareth, bethel, and the temple of balbec or baal.
prussia, bavaria, sardinia and saxony i will pass through without comment, more than to say that i found them separate nations of one people, save in language. however, i will say, that of all the german kingdoms the most despotic is austria; but she hates slavery more than the “freest government in the world.” austria tyrannizes over man, but she cannot tyrannize, chattelize, and prostrate their rights with impunity, any more than washington, jefferson, or henry could.
