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VIEW FROM FOOT-BRIDGE OVER CARREI,
MENTONE.

WINTERING IN THE RIVIERA

WITH

NOTES OF TRAVEL IN ITALY AND FRANCE

AND

PRACTICAL HINTS TO TRAVELLERS

BY

WILLIAM MILLER, S.S.C.

EDINBURGH

With Illustrations

LONDON:
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1879.

[All Rights Reserved.]

MORRISON AND GIBB, EDINBURGH,
PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY’S STATIONERY OFFICE.

THIS VOLUME,

CONTAINING MEMORIES OF HIS BELOVED DAUGHTER’S LAST JOURNEYINGS,

IS INSCRIBED TO

CHRISTOPHER GODWIN, ESQ., J.P.,

STOKE BISHOP, BRISTOL.

CONTENTS.

————◆————

FIRST WINTER IN THE RIVIERA.

ITALY.

SWITZERLAND—FRANCE.

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ILLUSTRATIONS.

PREFACE.

——◆——

The health of my wife having rendered it advisable to spend a winter in the South of France, I made arrangements to accompany her, and we left home in October 1876. After a short stay at Cannes and three months in Mentone, with marked improvement, we made a tour of four months in Italy, and then passing the remainder of the summer of 1877 in Switzerland, and the autumn chiefly in Biarritz and Pau, we spent a second winter in the Riviera, principally in Mentone, returning to England viâ Turin in May 1878.

We had visited so many places, and seen so much while thus travelling during our first year, that it occurred to me, during our second sojourn at Mentone, to write out some notes of what had come within our knowledge which might prove both useful and interesting to others, and particularly to those who desired to winter in the Riviera. The field, however, was large, and to bring observation into reasonable compass I could only present general views—indications merely—of what we had seen; and, indeed, more than this I could scarcely have ventured upon, because I had not travelled with any idea of writing on the subject, and the notes I had kept were therefore scanty, although sufficient, with a vivid recollection of so much calculated to impress, to enable me to describe, as far as description is perhaps desirable. We saw much, and might have seen more within the time, but it was necessary to avoid fatigue.

The descriptions contained in the following pages are therefore to be regarded not as finished pictures, but rather as the scenes of a moving panorama, exhibiting in succession views of the more salient points in the various places to which the reader will be taken, and depicted according to the fashion of such scenes, too roughly to bear close inspection or minute criticism.

When people were compelled to travel slowly, they could take with them, and had time to read and digest full narratives of all they were about to see. It was by no means impossible to carry in the lumbering carriage, or to read during the leisurely journey, a whole library of such voluminous and now forgotten books as the Modern Traveller. But the rapidity of railway travelling has changed even the character of the guide-book, which, with more copious and complete information, has been so clipped and condensed, been made so concisely and methodically useful,—such a veritable multum in parvo,—that every other virtue is forgotten, and to take up a volume of Bædeker in order to beguile an hour, or even to obtain a general notion of a place, would be one of those freaks of which wise men are not readily guilty.

People are therefore more than ever thrown upon reading of a different description; and notwithstanding the various books which have been published upon the Riviera, and the still larger list of those upon Italy, I think none of them, so far as I have seen, are exactly on the same lines as the present. It is, indeed, not a little noticeable that so many, in writing upon Italy, should have chosen to wrap their descriptions in some strange, weird story. In Corinne ou L’Italie, Madame de Staël depicts an exotic Scotch nobleman wildly drawn about from one part of Italy to another by a most extraordinary platonic love for an Italian improvisatrice, in order that the different localities may obtain description. The Improvisatore of Hans Christian Andersen, with a difference of mode, is much upon the same model for the same purpose, the machinery by which the hero is blown hither and thither being much more prominent than the places upon which he alights. The Transformation of Hawthorne, in order to describe Rome, forces us into strange scenes and into company with a mysterious ‘faun’ and a beautiful murderess; while Romola, by George Eliot, in describing Florence, drags us after a smooth-faced, smooth-tongued, heartless villain, who attains to power with an odd facility, and after blasting a lovely life, is, to every reader’s relief, tragically removed from the world. Even Ruffini’s Dr. Antonio, commencing amidst placid scenes with all the softness of a pastorale, terminates by breaking hearts, and in the din of a revolution, with guns crashing and roll of death-dealing musketry on the streets of Naples.

Amongst its many deficiencies, the present volume is undoubtedly wanting in this sensational element of popularity.

Neither, on the other hand, can it lay claim to the merit of filling the place either of the guide-book or of the medical adviser. Its chief utility may be in giving in a general way to those designing to go abroad for a period of time, some knowledge which may perhaps aid them where to go and what to see; while there is furnished for the benefit of novices, in the preliminary chapters, some practical information, which the experienced traveller, who knows it all and could state it much better, will be graciously pleased, if so inclined, to skip.

In revising at home what was written abroad, I have studied to ensure accuracy of statement, and have been rather surprised, on comparing authorities, to find how widely they frequently differ regarding matters involving figures, so much so that occasionally I have withheld any statement on the subject. Some of these discrepancies I have noticed.

Accurate ideas of places can be best formed with the aid of the pictorial art. A book of this nature is susceptible of endless illustration, and but for adding to the bulk and the expense, there could have been no difficulty in illustrating every page of the travels. I have preferred selecting a few subjects, nearly all from my own sketches, which have been lithographed by Waterston of Edinburgh. That of the Estrelles is from a sketch in colours by a lady friend.

Of these illustrations, Mentone has carried off the lion’s share, and perhaps rightly, because of all the places of health resort visited by us, we conceived it to be the most charming, and it was in the winter-time our headquarters. There are those who prefer Cannes, Hyères, Bordighera, or San Remo. Even Alassio may become a favourite residence. But it was our opinion that Mentone unites to a well-sheltered, dry, sunny, winter climate (which is, however, not suitable for all invalids), the most beautiful and picturesque scenery, the most delightful walks and excursions, with a fascinating rurality which, I fear, the natives, looking at the matter from a French point of view, are bent on destroying, by way of raising it up as a sort of rival in gaiety to such places as Nice. There is one drawback, in its proximity to the Monte Carlo gambling tables. But to those who can resist temptation, a trip to Monte Carlo—a bright, beautiful, sunny spot, clean and tidy, with its tropical gardens, its broad terraces, flanked by elegant white stone balustrades—is only an additional attraction; while the adjoining unique peninsula of Monaco, running out into the sea from the mountains of the Tête de Chien, and crowned by its palace, its fortifications, its dwellings, its trees, is one of the many attractive points which, combined with the beautiful blue of the Mediterranean, lend such a charm to this part of the Riviera.

This book would probably never have been written had it not been begun and all but completed abroad, while in the sunshine of gladness and hope. Looking to the cause of our travels, it was unavoidable that I should mention at its close how sadly all hopes were crushed. But I have striven as far as possible to eschew the introduction of all merely personal allusions. I feel, however, I must take this opportunity of thanking the members of the legal body to which I belong, and of which I had, at the time it became advisable to leave home, the honour of being chief office-bearer, for their courtesy to me then, and for the heartfelt sympathy which so many of them have since expressed. I would only say to them as to others, that we have had of late not a few examples of valued friends who, long after it became really necessary, have toiled, and fagged, and wearied their brains out in the pursuit of an anxious and laborious profession till they have spent their last days or years in utter prostration. Better far, when they can, to obtain thorough relaxation in the enjoyment of a year, or even two years, of Continental travel over such interesting ground as in this book I have attempted in some small measure to describe.

W. M.

George Square,

Edinburgh, July 1879.

ERRATA.

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I.

CONTINENTAL TRAVELLING.

I have sometimes thought that if it were possible for a person of mature years now living to return to the world, with memory unimpaired, after a period of five hundred or even of one hundred years hence, how strangely new to him everything would appear! Events succeed each other in these times with such startling rapidity, that he would be a bold man who would venture to predict what even a generation will bring forth. We may speculate on the effects likely to result from agencies now in operation,—as to what, for example, may be the future of Great Britain, looking to the gigantic scale on which hazardous enterprise is carried on; to the contests of labour with capital in which natural laws are set at defiance; to the growth of Ritualism in the English Church; to the penchant which our rulers seem to have for annexing or conquering remote provinces, stern and wild or insalubrious; to a thousand other things which are with more or less force influencing or disquieting our country commercially, socially, or politically,—but none of us can possibly foresee the actual consequences and the condition of things to which they will lead. In the future there is so much dependent on occurrences which appear to us to be fortuitous (though truly under the guidance of Supreme Wisdom), that we can only feel that over all there hangs an impenetrable veil of mysterious darkness. A single unexpected event may turn aside the policy of an age, or even alter the divisions of the world. A single man by a foolish blunder may plunge nations into protracted war. A single happy discovery, a single clever invention, may affect the fortunes or alter the habits of a whole people. A single convulsion of nature may change the aspect of a state. But when we turn from the future to the past, the case is different, and we can pretty well realize what the feelings of one who has lived, say, sixty years ago would be if he could now return to earth. It would, indeed, be some time ere he would begin to grasp the extent of the wonderful changes which, since he formerly lived, have been effected. But of all the changes flowing from the inventions and discoveries which the long peace succeeding Waterloo was instrumental in producing, he would probably be most struck by the revolution accomplished in the matter of travelling.

We have only to go back half a century to the time when a tour upon the Continent of Europe was attended by great expense, inconvenience, and even danger. It consumed much time, and no Englishman upon whom business did not lay a necessity to travel, could undertake any very extensive pilgrimage in these foreign countries unless possessed of ample means united to ample leisure. It was thus generally reserved for young noblemen and gentlemen of wealth, as the completion of their education, to take, with a tutor, a courier, and a sufficient retinue, the grand tour of Europe, the limit of which was usually, though not always, Constantinople. I suppose this circumstance has given rise to the Continental idea, which at least formerly prevailed, that every Englishman was a milord Anglais, and to its practical consequence, from which present travellers continue to suffer—the custom, gradually disappearing, of charging English persons upon a different scale from that applied to natives. No doubt many of those men of former days scattered money profusely, and to a certain extent their successors continue to do so, and are even exceeded by some of the American travellers who, accustomed to pay in dollars where shillings with us often suffice, contrive by their extravagance to spoil for others the places they frequent.

Times are now changed since the days of our grandfathers. The treacherous sailing vessel (the smack, which would take at one time three days, and at another, because of adverse winds, three weeks to go from Leith to London) is supplanted by the steady, expeditious, and almost faultlessly punctual steamboat; while the lumbering diligence or almost equally lumbering post-chaise has been driven out of the field by, wherever it exists, the rapid railway train. Nevertheless, as regards Continental railway rapidity, M. Arago’s expectations that Parisians might ‘on the same day examine the preparations of our squadron at Toulon; may breakfast on juicy rougets at Marseilles; may bathe at mid-day their relaxed limbs in the mineral waters of Bagnères, and return in the evening by way of Bordeaux to attend a ball or the Opera House,’[1] have hardly as yet, at least, been realized; for the railway train abroad bears about the same proportion in point of speed to the English train as the clumsy diligence did of old to our high-flyers and our ten-mile-an-hour stage-coaches.[2] Sometimes, indeed, people in former times, who were able to do so, travelled on the Continent in pursuit of health; and a very interesting account of a tour of this description, made to a large extent over the same ground as that which forms the subject of description in the following pages, is contained in The Diary of an Invalid, by Henry Matthew, A.M., made during a journey, performed in the years 1817-18-19, through Italy, Switzerland, and France, from which an idea of the difference of travelling in those days—sixty years ago—from what it is now, may to some extent be gathered. Since the introduction of railways, which now form a complete network all over the Continent of Europe, reaching some of its wildest parts, and not hesitating even to penetrate some of its loftiest mountains, and often by means of costly tunnels connecting long stretches of country, travelling has been made so easy, and the facilities for availing themselves of the means of locomotion have been rendered so great, that there are comparatively few persons of the better classes who have not at some time or other, and in a greater or lesser measure, visited Continental lands. Our very mechanics have, especially by means of excursion trains, sometimes in connection with such great occasions as foreign Exhibitions, been enabled to see a little of other lands; and even the seeing a little of another land is calculated to remove prejudices, to enlarge the ideas, and to extend the amount of one’s information.[3]

People in the present day travel sometimes for pleasure and to obtain acquaintance with what cannot be seen at home, and sometimes for the sake of health; and it is astonishing to what an extent this latter reason has operated on the people of Great Britain, who rush from the rigours of their northern climate—its clouds, its fogs, and its rains—to enjoy the sunshine of warmer places, avoiding and exchanging wet, foggy, and chilly winter quarters at home for pleasant sunny places abroad. So much is this the case, that whole colonies of English people, many of them owning houses, built or bought for their residence, are found scattered over the Continent, particularly on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. They go to winter there, and the places they frequent become remarkably English in their habits and in their language—the force of the English character, and still more of the English money, bearing down and upon the native population. Indeed, it may rather be said that towns have been built by or for the occupation of the English—as, for example, Cannes, which, if it do not altogether owe its existence, is acknowledged by the natives to owe its new creation, its growth and extent, to Lord Brougham.

We had on various previous occasions taken a summer’s run abroad. The protracted visit we paid to the Continent which forms the subject of this volume was dictated by considerations of health; but we combined with it, and advantageously, even for that end, some tours of pleasure. The countries visited by us on this occasion were France, Italy, and Switzerland; and it is with special reference to them that the remarks offered in this and the succeeding introductory chapters apply. I propose in this chapter to deal shortly with some of the bugbears which frighten many from crossing the Channel, to state some of the peculiarities of foreign travel, and to note a few other matters with which those new to the subject may find it useful to be acquainted previous to setting out.

The first great stumbling-block in the way of going abroad is to many, especially elderly persons, the want of knowledge of the language of the country to which they wish to direct their steps, or the want of power to converse in it freely.

There can be no doubt that it is of great consequence to have an acquaintance with the language of the country in which one desires to travel or reside for a time. People are saved much inconvenience and often money when they can talk it with fluency, and can comprehend what the natives say—usually the more difficult operation. At the same time, in all frequented parts of France, Italy, and Switzerland, either English or French will carry any one through. French is spoken by nearly every educated person who travels on the Continent, with perhaps the exception of the Germans, who, though they may know a little French, seem to give a preference to the acquisition of the English language, in which frequently they converse with great purity and ease. At the hotels, the landlord, or one of the waiters, sometimes all of them, can speak English more or less perfectly. Nay, what is very surprising is, that the man sometimes called portier, who sits in a little chamber at the door, has often a better acquaintance with English than even landlord or waiter. This porter or, as he is more correctly designated, concierge, is attached to all large hotels, and his ostensible duty is not that of carrying luggage (for which business there are men of a different stamp under him), but consists in keeping the keys of the rooms, attending to letters, and answering inquiries. In reality he is a man of superior intelligence, and acts often as the interpreter of the house; for he is generally acquainted with many languages, and usually with at least French, English, and German, and has to reply to questions in these different languages almost in the same breath. In frontier places, his acquaintance is extended to the language of the neighbouring country—it may be, for instance, Italian or Spanish. However, among employees and others with whom the traveller has to do, the knowledge of many languages is not confined to the gens portier. At Mentone I was informed that a hairdresser there could speak five languages; and how else could he hope, from a hairdresser’s point of view, to please his patients? At Rome, having gone to the wrong shop, I had to experience the difficulties of undergoing an operation by a gentleman of the fraternity who could speak nothing but Italian; and we should never have succeeded in coming to a mutual understanding, but for the kindly intervention of a priest who was being shaved and could speak French, and after all it did not wholly save me from that ‘croppiness’ in which the foreign coiffeur delights. This linguistic faculty does not stop at hairdressers, who may be considered to be men of an advanced race. At Mentone we used to employ a donkey girl, who also could speak a little in five languages. Philippina was a bright, intelligent girl, much liked by her employers, and no doubt she found her advantage in knowing something of their different tongues. In Switzerland, for the most part, the German language prevails, and it is occasionally uncommonly hard, if one is not acquainted with German or has but a smattering of it, to get on, say, with a coachman who knows nothing else. At Ragatz, where they speak German, I put a question to a stallkeeper selling goods on the street, and was promptly answered by a young girl of the adjoining stall in English. I asked her how she came to know English. She learnt it at school. Were they all taught English, I asked. ‘Oh, no; those who desired to be taught had to pay for it.’ The shopkeepers abroad, however, have in many cases acquaintance with English sufficient to enable them to effect sale of their wares. They quickly discover us to be English, and when they speak our language they like to air it, and answer questions put in their, the shopkeepers’ language (made, we imagine, with all correctness of expression and of accent), in our own. In Rome we found that all the cab-drivers could speak French, which, of course, facilitates going about to those who cannot speak much Italian. In Italy generally, unless it might be in speaking to women-servants, and not even always in their case, we did not find much necessity for using Italian. Either French or English was in most places understood. Sometimes we have even had English landladies, as at the Grand Hotel in Sienna, and at the Tramontano at Sorrento; but this is a species of good fortune, telling on the English traveller’s comfort in many ways, which is seldom to be enjoyed. It only suggests that other English women might find Italy a good field for similar enterprise.

In former days the passport system was a difficulty which afflicted the minds of timorous travellers. Apart from the surveillance implied, there was the trouble and expense of procuring it, and having the proper visas affixed by the representatives of Continental Governments; the anxiety lest in passing some corner of a foreign territory—some debateable land—it might not be en règle; the detentions it occasioned, and the perturbation of spirit which arose, should it by any accident have been mislaid or lost, there being no absolute certainty that if imprisoned in a cold, damp, dreary dungeon for want of the necessary safe-conduct, our Government after a suitable period of fruitless negotiation would go to war with the foreign power for the defaulter’s release. On one occasion (in 1855), on entering Geneva by diligence, I missed my passport (which on arrival I found lying at my feet), and did not know what would happen, but the man in collecting passports from the passengers fortunately overlooked me. This was a species of the rarest good luck, upon which of course it was utterly impossible to reckon; and the passport system was one which was felt by people living in a land in which every one is free, without inquiry of any kind, to travel where and when he pleases, to be an intolerable annoyance. It is still maintained; but with a view, I presume, not to discourage English travelling (a source of immense profit to the natives), a British subject has only on passing a frontier to declare his nationality, and he is at once passed through, except at some places where he is asked for his carte-de-visite; and if he have not one at hand, even this is not insisted on if it be apparent that he is what he represents himself to be, un Anglais, or, what is the same thing to them, an American. Yet a passport is sometimes useful; it now costs little, and should always be taken. It is easily got under the directions contained in Bradshaw’s Continental Guide, and the visas of the foreign consuls seem now to be unnecessary, at least for the countries in which we were to travel. It is particularly important in some towns, to facilitate the obtaining of registered letters. Even ordinary letters occasionally, as I have found (1872) at Brussels on a former trip (having unfortunately lost my passport at Strasburg), will scarcely be delivered at the Poste Restante without production of the passport or other presumable evidence of identity; and it is said in guide-books, although we have never experienced the benefit of the information, that it operates as an admission to certain places of public resort.

Although to the mens conscia recti it may matter little, it does not follow that, with all this relaxation of former rigour, people are altogether free from surveillance. The spy may not crop up here and there as, according to Doyle, he did, to afflict Messrs. Brown, Jones, and Robinson, yet travellers do meet with evidences of the existence of a secret and prying police. At Aix-les-Bains, which, however, may be regarded as a frontier town, we found the register of visitors kept in a book furnished by the police, and containing instructions for the entry of all names and particulars; and almost everywhere, immediately upon arrival at a hotel, a waiter comes to take down the name, address, profession, etc., which, apart from police regulations, is only proper.

Besides a passport, there are other things to be attended to in order that the way may be made smooth.

People do not always, when they resolve to travel, sit upon their boxes—I mean, of course, metaphorically; yet in travelling abroad, at least for a period of any duration, some thought must be bestowed upon the impedimenta, and it is very proper to take such boxes as will stand the immense fatigue to which all luggage is exposed, and to which the foreign system of registration greatly adds. Very little regard is paid by porters to the conservation of the luggage. It is tossed and dragged along over iron-bound tables; and huge heavy iron-bound and iron-cornered American chests, with their piercing little iron castors, are often thrown or deposited remorselessly on the top of smaller and weaker packages. Very small articles, indeed, should never be put in the vans. It is better, and in the long run cheaper, to have fewer packages and of a larger size. At the same time, they are very inconvenient if unwieldily large, as too often one sees them to be, requiring two men for their carriage, and needing to be left outside the bedroom—an inconvenience both to the traveller herself and her fellow-travellers; for it is the ladies who are in this respect the great transgressors. Some ladies seem to travel with their whole wardrobe, or at all events with a useless number of changes of raiment. On one occasion we met a gentleman and lady, who had with them nine huge boxes, nearly filling up the top of a large omnibus, besides smaller articles, including their maid’s modest provision. This is a grievous mistake. Ladies ought to travel with the least possible quantity of changes. More than is fairly needful is inconvenient in many ways. Apart from causing detentions to others, it is a source of anxiety, and is most expensive in countries where the luggage is all weighed, and every pound or extra pound must be paid for.

Among the little things to be taken, no good traveller will, of course, omit a pocket corkscrew and a flask of cognac; nor will he neglect soap. If he have not made it a rule in all travelling to use his own soap, he is charged at foreign hotels 1 franc for savon. I have heard a man growling over the ‘imposition,’ but it served him right, while the article was just sold to him like anything else, with the usual 200 or 300 per cent. hotel profit added.

We considered it advisable, especially in view of travelling in Italy, where the water is said to be often impure, and consequently unsafe to drink, to take with us a small filter; but although we used our filter occasionally, I cannot say we were frequently conscious of drinking bad water. It is, however, a proper precaution, as water may be bad without betraying its quality by the taste. An Ashantee filter with a quart tin bottle, to be had from Atkins and Co., 62 Fleet Street, London, occupies little space, and costs 8s. Were Messrs. Atkins to devise a portable little filter for use at the table by insertion in a tumbler, so as to purify the drinking water without the fuss of a large filter, which it is inconvenient to carry, and which one cannot bring to the public room, it would be of much use. It must be borne in mind, however, that filters do not destroy organic matter suspended in the water, and for this purpose permanganite of potash may be employed. A drop or two of a solution of this substance, which may be purchased in dry grains at any chemist’s (easily dissolved when wanted), effects destruction of organic matter, but gives so unpleasant a bitterness to the flavour of the water that we scarcely ever used it.

There are, however, things more important to provide, and among them are good guide-books. The rapid growth and extraordinary ramifications of the railway system have created a new branch of literature in the railway time-tables. It is curious to take up an early copy of Bradshaw, consisting only of a few pages, small pocket size, neatly got up, and to contrast it with English Bradshaw of the present time. If such a book be needful in Great Britain, people are even more helpless without it abroad. Bradshaw’s Continental Guide, special edition, will always be found to be most useful, both as a preparatory and as an accompanying handbook. It contains a great deal of information, which, however, ought to be taken in a general way, or as the lawyers say, cum nota. Perfect reliance cannot always be placed upon the accuracy of its railway and other time-tables and its tariffs. On arriving in a country, it is especially necessary to secure, in addition, one of its latest official railway guides. In France there is published once a week, on the Sundays, L’Indicateur des Chemins de fer et de la Navigation service officielle. This costs 60 centimes (6d.), and is a long folio of inconvenient size. As nearly all French travellers purchase a copy when they start on a journey, it doubtless obtains a large sale. The Livret Chaix Spécial pour France (there is another edition for Europe generally) is an official guide of a more convenient size. It is published once a month, book shape duodecimo, costs 1 franc, and has no advertisements, which are scattered through the Indicateur in a tormenting way, though sometimes useful when desired information is thereby discovered, which it might much more readily be if, as in Bradshaw, all the advertisements were thrown systematically to the end of the book. It is, however, troublesome to follow these French guides when divergence from the main lines is desired to be made. The lines are cut up into fragments without the references contained in Bradshaw to other pages where the connecting railways occur, and the neat little well-engraved maps in the Livret Chaix do not bear, as in Bradshaw’s map, the page references where the tables of the railways are to be found. Bradshaw is puzzling enough, but sometimes it is felt that the Livret Chaix is one of those mysteriously-arranged productions ‘which no fella can understand.’

In Italy there is published once a month, costing 1 franc or lira, L’Indicatore Ufficiale. This is peculiarly arranged, and requires study; but the Italian lines are so few, compared with those of France, that there is no insuperable difficulty in discovering the time-bills of particular railways. The Italian Indicatore contains various preliminary directions which it is well to read. They are curious, and embrace, inter alia, regulations relative to the transport of cats and monkeys.

The Italians have also a long Indicatore similar to the French weekly one; and in both countries smaller and cheaper district guides, with more limited information, are to be had.

In Switzerland, a Guide des Voyageurs en Suisse is published, apparently twice a year—at least those procured in the Swiss travelling season are marked ‘Saison d’été,’ 1877 or 1878, as the case may be.

It is never safe to trust to a guide of a past month, although changes are generally only made in the beginning of the winter season, or about 15th or 16th October, and in the beginning of the summer or spring season. By not observing a change of this kind which had just been made, we were detained at Toulon for three or four hours waiting for the next train to Hyères.

Although it is not desirable to burden oneself with many books in travelling, Bædeker’s Guide-Books, which on the whole are very accurate and useful, ought not to be dispensed with. Italy is embraced in three little volumes—Northern, Central, and Southern; and Bædeker has separate Guides to Switzerland, France, and other countries; so that if one has to travel much, quite a little library requires to be taken. Bædeker’s Northern Italy, however, embraces the Riviera di Ponente, in which Cannes and Mentone are, and the journey thither from Paris, and towns on the way, such as Lyons, Avignon, Nismes, and Marseilles, while southward it extends as far as Florence. Murray’s Guide-Books are very useful, and are much more full and detailed, but consequently are more bulky, and are therefore more suitable for protracted visits to a town such as Venice. Neither Bædeker nor Murray, however, are to be wholly relied upon, especially for the latest information. For example, we found in Italy that while it is said in Bædeker there are no fees to pay, in the different Academie delle Belle Arti there is now charged 1 franc per person for admission. I would add, also, that Bædeker’s estimates of hotel charges can by no means be relied on as exact, although they may at one time have been so, or they may in some cases be those with which Germans are charged, Bædeker being a publication originating in Germany.

These books all require from time to time careful revision; and considering the importance to the traveller of having the latest information, and the large sale they command, they ought to be revised at short intervals.

There are certain very useful guide-books published in France, of two sorts—the Guides Diamant, which are little pocket volumes in small type; and the Guides Grand Format, which are of a larger size. Each class (published only in French) contains a series of volumes applicable to the different parts of France, as well as volumes devoted to other countries. The divisional volumes for France are exceedingly useful, as containing detailed information respecting the districts to which they apply.

I may also mention that Mr. Cook, the tourist, publishes a series of handbooks for the countries to which his tours apply; and that recently Black has also added to his list of guide-books, guides to the south of France.

To those visiting Rome, Hare’s Walks in Rome (2 vols.) will be found extremely serviceable. Unfortunately we did not take it with us, as adding to the quantity of books with which we had to travel. It is a little heavy to carry about in the hand, but it directs attention to what is best worth seeing, and may be consulted at one’s lodgings before and after visiting the attractions of Rome.

In the old coaching days, when the mail or the diligence drove through a town, and generally stopped at one of the principal inns, there was not much deliberation needed or even much choice granted as to where the passenger should sleep. But it is one of the inconveniences attendant upon the railway system,—to a certain extent obviated by the erection of station hotels,—that he has not an opportunity from ocular inspection beforehand, on arriving at a strange town, of forming an idea as to where he should go. And it is an observation on Bradshaw (more or less applicable to other guide-books), that it does not do to rely implicitly on its recommendations of hotels,—a circumstance which probably arises from the notice of given hotels having been written years previously, and means not having been used to obtain a complete revision from year to year. More reliance in this respect is to be placed on Bædeker’s Guide-Books. Hotels marked by Bædeker with an * will almost always be found of a good character. In the absence of other means of intelligence, we have sometimes been driven, like many others, to ask information from chance fellow-travellers, at other times to get it at the hotel from which we started in the morning—not infrequently the less trustworthy method of the two. But as it is most desirable to have reliable information on this subject, it is, where practicable, by far the best plan, before setting out upon a tour, to settle as nearly as possible the route to be taken, and to obtain a note from friends who have travelled along it of the hotels they would recommend. In possession of this knowledge beforehand, all anxiety is removed, and one is enabled to write previously, requesting the landlord to retain rooms. Letters and telegrams with such requests are always carefully attended to, the hotelkeeper no doubt considering that application to him is made from choice and not from chance.

The great increase of travelling produced by the railways, has led bankers to contrive convenient methods in which people may take the requisite supply of money with them; and of all the methods which have been devised, the best and safest is that afforded by the system of circular notes. These notes are granted by certain banks in London and Edinburgh, and are drafts upon London for £20 each, or for the usually more convenient amount of £10 each, according to the tourist’s desire. They can be cashed at any town on the Continent, hotelkeepers also accepting them in payment of their bills, but without benefit of any exchange which would be allowed by the banks. Along with the notes, the banker delivers what is called a ‘Letter of Indication,’ which contains a list of all the banks with which he corresponds, embracing almost every place which may be visited in Europe. This letter, for security’s sake, it is advisable to keep in a different pocket or box from the circular notes, which require his signature and endorsement. The banker’s correspondents ought not to cash the notes without production of this letter of indication; but sometimes they are negligent or lax in this respect, particularly if the presenter appear to be respectable or a bona fide traveller. At some places, however, such as at Paris, the bankers are more cautious, and not only invariably ask for the letter, but they put sundry questions and take the hotel address—the object being, quite properly, in a quiet way to make sure that the notes are presented by the right person. A friend had his notes stolen from him at a railway station in Paris on arrival from England, having unfortunately put them with other things in a small hand-bag, instead of carrying them in a secure pocket about his person. His letter of indication, however, was not with the notes, and so far, though not altogether, was he safe. The thief took them at once to a bank in Paris, and, I suppose, not having the letter of indication, and perhaps not being able to give a satisfactory account of himself, they were forwarded to London, and within fifteen hours after being stolen were presented to the banker on whom they were drawn, and they were refused because the signature attached by the thief did not correspond with the usual signature of my friend.

These circular notes are exchanged for the money of the country in which they are presented for payment; but French gold is always useful, and fetches full value abroad. In exchanging, one generally gets the benefit of the exchange, subject to a fractional deduction. The usual exchange in France for a sovereign is 25 francs 10 centimes;[4] but this is seldom got, and in some places, such as Biarritz and Mentone, the bankers only give the 25 francs nett, and in other places slightly more or slightly less according to the state of the exchange. At a bank in Cannes a friend exchanged Bank of England notes simultaneously with my exchanging a circular note for £10. While I obtained 7½d. (75 centimes) of premium, he got nothing, because the banker said there was always much more trouble about Bank of England notes, which required registration. Eighteen months later, however, I found in Paris, oddly enough, that Bank of England notes were at a premium, while circular notes were at a discount. At Cannes, in 1877, I had occasion to cash a bank draft on London received from one of the colonies, and found that nominally the allowance was greater than upon circular notes; but as the banker charged a commission, it practically reduced the exchange to about the same amount. Another notable circumstance was, that while at Mentone the bankers would give nothing beyond the 25 francs, at the neighbouring town of Nice the bankers always gave exchange varying from 75 centimes to 1 franc per £10. At Pau I found that while the correspondent of the bank only gave ½ franc per £10, another banker gave 1 franc, and upon an exchange of £50 even a shade more. Again, at Montreux, in Switzerland, I obtained 1 franc 25 centimes per £10, and within little more than a week afterwards at Biarritz, in accordance with invariable practice, nothing beyond the 25 francs per £. The same difference occurred in two other places. Within a similar short space, I changed in Paris and got 25 francs per £. Within a day or two afterwards, I had to change other notes at Interlachen, and received 25 francs 10 centimes. The only explanation I ever got for these anomalies was that given at Biarritz, the banker there saying, that at Montreux they were near the Italian border (in fact, a long way off from it), and could make more money out of the notes. But this was obviously an unsatisfactory reason, and certainly could not explain the position of matters at Mentone, which is within two miles of the Italian frontier.

In Italy the exchange of gold or notes on London into Italian paper is a matter of considerable importance to the holder, for the exchange allowed, though it fluctuates, is always high.[5] The lowest we received anywhere was 27·03 at Rome, 23d March 1877, and at San Remo 1878. The highest was at Venice, in May 1877, 28·25. This last was during the Eastern War, which had been declared in April, and considerably raised the value of gold in Italy. I presume the uncertainty as to whether Italy would be involved in the war helped to depress the value of the paper. It is difficult for one who has not been engaged in commerce or in banking to understand why these fluctuations occur, or to be acquainted with the causes which influence them. The current value is said to be dependent upon the position of the commercial relations between Great Britain and the Continent; but there are obviously other circumstances, such as national credit, political disturbances, war, and the abundance or scarcity of money, which affect or bias the barometer. But whatever may be the cause, the traveller obtains the benefit of the effect when the exchange is high, as his money goes so much further. The Italian paper money is, unless otherwise specially bargained for, taken everywhere in Italy—in hotels, in shops, and even at railways. It is only necessary to be particular in seeing that paper of the right sort is given. It is always safe to receive paper of the National Bank of Italy. This circulates everywhere throughout Italy, but notes of district or provincial banks are not accepted out of the province; and there are certain notes which have been called in (with which one soon becomes familiar), which, though taken in shops, are refused at railway stations and other public places, sometimes provokingly.

One curious circumstance about the Continental banks is, that they seem to possess marvellously limited stores of money, whether of notes or of gold and silver. People have just to take what the bankers can give. I have more than once been obliged in France to take a note for 1000 francs, or £40, which is practically useless, unless where residence in a place is to be of sufficient duration to enable the holder to tender the note in payment of his hotel bill. I have often had the greatest difficulty in getting small change even for half a napoleon. For a napoleon (20 francs) one is fortunate to get, as a favour from a bank, four large 5 franc pieces, the banker saying that he has no smaller change, which perhaps only means he cannot spare his lesser money. This state of matters, I believe, arises from the scarcity of silver money in France, produced by the people hoarding up their savings, which are thus withdrawn from circulation. In Italy (where apparently the same hoarding must take place, though probably not so extensively) I have for the most part had to take, except to a very limited extent, the notes proffered by the banks; and one very useful kind of note, that for half a franc, is very difficult to procure. Even 1 franc notes are scarce; the bankers will give you a pocketful of copper instead. These ½ franc and 1 franc notes are essentially necessary for fees in going about such places as Rome; but copper is freely taken as payment of fees, carriage drives, etc. Fancy tendering a London cabman his fare in copper!

At first one feels a little repugnance to the use of these small Italian notes, which are of all values; but after getting habituated to them, a preference arises for their use over metal money, which is so much heavier. A special purse with divisions for the different values should be procured.

And now, having accomplished the preparations for the journey, the next question is as to the route. It will always be found that there are greater facilities in travelling to and from a capital city, such as London, Paris, or Edinburgh; and in going abroad towards France, the voyager has generally to select one of the routes from London to Paris. The four great leading steamboat passages across the Straits are—Southampton to Havre, advertised to take in crossing six and a half hours; but on the only occasion on which I have gone by that route, which was in 1854, the voyage occupied in a calm night eleven hours, though possibly more powerful boats are now laid on. Newhaven to Dieppe, five and a half to six hours in good weather: I have been nine hours in a storm. Folkestone to Boulogne, ordinarily two hours, although one fast boat (by which our last crossing was made) accomplishes the passage in an hour and a half. Dover to Calais, one hour forty minutes; but in a storm I have known it to have taken four hours. As an inducement to travel by the longer crossings, the fares are proportionately lower. Fares by night service trains are considerably less than those by day trains. The routes by Newhaven and Folkestone are tidal, and the hours of sailing vary according to the state of the tide, which is troublesome, and infers to most people, when the boats sail at an early hour, sleeping at the port of departure, which we repeatedly have had to do.[6] The passage by Folkestone and Boulogne is by many preferred to that from Dover to Calais, because there is less groundswell. Getting into the pier at Boulogne is sometimes, owing to the state of the tide, tedious; but from a statement in the newspapers, it would appear that the authorities are contemplating the improvement of the harbour by an outlay of £680,000. In proceeding to Paris from Calais or Boulogne, one may stop at Amiens and see the town and fine old cathedral; but the routes from Havre, and from Dieppe to Paris through Normandy, are far more interesting by the way, and pass picturesque Rouen, which is well worthy of a visit, the stoppage of at least a night to explore it amply repaying the visitor.

All the world and the railway companies are largely indebted to the enterprise of Mr. Cook, who, from small beginnings, commencing in 1851, has gradually enlarged his schemes for the public benefit, till the ramifications of his system extend over all Europe and even into the other continents. Mr. Gaze followed, apparently a good many years later, and his arrangements seem to be on an equally extensive scale. Both houses have agencies in the leading towns of Great Britain, as well as in several of the principal European cities. Their success is evidence of their utility, and there can be no doubt that the facilities afforded by them have greatly increased the number of Continental travellers. Their Lists furnish the routes and the cost of travel; their tickets are extremely useful, and possess the advantage of being printed in English as well as in the language of the country to which they apply; while to those who are afraid of travelling in countries where they cannot speak the language, their conducted tours are no doubt valuable.

Tickets can be got from Cook’s offices to Paris via Dover and Newhaven; Gaze supplies tickets via Folkestone and Southampton; and there is a little advantage in taking these tickets, in respect of saving time and trouble at the bustling London railway stations. The tickets are made up in little books, and a leaf applicable to the portion traversed is withdrawn by the ticket collector upon accomplishment of that stage of the journey. But if the traveller be going beyond Paris, to some place to which these offices book, he receives a separate packet of tickets, which is exceedingly useful to him, as, besides saving the trouble of purchasing at the Paris railway station, he is enabled on starting from Paris to register his heavy luggage to any part of his destination for which there is a coupon, and that even at every such place. For example, going from Paris to Nice, the luggage may be registered to Nice; and taking sufficient in the carriage for the journey, in a sac-de-nuit, one may stop or break his journey at Dijon, Lyons, Avignon, Marseilles, Cannes, and some other towns. He can be a month on the road, and find upon arrival at Nice his luggage safe in the luggage room, with a trifle per night to pay for the accommodation. The trouble of procuring tickets at each station is also saved, although at some places they require the tickets to be stamped afresh at the ticket window; but in Italy generally a separate window for this purpose is provided, so that the trouble of obtaining the visa is there reduced to a minimum.

The tickets issued by the two London houses for France seem to be charged at or about the same rates as at the French railway stations. But in Italy, or for Italy, their tickets must be paid for in English money; so that it does not seem in a pecuniary point of view to be one’s interest to procure them, because the benefit of the exchange, amounting to about one-twelfth of the cost, is thus lost. No doubt it is an advantage to those who cannot speak a few words of the Italian language so as to be understood, or who cannot pick up what is said at the railway booking window, to take the English tickets, and they can afford to pay for their ignorance. But if the fee-expecting commissionaire of the hotel do not attend to the matter, which he often of his own accord does, or will do if asked, extremely little is necessary to be said, even French, or a mere acquaintance with the numerals, being generally sufficient. Personally I never experienced any difficulty whatever in taking out the tickets at the foreign railway stations, and indeed the only difficulty I remember to have had was, because I had Cook’s tickets. Conceiving there might, on a first visit, be trouble, I had at Nice taken tickets from Genoa to Rome, bearing a right to make three intermediate stoppages. Having, in perfect accordance with the conditions, stopped at Spezzia, Pisa, and Sienna, I could hardly, on leaving Sienna, get the tickets marked for Rome. They were refused at the ticket window, and doubted by the chef-de-gare; and it was only upon my emphatic remonstrance, and his appealing to somebody else on the platform, that I succeeded in getting them stamped. On arriving in Rome, I told Mr. Cook’s agent there what had happened, and he said that if I had been required to have purchased tickets from Sienna to Rome, he would have compelled the railway company to have refunded the money, and made a complaint about it. It was no doubt just one of those stupid things that will happen under the best arrangements, well to be mentioned, that it may not be repeated; and apart from the question of time (for the English tickets are limited in time allowed for a journey extending over several towns), there is no reason why they should not be preferred, provided always that they could be procured with Italian paper money. Probably from the fluctuating state of the exchange, it is difficult for Messrs. Cook and Gaze to arrange; but if they could, it would obviate all objection.

To those intending to travel in Italy, great advantages are held out by the railway companies in the shape of circular tour tickets (viaggi circulari). The Indicatore della Strada Ferrata contains a list,[7] with plans of a large number of such tours, the tickets for which are issued, enduring, according to the length of tour, from ten to sixty days (which cannot be extended), at the large reduction of 45 per cent. upon the price which would otherwise be exigible. One of these tours is, for example, a complete round of Italy—from Turin by the west coast, embracing Florence and Rome to Naples, and thence by the east coast by Ancona, Bologna, Venice, Milan, and back to Turin, at a cost for first class of £7, 17s., and second and third classes correspondingly low. This tour, for which sixty days are allowed, enables the traveller to stop at any important town on the lines; and all that is necessary is, at starting from each place, to get the next station at which he means to stop scored through at the railway window. To those whose time is limited, these circular tickets are valuable, and they are procurable with Italian paper, so that the benefit of exchange is got. Cook and Gaze issue tickets for the same circular tours, and probably at the same price, although I suppose they are generally in connection with tickets from London; but they have, I understand, to be paid for in English money. They possess the advantage, I believe, by no means to be undervalued, of having all directions printed in English as well as Italian. The railway companies issue their tickets at every important town on the line of route to be travelled.

In France, likewise, there are for some parts circular tours, such as from Paris to Bordeaux, Biarritz, the Pyrenees and back. Information on the subject may be got in the Indicateur, or in the Guides Diamant among the advertisements.

I would just add in connection with this subject, that it is said by Bradshaw that return tickets are ‘almost universal abroad, and issued upon terms far more liberal than any granted by our English lines.’ Although I have on various occasions taken day return tickets for short trips, I have never yet found them to be any cheaper than the double fare.

In the course of a journey, what are called supplementary billets can be procured through the guard, so as to enable a neighbouring place to be visited by a side line. Thus, in going from Lyons to Marseilles, we obtained supplementary tickets from Tarascon to Nismes by asking for them when stopping at Valence, about the second station before reaching Tarascon. This, especially looking to the peculiarities of foreign lines, is a great convenience.

The Italian Indicatore states that travellers may exchange at any place to a higher class by paying difference of fare between the place at which the transfer is effected and the terminus.

After crossing the Channel, the first thing which is new to one who has not previously ventured out of the British Islands, is the examination of luggage by the douaniers or custom-house officers. It is now arranged that by registration of luggage to Paris, the examination may take place there. This saves detention at the port of debarkation. In general, an Englishman, if apparently a bona fide pleasure traveller, is very easily dealt with by these officers. If he have but a single portmanteau, it is sometimes not so much as opened, or if opened, there is but a nominal examination. He is asked if he have anything to declare—’Any cigars?’ It is curious that in almost every country, the sole special question usually asked is, ‘Have you any cigars?’ and the word of an Englishman that he has none is ordinarily taken. If there be several boxes, the officer points to one of them, and desires it to be opened, sometimes merely to be closed again. At other times the man will provokingly put his hand down to the very depths, and perhaps bring up something hard or a parcel, and fancy he has made a discovery. But he is easily satisfied, and things are restored in the best way possible for a tight fit. No examination of luggage seems to be made on entering Switzerland from any frontier country, indicating that the Swiss have no custom-house duties; but on leaving Switzerland and entering France, there is a more minute examination than occurs when coming from England; and although English people get off comparatively easily, a question being sometimes asked as to where they are going, those of other countries are most unmercifully dealt with, every separate package, down even to handbags, being overhauled. Once, many years ago, travelling by diligence from Geneva to Lyons, I saw every article in a French lady’s boxes turned out and minutely examined at three different places on the way. I presume they are suspicious of such travellers secreting Geneva watches or jewellery. On that occasion my own luggage was only examined once, but they made a sort of examination of the person by passing their hands over my dress. The lady, no doubt, was subjected to a more strict examination of her person.

On landing in France, it is found that there is a difference of time between Paris and London of ten minutes. All the French railways go by Paris time; all Swiss railways, by Berne time, which is twenty minutes in advance of Paris time; and all Italian railways, by Roman time, which is forty-seven minutes in advance of Paris time. This is all very right and proper, and makes it easy to know the times for travelling by railway. But although the railways adopt the time of their respective capitals, every different town has, according to its longitude, its own, or what is held to be the correct time at the place according to the sun. This proves most embarrassing, more especially as the hotels regulate their hours by the clock of their own town when that exists. If not, there is the utmost perplexity in finding out what the correct time is. At Mentone no two clocks were alike. By common consent they all differed. On going south to Avignon, the time is nearly a quarter of an hour in advance of Paris time; at Mentone it is twenty minutes. If, on the other hand, the journey be westward of Paris, at Biarritz, the time will be found as much the other way; so that one of the first inquiries to be made on reaching a hotel is, ‘What is the time of the town?’ and to note the difference between that and railway time.

The complex and extraordinary mode of measuring time formerly in use in Italy, by counting twenty-four hours for the varying time of vespers, seems to be now wholly abandoned.

All who have travelled on the Continent are familiar with the railway arrangements; but as they differ in some particulars from those to which we are accustomed, and as this introductory chapter is mainly intended for the benefit of those who have not previously crossed the Channel, it may be useful to mention some of them.

Although in all leading respects foreigners have copied our railway system, yet their diverging peculiarities are not always calculated to reconcile an Englishman to Continental travel. He arrives at the station, which he finds he must do in France a full half-hour before the hour of starting; in Italy, in large towns, a full hour. And in France he must always, in the first instance, procure his ticket at a little wire-latticed window, falling into a queue of people to take his turn. Stooping to a small hole not six inches high on the table level, he has to shout through in French to the distributor of billets within, telling him what he wants, and from whom he receives in return mention of the amount to be paid. It is always well to know beforehand how much this is, which can be at least approximately calculated from the time-tables; but the exact price of tickets may usually be obtained from a board or table of fares near the ticket window, often most inconveniently placed and arranged, and so dirty and soiled as occasionally to be illegible. Without a previous knowledge of the probable cost, it is exceedingly difficult for a stranger to make out what the man says, owing to the narrowness of the aperture and the indistinctness of French pronunciation. In many places, particularly in Italy, an official is stationed (a most commendable practice) outside the window, to prevent inconvenient crowding, to tell the fares, to see that the correct billets are supplied, and to be a check on the ticket distributor giving the right change. I have been told of cases where, in Italy,—but it was some years ago,—there had been supposed attempts to cheat on the part of the distributor; but, except on one occasion, I never got wrong change. It happened at Bologna, where I received at the ticket office 1 lira too little, and at the luggage office some pence less than the correct change. In both cases it was at once rectified on my pointing out the mistakes, and I set them down to slips. At other times, on accidentally neglecting to take up small change at the window, such as a sou, I have been called back to get it. But there is an admirable check upon any attempt to cheat, or on mistakes, in the circumstance that commonly Continental tickets have marked upon them their cost—a system which might with great advantage be introduced into Great Britain.

And now the Englishman obtains a new experience of how they manage things abroad. His luggage was, on arrival at the station, deposited on a long table under the care of the conductor of the omnibus which brought him. This luggage, with the exception of such little things as he means to take with him into the carriage, has, when his turn arrives, to be carefully weighed. In France each traveller is allowed 30 kilogrammes, or about 65 lbs. weight. For every pound beyond this he is required to pay according to distance. The men engaged in weighing ask for the railway billets to show the destination, and then he goes to the luggage-ticket window, where he duly receives back his billets stamped as having been used, and gets a little scrap or morsel of thin paper, which is the receipt for his luggage, and for which he has in any case to pay 10 centimes (1d.) in addition to any charge for extra weight. This receipt bears the number of colis or packages and of persons, the united weight of the party’s luggage, the sum payable, the place of despatch and the place of destination, and a printed number; which number is also affixed to each article so registered, and is the means by which, on arriving at the journey’s end, it is identified. What is the exact method by which the officials in charge manage to secure that all the multiform boxes and bags arrive at their respective proper destinations, I do not know. I presume that, in addition to an invoice or list of some kind accompanying the train, the things for each station are separately stowed away in the waggons; but whatever may be the means adopted, they ensure the utmost regularity, although I have heard of persons losing small articles, which, as a rule, ought not to be so registered. On one occasion a rather curious circumstance happened to my luggage. I went from Interlachen to Paris, and the registration number on my portmanteau was 82. From Paris to London it was registered anew, and the number happened to be 282; but the passage across the Channel was very stormy, and I presume the Paris number had been washed off on the voyage. On presenting my receipt at London, and pointing out my portmanteau, it was found that it had not the number 282, but simply 82, and I had some difficulty in getting it; but as my key opened the lock, and nobody else appeared to claim the article, I got delivery.

In Italy, no allowance is made for luggage. Every pound which is registered must be paid for, and consequently it is not in general necessary previously to take out the railway billets. The expense is not, however, great, unless one’s luggage be heavy. Our luggage, which perhaps was less than many travel with, cost me, travelling nearly all over Italy, for railway charges, less than 30s. per person; but railway fares in Italy are cheaper than with us, so that the difference is thus made up.

Although the system of registration is attended by much security, and is one with which it might not be safe to dispense in travelling abroad, I do not think that, in its integrity, it could be introduced into busy England. We should never stand the minute weighing of our luggage, and, above all, the enormous loss of time which it entails. It has, besides, its disadvantages, because it results in travellers carrying and placing beside them articles which ought properly to be in the van. The luggage registered, too, suffers injury. Moreover, at the journey’s end a great detention is always occasioned. All have to wait till the vans are emptied, and the contents dragged about and arranged upon long tables in a closed room. When the entire collection is adjusted as far as possible according to the numbers affixed, the doors of this room are opened, after having had to wait wearily perhaps half an hour. It is, however, by no means necessary to attend personally, except where the luggage must be passed through the douane, and sometimes the hotel omnibus will take home the passengers and come back for the luggage; but personal attendance enables a more prompt recognition of it to be made, and ensures accuracy. In Italy it is reckoned safer not to leave luggage at a station. The Italians have not been credited with the greatest honesty, though probably this is a thing of the past. However, they themselves manifest the sense of insecurity by refusing to receive luggage for registration which is not properly locked or fastened, and boxes arriving in such condition are closed at the owner’s expense in his presence.

In travelling by steamboat, also, a charge is made for luggage according to weight. Thus, upon a little sail of about 10 miles on Lake Como, I had to pay 2½ francs for luggage. In diligences in Switzerland, 20 lbs. weight only is allowed. All weight beyond this is charged for—a fairly reasonable regulation.

Perhaps the most peculiar and striking of all the Continental travelling arrangements is the system of waiting-rooms. It introduces to English people a difference of method of a somewhat irritating description. The salle-d’attente is a species of sheep pen into which the traveller is driven after he has obtained his railway billets and had his luggage registered, and where he must remain helplessly shut up till the train by which he is to travel is about to leave. Generally a separate large room is provided for each of the three classes of travellers, and the rule is that nobody is allowed to enter without exhibition of the railway ticket appropriate to that particular class; and as this cannot be done till the luggage be registered and paid for, which seldom takes less than a quarter of an hour, if ladies be of the party, they must wait with all the patience possible, guarding the little articles to be taken into the railway carriage, in the large hall of the office, where ofttimes there is not a seat or a comfortable or clean one to be had. Once or twice, in breach of the regulations, I have got them passed into the waiting-room. In the salle-d’attente itself, penetrated under burden of all these little impedimenta (for it is rare good luck to get a porter to help), a crowd of people all similarly laden is found, and there the passengers have to wait sometimes for long periods till within four or five minutes of the starting of the train, when a man opens the door of the prison-house or menagerie and shouts out, ‘Messieurs les voyageurs, pour (naming the places) en voiture!’ It may happen that there are several such shouts for other trains before your own is announced, and your sudden preparations for departure are stopped by the discovery that your turn has not yet come, and you are not allowed to leave the place of confinement. When your turn does come, you gather up your things, which no porter helps you to carry, and rush pell-mell out with the crowd. There is no servant to tell you where to go, and your only security not to do wrong is to follow the multitude. When you reach the carriages, it is seldom they have any board or placard indicating their destination. If there should by any chance be an official about, he is not there for the purpose of directing people; and if you ask him, he gives about as slender information in answer as possible. It is folly, however, to stop to ask him in the first instance. The plan is, trudging on with wraps and bags and all the little things, to bundle into the first open carriage where there appears to be sufficient room, and secure seats as best you can, and then get out and make inquiries for certainty’s sake. If you do not do so, and a lady, to recover breath, halts an instant with foot on step before ascending, others will coolly mount before her and take possession, and there may be the utmost possible difficulty in procuring seat-room elsewhere, foreigners being just as selfishly guilty as English people of telling lies about a carriage being full. At all events, those who have got in first have probably secured all the available spaces for their goods and chattels, as well as the best seats for themselves. To avoid the expense of registration, or to escape detention on arrival, foreigners (by whom I mean natives of the Continent) almost invariably, as already mentioned, bring portmanteaus and other big articles into the carriages; and as the spaces below the seats are perhaps purposely narrow and confined, these things become very inconvenient, often occupying the places presumably intended for light articles, or they are placed on the seats or among the feet. If smoking disagrees, or you are averse to it, and desire a non-smoking carriage, the hunt for this in the scramble is an additional embarrassment; and frequently, after getting into a carriage and having everything arranged, the non-smokers discover that the compartment is a smoking one, and they have to tumble out at the last moment and endeavour to discover empty places elsewhere. The inconveniences attendant upon this method of arranging for the departure of travellers are such as would make it intolerable in Great Britain, where one walks leisurely to the train as he arrives and selects his seat, with the aid, it may be, of a porter or a guard. Free Britons will submit quietly till a next election to the imposition of heavy burdens in support of an unnecessary war, but a petty grievance like this would raise a storm which no board of directors could resist.

The Continental railways, however, have both porters and guards, who, like policemen, never seem to be present when most wanted. On arrival at a station from an hotel, there are always railway porters to carry the luggage to the registration table, for which they expect to be paid, and sometimes in expectation of a further fee they will carry the petits bagages to the door of the salle-d’attente—occasionally, though rarely, into the salle-d’attente itself; but where assistance is more needed, viz. in leaving the salle-d’attente in the rush for the train, porters are nowhere, and on arrival of the trains at their destination, it is by the merest chance (at least in France) one can be got to carry the unregistered articles—the number of which is aggravated by the circumstance that it seems to be part of the system of registration, that if luggage be forwarded to a station in advance of that at which stoppage is to be made for the night or longer, it is not possible to register separately to the stopping station what is required for immediate use. A similar difficulty happens if the heavy luggage is to be left at the railway station, to be got upon setting out upon the further journey next day—a circumstance constantly happening, we ourselves having travelled thus for days together. All must be taken or none. But at some of the larger town stations, there would now seem to be a left luggage room similar to our own, where luggage may be deposited on payment of usually two sous per package per night.

The railway porters always expect a fee (20 centimes per box, at most, will suffice in France) for moving the heavy luggage—even the registration weighers sometimes look for a copper. In Italy, however, the porters often state there is a tariff of charge, under which generally 25 centimes each package is paid, though the amount depends somewhat on the size of each. It is, however, a comfort to know in Italy, if you can, what exactly there is to pay; but although appeal has often been made to the tariff if it happened to be high, I never was gladdened with a sight of this mysterious document. I should make one exception, for the extortion was so great that I demanded to see it, though, as I might have foreseen, it was worse than useless to do so. It occurred at Geneva, where a porter exacted 3½ francs (3s.) from me for transporting on a barrow our luggage from the steamboat to our hotel close by, we being charged in the bill in addition 2½ francs for conveying two of us to the hotel, or 5s. for moving baggage little more than a hundred yards.

I recollect some years ago a system very equitable both for porters and passengers was in use at Cologne; a charge, I think, of 2d. for each package was made at the railway station for porterage, and the amount dropped into a box, the contents of which fell to be divided afterwards among all the porters.

One misses at the foreign railways the fee-expecting, bustling English guard. There is such a person, but he is not the important functionary he makes himself at home, where he is seen going about as if all the carriages belonged to him. Abroad, the guard arrives not or retreats until the train is about to start, and the first and perhaps the only time he makes his appearance is probably after proceeding a long way on the journey; and when the train is in full motion, nervous passengers are suddenly alarmed by seeing a man creeping along the outside of the carriage and popping his head in at the window, or opening the door to see the billets, which are seldom examined before starting. He silently gives the tickets a clip, and disappears, perhaps to reappear after another 50 miles for another examination and another clip, the want of inspection before starting removing a safeguard which exists in England against proceeding in the wrong train. But if the guard render himself invisible, he does not expect, as in England, to be fee’d for making needless announcements, or proffering superfluous information, and so the imposition is saved.

As a general rule, the Continental railway carriages are superior in comfort to our own, although latterly improvement has been made in this direction on some of the English lines. On most of the foreign lines, the second-class carriages are, or were, equal to our first, and practically almost the only difference between first and second consists in the number of passengers which they take, the first class taking eight in each compartment, and the second ten. In the line between Cette and Bayonne, and possibly on other lines, the second-class carriages are not so good, and are more like our own, and do not possess that with which those on other lines are fitted up—a netting overhead similar to what is placed in our first-class carriages for the reception of small things; hooks are substituted. Sometimes one gets into the older class of carriage, as we did once between Arles and Marseilles, where the compartments are uncomfortably narrow.

In France, it seems quite the rule to crowd the carriages to the utmost. I never learnt the reason, but have imagined that a Government duty or tax is levied on every carriage used. If so, it is highly desirable that this tax should be removed.

In all the French trains, and I think also in other countries, there is in each class a division pour dames seules; and as occasionally there is only one second-class carriage in the train, and the post may, if a mail train, occupy one compartment of it, there is in such a case only one compartment left for the general travellers by second class—a circumstance which is productive of inconvenience to them. The officials peremptorily keep the dames seules portion for ladies only. On one occasion I had unwittingly got into one with three ladies of my party, and with our whole effects; but although all the ladies in the carriage politely expressed their willingness that I should remain, the guard compelled me to descend and find another compartment for myself.

On most lines in France, Switzerland, and Italy, there are compartments which are marked as non-smoking; but although so marked, little regard is paid to the distinction, particularly on the Italian lines. The men seem to have very little notion that it is a most selfish act to pollute the air breathed by their fellow-passengers for the sake of indulging in one of their own—to many others, disagreeable—habits which might be postponed until they get out; and so little is thought about it, that it would require Sydney Smith’s ‘Surgical Operation’ to imbue them with the idea that it is a discomfort to others, or that when asked to stop smoking, it is their duty at once as gentlemen to comply. On one occasion in Italy, after speaking to successive passengers, some of whom complied, and some would not, I spoke to the guard; but he paid no attention to the complaint (the carriage being non-smoking), and in charity let me suppose he did not comprehend what I said. But, indeed, the cigar seems hardly ever out of the mouth of the Italian, and one wonders how the humbler classes can spare the money from their small earnings to spend upon this expensive practice.

Foreigners are very fond in the hot weather of putting down all the six windows of the compartment, thus creating draughts, from which I have several times caught a cold. They have not the slightest notion of closing a window in passing through a tunnel, and on some lines the tunnels are frequent and long. But while they put down the glass, they also draw down the blue blinds placed over each window, under pretence of the shining of the sun, but quite as often for no conceivable reason except that the glass is down, or that they don’t want to be bothered looking out. It is of no manner of consequence although the scenery through which one is passing be the finest or the grandest possible, down goes the blue blind without even the politeness of asking the other passengers whether they so desire or not. As often as I could, I secured a place at the window, and showed that, although a native of a colder clime, I could stand the sunshine for the sake of the view. On one occasion, on a former tour, travelling by diligence from Geneva to Chamounix, there were some Germans smoking continually, as usual, on the seats before us. These men, though approaching the grandest scenery in Europe, insisted angrily on a leather curtain being kept down, so as to exclude all view, simply because the raising of it admitted a little sunshine. But this habit is not confined to Germans; and the conclusion to which I have come is that, to say nothing of the quality of inherent politeness in true consideration for others, the generality of foreigners have no high appreciation for scenery, or are desperately afraid of their complexion, which, to say the truth, cannot rival that of the Anglo-Saxon.

I should just add, that in Switzerland, on some of the lines, the railway carriages are constructed somewhat on the American plan, by which entrance is made from end to end of the carriage, and the guard can thus pass through from one carriage to another. At Interlachen, between the two lakes, there is an upper storey to enable people the better to see the views. Carriages similarly constructed are for the same reason run upon the little line between Bayonne and Biarritz.

The speed on Continental railways is, as compared with that on English railways, very slow. There are what are called express trains, but these express trains do not attain the celerity of our ordinary trains. For example, the express which leaves Paris at 11 a.m. reaches Mentone the following day at 3.50 p.m.—that is, 690 miles in twenty-nine hours, or at the rate of 24 miles per hour; and for long journeys like this in France, first-class tickets must be taken. Express trains are not, however, always to be had, and one is doomed frequently to long and tiresome journeys. To go from Nismes to Toulouse, our train took ten hours, stopping at thirty different stations by the way between Cette and Toulouse, with twenty minutes to dine at Narbonne, the previous part of the journey between Nismes and Cette, a short distance, having been express. The distance is only 298 kilometres, or about 186 miles for the whole journey, the rate of speed between Cette and Toulouse being thus only between 14 and 15 miles per hour. In like manner eight hours were consumed in the journey between Pau and Toulouse, which is about 130 miles, or rather more than 16 miles per hour. Not only is the speed slow, but at any station at which the trains stop, there is a detention for an apparently useless length of time. Occasionally long stoppages occur also where the lines are single only. In one short journey of 37 miles between St. Sebastian in Spain and Biarritz, two hours were lost from this cause by waiting at two stations for trains from the other end to pass. More powerful locomotives were promised upon the line between Paris and Marseilles, by which it was expected the journey of 536 miles might be accomplished in twelve hours; but they do not yet appear to have been placed upon it.

If, however, the speed be less, the security is greater. We seldom hear of accidents on the Continental lines.

There are peculiarities about the French trains which render it necessary to study the Indicateur very carefully, as some trains take only first-class passengers, and others have no first class; and although the first train going may be taken, it does not follow that it will be the first to arrive at the destination. A still further and annoying peculiarity is, that the railway company by first-class express trains will not always book to every station on the line at which they stop. Thus a friend left Mentone for Heidelberg. On arrival at Marseilles, he found himself compelled to book to Paris to get on. Thence he went to Strasbourg. Nor would it be possible to leave the line at Lyons, because the luggage would be registered to Paris.

The arrangements of the railways in regard to stations correspond in some degree with our own; but they have their specialties, into which I need not enter. The system of salles-d’attente and of registration of luggage necessitate stations being built on a much larger scale than our own. Sometimes tickets are collected before arriving at the gare, but more frequently are inconveniently taken at the narrow sortie or uscita from the passengers encumbered with luggage. Outside the station a host of porters and commissionaires of hotels is immediately encountered, and beyond this crowd, often largely swelled by mere idle onlookers, and perhaps by an occasional pickpocket, a long line of omnibuses and cabs. It is the practice in many, perhaps most places, for every hotel to keep an omnibus which goes to the station for every train. Probably there is some jealousy lest cab-drivers or general omnibus conductors might beguile or be bribed to beguile the visitors to certain hotels; but whether it be from this cause or from ostentation, the consequence is that there is waiting for employment a number of conveyances altogether out of proportion to the number of passengers requiring conveyance. I have counted at Mentone, waiting arrival of a train, twenty omnibuses, inclusive of a general one, with their respective drivers and conductors, and nearly as many cabs; while the number of passengers leaving the train would not exceed twenty in all, of whom probably not three would require conveyance. The maintenance of these omnibuses must be attended with heavy expense to the hotelkeepers; and although it can by no means pay for the expense, the charge against the visitor is heavy. The general omnibus, with a few specially-adapted cabs, would suffice in most places for all the traffic. It is melancholy to see the almost hourly procession of empty ‘buses, relieved only occasionally by one of them exhibiting in triumph a solitary occupant, and perhaps bearing five or six large boxes on its top. In Paris and Toulouse, and some other places, there are little district or family omnibuses holding four or six persons, unconnected with any hotel—a far better arrangement.

The charge for a seat in the omnibus is usually, in a town or general omnibus, without luggage, either 30 or 50 centimes; with luggage, 1 franc. The hotel omnibuses never charge less than 1 franc per person; and with luggage it is usually 1½ francs. If a party consist of four, it has thus to pay 6 francs or 5s. for the drive to the hotel, which is expensive; and it is much cheaper, if there be not heavy luggage, for which the cabs are seldom adapted, to take a cab. This cannot easily be done at leaving the hotel, as the guests are expected to employ the hotel omnibus, which is charged as matter of course in the bill.

We experienced at Rome a curious species of imposition. Not finding a carriage which would have taken our luggage, we entered the general omnibus, for which the fare for three persons was, the conductor told us, 3 francs, and drove to the house where we expected to obtain quarters. It turned out to be full, and I left the omnibus, crossed the street on foot and inquired at two hotels, at the second of which I found accommodation, and the omnibus brought across the luggage. The conductor demanded 10 francs for what he called the several courses, and I was glad, with the assistance of the landlord of the hotel, to arrange for 6 francs; but we were afterwards informed that this conductor was notorious for such practices.

It is sometimes desired to send luggage or boxes by goods trains petite vitesse. I had occasion to do so from Lyons to Mentone. A declaration was, by aid of the landlord of our hotel, filled up, containing, among other particulars, the general contents of the boxes which he sent to the goods office, and they were duly forwarded to their destination. The time taken in the transit varies and depends on circumstances—it may be weeks. It is therefore never safe to send off by goods train luggage which may be immediately wanted. The cost of carriage is so much per 50 kilogrammes; all below the 50 is charged the same as 50. For this weight between Lyons and Mentone, I paid 5½ francs. Between Paris and Mentone it would have been 7 to 8 francs; between Marseilles and Mentone, 3 francs. These figures will give an approximate idea of the cost. On leaving Mentone, the second season, I sent a box (under 50 kilogrammes weight) to Glasgow, to care of Messrs. J. and P. Cameron, railway agents, to go by petite vitesse to Marseilles, and thence by sea to Glasgow, where Messrs. Cameron passed it through the customs and despatched it to Edinburgh. The total cost was 6s. 10d. A box I sent from Naples to the care of a mercantile friend in Liverpool, by whom it was passed and forwarded to Edinburgh, cost for carriage, Naples to Edinburgh, £1, 2s. 6d. This amount embraced shipping agents’ charges, and was sent as freight. Had I sent the box simply as a parcel, it would have cost 5s. 6d. less, but the shipper would not for the lesser charge undertake responsibility beyond 40s.; and looking to the thievish character of the Neapolitans, I thought it safer to pay the additional charge. The difficulty one feels about sending off things to pass a frontier, is the examination by the douaniers; but I believe that some of the expediteurs, to be found in all towns, undertake for a small fee to get this managed. I presume they procure the passing through upon the footing of known or credited respectability of the party sending. I sent to Glasgow and Liverpool an exact list of the contents of the boxes, for exhibition, if need were, to the authorities. Some of the bankers—as, for example, Messrs. Macquay, Hooker, and Co., Florence—undertake to despatch goods and works of art to any place in Europe.

II.

CONTINENTAL HOTEL AND PENSION LIFE.

‘The inn looked so much like a gentleman’s house that we could hardly believe it was an inn,’ is the observation made by Miss Wordsworth in her Recollections of a Tour in Scotland in 1803, upon arriving at one which differed signally from others, where they could hardly obtain even sleeping room, and that of the roughest kind. Books of travels do indeed afford glimpses into the state of accommodation provided for travellers in those ‘good old times,’ but they are only glimpses. People, in recounting their wanderings in their own country, seldom notice such matters, unless they find them either rather better or rather worse than the prevailing condition of things to which the force of habit has reconciled them. In truth, the inns of Great Britain in the beginning of this century were what would now be reckoned of a very humble class, and were frequently planted and to be discovered in localities which would now be considered most undesirable, and which were doubtless chosen from proximity either to markets or to the stations of stage-coach departure and arrival, if they did not themselves create them, and in positions where stabling and a stable-yard might advantageously and fitly be placed.

The introduction and development of the railway system have effected such an extraordinary increase in the amount of travelling as to have, in respect of such public accommodation, produced, or rather necessitated, a revolutionary change. The old little inn, with its rubicund jovial hail-fellow-well-met landlord and its horsey adjuncts, has in the larger towns all but disappeared, or, if left for the benefit of the antiquary as a relic and specimen of a past age, receives its chief patronage on market days from the farmers, who find it convenient to stall their animals in its stables, and enjoy a homely dinner at its moderate table. Instead of it, whole streets of hotels, in the best situations, and possessed of all the comforts with which modern civilisation can furnish them, are built and occupied, and in busy times are sometimes full to overflowing. The very nomenclature indicates a superior tone. The house ceases to be an ‘inn,’ and becomes a ‘hotel.’ The Saracen Heads, the White Harts, and the Georges give way to national or big swelling names. We are become imperial in the very appellations we bestow even on houses in which we tarry only for a night.

A similar or even greater reform has been attained in the Continental towns. The discomforts of the old houses there were no doubt much greater than they were with ourselves; and, indeed, even now, if we abandon the tourists’ highway, or run away from the larger towns, a primitive and perhaps far from agreeable state of matters is discovered, the fact being that much of the improvement which has taken place is due to studying the requirements of les Anglais. But in the leading improvements the foreigners have led the van, and we may be said to follow at a respectful distance.

The tendency abroad is, as it is at home, towards building large establishments in which the rooms are reckoned by the hundred, one of the hotels in Paris, the Grand (most new hotels abroad now have ‘Grand’ prefixed to some other and more distinctive designation, but this is ‘The Grand’ par excellence), advertising as many as 800 rooms; another (the Louvre), 700,—figures which are beyond anything, I suppose, in England, unless it be (though perhaps not even there) in the Midland Railway Hotel, St. Pancras. There is at all times a greater likelihood of finding accommodation, and such accommodation as may be desired, in houses of such formidable dimensions; but the visitor’s importance suffers a shock: he becomes nothing but a number, and as such is termed by the employés of the hotel, and shouted up and down the speaking tubes.

But a more important result follows from the immense augmentation in travelling, because the intercourse thus brought about between the inhabitants of countries originally differing very widely in their manners and customs has a direct tendency to assimilate not merely their manners and customs, but their modes of living. Hence the peculiarities of each gradually, if good, are adopted—if bad, are lost. We borrow from the foreigners, they borrow from us. Odd ways and angular corners get rubbed off, and Cæsar and Pompey settle down in time ‘very much ‘like,’ specially Pompey. Yet, when one leaves the home country, he happily discerns there are still remaining considerable differences between life abroad and life in Britain. Hotels on the Continent are conducted on somewhat different principles from those which at least formerly were customary in Great Britain; and until the dead level of uniformity be reached, it may not be uninteresting to recall some of the differences, and to mention circumstances attendant upon hotel life abroad, which, to those not very familiar with the subject, may be noteworthy.

In general construction, the more recently erected hotels at home and abroad do not materially differ. Tardily we are beginning to adopt the foreign system of numerous and spacious public rooms, and especially public drawing-rooms, to which ladies can freely resort. But in one important element of comfort to the weak or weary visitor, the foreigners are behind ourselves, inasmuch as lifts (ascenseurs) do not seem to be very common; and really in these many-floored hotels they are needed. The only places where we have seen them have been in the hotels of Paris and Marseilles, and they were not always in working order. In addition to the long stairs to be ascended, there are often in these large hotels lengthy corridors to traverse, so that it is a journey from the outer door to the bedroom, in some cases requiring a study of the locale, so as to avoid being lost in the labyrinth.

Next to comfort, the matter of charges is one of primary consideration to most travellers, and can scarcely be overlooked in treating of hotel life. Generally it may be observed, that notwithstanding there has been abroad, as there has been at home, a very considerable rise in charges from former scales, the cost of living at hotels abroad is, as it used to be, still under, or on an average considerably under, the cost for similar comforts and accommodation at home.

The cost of rooms is regulated primarily by the floor or étage on which they are situated; and if the visitor desire to be economical, he ought to ask for rooms upon the higher floors, say the third, or even, where it exists, the fourth étage. First-floor rooms are always charged high, sometimes exorbitantly so. At Milan we were shown into bedrooms on the first floor, which, had we taken, would have cost us about 20 to 25 francs per night per room. In Nice as much as 75 francs, or £3 per day, have been asked for two rooms on the first floor of a leading hotel, being equal to a rent per annum of £1095. A friend who spent the winter at Cannes told me he paid 75 francs per day for the rooms he had in one of the principal hotels, but probably he had three or four rooms. In Mentone the highest I have known paid by friends has been, for a large saloon and a bedroom, both princely rooms, 50 francs, or about £2 per day, equal to a rent per annum, were they let all the year round, of £730. These, however, are season places, and such rooms would remain vacant a considerable portion of the year, and even, a consequence of the high charge, for great part of the season, as the hotelkeepers will not lower their price even for a short period.

In Italy it is always desirable, where there is an ability to mount long stairs, to take rooms as high up as possible, so as to get as far away as may be from the odours of the street; but the same rule as regards the charges for rooms prevails. Perhaps in nothing do foreign hotel charges differ more than in the charges for rooms. They differ according to the place—that is, whether it be a large or a small town; according to the hotel, whether it be first class or inferior; and according to the rooms themselves, their position, size, and furnishing, and also according as they are single or double bedded. Abroad, nearly every bedroom large enough is so constructed as to fit it for use also as a sitting-room or salon, in which friends may be received. Sometimes the beds are placed in a recess or back part of the room, which may be shut off at will by drawing a curtain. The rooms abound with mirrors; but unless in houses frequented by the English, there are for the most part no carpets on the floors, saving a rug at the bedside, thus and otherwise involving an odd mixture of splendour and discomfort. However, carpets are beginning to be more frequently introduced. To those accustomed to the warmth of carpets, getting out of bed in the morning is, when they are wanting, a chilly operation, more especially when the floors are constructed, as they sometimes are, I presume for protection against vermin, of composition.

On an average, I would say that a bedroom on a third floor, with one bed for a single person, costs from 3 to 5 francs per night; a double-bedded room, from 5 to 8 francs. On the second floor the price is advanced a little; but the first floor is always high, varying according to circumstances. In some fashionable places, such as Nice and Biarritz, during the season the charge for rooms is, in first-class hotels, as what I have already said shows, extravagantly high. The season at Nice is not, like many places, for two or three months only, but lasts the whole winter—half of the year. It ought not therefore, one would think, to be so expensive.

But lights have to be paid for separately, and are usually charged at hotels at the rate of 1 franc per bougie or candle, although I have seen only 75 centimes charged, and in some out-of-the-way places as little as half a franc, or even, as at Chateau d’Œx, 30 centimes, upon which no doubt there was a profit. I was told of the case of a visitor at an expensive hotel in Nice who was, a good many years ago, charged 16 francs for bougies for a single night. But this mode of plundering is now so far abandoned, and one has only to be careful that more candles than he desires be not lighted. The charge for bougies, if remaining only single nights at hotels, becomes heavy; but if several nights be spent in the house, the candles remain till burned down. It is said that foreigners carry off their unburnt bougies with them, and use them at next stoppage, as they carry off also, it is alleged, the sugar which they have not used, but for which they consider they have paid. These, however, are petty habits, to which English people have not yet got accustomed.

The charge for service is almost invariably 1 franc per night per person. As lights are not charged in England, the united charge for bougies and service comes, for short periods, to be very much the same as the charge in England for service alone.

Universally, abroad, the beds are constructed only to hold one person. This may be, though it is not always, because of the summer’s heat. In some rare cases the beds are found to be broad enough for two; but it does not necessarily follow that the charge is in this case as for one occupant. I have seen charge made for a broad bed as much as if the room had contained two beds. In parts where mosquitoes exist, the beds are draped with mosquito curtains.

Each room has its key and corresponding number, and the visitor is expected, upon leaving his chamber, to lock his door, and hang the key upon the key-board which is under charge of the concierge at the entrance to the hotel. In very large hotels, there is a key-board for each floor, in charge of an attendant. So contrary is this system of locking doors to the habits of the English, that it is often neglected by them; so much so, that in hotels exclusively frequented by natives of our isle, such a thing as locking doors and bringing down keys would be looked upon as extraordinary. At one of these hotels, I asked a servant, upon leaving my room after arrival, where the key should be put, as I had seen no key-board. ‘Oh, just leave it in the door,’ was her reply. Foreigners always lock their doors, whatever may be the establishment in which they are; and in many places, especially in the large hotels of Paris, where nobody knows who may be his next neighbour, it is highly proper and safe to do so. In this connection I may just observe that somehow or other there are in most places hotels which are only patronized by the English, and a foreigner is a rara avis. Correspondingly, there are other hotels which they never visit. There must be some species of intuitive freemasonry which underlies and conduces to this result.

All hotels have a public salle à manger, to which both ladies and gentlemen are expected to go, and nearly all have drawing-rooms or reading-rooms, or both (salons and salons-de-lecture). A lady travelling by herself can freely go to all these rooms, and one constantly meets such dames seules. No necessity is imposed upon them to engage a salon or sitting-room. But if desirous of taking them out of the public rooms, the meals will be sent to the bedrooms, for which luxury and extra trouble, however, there is a charge made, sometimes as high, at least for dinner, as 2 francs or 3 francs per person per meal, though usually only ½ franc.

In addition to placing in the reading-rooms newspapers, which generally comprise one or more of the leading London journals (received in many places within twenty-four hours of their publication), there usually and most properly is in hotels, where visitors come for lengthened periods, a small collection of books sufficient to beguile an hour or a wet day.

The three chief meals of the day are breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

In what I shall call the English hotels, almost everybody maintains the good old English custom of coming down to the salle-à-manger to breakfast; but foreigners, consistently with their home practice, take their meagre breakfast or cup of coffee, scarcely to be designated breakfast, in their bedroom. English people cannot get reconciled to the idea of taking meals in a room in which they sleep. It is an uncomfortable and unsocial custom, essentially bad—keeps the bedrooms long from being attended to, and imposes much additional labour on the servants, who are kept flying up and down stairs at all hours of the morning with breakfast equipage.

The usual charge at all hotels, at least as against Englishmen, for breakfast proper (tea, coffee, or chocolate, with bread and butter) is 1½ francs. Occasionally, though very rarely, I have found it only charged 1 franc, and once, viz. at Toulouse, 2 francs. Eggs are universally charged 25 centimes (2½d.) each; meats and fish, according to carte, and generally expensive.

But foreigners make a more substantial meal a little later on, which they call déjeuner à la fourchette, corresponding somewhat to our lunch. This is intended to be the real breakfast, and, according to true Continental fashion, it proceeds at many places at so early an hour as half-past ten, at others at eleven or twelve o’clock. In such cases it is found to be a most substantial repast, consisting of several courses, generally three—meat courses, pudding or tart course and cheese, and fruit courses; and it is in reality an early dinner, the whole company in the hotel assembling to enjoy it, unless individually they otherwise arrange. In the English hotels they have ‘lunch’ usually at one o’clock; but this is of a much less substantial nature, the visitor having been credited with making more Anglici a good breakfast in the morning. The charge for déjeuner or lunch differs according to the hotel, but is usually about 3 francs.

The table-d’hôte dinner is a regular Continental institution, which it would be well were it made the rule at home. Meaning literally dinner at the table of the host, I presume that at one time, and before the establishment of great hotels, the host regularly presided. This, however, is now rarely seen, although I have sat down to dine at a table where he took his place. Rising as each course arrived, and putting on an apron, he would with dexterous rapidity carve what was brought in, then, putting off his apron, would sit down again and take part with the guests.

Each hotel has its fixed hour for this dinner, varying in time from six to seven o’clock. I have also seen a special table-d’hôte dinner at eight o’clock, to suit those arriving by late trains. In places frequented by Germans, such as Interlachen, they have two dinner hours—one at two o’clock, for the Germans chiefly; and the other in the evening, to suit those who prefer dining at a later hour. The hotel people are frequently disturbed and put about by visitors, usually English people, inexcusably coming tardily to table. The charge for table-d’hôte dinner varies a good deal at different places, 4 to 5 francs being about the average rate, though occasionally it is less. In Paris some of the large hotels charge 6 francs—wine, however, included, as is customary in Paris.

The dinner, which is served à la Russe, consists of many courses, and is not, generally speaking, of the substantial character of an English home dinner. The routine is everywhere the same, and consists of the following courses, which the waiters present at the division assigned to each quietly at sound of finger bell:—(1) Potage or soup; (2) Fish, when it can be had, otherwise a substitute; (3) Entrées; (4) Vegetables by themselves, such as cauliflower, French beans or peas; (5) Poultry or game, or otherwise roast beef or roast mutton, accompanied invariably by salad or lettuce, and water-cresses; (6) Pudding or tart; (7) Fruits; (8) Sweet biscuits. In some of the grander places there is a course of ice-cream, and in other hotels ice-creams take the place of pudding on Sundays, or sometimes on both Sundays and Thursdays.[8] Such is the invariable routine, the only variety being in the specific description of the articles in each course. The great want in these dinners is of a good supply of vegetables; bread, not so wholesome, being supplied at discretion. It would be better if some of the viands were dispensed with, and more vegetables given. Such a thing as a good dry potato, what they call au naturel, is hardly known. Potatoes are served up greased in every conceivable way, or, if presented dry or in their skins, they are accompanied by a separate plate of butter. One course often excites remark by English visitors. It is where the game course consists of small birds, especially thrushes. These afford a miserable bite apiece, and, for a party of 40 or 50, as many birds fall to be sacrificed, the rule of the table being that every guest is, or has the opportunity of being, served alike. At Cannes, at one of the hotels (season 1876-77), a round robin was subscribed by the English of the party, protesting against such use of thrushes—I do not know with what effect. They were to be sometimes seen hanging in bunches at the poulterers’ doors. It seems a cruel use of such song-birds, which are fed upon grapes to fatten them for the table; yet all the grapes they could swallow, even though in quantity enough to satisfy the grape cure, would never make them more than a miserable picking.

The quantities of eggs, fowl, and game which are needed to supply so many tables must be enormous; and as one sees very few live poultry anywhere, it has occasioned me surprise to think how they can be procured. The only feasible explanation is that the country is ransacked far and near for food to supply the luxurious tables of the hotels, and the wants of town populations. In a book published in 1857 by Dr. Frederick Johnson,[9] it is stated with regard to Paris alone—

‘That the great Metropolitan maw occupies 712 bakers, and daily consumes 479,015 loaves and rolls (we abandon verbal computation in despair), and annually 6,849,449 poultry, 1,329,964 larks, 26,000 kids, 9,937,430 kilos of fish (the kilo being 2¹/₅ lbs. English), 5,006,770 kilos of confectionery, 150,223,006 kilos of pears; that yearly each Parisian swallows 69 oysters, 165 eggs, 137 quarts of wine, and 14 quarts of beer among his other luxuries; and that among them, in their little enjoyments, they gossip over 3,000,000 kilos of coffee, 350,000 kilos of chicory, 2,000,000 lbs. of chocolate, and 40,000 kilos of tea, assisted by 109,221,086 quarts of milk. Teetotallers may be alarmed for the public sobriety when they learn that, besides the wines and brandies, our Parisian pleasure-seekers dispose of 1,267,230 quarts of liqueurs, to say nothing of 350,000 kilos of brandied bonbons, and that they cool the consequences with 500,000 quarts of ice.’

If such be the consumption of Paris, and this is more than twenty years ago, what must that be of all France, to say nothing of other Continental countries? Our box of figure-counters would soon be exhausted in vain attempts at the calculation. We should have to borrow largely from the astronomers.

The guests are, of course, expected to help themselves to only a small portion of each course. We once (in 1862) saw an Englishman in Paris, unacquainted with the customs either of France or of good society, appropriate to himself at one round nearly all that was in the dish, and we never could pass that untutored savage without thinking of the plateful of coarse beef which he had doomed himself to eat. But most Germans, Dutch and Spanish people feed very largely, and make no scruple as a practice to take double supplies, and the largest and best pieces of everything which comes round, leaving those who come after them wofully scant.[10] The waiters are well acquainted with this habit, and pander to it, possibly in hope of fees. At Biarritz, where we experienced a singular practice of the waiter doling out portions to the visitors (on the footing, perhaps, that some of them could not be trusted to leave even a wreck behind), they, as matter of course, placed upon the plates of the Spaniards of the company large quantities of each course, while when they came to ourselves we received often such small portions that we would occasionally complain and get more.

At many places in France and elsewhere, wine is included in the charge for dinner. In this case it is the vin ordinaire of the place, and is generally good if fresh; but as the practice is to put down a carafe to each two persons, much of it is often left. I have sometimes found the wine sour, evidently arising from having been kept from day to day, adding only what was necessary to replenish the carafes. The vin ordinaire costs the hotelkeeper very little, although he would charge from 1 franc to 2 francs per bottle for it if ordered. Everybody is expected to take wine, even children; and where wine is not included and set down, the waiter goes round, not asking whether you wish wine, but, ‘What wine will you take?’ and you have to select from the carte. I have been much surprised at the great differences in the price of wine at different places. The same kind of wine is charged at one place, it may be three, even four times as much as at another; and in general the price rises, and rises far out of reason, according to the distance from which the wine is supposed to come. Many lay it down as a rule to take the wine of the district in which they for the time being are; and it can, at all events, be had good of its kind and cheap, costing, some kinds, from 1 franc to 2 francs per bottle. This, which in the locality is called vin ordinaire, elsewhere becomes a high-priced wine. A fair quality of wine can in general be had at about 3 francs or 2s. 6d. per bottle, although it is observable that the bottles are so made as evidently to be incapable of containing a quart. If they be not small in size, they are sure deceptively to have a large hollow lump of glass in the bottom. Wine, with the exception of the better descriptions, is never drunk pure, but is poured into a tumbler and mixed with water, about half of each.

When dinner, lasting about an hour, is over, everybody is expected to rise and leave the room. At one hotel the waiters compelled retreat by opening all the windows. They have to clear the table and wash up, and are naturally anxious to have the room to themselves. Besides, in many places, the servants’ supper takes place at ring of bell immediately after dinner, and no doubt the waiters are anxious to join. Their dinner bell in like manner rings after lunch. Visitors are seldom aware of these internal arrangements, or alive to them if they be.

If one does not dine at table d’hôte, to dine à la carte, by selecting out of a list, is costly, and should if possible be avoided. When arriving too late for table d’hôte, we have found in some places that we could order a dinner for which the same regular charge was made as at table d’hôte, although perhaps this might not be done for a single visitor. At other places the better course, particularly in Italy, is to order a dinner at a given figure, leaving the hotel to supply what they choose. One is certain by doing so to be better off.

At table, various Continental practices may be noticed, and among others a very singular custom which the German gentlemen have of tucking their napkins under their chins, and spreading them over the breast like a row of babies with their bibs on. I never could look at a German so arrayed without thinking of the minister who,

‘Being wi’ the palsy tribbled,
In liftin’ spoonfu’s aften dribbled;
Sae, to prevent the draps o’ broth,
Prinn’d to his breast the tablecloth.’

Some explanation of this ludicrous practice is perhaps to be found in the painful habit which the generality of Germans have—occasionally ladies as well as men—of eating with their knives. English people cannot witness this fearful and wonderful operation without a nervous dread of the result. But there is this to be said for the Germans, that although some of their customs be peculiar, and not to be copied, they are great linguists, and enter agreeably in English into conversation; and I only mention such little foibles, that they may ‘see themselves as others see them.’ In many places—Switzerland particularly—there is put down upon the table here and there a case of what turns out to be toothpicks. One would think that those who choose to injure their teeth by means of such instruments and perform an odious cleansing, would prefer to keep their private pick, as much as their private tooth-brush, and use it in their private room.

We found the Dutch people ceremoniously polite. They never sat down and never rose from the table, never entered a room and never left it, without bowing to all round. It always kept us in a fidget lest they should not receive like courtesy; but it is a very pleasant trait of character in a people whom we found to be not merely externally polite, but kind and cordial at heart.

At the hotels, unless they be what I have called English hotels, one usually meets with people of all countries. In one hotel in France, I was informed we had representatives of eight different nations, counting English, Scotch, and Irish as one. It has struck me, however, that although the French language is so generally spoken, the French themselves, while found travelling in every part of their own land, are very seldom seen in other countries. I was on one occasion sitting next a bright Parisian young lady, and rather wickedly, I fear, was exalting Edinburgh so as to suggest its taking the palm from Paris. She was astonished, and having asked her when she was coming to see Edinburgh, she replied very decidedly, though in the very bewitching way in which the French girls speak, ‘Jamais, ne-verre,’ which honestly meant there was no probability she would, although the emphasis no doubt was intended as a delicate rebuke to the heretical presumption of my thought. La belle France is tout le monde to Frenchmen; nor do they get much encouragement to cross the English Channel, for I have noticed that they are, as a rule, most unhappy sailors.

One meets with all peoples and tongues and sorts at the dinner table. Now, much of comfort at that interesting time depends upon who sit next you. Dining at a long table with a large company is never so genial as dining round a smaller table in a party of six or eight. Intercourse is almost limited to those on the right and left, unless you and those opposite have strong voices and be both remarkably socially inclined. This, bad enough at home, is intensified abroad, not merely among strangers, but strangers who are foreigners, with whose language you may not be particularly acquainted. Everything, then, turns on the question, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ and in this respect one is all but entirely at the mercy of the waiters, who have not the grimmest idea of social assortment; and it may be that you are for weeks together placed next to those with whom you have no rapport or fellow-feeling or congeniality of tastes—nay, with whom you may be unable to exchange a word. When it is otherwise, and people are social, intelligent, well read, and without necessarily being clever are cheerful, the dinner hour becomes a pleasant episode of the day.

But it is often otherwise. It is bad enough to get placed beside a foreigner whose language, perhaps, you can read, but whose oral pronunciation is perfectly unintelligible; or beside a very stout and important lady whose ideas, if she have any, run on subjects with which you have no possible sympathy—who is too ponderous, or whose composite capital, perhaps stuck tenderly on with pins, is—it may, from the steadiness of her carriage, be supposed—considered by her too fragile to bear the shaking and jolting of a joke—or really, to confess the truth, one whom, it may possibly be, you cannot be bothered to entertain; or beside a young lady who speaks so low and so timidly, that in the din of dinner it is literally impossible to hear what she says. Nor is it less distressing to be placed beside a very deaf person who not only does not catch what you say, but, as usual with deaf people, speaks indistinctly. Few have not had such an experience as this. You are seated beside what appears to you to be a very amiable, comfortable, benign old lady. The beverage before you is in a condition which it would not be safe to swallow for a little. You are both resting on your oars, or rather on your spoons. The moment is favourable for an opening speech. The subject you select is one of personal and common interest. The observation you hazard is such as would in no event occasion a division bell to ring. Quietly you say, ‘The soup is hot.’ She inclines her face as if she had just heard you were talking in her direction. ‘The soup is hot.’ An inquiring glance is directed to you. Again you repeat rather louder, ‘The soup is hot.’ ‘Sir,’ she replies. In an alto and rather excited pitch you proclaim, ‘The soup is hot.’ By this time everybody has been turning a listening ear. ‘Beg your pardon, sir; but I am rather deaf.’ ‘Madam’ (in an altissimo and crescendo style), ‘The soup is HOT.’ ‘Yes,’ she blandly replies, ‘the room is very hot.’ You are for ever and for ever shut up, and retire from the struggle hot enough yourself.

But sometimes the wet blanket comes in another form. I was at one place agreeably set on several occasions beside a lively young German lady, who spoke English fluently. At our first interview I asked, ‘What was their national dish? was it Sauer-kraut?’ ‘No, it was larks.’ ‘Oh, you barbarians,’ I replied; ‘do you eat canaries and parrots?’ at which the fair damsel was much shocked. ‘What’s that?’ obviously whispers the heavy German next her on her other side, and this and every other like passage of nonsense had to be translated word for word into this intensely philomathic alien, but withal kindly guide, philosopher, and friend of my young neighbour.

I was for a considerable time at another place seated next a most intelligent member of the French bar, whose bad health unfortunately added to a natural taciturnity. He could speak English, and liked to do so. We formed ourselves into a mutual instruction society—I to correct his good English, and he to correct my bad French. But as he preferred English conversation, and I was too lazy to bore him with my French, the educational advantages on my side were reduced to the minimum visible. However, we enjoyed to some extent rational conversation on subjects of interest, imparting information to each other, and discussing where we differed. Here was ‘the feast of reason.’ But, though my friend could enjoy all that creates a laugh, ‘the flow of soul’ would not have produced a deluge, or even turned a mill-wheel of moderate dimensions. There is nothing so difficult as to get merry with those who speak another language, into which everything has mentally and slowly to be translated, and the flashes of merriment often will neither brook translation nor abide deliberative meditation. The ball must be kept up. Any efforts in that direction were therefore of a ponderous kind. Sometimes I would, with all due and becoming gravity, put a case to him in French law. ‘If,’ for example, I would say to him; ‘if a Frenchman were to die, leaving an estate as large as this room (a tolerably big one), and twelve children?’ ‘Oh, but,’ he would interpose, smiling, ‘we have no estates so small,’ and perhaps he might have added, ‘No families so large.’

From him I was shifted for a time to the agreeable society of a blooming Swedish lady, who could speak no language but her own, and who was uncommonly ready to imagine others were laughing at her, and accordingly to take offence. In this fix, to make the best of it, I returned to school to remedy the neglects of early life, and being a docile and apparently a reverent pupil, I advanced with such rapid strides to proficiency in the Swedish tongue, that in not many days I learnt that in that hitherto supposed outlandish language chrystal is ‘chrystal’ and knife is ‘knife;’ and had my studies been prolonged, I doubt not that I should in time have come to know that the honest Swedish people do call a spade a spade.

This interesting pursuit of knowledge under difficulties was, however, brought to an abrupt close by my being torn away and transferred to the company of an Irish young lady, from whom I speedily elicited that she came from the neighbourhood of Kilkenny. This was irresistible. ‘Have you seen the tails of the two cats?’ ‘Oh, yes’ (with a merry twinkle); ‘they are in the Kilkenny Museum.’ This museum may, like Aladdin’s palace, have been built up in a night; but ere twenty-four hours had elapsed, it was stocked from floor to ceiling with such marvellous rarities as by no possibility had been ever either dreamt of in philosophy, or, what is more, conceived in the fertile brain of the great Barnum.

In season places, such shiftings about are few and far between; but in touring localities, during the travelling season, when you are more or less frequently changing your own quarters, and all around are changing almost daily too, one is shuffled about like a card, and more vicissitudes of association are experienced than befell the noted Gil Blas of Santillane in the course of his eventful life.

The rule of the hotels seems to be that the latest comers take the bottom of the table, and move up according as those before them leave. At the same time this rule was frequently infringed, and in some places we had always to ask where to sit. Of course all meet on a footing of equality, and it is customary for those of title—especially for foreign titled persons, unless of the highest rank—to dine with the other visitors. On one occasion, at a small party of ten or twelve, an old gentleman appeared, to whom the ladies in the salon had, on his entrance, bowed profoundly. We afterwards learned from one of them he was a distinguished foreign prince. An English marchioness or an English duke will occasionally appear at table, but I fancy English noblemen rarely condescend to do so. We were, however, often finding that at the table with us were foreign persons of rank of all grades, and the foreigners of title with whom we became at all acquainted were always very friendly and unassuming. But generally in travelling we could not tell who were our neighbours. It was for the most part from the lists of visitors that the names of those in the hotel could be discovered, and occasionally these have been of royal rank. In this case they were necessarily notable, and although they did not come to the public table, yet they were seen in the gardens; and sometimes they travelled with large retinues, and could not escape observation. At Interlachen, General Grant and his wife came to the Jungfrau Hotel, at which we were. He was on the night of his arrival serenaded by a brass band, which played till near midnight, the musicians no doubt regarding the sweet and melodious sounds of trombones and ophicleides atoned for any disturbance of the slumber of the visitors, or even of the probably wearied General himself.

All the Continental hotels are, with few exceptions, prepared to take visitors upon pension—that is, on board. But there are establishments which, par excellence, are termed pensions. The line of demarcation is very slender, and some hotels are truly pensions, while some pensions are truly hotels. The pension strict, however, is a less grand house than the hotel. It is for the most part a large private house, without, though not always without, the parade of concierge and other distinctive marks of an hotel. As a rule, to which there are exceptions, it is more homely, there is less style in the method of conducting, less appearance about the rooms, and smaller attention paid to service and sanitary arrangements. On the other hand, the company is smaller, and as the people come to remain for periods of time, they fraternize better, and there is a good deal more of the home feeling in a pension than ever finds its way into any hotel. The better class of pensions profess to require an introduction, but it does not necessarily follow that the company is more select; on the contrary, as they are usually rather less expensive than hotels, the company is not unfrequently of a mixed description, and consequently the name pension is, to some extent, in disfavour with those English people who can afford to pay hotel charges, and prefer more style.

At hotels, the rule, sometimes relaxed for a party, is that people are not taken on pension under a week. A similar rule prevails in pensions proper, and indeed during pension season it is usually necessary to secure quarters in pensions proper, and even in hotels, by writing for rooms some considerable time previously.

The charge for pension varies very greatly, according to the place, to the situation of the rooms, and to the season.

In former days the pension charge was extremely moderate. One old gentleman told me that in his younger days the charge in Switzerland, at least, was 3 francs per day for everything; but this was a charge as against foreigners only, and he, then a young Englishman, succeeded in getting off upon this low rate by being taken for a German, he being with a party of Germans. Even till more recent years, one would hear of 5 francs per day being a normal charge. These good old times have not wholly disappeared, for to this day, in some outlying places in Switzerland, pension at a very low rate can be procured. We spent eight days at the Hotel Berthod, Chateau d’Œx, which lies up among the mountains, a long day’s journey from Interlachen, en route for Aigle; and the charge was only 5 francs per day, with 20 centimes for service, besides bougies, which were charged only 30 centimes each. This was upon the second floor, which we preferred, as less noisy, to that below at 6 francs. The charge on the third floor was, I believe, even a shade less. The hotel was a wooden house of large size, and could accommodate at least eighty guests, and in the season was generally full, while the company was so far select, being out of the beaten track of tourists. The accommodation was necessarily somewhat rough, but every attention was paid, as far as practicable, to the comfort of the visitors. Considering that its season lasts for scarcely three months in the year, one would be surprised to think it possible it could pay; but it seems that the landlord’s brother had formerly kept the establishment, and had retired with a competence. Everything, however, with one exception, was cheap at Chateau d’Œx, which boasts of several establishments of the same kind, one of them (though two miles off), ‘Rosinière,’ the largest chalet in Switzerland, and picturesquely situated in a secluded spot, dating back to 1754.

Pension includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, bedroom, and service, sometimes also lights. Occasionally service is made a separate charge, and is stated at from ½ franc to 1 franc per day, according to place.

In many good hotels in Switzerland and elsewhere, pension can be had at 8 francs per day. At Lugano the charge, I noticed, during summer (1st April to 31st October), is 8 to 11 francs; during winter, 6 francs to 7 francs 50 centimes. Both at Interlachen and Montreux, we paid at the rate of 8 francs, and had excellent quarters in first-class hotels. With other rooms supposed to be better, the charge would have been 10 francs per day. But in the height of the Interlachen season, the hotels will not readily begin to take people en pension. At Chamounix we were told, on a former tour in the month of August, that the hotels there would not take en pension after 15th July. By that time English tourists begin to arrive in great shoals, and often find much difficulty in getting quarters. When this takes place, the applications are either refused, or the visitors are accommodated in dependencies, which are either houses or chalets attached to the hotel, or in some cases simply houses in the villages in which the natives can spare a room, and therefore not always desirable. Pension in Italy and France is charged at a little higher rate than in Switzerland. We found that, upon an average, 10 or 12 francs a day was the charge in these countries; but according to the accommodation, it would either rise above or fall below this rate, varying from 8 to 15 or 16 francs per day. As the charge of 8 francs, which seldom secures any but a north room, covers everything pension includes, there must be a profit out of it, and all above that amount ought to be clear extra gain. Eight francs per day amounts to £116 per annum, 15 francs per day to £219—a good rate of board.

In season places great contrast often exists between the charges for pension during the season and after it is over. Thus at Biarritz, during the winter months, pension might have been had at 7 francs per diem, but during the two months of summer season (August and September, on to 15th October) the charges at the principal hotels are high. For rooms alone the charge may be from 20 to 25 francs on the second floor, and from 12 to 14 francs per day on the third floor, the first floor being much more costly. However, we found at the Hotel de Paris, on 18th September, towards the close of the season, which may have made a difference, fairly comfortable rooms on the first floor, in a good situation, at a moderate rate. Sometimes with first-floor rooms the usual charges for living are made separately or in addition to the charge for rooms.

Fire in the private rooms is always an extra. Nowhere is coal burnt, at least that we have seen, unless in the northern parts of France. The visitor, when he wishes fire, is supplied with a basket of wood, the size and the quality of which vary very much, as do the prices. It consists of logs sawn into pieces about 12 to 18 inches long, and split up, and the kind of wood necessarily varies with the locality. In the olive-growing countries it is olive wood, which burns slowly. At Pau it is the short oak grown in the woods in the vicinity. In other places it is pine wood, which burns rapidly. At Lyons we paid 2 francs for a small pannier of soft wood, which lasted two nights. At Mentone a large pannier of olive wood, probably mixed with pine, cost 2 francs 20 centimes, and lasted much longer. If we had no fire during the day, and we found day fires very rarely necessary in Mentone, a pannier would last us nearly a week for one fire per evening, lit after dinner. At Spezzia, where the wood burnt very fast, the pannier was charged 3·50 francs. At Pisa the charge was 3 francs; and at Rome, had we found it needful, we should have been charged at the hotel, for each room, 5 francs for a pannier which would not have lasted more than two nights. Indeed, at Rome the expense of wood is so serious an extra charge, that I have heard of a gentleman with a large and perhaps extravagant family feeling obliged to curtail his visit on that account.

The wood is laid across two iron dogs, and emits, especially in the case of olive wood, good heat. The ashes of former fires are always left lying between the dogs, and greatly help to keep the fire in. The ashes smoulder away for a long time, and bellows, always hung by the fireside, will bring them to a glow long after they are apparently dead.

The dogs are hardly suitable for coals, but might not a good trade in coals with the Continent be brought about? I suppose the abundance of wood renders it unnecessary. But a great deal may result from the force of habit, or, not improbably, there may be a prohibitory duty preventing the people from using coal.

One very annoying item of extra expense consists in the fees with which servants expect to be tipped at leaving. Many persons refuse to give anything, on the strictly theoretically-correct ground that they have already paid for service in the bills. Such persons, at least if English people, seem to be looked upon as shabby. On the other hand, there are those, principally English, who are very lavish with their largess, and really do their successors much harm, leading the servants to be on the outlook for handsome fees. In Italy the evil is, I think, most felt. In France, however, it is bad enough. If one be but a single night at a hotel, chamber-maid, waiters, concierge, porters, conductors, and even drivers of omnibuses—all expect donations, and stand hovering about (perhaps perform useless little services), that they may not be lost sight of. Nor is the evil less at pensions, where I have had more than once to fee no less than seven attendants, being the whole menial establishment. It becomes a very heavy tax, amounting to no small sum at the end of a long tour, as one does not like to be shabby, or thought so. At pensions and hotels at Christmas time, every servant with whom the visitor has had to do expects his or her five-franc piece at the least; and this really one does not at that festive season so much grudge, if dwelling in the house for the winter, although the feeing process has to be repeated at leaving, and intermediately for any supposed extra services. I must say, however, that the only suggestion of a donation at Christmas came from the portier of our hotel at Mentone, who addressed a lithographed card to each visitor on the 1st of January: ‘Le portier de l’Hotel vous souhait une bonne et heureuse année.’ And no doubt a similar lithographed card was used with effect by all the porters of the place, and made the ignorant or unthinking aware of what they were expected to do.

The only person outside the establishment who suggested a benefaction by the enclosure of a card was the postman, who, no doubt, was cheerfully boxed by every visitor.

I suppose that complaints of this practice of tipping or expecting fees reached the ears of the landlords, who, honest men, no doubt had found their advantage in it; for, in the summer of 1877, nine of the principal hotels in Switzerland announced to the public that, with a view to putting a stop to it, they should thenceforth make a charge which would cover everything, so that visitors should not be annoyed longer in this way. But the system which they did adopt was an erroneous one, and was only calculated to place an additional burden on their guests—in other words, they made an extra charge for their rooms; so that the occupants had to pay nightly, in some cases, perhaps as much as they would have paid once for all as gratuity, while in many cases gratuities would continue to be given. We came upon one of these hotels, the Schweizerhoff in Lucerne. Here, in conformity with the new rule, one charge was made for rooms per night, inclusive of attendance and lights, and a bill was stuck up in the rooms containing a notice in the following terms:—

‘Avis. Messieurs les étrangers sont priés de ne plus donner de pour boires aux employés de l’Hotel. Toute le service dans l’intérieur de l’Hotel ainsi que l’éclairage est compris dans le prix de l’appartement.’

Such a notice was only valuable if it had borne that the servants were expressly prohibited, upon pain of dismissal, from taking any gratuity; but while it contained nothing but what was always previously implied in the charge for service, and left the charge for porterage of luggage as performed extérieur (a service which has always been recompensed by a gratuity, and which the porter here duly accepted), the very form of the notice, ‘Pray, don’t,’ rather suggests the idea that you ought to give. The evil is really so great that a more efficient and beneficial method ought to be taken by the hotels.

In Italy I have sometimes been asked for a gratuity by a messenger from a shop on delivering a purchase made.

Hotel bills are usually rendered and paid once a week. At Bellagio an admirable system was in use. Bills were rendered every day, although payment was not expected oftener than once a week. In this way any mistake could at once be rectified; and we did find occasionally—as every one must, especially in the touring season, when the sojourners are daily shifting—rectification to be necessary. It would be much in the interest of the landlords to make the practice universal, because where any entry has been charged to the wrong person, the person to whom it ought to have been charged may have left before discovery has been made. The waiters write, sign, and deliver to the clerk a slip containing every order, as the means of making up the books, and sometimes, perhaps, from not wishing to give offence by asking, put by mistake the wrong name to the order. In London a better system is, where the guest is requested to write the order himself, heading the memorandum with his name and number. In some—I am bound to say, only a few—cases in France, the landlord regularly charges his guests with the penny Government receipt stamp on discharging the bill. Honestly, this ought to be borne by himself.

Messrs. Cook and Gaze both issue hotel coupons. These are made up as books of three per day. One portion covers bedroom, lights, and service for one person; but it bears that porterage is not included, and a charge for conveying luggage to and from the bedroom to the door is then (I think erroneously) occasionally made in the bill, though the doing so does not exempt from the customary fee expected by the porters. Another portion covers plain tea or breakfast; and a third, dinner at table d’hôte, with or without wine, according to the usual practice of the hotel. Cook’s tickets cost 8s., Gaze’s cost 8s. 6d., but the latter entitle the holder to eggs or meat at breakfast. The hotels of both firms are for the most part unobjectionable, but the question is whether the coupons are or are not of any real advantage. As to this, people who have not used them are generally much puzzled. I had never, in travelling abroad, tried them before, but thought, upon entering Italy, where it is reputed (contrary to my subsequent experience) that one requires to be upon his guard against hotel imposition, I might make experiment to a limited extent, and accordingly purchased enough at Nice to last us about fourteen days.

On an average, I believe it will be found that, taking bedroom accommodation at the lower rates, or as for the upper étages, the price of the coupons is very much the same as the hotel charges would come to. In some hotels, in the smaller places, the charges may occasionally come to a trifle less, especially if there be a party; in others, in the larger towns, the hotel charges will certainly exceed it. In a pecuniary point of view, therefore, and supposing people are constantly on the wing, they will find that upon the whole the saving is not large, but that, in any view, there is a clear advantage in using them in large and expensive towns such as Marseilles and Nice.

However, if it be intended to stay long enough in a hotel to warrant going upon pension, it can frequently be arranged to obtain pension at the same rate as is payable for the coupons, the effect of which is that lunch is thrown into the bargain, saving 3 francs per day.

In Italy also the advantage of exchange is lost, the coupons being only purchasable with English money.

The coupons save a little trouble and shorten the bills. To those unable to speak a foreign tongue, they are additionally valuable. On the other hand, I fear the traveller is a good deal at the mercy of the landlord in regard to rooms. It is quite in his power to say he has no better. But if the house be not full, there is a possibility of being assigned the best rooms, and so obtaining accommodation for which, without coupons, a high charge would be made.

My limited experience gave me rather a dislike for them, and led me to feel I was more independent, and had a chance of being better served, by paying my way in the usual manner. At a town in Italy, I mentioned on arrival, as is required, that I had Cook’s coupons and intended to use them. When the bill at leaving was rendered, I pointed out that it had not been stated as on this footing. It turned out that for the two nights we stayed at the house, the hotel charges (we were most comfortable in every respect) came to 6 francs 75 centimes less for our party than the cost of the coupons. Yet the landlady looked black when I pointed out the mistake, and seemed, while I was actually paying more, as if she thought me imposing on her. I felt so annoyed that I would never use them again in Italy. Months afterwards, when in a town in Switzerland, I resolved to employ what remained, and in driving up to the hotel on Cook’s list, told the landlord so. I noticed he did not seem to relish the intimation, and when we visited the rooms allotted to us, we found them dismal chambers looking into the courtyard. I rebelled, and we got cheerful and better rooms on the floor above. This showed that we could not always quite rely upon getting the best accommodation possible, notwithstanding the coupons in this instance came to more than we could have pensioned for at the hotel, according to its own printed tariff. I afterwards learnt that the reason of dislike is, that the London house has a small commission (which is quite reasonable, and perhaps is not much objected to), and that settlements with the hotelkeepers do not take place for, it may be, some months after the bills are incurred, which may produce considerable inconvenience to some hotelkeepers. Were it possible to arrange for more frequent, say monthly settlements, perhaps all cause of dissatisfaction would be obviated, for otherwise the system must be most advantageous to the hotels which are on the London lists.

I must, however, put against these two instances, which may be very exceptional, the fact that I had used the coupons previously at two other hotels in Italy, and subsequently at another in Switzerland, and another in France, and met with every civility and attention, while they at once gave us excellent accommodation. Friends also who have frequently taken advantage of them, have told me that they preferred them, and would always in travelling avail themselves of the system.

To vary the monotony of the pension life, or from the inherent idea that gaiety is essential to existence, the hotel and pension keepers get up, from time to time, little entertainments in the salons. Of these, a dance is the most frequent; but in place of a quiet dance in the drawing-room to music on the piano by one of the guests, it seems to be considered essential to hire a band of musicians. Perhaps this practice is more in accordance with the French love of noise and display; but it both occasions unnecessary expense, and has less of the social about it. At other times we have had a conjurer introduced to exhibit tricks of magic. Manifestly he has not the same facilities as in a room fitted up for the purpose, but the tricks were sometimes novel, and interest people, particularly the young. On other occasions we have had special musical evenings, and at Interlachen a band of Tyrolese singers every now and then, I think almost weekly, gave an entertainment at the hotel; and as visitors at Interlachen are always changing, the audience would for the most part be different. We have also had little plays by strolling actors, and even on one occasion a small attempt at operatic performance. Perhaps, of all the entertainments by professionals, the most novel to us and beautiful was what we witnessed at Sorrento. We were then lodging at the Tramontano Hotel, and one evening were informed that we should witness the Tarantala Dance. Round one of the larger rooms chairs were placed for the guests (numbering probably over sixty). When all were assembled, of a sudden two dancers bounded lightly into the room, quickly followed by other pairs—the men dressed in white, with Roman sashes round the waist; women in gay bodices and white skirts, all looking clean and tidy, and very specially got up for the occasion. These young people, to the number of eight, executed a most lively dance to the music performed by others on mandolins, all the dancers being armed with castanets, with which they maintained an incessant click-clack, keeping time to the music. The dance, perhaps invented and practised by Terpsichore herself, and which it would require a master of the art to describe, in general outline somewhat resembled a Scotch reel, but with what I would call Italian variations. It was sprightly and graceful, and the bright dresses added much to the effect. There were several different varieties of the dance, and between the dances we were favoured with some national melodies. One most comical exhibition consisted in the leader, who was a barber of the village, fastening a loose piece of paper behind him, and with this tail floating in the air, he danced or capered about, keeping time to the music, all the others, girls as well as men, running after him with lighted tapers, endeavouring to set this novel tail on fire; but so rapid or rather jerky were his movements, that the paper would not catch fire from the lights, and after a long chase, exciting the constant mirth of the onlookers, he escaped triumphant, and burnt his tail to show it was inflammable. After this, and as a wind up, one of the musicians—an Italian, of course—honoured us, flavoured by some peculiar linguistic embellishments, calculated to evoke an occasional smile, with first ‘Yankee Doodle,’ and afterwards with a still more uncommon version of ‘God save the Queen,’ upon which all the company, with the exception (hardly commendable) of a few Americans present, rose to their feet, and a choking feeling of home and of loyalty thrilled through us to hear our national anthem, so sung by foreigners, and so far, it seemed, after our wanderings, from our native land. With this the performance terminated, and the collection began, and was evidently good. For it is by means of a voluntary collection that these professional exertions are usually recompensed. On one occasion, a conjurer, having made his collection in the middle of his performance, brought round the plate a second time, which was rather too much.

A more objectionable course to obtain remuneration has sometimes been taken at Mentone, of asking the visitors to buy tickets for a raffle. Of course, each visitor is expected to take at least one ticket (costing usually, I think, 2 francs), and some take a good many, especially when the tickets unsold are set up to a sort of absurd auction, and people in a spirit of fun keep bidding by small amounts against each other. Looking to the proximity of Mentone to Monaco, the origin of the practice may be divined, and it is rather calculated to foster the spirit of gambling which prevails, especially among foreigners, although the things raffled for are necessarily worthless trifles, offering a purely nominal value in exchange for the tickets of the fortunate prize-holders. I presume it is done because it fetches more money to the performers, although ostensibly to give the aspect of not stooping to a collection. But as collections for themselves are, twice a week at least, made abroad by clergymen of the English Church by sending round the plate during service, one can little see why a conjurer should be ashamed or consider it infra dig. to receive payment in the same way.

The entrée, however, is not always libre. On one occasion, at least, bills were sent round to different other hotels that a matinée musicale would be held in one of the Mentone Hotels—’Entrée, 6 francs par personne.’ In these cases visitors from other houses are expected.

The guests themselves at the hotels and pensions frequently devise amusement for the company. Sometimes it consists in charades, more or less elaborately conducted, according to circumstances. They are diverting, and create great excitement among the performers in anticipation, realization, and retrospect. In some hotels, there is at one end of a large room a little permanent stage expressly fitted up to enable charades or plays to be performed.

At other times we have had Shakespeare readings, the different members of the party having assigned to each, one or more of the characters of the play; but the difficulty always was, by begging and borrowing, I won’t say stealing, to procure a sufficient number of copies of the play, so that each reader might have one. A handy copy of Shakespeare is one of the books which those who go abroad for the winter may with advantage take with them.

On another occasion, at Florence, we had a remarkably nice series of miscellaneous readings by a gentleman of the company. But the most elaborate performance, at least at a hotel, was one at Chateau d’Œx. Here some Americans of the party arranged with showy dresses a very successful performance of the play called ‘Popping the Question.’ It was capitally acted, and we felt only sorry that the spectators were so comparatively few, although, to increase the number, the performers had invited their friends living in neighbouring pensions.

As I mention this last affair, it is impossible to omit in this connection two grand entertainments we had at Mentone, in the beginning of 1877, of a more public nature. These were two dramatic performances by amateurs, drawn from among the hotel visitors, the leading spirit being Captain Hartley, who was himself a highly-finished actor. They were held in the large room of the cercle, or club-house, which has a regular small stage at the one end, and is capable of accommodating between 200 and 300 people, and was hired for the occasion. The performers invited their friends, and so unexpectedly well did they turn out, that the room on the first occasion was more than filled—many, indeed, could not get within either sight or hearing. The performance consisted of two pieces,—the first, ‘A Touch of Nature makes the Whole World kin,’ and ‘Box and Cox.’ The plays were executed to admiration. Nothing could have been better than the acting, although it was painful to think that some of the actors were invalids, and were evidently straining their powers too much, and I fear hurt themselves by doing so, and by the labour of getting up their parts and attending rehearsals. But so successful was the performance, that on 3d February the amateurs held another matinée, on which occasion the ‘Porter’s Knot’ was acted, which gave an equal amount of satisfaction to all who could witness it. These entertainments were exclusively at the expense of the amateurs. In the following season their success induced the having two more, which met with equal applause.

On occasion of the first performance of all, the Avenir (newspaper) of Mentone congratulated the fair little town on its waking up from its torpor in a leading article, in the course of which it said:

‘Nos sincères félicitations aux organisateurs de cette charmante fête. Est-ce que Menton songerait enfin à s’amuser? Bravo, Messieurs!... reveillez un peu cette ville que les autres se donnent tant de peine à endormir. Egayez un peu cette riche colonie étrangère, veritable fortune pour notre beau pays, il faut bien la choyer, l’amuser, et surtout faire de sérieux sacrifices, pour la retenir éternellement sur les bords de cette splendide Méditerranée sous les rayons de ce bienfaisant soleil, sous nos citronniers en fleurs, sous notre beau ciel bleu—la nature a tout fait pour eux ... à vous de compléter l’œuvre, à vous de les distraire: concerts, bals, spectacles. Voilà l’œuvre que vous devez accomplir. La matinée de lundi est un bien jolie commencement, continuez!’

Attached to nearly all season places, as well as to others frequented by visitors, there is a band of music, which during the season plays in public so many times a day, or so many times a week. In some places it plays twice or even three times a day. In Switzerland, which is a great resort of the Germans, the music seems designed to promote out-of-doors tippling, as the ground about the sheltering pavilion in which the musicians play is dotted over with chairs and little tables, at which these foreigners sit and imbibe and listen, or are supposed to listen, to the strains of the music. Nay, I have been told that the Germans also order beef-steaks and other solids, although long time cannot have elapsed since the last meal at the hotels, or it will not be long till the next meal-time arrives. If one should sit down on a chair, a waiter or waitress immediately comes forward expecting an order. I do not recollect having seen this custom prevailing anywhere in France except at the Gardens in the Champs Elysée in Paris, where professedly the music is given in connection with and to promote the drink. In Switzerland one has sometimes to pay for the music in the shape of a regular daily or weekly tax, which is stated in the hotel bill is authorized to be levied, and which the visitor is bound to pay, although he may have been deaf from his birth. We were required to make such a payment at Ragatz at the Quellenhof Hotel, where the band played morning and evening. At Interlachen, where we spent nine weeks, I found it more advisable to pay for the season, and it cost me 20 francs, which was practically a payment by me towards the support of a German drinking establishment, as I do not think during all the time I was there I looked into the Kursaal more than four or five times, and that merely to see if any friend were there. It is unpleasant to those who cannot drink in season and out of season, or who are not used to public potation, to go to such places.

Not having had personal experience of life abroad in villas or furnished rooms, I cannot say much upon this subject. At all season places furnished villas abound, and apartments are to be had, the cost of which necessarily depends upon the locality and the accommodation. I see from the Avenir de Menton of 12th December 1877, that one house-agent advertised to have had then to let sixty-five villas in Mentone, varying from four apartments, or pièces, as the French term them, up to twenty-four, and ranging in price from 900 francs to 18,000 francs for the season. This list was published after previous demands had been satisfied. How far those on the list may subsequently have been taken up, I do not know; but the season was considered to be a bad one, owing to the general dulness of trade, the continuance of the Eastern War, and the uncertainty as to the state of matters in France arising out of the position held by the governing Powers among themselves. Perhaps something also was due to the fact that a good many new houses had since last season been built, so that there was an extra supply. The villas and apartments are all let for the season; the owners will not let them for a shorter period, because if they were to do so they would run a great risk of not letting them for the remainder of the winter. However, in a dull season somewhat less than what is asked may be taken, and after a house has stood empty for a time it may be had at a reduction. The season at Mentone for so letting, I believe, is nominally eight months, but in reality few people occupy the houses more than five, or at most six months during the winter. During summer months (from about the end of April) Mentone is deserted.

The cost per room seems to range from 200 francs to nearly 800 francs, or about (taking five months’ occupation) from 10 to 40 francs per week for each room. A small family house may be had for about from 4000 or 5000 francs, or from £150 to £200, the tenant obtaining nothing but the rooms and furnishing. It is necessary for him to engage servants; and I believe it is indispensable to have French servants in addition to those the family taking the house may bring with them, as English servants, not knowing the language, could not be a means of communication with the natives. These French servants are a source frequently of great annoyance to their employers. They demand a high wage, and as they are not employed during the whole year, perhaps there is some reason for it. A lady at Hyères considered herself particularly fortunate, as no doubt she was, in getting a French servant at 45 francs per month, or at the rate of nearly £24 per year. The amount asked, however, is, I believe, usually very much more. But this is a small matter as compared with other evils; for these servants expect to be employed to make the purchases for the house, and are, it seems, greatly chagrined if they learn that this duty will not fall within their province. The lady of the house may resolve to make her own purchases: she cannot, however, always do so, and finds that she has generally to devolve the work on one of the domestics; and hence, from what I have heard, she often finds that the expense of housekeeping becomes enormously heavy. This may probably arise from the shopkeepers charging in excess in order to afford a commission to the servants. One lady in Mentone, with a family of three young children, who had two English and two French servants, told me it cost her £16 for a single week of housekeeping, though it is possible this may have been an extraordinary week. But this is not all, for the family are exposed, unless they have very reliable servants, to pillage by pilfering and otherwise. The same lady had no doubt there were large quantities of bread and other eatables given away by the servants to their friends, or disposed of, as she could not possibly account otherwise for the quantities which were said to be consumed. These pilferings, however, were not confined to eatables. In six weeks, on the house-agent going over the inventory, he made out a bill for 98 francs for breakages. This included 30 plates, 3 teapots, and I know not what else beside. Of course, it was incredible that such an amount of breakage could have taken place even had Caleb Balderstone been in the house, and in frequent fry. There were no traces of it; there had been no report of it; the English servants had never seen it. It was clear that the articles had been appropriated or given away to friends. Such pilfering (of which another friend also complained) may not be the rule—possibly even is the exception; and one friend told me they had most honest native servants. It is well, however, to know that it is a possibility to be guarded against. One of the best safeguards is, besides being very particular as to the character of those engaged, to require them to sleep in the house. If they do not sleep in the house, for which there may not be sufficient room, they ought not to be allowed to bring baskets with them when they come in the morning, to take away when they leave at night.

One curious expense attendant upon the taking of a villa, is a charge which was made by a house-agent at Mentone (I do not know if it be universal) for making out the inventory of furniture. He charged the tenant 2½ per cent, upon the rent; say, if the rent were £200, £5 for doing so was charged against the tenant. This ought to be a proper charge against the landlord exclusively, but no doubt the landlord suffered a similar charge.

For two or three persons, it is upon calculation of the cost much less expensive, and in every respect more desirable, to take quarters in a hotel, where, if a servant be brought, the usual charge for pension for her or him is 5 francs, or at most 6 francs, and occasionally, though rarely, 4 francs per day. But in the case of a large family, a villa is less expensive and more convenient, especially if the children be young, though it may require the family to be vigilant in looking sharply after their foreign domestics.

While these foreign servants are not always trustworthy, I must add this, that we have found no occasion whatever in France or Switzerland to complain of dishonesty among any of the domestics in any of the numerous hotels in which we have been. We have had our things lying openly about, and have never missed a single article, nor have we heard of any other person suffering loss in this way.

The observation may not perhaps apply so thoroughly to Italy. So much is heard of the petty thievery which prevails in that country, especially in the southern portions of it, that it is by no means proper to expose oneself more than can be helped to lose in this manner; and we were more than usually careful, while in Italy, not to throw temptation in the way. At one house we missed two articles, viz. two pairs of scissors, and could not but suspect that they had been appropriated. It is, however, I suppose, rather the railway men and the professed thieves whom people have most to fear in Italy. One hears every now and then of boxes being opened during railway transit and contents taken, although this may be only in the case of luggage sent by goods train, which in Italy should never be done. The thievery is so open in Naples and surrounding places, that we dared not leave anything exposed in a carriage. Nay, a lady told me that a thief had even the audacity, before her very eyes, to lift a bag out of the carriage in which she was sitting.

III.

LOCAL MEANS OF CONVEYANCE.

I happen to have kept the billet of a Parisian cabman, on which I find the number is 8973. I believe I have seen voitures in Paris bearing a number higher than 10,000. In all probability, however, there is not a licensed carriage to represent each unit of this apparent grand total. When, after many adventures and a long struggle, old age overtakes the voiture, and a sudden jolt sends it to smash, a pious regard may preserve the number to its shade; while the new vehicle, its successor, may just be added on to the tail of the list. But be this as it may, there is no lack of carriages of all sorts in all Continental towns.

Elegant private equipages are to be seen in Paris and other parts of France. These are often jobbed by English people. At Nice the charge for a carriage, horses, and man is £30 per month. But Nice is a notoriously expensive place, and I doubt not that in other towns of France the charge is greatly less. Dr. Johnson (p. 67) states that carriages in Pau were to be had, with pair of horses and driver, at £10 to £12 per month. His book, however, was written in 1857, and possibly the charge since that time has been raised.

But it is among the Italians, I think, that the desire appears more manifested for a good turn-out. In such large towns as Genoa, Rome, or Naples, one sees hundreds of beautiful carriages and fine horses. In fact, it would appear that in Italy every woman aspiring to be considered a lady must, at whatever sacrifice of other comforts, drive her carriage and pair with liveried coachman and man-servant. The Italians seem to consider that it is not comme il faut for a lady to be seen walking,—for which, indeed, the climate is not much suited,—and they are rather surprised at observing English ladies going so much about on their own feet. The public vehicles are also of so inferior a description, that one can scarcely wonder at a resident lady being ashamed to be seen in them. I fancy, too, that the expense is not so great as with ourselves. Men-servants’ wages must certainly be considerably less, and crops of hay are so abundant, while agricultural labour is so miserably recompensed that the expense of feeding is, no doubt, also much less than at home. Moreover, horse flesh would appear to be greatly cheaper in Italy than with ourselves. At Rome I asked the driver of the carriage in which we went to Tivoli what might be the cost of such a pair of horses as he was driving. They were poor hacks, although they went well. He said about 400 francs, or about £16. I pointed to a handsome pair of horses standing in a private carriage upon one of the streets of Rome, and asked him what they would cost. He said from 1000 to 2000 francs, or from £40 to £80. If this information can be relied on, horse flesh must be cheap enough in Italy. I am not sufficiently skilled in the subject to say whether the breeds are equal to our own, though I doubt it; but they look very handsome animals, and the Italians are careful to allow their tails to grow so as often even to sweep the ground; and in this way the natural grace and beauty of the horse is preserved, while it retains the protection it has received from nature against the attacks of flies, which are a great source of torment in some places.

The cart horses in France are sometimes fine, strong-looking beasts, but are scarcely equal to the more powerful breeds of Britain, although I think they are made to draw heavier loads; and these poor horses do discharge their duty most heroically in spite of the brutal treatment they often receive.

But present observation has rather to do with cabs or carriages which ply for hire.

In France, great variety of carriage is to be had. In such places as Biarritz, Nice, or Mentone, there are many elegant landaus having nearly all the appearance of private carriages, and, no doubt, most of them have been quite recently in private occupation. They are kept in good order and freshly painted, and are the best class. From them there is a descent to various kinds of smaller and inferior voitures. The close kind is generally of a very shaky, antiquated construction; although in some places, such as Lyons and Cannes, there is a kind of brougham plying for hire of a better quality, narrow and confined, holding two only, and even two with a squeeze, although some of them (to be seen in Paris) have also a folding down seat for a child. Other carriages have a hood. In Paris, where people are exposed to sudden showers of rain, the one-horse open carriages have an extraordinary huge kind of hood which can be promptly raised, but when turned over, falls so low as almost to extinguish the occupant and to exclude his view; but even then, and with a leathern apron drawn up over the knees, I have found in a storm that adequate protection against rain is not secured. One of the nicest of light vehicles in use is a kind of basket carriage, seated for four, or for two with a vis-à-vis folding down seat for one or for two more behind the box, the box seat sometimes holding a fifth, and occasionally there is a light miniature rumble behind holding another. These are drawn for the most part by a pair of smart horses, remarkably small, akin to the active little Exmoor ponies.

The horses always go most willingly, and the drivers delight in urging them at top speed. Regardless of consequences, they dash down a hill in a way which would make an English coachy’s hair stand on end, and like a cannon ball through a crowd, without halting or swerving from their course, expecting the crowd to scatter right and left to make way for them. This is all done to the noise of a horrid ear-splitting cracking of the whip. The driver cracks his whip, and considers that having done so, he is discharged of responsibility, and that it is the pedestrian’s own fault if he be run over; just as a golfer considers that when he has cried ‘faar’ before striking his ball, it is the fault of the person struck that he has not got promptly enough out of the way. This cracking of the whip goes on incessantly while the man is with his horse, and even when without, and seems indulged in most frequently from a boyish love of making the odious noise.

There is great variety in these cracks. The crack of the heavy carter’s whip differs from that of the coachman’s lighter one. There is the single crack, the double or back and fore crack, and the multiple crack, this last being like the dancing noise produced by those alarming crackers placed by mischievous urchins on a Queen’s Birthday night under the garments of terrified young women. There is the encouraging crack, supposed to cheer the horse on his way; the crack direct, when the driver applies the lash; the practising crack, when he practises for perfection in this ravishing art; the thoughtless crack, when done in vacancy from mere force of habit; the warning crack, when he wishes pedestrians to yield the smooth part of the road, that he may avoid the rough, or simply that he, the dominant power, may maintain majestically his straight undeviating course; the angry crack, when the supposed humble pedestrian, being an Englishman, disregards the warning crack, thinking that he has as good a right or a better to pursue his way, there being room enough to pass by making a slight deviation from the straight; the annunciating crack, particularly affected by town omnibuses to intimate their approach; and the crack jubilant, employed by the hotel omnibuses when, having bagged a man, the driver thus expends all his bottled-up rapture and announces the joyful event on nearing the door of his hotel. The crack may indicate a cracked driver or a crack one, according as it is the passers-by or the driver himself who forms the opinion, and it is an obviously enviable accomplishment which many can manage with their left hand. The poor horses are expected to disregard all cracks but the crack direct, and to appearance do so; but I can’t help thinking that the horrid din is to the animal very much what the buzz of the mosquito is to man, not a malum in se, but a sound which proclaims the existence of a torment which at any moment may descend upon its hide. The singular thing, too, is that this noise does not seem to disturb the equanimity either of the driver’s own horse or of the other passing horses. With our own high-spirited horses, the mere wag of the whip will make them frantic, and I believe there would be no holding in English horses in a Continental town. Whether it be that the foreign horses are not so high metalled, or get used to the noise, as horses do to passing trains, I do not know, but to the walkers along the streets it is an intolerable nuisance; nor is it altogether without its dangers, as on one occasion a lady of our party all but got her eye struck by a flying lash. The same sort of cracking goes on in Italy; but I noticed that in Florence and Rome, and particularly the latter city, the drivers did it very seldom. Probably to do so was against some police regulation, as from the large number of vehicles with which the streets of Rome are filled, the noise would be deafening, and might even be dangerous.

I was at first inclined to think that the Italian coachmen are kinder to their horses than the French or Swiss. It was long ere I saw an Italian behaving savagely to his horse; but I have observed it, and been informed by others of the cruel treatment they have seen practised by Italians. I have seen men behaving most savagely to their horses in France and Switzerland. For example, I have frequently seen a carter, or man in charge of a horse or donkey, when he wished it to move on, instead of quietly speaking to it, as even an English carter would, take the butt end of his heavy whip and lay heavily on the poor animal’s back, or even give it a violent kick. The carters lade their carts very heavily, and often—I might even say always—beyond the strength of the horse. I have observed a poor horse struggling with all his might to pull the improper load up a hill, the carter encouraging it by the whip all the time. Several times I could not resist speaking to the men about their conduct. On one occasion, at Cannes, I saw a horse, after having struggled to the utmost of his strength with a load twice as heavy as it ought to have been (the bystanders only looking on and giving it no aid), and remaining willing but helpless to do more, when the carter took the narrow end of his heavy whip, and came down twice with his whole force with the heavy-loaded butt end on his horse’s head. Ere he could repeat the villanous stroke, I rushed forward, arrested his hand, and told him, in the best French I could muster, what a brute I thought him to be. But it is not easy to give vent to one’s indignation in a foreign tongue. The fellow ought to have been prosecuted, and there does exist in France a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; but policemen as well as others, I suspect, are as callous to such offences as our own policemen are to the destruction by boys of our meadow or park trees. Cruelty to a horse, however, often consists in little aggravating acts which a prosecution might fail to reach. I have often seen a coachman waiting at a stand, or at a door, and, having idle hands, mischievously proceed to touch up his horses for doing nothing—in short, to vent his own irritation at his idleness upon the poor dumb animals; and then, when they began to caper because of the whip, the whip was again applied because of the caper. However, I am afraid this is an evil habit which is not seldom to be witnessed in our own country. Another method abroad of torturing the horse is by the use of a bearing rein strapped up to the high and heavy saddle or collar borne by the cart horses, which from its weight is also of itself an infliction. But so long as Liverpool dray horses are so tortured, we cannot reasonably complain of bearing reins as a foreign peculiarity. A more extraordinary and hardly credible kind of torture a lady told me she had witnessed was in the passing of a strap or rope through the skin of the horse, compelling him to move on to avoid or lessen the pain so produced. I would fain believe she had been mistaken, but she was one on whose relation I could rely, and whose capacity for observing could scarcely be questioned.

The Italian carriages for hire are very inferior to the French. At Naples they are of the roughest possible kind—open little phaetons made of coarse wood, at some remote period having enjoyed a coat of paint, and exhibiting a barely decent seat for two, and a little folding seat for a third. The Roman carriages are similarly constructed, but a shade better. The drivers in Naples and its vicinity are, as regards person and clothes, the dirtiest-looking ragamuffins. One shrinks to come in contact with them. In Rome, on the other hand, the drivers are generally a respectable-looking class, and they wear a black glazed hat and red cloth waistcoat. The most stylish of coachmen we have seen are those at Biarritz, where they frequently mount a grand blue broidered jacket with scarlet facings; but this grandeur has to be paid for.

At Castellamare and the district round about in the Bay of Naples, and elsewhere in the south of Italy, the horses’ heads are decorated with long pheasant feathers, which give them a jaunty look; while in most places the generality of horses have fastened to their collars a string of small bells which keep a continual lively jingle,—genial, doubtless, to the animals,—and are as pleasant as the cracking of whips is odious. About Sorrento, the carriages are often drawn by three horses abreast, three being charged the same as for two. It seems a waste of power, the only explanation given for which was that the horses are not strong. Whatever may be the case in this respect, the horses in Italy always go with the greatest spirit, never seeming to require the lash. I fancy that the jingle of the bells operates as a stimulant. It was very cheery, sitting in our parlour at Sorrento, to hear every now and then the jingle of the bells announcing an arrival or a departure.

Carriage fares for drives about town are moderate almost everywhere. They are more in France than in Italy. Bædeker generally states in his guide-books what the fares are at each town. Although on the whole correct, they are not always to be relied on, probably because of alterations on the tariffs. Sometimes a board or bill of the tariffs is hung up in the carriage, and in some places, such as Paris, the driver is obliged to give the hirer his number on a ticket which specifies the fares. In Paris a one-horse carriage is charged 1·85 per course and 2·50 per hour during the day, and 2·50 and 3 francs respectively during nuit, or the hours of darkness. A little more is charged if the voiture be taken from the remise, that is, the stables. There do not appear to be two-horse carriages plying for hire upon the streets of Paris. When one is wanted, it must be sent for to the stables, and I believe that the charge is heavy. Fares in Paris, however, are higher than in the provinces. At Lyons the fare per course is 1·25; if taken by the hour, it is only 1½ francs per hour in the city, and the same at Pau, but at Mentone and elsewhere fares are rather more. A large carriage with two horses is at Mentone 1·75 per course and 3·50 per hour during the day, and 2 francs and 3·75 respectively during nuit. A one-horse carriage is 1·25 per course and 2·50 per hour during the day, and 25 centimes more after dark. If, however, one has to ascend a height in a town, he is sure to have to pay extra. For example, we were charged extra for ascending Fourvières at Lyons, and the Chateau at Nice, although driving per hour. If there be more than a single place to go to, it is always cheaper to take the carriage by the hour. If when driving by the course a stoppage be made by the way, it is not unusual to charge as for two courses. At the same time, Continental drivers are quite up to the trick of English coachmen, when put upon hour-driving, of crawling along. We were somewhat amused at Sorrento (where the horses are invariably put upon full speed), upon taking a carriage by the hour to Massa, a few miles off, to see how the man leisurely walked his horse the whole way. Nor, in this instance, did we grudge it; because the scenery was so lovely that we had full time to enjoy it, and the rapid whisking through it, which otherwise would have taken place, would have given us but a passing glimpse.

In Italy the cab fares are exceedingly moderate. For instance, at Genoa, Florence, and Rome, the drive per course is only 80 centessimi (8d.). At Rome, for every person beyond two, 20 centimes (2d.) additional is payable. The charge per hour is 1·50. At Naples, fares are even more moderate. The course, according to Bædeker, is 60 centimes per hour, 1·40 the first hour and 50 centimes every half-hour after; but we found the actual tariff was slightly more.

One requires to be careful, especially in Italy, about driving per hour in a town, not to go unnecessarily beyond its bounds, as when this is done the tariff is no longer binding, and the fare may be completely at the mercy of the driver. Thus, at Florence, we had on one occasion taken a carriage by the hour, and after driving about for some time, went to Fiesole, which lies beyond the bounds. When we came to settle with our driver, he charged us three or four francs additional on this account. At Naples, where one may very easily exceed the bounds, I was amused at the pertinacity of a driver in suggesting to go to places just beyond the city; but as I had made myself acquainted with its limits, and had no wish at that time to go to the places he named, I declined. The way to adopt when designing to go beyond the bounds is, as we arranged always at Rome, to make an express bargain that the charge by time should cover wherever we went.

It is a custom on the part of the drivers, notwithstanding their fares are fixed or agreed upon, to expect over and above what they call in France and Switzerland a pour boire, and in Italy buono manu. This is a provoking addition to a regulated fare. No doubt it is left in the discretion of the traveller, and he may give as much as he pleases, although it is said that in Italy the giving of too much is often regarded as symptomatic that the giver is soft and may fairly be asked for more. But the giving of too little will at once meet with a remonstrance. It is frequently a difficulty to know exactly what it should be. It is expected as a matter of right by the French coachman; it is begged for by the Italians. The best course is always to arrange, in the case of a special drive, that the charge bargained for shall include everything, as the French express it tout compris; and if you are pleased with the man’s attention, any gratuity over and above will be unexpected. But in Italy, even although you have arranged upon the footing of tutti compressi, the driver will sometimes beg for a buono manu. So accustomed are they to this description of beggary, that I have seen a coachman, before he even knew what I had put into his hand (which was a half franc more than his fare upon a short ride upon the footing of tutti compressi), beg for a buono manu.

The fares which are charged for going to given places beyond a town, are often out of all proportion to the fares within town—i.e., if charged according to the time occupied, they would be greatly in excess of a time charge. It is difficult to understand a good reason for this, as in town they might be standing long idle for chance fares; while going to a given place, occupying so many hours, is just so much constant employment. Nor is it constant driving, because nobody goes to see a place without stopping at it for some time, and perhaps even making other stoppages by the way. It is just a custom to expect a ‘fat job’ out of such a drive. One owes it no less to oneself than to those who come after, not to give too much, and really sometimes the fares asked are exorbitant. For instance, when we wanted a carriage to go from Interlachen to Chateau d’Œx (which we accomplished in twelve hours, stopping by the way from two to three hours for dinner, and with several other stoppages of same duration, and going at a rate seldom exceeding five miles per hour), one man wanted 150 francs, or £6; others, 100 francs. I ultimately arranged with a man for 90 francs, with a pour boire, which came to 5 francs more. So little fatigued were his horses, that they were driven back to Interlachen next morning, and in all probability a return fare was obtained for at all events part of the way. The sum charged for these journeys includes the feeding of man and horses, and all hotel charges in connection with the vehicle, which are borne by the owner of the carriage, and cost him little, although, were they paid by the traveller, a large addition would be made to the expense—a method of arrangement which ought to be universal. The fares are computed by distance on some odd and unequal principle. I was told afterwards that if we had taken the boat on Lake Thun to Spiez, or about an hour’s distance from Interlachen, I could have had a carriage from Spiez to Chateau d’Œx for about one-half what I paid from Interlachen.

It is principally at the Swiss Passes, however, that the exorbitant fares are demanded. For example, at Bellagio, the hotel charge for a carriage and pair from Colico to Coire, where there is a railway to Zürich, is 200 francs; 300 francs for three horses, without which it is hardly possible to ascend the mountains; and 380 francs for four horses. The journey involves—the first day, about three hours’ travelling by coach from Colico to Chiavenna, where we slept; ten hours the second day, ascending by zig-zags to the top of the mountain, and then down to Splugen, and halting two or three hours out of the ten at Campo Dolcino for rest and lunch; and the third day, starting from Splugen at 8 A.M., getting by a gentle descent through the Via Mala, and stopping two or three hours at Thusis for lunch, we reached Coire about 4 o’clock, or eight hours altogether. As I knew that the fares asked were excessive, I went by steamboat to Colico a day previous to our leaving, and readily arranged, after some bargaining, for an excellent carriage and good pair of horses, with a third for the mountains (we actually had four part of the way) for 150 francs, with the inevitable buono manu. When we reached Splugen, finding that a gentleman who accompanied us was going to Ragatz, I proposed we should go there too, instead of proceeding from Coire to Zürich by railway. Our friend unfortunately spoke about it to the landlord, who immediately impressed on our coachman, who was also the proprietor of the carriage, that the proper fare for the additional distance was 35 francs, a distance which I afterwards found took us less than two hours to accomplish (it was down hill most of the way). I refused to give such a figure for the addition to our drive, as we could have gone by rail for a few francs; but on nearing Coire, I spoke to the driver and arranged to give him 30 francs additional, inclusive of the buono manu, for the whole journey, which we thought would require to be from 12 to 15 francs. It was too much, but it saved stopping an hour at Coire for a train and shifting our luggage. So confirmed, however, is the habit of asking a buono manu, that, in the face of my express arrangement after paying the man his 180 francs, he had the assurance to ask me for it.

It is always best, on going a long drive, to make a very express and explicit arrangement, and in Italy to make it in writing, so that there may be no room for mistake or dispute; and it is also well to see the carriage and horses you are to have, and to make sure the horses are properly shod. Generally, it is better to arrange for a carriage oneself. For instance, the landlord of our hotel at Castellamare said the charge for a carriage to Pompeii would be 12 or 15 francs. I arranged for one for 8 francs. At the same place, his charge was 10 francs to Sorrento, exclusive of buono manu, which would be 2 francs more. As I knew I could easily get a carriage for less, I told him I would not give more than 8 francs, with buono manu, and the carriage was at once sent for; but even this was more than the fare mentioned in Bædeker (6 francs). On return from Sorrento, we paid only 8 francs altogether, the regular charge, the landlady of the Tramontano, a clever and attentive Irishwoman, telling us that she made it an express arrangement with the coachman, adding, ‘What was the sense of paying more, when we had arranged for a given sum?’ In going any distance, it is always well to make inquiry of those who may know something on the subject as to what the fares ought to be, and as to the route.

Sometimes hotelkeepers make such excessive demands as practically to be prohibitive. Thus at Baveno we found the charge for a carriage and pair for a simple drive to be 8 francs the first hour and 5 francs for each hour thereafter. At Chateau d’Œx, in other respects one of the cheapest places we have visited, we were told by some of the young people at the hotel, that, wishing to go one evening to have a dance at a neighbouring pension in the village, not an eighth of a mile distant, but on an acclivity, the hotelkeeper asked for the double drive no less than 20 francs. They therefore gave up the idea of going. The only possible excuse for this exorbitant demand might be, that the road was rough for night driving, but carrying a couple of lamps would have put that all right.

Fares everywhere have, however, been increased of late years. Speaking from recollection, I think that at Interlachen, for a drive which is now charged 25 francs, we were charged fifteen years previously only 15 to 18 francs, and other charges in proportion.

It used to be considered that for four persons it was at least as cheap to take a carriage as to pay for four places in a diligence. If this was so formerly, it is no longer so, as it is less expensive to go by diligence. I imagine that the fares by diligence either have not been increased, or have been only slightly raised. We paid for the journey from Lucerne to Interlachen, inclusive of steamboats on the lakes of Lucerne and Brienz, 13 francs 90 centimes each for inside places and cabin, the journey taking 10 hours; from Chateau d’Œx to Aigle, occupying about 4½ hours of mountain travelling, 8 francs 25 centimes. In either case it would have cost us considerably more to have hired. Bædeker mentions the diligence fares from Coire to Colico to be for coupé 27 francs 90 centimes, and for intérieur 24·50; so that for four passengers travelling by diligence, the fare would not exceed 112 francs; for six passengers, 168 francs, instead of the 300 or 380 francs demanded by the hotels, which no doubt affords them a heavy profit. Travelling by diligence is, however, not always desirable, as often part of the journey may have to be performed during night, or at uncomfortable hours. Diligences are now nearly driven off the field by the railways, except in such countries as Switzerland. The Swiss Indicateur contains a long list of the diligence routes and their time bills, and Continental Bradshaw furnishes a still longer list under the head, ‘Diligences, Post and Mail Coaches, Germany, Switzerland, and North Italy,’ with, in most cases, the fare payable.

I do not think that steamboat travelling is cheap—e.g., we paid 7 francs each on the Lake of Geneva from Montreux to Geneva, taking three hours. On Lake Como the fare from Bellagio to Como, about two hours, was 2 francs 80 centimes, or about 5s. there and back. From Sorrento to Capri and back was 5 francs. I received a curious answer from the captain of the steamboat to Capri to my question what would be the fare to go from Sorrento to Naples; he replied, ‘Whatever you please.’ We were informed at Sorrento that if one of the two rival boats which usually go from Naples to Capri do not sail, the passengers are in the power of the boat which does sail, and may be asked for what the captain pleases, which is sure to be something different from what pleases the passenger.

The sailings of the steamboats are to be found in the Indicateurs. On Lake Como a convenient little flyleaf guide for the lake sailings is sold on board at the price of 5 centessimi (one halfpenny).

Most towns have their town omnibuses. In Paris there is a system of ‘correspondence,’ by which the passenger leaves his omnibus at certain stations and gets (with the same ticket) into another to prosecute his route. But this correspondence is puzzling to a stranger, who will always find it better to take a cab and drive direct to his destination.

Tramways are beginning to be introduced, with carriages similar to our own, but are generally placed in streets where they will as little as possible interfere with other traffic.

In some towns of Italy, such as Milan, there are laid stone-ways, being two parallel courses of flat stones, each course perhaps about a foot broad, embedded in the causeway and on the same level, on which the wheels of carts and carriages run smoothly. It has sometimes struck me that such a system of stone tramways without grooves, on which all carriages could run, and which would not catch their wheels, would be preferable for the streets of hilly cities at home, for which tram rails, especially in its busy thoroughfares, are entirely unsuitable. All the smoothness of the tramway would be obtained without its danger to life, its injury to carriages, and its interference with ordinary traffic; while the huge, clumsy, box-looking, road-filling cars would give place to a set of light omnibuses of sufficient number. The luxury of travelling a mile in a larger car could not be placed in the balance.

There are other means of conveyance, such as donkeys and gondolas, which will be more appropriately referred to when I come to speak of the places where they are used.

IV.

POSTAL ARRANGEMENTS.

By treaty agreement, the postage rates for the Continent are now very much reduced from what they used to be, and are comparatively moderate, although to those who write much the expense becomes in the aggregate a considerable item of travelling expenditure. Single postage from England to France, Switzerland, and Italy, and I think to most Continental countries, is 2½d., and to this rate the Continental countries on letters to England conform as nearly as their coinage permits. But in France and Italy, taking advantage of the fact that a franc is between 9½d. and 10d., they charge 30 centimes, or about 3d.;[11] so that the price of four stamps in these countries is close upon 1s., instead of being 10d., as with ourselves. Single postage on letters for the Continent covers one-half ounce in England; abroad it covers 15 grammes, which seems to be the precise equivalent. Little pocket letter-weighers are sold in France at 1 franc and 1½ francs, containing a scale marked in grammes by which letters can be conveniently weighed, and for prolonged residence are all but indispensable. If a letter posted in England be insufficiently stamped, the post office abroad charges the recipient with double the postage the letter ought to have borne according to the foreign rate, deducting the amount of the stamps which it carries. Thus, if a person in England put by mistake a penny stamp upon a single letter, the French Government charge double the 30 centimes and deduct the penny paid, so that the recipient has to pay 5d. upon the letter. If the letter have been stamped with 2½d. postage, but exceeds the half ounce, the recipient pays 1s., less the 2½d., or 9½d. altogether (more correctly, 95 centimes). It is astonishing how many blunders friends at home make in this respect. Over and over again have we had to pay for them. If people are not acquainted with the foreign postage, they ought to study the postal guides, and in event of any difficulty to make inquiry at a post office. One lady told me she had summed up what these mistakes had cost her in one winter, and found they came to 11 francs.

Newspapers posted in England require a penny stamp, but abroad are reckoned by weight. The small Continental papers go for 5 centimes, or one halfpenny; but in France, at least, English newspapers always cost one penny or 10 centimes.

The rate in France for registering a letter to England is 5d. (50 centimes), while it was 4d. in England, being another instance of the way in which the French take advantage of the small difference between our monetary values. The reduction in England of fee to 2d. applies to foreign as well as inland letters.

Letters for the interior are always less than for abroad. In France, where postage is high, the rate was 25 centimes (now 15 centimes) to any part of France except the district in which the letter was posted, when it was 15 centimes, possibly now less. For book delivery in town, the French have a 2 centimes rate, and in Italy there is a similar rate for newspapers for the interior.

Post cards are usually one-half of letter rates. Thus a French post card to England is 15 centimes (1½d.), as against our 1¼d. But in Switzerland, where postage is cheap,—there being half rates for letters,—and in Italy, post cards for England are only 1d. (10 centimes). English people always familiarly call a 10 centime piece a penny, which in size as well as in value it resembles.

Letters are, I think, delivered with great accuracy. I have only known of two letters which have not reached us during the whole time we were away, and one of these was misaddressed. Newspapers, on the contrary, have not, in France, reached us with the same regularity as letters. This has been attributed to the French Government being jealous of newspapers from Great Britain containing animadversions upon its policy, and during the French crisis of the autumn of 1877, we regularly missed a Scotsman, once a week, sometimes of a Tuesday, but more commonly of a Thursday, when, if there were no leading article touching upon the French Government, we fancied it might contain some gleanings from Punch. As Punch carries a free lance and hesitates not to strike whatever is vulnerable, it is, I suppose, fully more exposed to be stopped than any ordinary newspaper; but in spite of precaution, it finds its way abroad even when stopped.

The stoppage of newspapers, while it can do no manner of good, produces a good deal of irritation and ill-will on the part of the English. I believe that the attention of the French Parliament has been called to it, and latterly we found greater regularity. Of course, in many cases newspapers may miscarry from addresses being insufficient or getting torn off. It is always safer to write on the newspaper itself; and if a cover be used, the newspaper stamp must not connect the cover with the paper, otherwise it is liable to be charged as a letter.

When the hotel at which to stop has been decided upon, it is best to direct letters to be delivered at it. If not so fixed upon, it is usual to address letters to the Poste Restante, where they are got upon exhibition of a visiting card; but in some places the post is very particular, and perhaps rightly so. Thus, in San Remo, I was desired to give my card to the facteur (postman) in whose beat our quarters were, and the letters would be delivered at the house. In Paris, I was refused letters for my wife without a written authority from her. In other large towns, the rule is to ask for passport; and if the inquirer have no passport, he must prove his identity in a manner satisfactory to the post clerk, as by exhibition of envelopes of letters received elsewhere, or otherwise—regulations most reasonable for the security of the recipients.

Registered letters are treated with peculiar care. In France, the postman declines to give up such a letter except into the hand of the person to whom it is addressed, who signs his name in a book kept for the purpose, with date of reception, etc. If he do not happen to be in the house at the time, the postman takes away the letter, marks ‘absent’ upon it, and brings it back at succeeding deliveries till he find him. In Italy, they are even more particular. At Milan, I received at the hotel an intimation from the post office that a registered letter was lying there for me. In order to procure this letter, I was under the necessity of going personally to the post office, a good way off, and of taking with me a certificate by a resident in Milan of my identity. I knew nobody residing in Milan, but the landlord of the hotel was kind enough to sign the document. Delivering this document, I was also required to exhibit my passport to the post office, and then to sign my name in a book kept there for the purpose. These precautions, although troublesome to the traveller, make registered letters very secure; and all letters transmitting money orders ought to be registered and put in firm, tough envelopes, for I believe that letters are sometimes lost in consequence of the thinness of the foreign letter envelopes in which, for the sake of lightness, they are generally enclosed.

On leaving a town, the new address should be given to the post office or to the concierge of the hotel, and letters will then be readdressed and forwarded free of charge. Occasionally, we have found them forwarded to three or four successive addresses before receipt by us, and that without any extra payment, which would not be the case in England. Nay, I have discovered, though only after many postages had unfortunately been paid on the readdress in England, that letters arriving in England from a colony, say New Zealand, may be readdressed to the address abroad without charge,—a fact, therefore, well worthy of being noted. After a lapse of time, whether done by the post office at request of the landlord or concierge of the hotel or not, we could not tell, letters have been opened and returned to the writers, from whom we have received them reinclosed and restamped about a month after we had left the place to which they were originally addressed.

Tradesmen, on seeing arrivals announced in the lists, send in their business cards; and a circular of this kind, posted to our hotel at Cannes, stamped with 15 centimes district postage, was forwarded to us at Mentone. On this, 25 centimes (2½d.) had to be paid, showing a difference in the treatment of interior letters, which may be explained in this way, that the letter was not originally insufficiently stamped, and there was not, therefore, excuse for charging it double.

The French have a good system in regard to letter pillars which might with advantage be adopted by ourselves. When the postman has made his collection from the pillar box, he turns a dial, which indicates that that particular collection has been made; e.g., suppose he has taken the first collection upon a Wednesday, the dial bears: ‘Mercredi, la première levée est faite.’ And this is particularly necessary in France, because the postmen are by no means particular in adhering to the time fixed for making the collection. Day after day have I seen the notice up half an hour before the collection was due, obliging one either to post early, or to go to the general post. The French letter pillars are small wooden boxes stuck upon a wall, pretty well out of reach of mischievous urchins; but their slits are very narrow, and will not admit of an ordinary English newspaper.

French postmen, for protection and security, carry their letters for delivery in a box suspended by a strap round the neck like a pedlar’s tray, and registered letters are kept in a separate pocket or portion of the box. The newspapers and book packets (often immense bundles) are simply carried bound together by a strap.

It is astonishing with what rapidity letters and newspapers are received from home. London newspapers are received at Biarritz on the afternoon of the day following publication. At Venice it takes a day longer, and some places not so distant are, in consequence of the arrival of the post late in the evening, just as long. Thus, while the London newspapers are delivered at Nice the evening of the day after publication, they are not delivered at Mentone till the following morning, because they arrive after the last postal delivery at Mentone. When the mail is accelerated, as no doubt it will be in time, this delay will be remedied; but the practical effect is that letters and newspapers posted in Edinburgh upon a Monday before five o’clock are delivered in Nice upon Wednesday evening, but are not delivered in Mentone until Thursday morning. At Venice or Rome they are delivered on the Thursday. Letters posted on a Saturday are always one day longer, in consequence of there being no despatch from London on the Sunday; so that, leaving Edinburgh on Saturday, they are not delivered in Mentone till Wednesday morning. Newspapers are often a post later, and not delivered till the second or evening delivery; for in Mentone, as in many other places, there are only two deliveries in the day.

V.

SUNDAY ABROAD.

Sunday is kept abroad with various degrees of propriety. As a rule, it is a gala day—a fete day, and to certain classes of servants it only brings additional toil. There is no distinction, as with ourselves, unless in rare and exceptional cases, between railway trains on Sunday and trains on week-days; and, in point of fact, I believe there is more travelling on Sundays than on other days of the week. Work and business are not wholly suspended, but there are fewer carts upon the streets. In many places, workmen may be seen engaged in their employments, at all events till dinner-time, just as usual. Shops are nowhere wholly closed, at least during the earlier part of the day. But the generality of the natives attend a morning service, and afterwards walk about in their Sunday clothes; so that in large towns the streets are crowded by lounging saunterers, or scarcely less idle sightseers. It is gratifying to observe that wherever English people form a large admixture of the population, as at Cannes, Mentone, and Pau, a greater external reverence is paid to the day than elsewhere, and particularly in the matter of closing shops. Possibly in some cases this may result from finding it is not worth while to open them, as the principal customers would not enter and transact, but let us hope that it springs from a growing influence for good. In Paris, during and after the reign of the Commune, I believe all shops were open; but they are now, year by year, getting to be more and more closed.

In Mentone the washerwomen appear to suspend operations on Sundays. It is probable that they strive to get all the linen committed to their care sent home by the end of the week to the ladies, who require their things by that time to be ready. But I have occasionally seen one or two washing away as usual, even in heavy rain; and I fancy, from appearances, they were then purifying their own garments.

To what extent theatres are open, I have no means of stating. I believe that in Paris and other large French towns, if not elsewhere, the theatres are in full operation.

In places where musical bands play, as at Interlachen, the music proceeds just as on ordinary days—once, twice, or three times a day, according to the custom of the place; but it gathers to it all the idlers, and is therefore generally listened to by far greater crowds than during the week. Nor is the music different in character from what is usually performed. There is no attempt to compromise matters by playing sacred tunes. Not improbably, in some places, there may be a better selection of secular music than usual; ‘classical music’ may be attempted. At Cannes, although it is a thoroughly English settlement, the band plays on Sunday near the Mairie. At Mentone the playing took place outside the cirque, near to some of the churches, so that the worshippers had to pass by it to reach them.

Where there are Galleries or Museums, Sunday is usually an open or free day, no payment being exacted. At Naples the Museum, and at Florence the Picture Galleries and the grounds of the Royal Pitti Palace, are open to the public, the only other day in the week on which the Museum and Galleries are free being Thursdays. Ascension Day, however, seems to be regarded as more holy than Sunday, for it happened at Florence, while we were there, and falling upon a Thursday, the Galleries were closed. The Louvre in Paris is open on Sunday, but is closed on Monday, to be cleaned. The Capitoline Museum in Rome (belonging to Government) is open on Sundays gratis, but as a rule galleries as well as shops are closed on Sundays in Rome.

The Casino at Monte Carlo is always open on Sundays, and was a source of attraction to many of the foreign visitors at Mentone, and sometimes, though more rarely, even to such English people as were not very strict in their views.

The Carnival proceeded at Nice the same as on the other day or days on which it was held. It was probably then a grander affair, and I believe drew to it much greater crowds—many, though not many English, going to see it from Mentone, and, no doubt, from all the surrounding parts.

Sunday, indeed, is regarded as a fete day. In the times of the Empire I found it, on occasion of my first visit to Paris, to be the day of the great Fête Napoleon. It was also the day for illuminations, and for playing the Grandes-Eaux at Versailles. The same practice prevails elsewhere. At Rome there was on one Sunday during our visit an illumination of the Piazza del Popolo, and a balloon was sent up in the course of the evening. At Pau also our attention was called one Sunday afternoon to an immense balloon descending, with a man suspended from it by ropes—a most perilous-looking adventure, and by no means an agreeable spectacle, though we were not near enough to see the man distinctly. Throughout France the elections take place on the Sunday, and possibly it is the same elsewhere. In Italy and in Paris, as well as in other places, people expend a portion of their earnings in driving about in cabs and other vehicles plying for hire. One summer, a few years ago, we spent a fortnight in the Champs Elysées, and found that on Sunday evening they were, if possible, more brilliantly lighted up, and more gay and noisy, than on other nights; but I think the great spectacle then to be seen was derived from the multiplicity of voitures driving up and down, two rows one way and two rows another, in continuous line. As each carries either one or two lights (I am not sure which, but I think two), and as nothing at a little distance but the lights is seen, the effect is curious. The broad roadway seems from the Place de la Concorde to the Triumphal Arch to be filled with an incessant stream of Will-o’-the-wisp-like lights noiselessly flitting up and down the course.

Letters are delivered by the post either as usual on the rest of the week, or at all events on the Sunday morning, but my impression is that there is no difference in the deliveries. When there were any letters to annoy us, they were sure to come on a Sunday morning, so that often we wished there had been no delivery.

In hotels at home, with a laudable view to lessen the work of servants and give opportunity to them to go to church, visitors who have private rooms are often requested to dine on Sundays at the public table, and I have heard of no less than thirteen newly-married couples at one of the English lake hotels having thus one Sunday complied. As people abroad are little in the habit of dining in private rooms, there is not scope for this observance. But Sunday is always regarded as a day for a somewhat better dinner than usual. Sometimes, if not on the ordinary programme, it is in the shape of a course of ices, or it may be some other rarity.

The employment of the evening depends upon the company. The English, as a rule, observe Sunday abroad much as they do at home, except, of course, that being in a hotel, they are thrown more into living in public. Many retire to their rooms and read. But often before they do so, in hotels frequented by them,—particularly if exclusively so,—the young people, led by some one at the piano, will join in singing hymns. Even in hotels where foreigners are the principal visitors, English people present will sometimes strike up a hymn. This takes place usually to the apparent enjoyment of the foreigners, who seem not to know what to do with themselves on Sunday. They do not read, at least to the extent to which the English do. It is not unusual for them to have recourse to cards, or drafts, or chess, while their children romp about in a way at which we should be scandalized at home. Occasionally a visitor will play and sing at the piano secular tunes and songs, though when our countrywomen go to the piano they rarely select anything but sacred pieces.

One Sunday evening I recollect its being announced that there would be a concert by professional musicians in the salon, from which, before the concert began, nearly all the English quietly withdrew. It was not repeated in the same house while we were there.

In travelling, those who desire to have a book for Sunday reading, ought to take one or more such books with them. They are not procurable in shops or in circulating libraries. Possibly they may be, though probably not of a high class, at Tract Dépôts; but where these depots are to be found, may not always be easy to learn. However, in season places the churches have generally small libraries attached to them, which are useful to those who are there for the season. A passing traveller of course cannot avail himself of them. It is not a bad plan to have the monthly magazines sent by book post to one’s foreign address, and when read they may prove very acceptable gifts to others.

It was not often that we were induced by curiosity to go into a Roman Catholic Church on a Sunday. The proceedings are unintelligible to the uninitiated, and the service seems to be all performed for the people by the priests, who are ‘the Church.’ Where there is singing or vocal music, it is done by the priests alone, aided by boys, and sometimes, though very rarely, by women. I recollect, when in Antwerp many years ago, on occasion of some great festival the choir was augmented by a number of (concealed) female singers with the sweetest voices. But the congregation never joins in the singing. They listen, just as congregations do at home to anthems performed by choirs, which it would require a knowledge of music, acquaintance with the piece, a music book, and a good voice to enable them to take part in. The service is conducted by the priests, with their backs to the people, these backs being generally covered with an ornamented dress, sometimes exhibiting an inserted cross in colours, sometimes white satin with rich gold embroidery, but varying according to the rank held by the priest, and according to the place, and doubtless according, in some churches, to the importance of the day. The chief priest appears to be reading a large book before him on the altar, and mumbling something to himself; and every now and then he and they (when more than one) perform a genuflexion or change position, and sometimes he turns round to the audience and says something inaudibly, while a boy tinkles a bell as a signal to the people at certain stages of the service. The ceremony is familiar to all who have been abroad. This priest service is no doubt intended, with other things, to exalt the priesthood and to swell its power, the grasp and severity of which the world has unfortunately too often felt. It is only right, however, to say that the people listen devoutly, and seem to know something at least of what is going on, and can follow it and understand when to rise up and when to kneel down. Many of them hold in their hands the book containing the service, which is printed both in Latin and in their own tongue; and were this book (after which the Prayer Book of the Church of England is modelled) purged of some erroneous matters, such as the prayers to the Virgin Mary and Saints, it contains a service to the words of which Protestants probably could not object. Mass sometimes begins very early in the morning; and after it has been said by the priest (I think it does not take much longer than half an hour), the congregation clears out and is succeeded by another, which pours in, before whom the service is repeated. People who have so heard mass apparently consider they have done their duty for the day so far as church worship is concerned.

When a priest preaches, which seems to be only rarely, and possibly only when he has the faculty, he mounts the pulpit, by his side in which a large crucifix is stuck, and addresses the people shortly but with great animation, his eloquence increasing like the Welsh preachers as he proceeds, till he reaches his climax in such a fervent heat that the perspiration will burst from his brow. No doubt he succeeds in stirring his auditors, but I never could make out sufficiently what was said to know exactly the purport of discourse. But the blessed Virgin is frequently invoked.

Roman Catholicism, however, must be losing ground fast, as the people increase in knowledge and desire to be free from clerical yoke; and it is astonishing to what an extent Protestantism, everywhere tolerated now, prevails in countries formerly so pope and priest ridden. A book, called A Guide to Evangelical Work on the Continent of Europe, and on the Southern and Eastern Shores of the Mediterranean, published by the Committee of the Foreign Evangelical Society (London: James Nisbet & Co., 21 Berners Street; Paris: 4 Place du Théâtre Français, Rue de Rivoli), gives an idea of the extent of this work.[12] I have tried to make up some statistics from it, but have not found my results to agree in numbers with the prefatory notes prefixed to some of the sections. I observe, however, that in France the Reformed Church, under the control of the State, is by far the largest of the Protestant denominations, and it is stated in the guide to consist of 483 parishes and 573 pastors. But on reckoning up the churches named in the book, it seems only to mention 124 Reformed Churches. Probably the explanation is that all parishes are not given. Of the Church of the Augsburg Confession, or Lutheran Church, there seem to be 63; of the Methodists, 7; of the Société Evangélique de France, 25; of the Société Centrale, 70; of the Wesleyan Church, 39; of the Free Church, 63; Independents, 6; Baptists, 6; Société Evangélique de Genève, 14; Society of Friends, 1; other denominations, 11 churches or stations. In all these the service is in the native French, and intended for the natives, and there is not a town of any importance in which there is not one or more of the different denominations represented by a church, so that it will be seen that Protestantism must be spreading and taking a deeper hold on the people. In Paris alone there are, inter alia, the following French Protestant churches:—Reformed Church, 19; Lutheran, 16; Evangélique de France, 7; Baptist, 1; French Wesleyan, 6. The native population, besides, throughout France, is reached by a multitude of Protestant or Evangelical associations and institutions and schools, such as Young Men’s Christian Associations, mission homes, orphanages, etc., and there are not less than 85 Bible or Tract Dépôts. I state all these figures salvo justo calculo, and with the impression that they only represent a portion of the work, and they are at least short of the figures given in the prefatory ‘note’ on the Protestant Churches of France.

In some cases, as at Biarritz, French service is conducted in the English Church; in others, as at Lucerne and Chateau d’Œx, the English service is held in the native Protestant Church.

At Mentone, the French Protestant Church, under the pastoral care of a most worthy man, M. Delapierre, is largely attended by English-speaking people. Indeed, I would say that English, Scotch, and Americans of all denominations form during the season by far the principal part of the congregation. We used almost regularly to attend this church during one of the Sunday services, going to one of the other churches for the other service. A layman commenced by reading a short liturgy or formulary of devotion, then a portion of Scripture, and, having given out a hymn or canticle, as it is termed, left the pulpit, and the minister taking his place, after extempore prayer, preached a sermon. M. Delapierre spoke slowly and distinctly, and it was easy, comparatively, to follow him. His thoughts were always good and striking, though simple, often rising to an elevated and earnest eloquence, calculated to make a deep impression. He was much respected and esteemed by all, but unfortunately was, or rather is, a man of delicate health; so that he only took one of the Sunday services, and had for a short time to leave Mentone for relaxation and change of air. His assistants (young men) we never could follow so well. Hymn-books, with the canticles set to music, were placed in all the pews; and generally at the close of the service a doxology was sung, being a verse commencing, ‘Gloire soit au Saint Esprit,’ to the tune called Hursley, the old German melody to which the hymn ‘Sun of my Soul’ has been wedded. There is a striking and puzzling peculiarity in the French singing, for the words are not sung as spoken. Thus père is pronounced peray. The singing also is in slow time. The Communion was dispensed on the first Sunday of the month, all who desired being, without distinction of sect, invited to attend, and was conducted very much in the same way as in Congregational churches at home.

We once witnessed in this church the baptism of an infant. The father and mother, nurse and baby, and another man and woman—all stood up in front of the reading-desk below the pulpit, to which M. Delapierre descended, and took the baby, which had been squalling, over his left arm. Holding up his hand, and looking down upon it, its great eyes looked up into his either in terror or in wonder, and all was still, not even the water sprinkling disturbing its equanimity. The preliminary service or address seemed to be somewhat long.

No gown or vestment of any kind was used in the church beyond the wearing of black clothes and a white tie, although I believe a gown is worn in many other French churches. Everything was conducted with the reverent simplicity so consistent with true worship. The singing was assisted by a harmonium, amply sufficient for the size of the church, which I suppose might not be seated for many more than two hundred.