# Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1892)/Chapter 50

CHAPTER IX.
CONTINUATION OF EUROPEAN TOUR.
ASIDE from the great cities of London and Paris, with their varied and brilliant attractions, the American tourist will find no part of a European tour more interesting than the country lying between Paris and Rome. Here was the cradle in which the civilization of Western Europe and our own country was rocked and developed. The whole journey between these two great cities is deeply interesting and thought-suggesting. It was the battle-ground and the scene of heroic endeavor, where every inch of the field was sternly disputed; where the helmet, shield, and spear of Eastern civilization met the sling and arrow and desperate courage of determined barbarism. Nor was the tide of battle always in one direction. Indications of the sternness and duration of the conflict are still visible all along the line. These are seen in walled and fortified towns, in grim and solemn convents, in old monasteries and castles, in massive walls and gates, in huge iron bolts and heavily barred windows, and fortifications built after the wisdom of the wary eagle on lofty crags and clefts of rocks and mountain fastnesses, hard to ​assault and easy to defend. These all tell of the troublous times in which they were erected, when homes were castles, palaces were prisons, and men held their lives and property by the might of the strongest. Here met the old and the new, and here was fought out the irrepressible conflict between European civilization and barbarism.
As the traveler moves eastward and southward between those two great cities, he will observe an increase of black hair, black eyes, full lips, and dark complexions. He will observe a Southern and Eastern style of dress; gay colors, startling jewelry, and an outdoor free-and-easy movement of the people.
I have seen it alleged that the habit of carrying the burdens on the head is a mark of inferiority peculiar to the negro. It was not necessary that I should go to Europe to be able to refute this allegation, yet I was glad to see, both in Italy and the south of France, that this custom is about as common there as it is among the dusky daughters of the Nile. Even if originated by the negro, it has been well copied by some of the best types of the Caucasian. In any case it may be welcomed as a proof of a common brotherhood.
In other respects I saw in France and Italy evidences of a common identity with the African. In Africa the people congregate at night in their towns and villages, while their living is made by tilling the soil outside. We saw few farm-houses in the south of France. Beautiful fields and vineyards are there, but few farmhouses. The village has taken the place of the farmhouse, and the peasants sometimes go several miles from their villages to work their vineyards. They may be seen in gangs in the morning going to their work, and returning in gangs in the evening from their work. Men and women share this toil alike, and one of the ​pleasantest sights to be seen in passing along are the groups of these people, seated along the roadside and taking their frugal meal of brown bread and sour wine, as cheerful and happy as if their fare was sumptuous and their raiment purple and fine linen. This sight, like many others, is a gratifying evidence that the poor often get as much happiness out of life as do the rich and great, and perhaps more. American ideas, however, would be unreconciled and shocked by the part borne by the women in the labors of the field. If an equal share in the hardships of life is desired by women, the battle for it has been already fought and won by the women of the Old World. Like men they go to the field, bright and early in the morning, and like the men they return to their villages late in the somber shades of evening, with faces browned by the sun and hands hardened by the hoe.
Leaving Paris and passing the famous grounds of Fontainebleau, one is reminded that they are no longer, as of yore, the proud abode of royalty. Like all else of imperial and monarchical possessions, the palace here has, under the Republic, passed from the hands of princes to the possession of the people. It is still kept in excellent condition. Its grounds conform in the strictest sense to French taste and skill, the main feature of which is perfect uniformity. Its trees and its walks conform to straight lines. The plummet and pruning-hook are employed with remorseless severity. No branch of a tree is permitted to be found longer than another, and the hedge seems to be trimmed by rule, compass, and square. But little liberty is allowed to nature in direction. Her crooked ways must be made straight, her bent forms made vertical, high must be made low, and all be cut down to a dead level. The houses, gardens, roads and bridges are all more or less ​subject to this rule. As you see them in one part of the country so you see them in another.
Dijon, so closely associated with the names of Bossuet and St. Bernard, the center, also, of the finest vineyards and the finest wines in France, and the ancient seat of the great dukes of Burgundy, traces of whose wealth and power are still visible in what remains of the ducal palace and the ancient castle, whose walls when a prison inclosed the restless Mirabeau, takes a deep hold upon the interest of the traveler. Its venerable and picturesque churches, in a chapel of one of which is a black image of the Virgin Mary about which one might philosophize, leave upon the mind: an impression very different from the one felt on reaching Lyons, that center of the greatest silk industry in France. The main feature of our interest in the latter town, aside from its historical associations, was the Heights of Fourvières, from which one of the grandest views of the surrounding country can in clear weather be had. We were conducted to this immense height by a kind-hearted woman who seemed to know at once that we were strangers and in need of a guide. She volunteered to serve without promise of reward. She would not touch a penny for her service. She was evidently a good Catholic, and her kindness made even more impression upon us than the sonorous bells of her city. We saw in Lyons, too, a grand French military display, twenty thousand men in procession, rank upon rank with their glittering steel and splendid uniform, with all the pomp and circumstance of glorious war, a spectacle at once brilliant and sad to behold. Soldiers and slaughter go together.
Avignon, more than seventy years the home of the popes and the scene of pontifical magnificence, powerfully impresses the mind. Five ecclesiastical ​dignitaries at the least, according to history, were here consecrated to the service of the church. Avignon especially illustrates what I have said of the general character of the country through which we passed on our way to the Eternal City. It is surrounded by a wall flanked by thirty-nine towers and is entered through four great gates. Though this wall is twelve feet high and is thus flanked by towers, and though it was doubtless at one time a means of defense, it would be nothing against the projectiles of modern warfare. Like many other things, it has survived the use for which it was erected. The object of chief interest in Avignon, its palace of the popes, is certainly a very striking feature. In its appointments it justifies the German proverb, "They who have the cross will bless themselves." Situated on an eminence proudly overlooking the city and its surroundings, the grounds large and beautiful, the popes who resided there no doubt found it a very pleasant abode. In looking at the situation of the palace, it was evident to me that Catholics have long known how to select locations for their churches and other buildings. They are masters of geographical and topographical conditions as well as of things ecclesiastical. This famous old building was not only a palace, or a strictly religious institution, but it was at once a palace and a prison. Many a poor soul is said to have endured within its walls the agony of a trial and the still greater one of torture for opinion's sake. If it was a place of prayer, it was also a place of punishment. The holy men who ruled at that day could be lions as well as lambs. In this building were many halls,—halls of judgment, halls of inquisition, halls of torture, and halls of banqueting. In the day of its palatial glory, religion stood no such nonsense as freedom of thought. Believe with the church ​or else be accursed; accept our faith or be hurled among the damned, was the stern voice of religion at that time. Men like Robert G. Ingersoll would then have had short lives. Until the days of Louis Napoleon, the implements of torture in this old building were exhibited to travelers, but not so now. Cold and cruel as was this Napoleon, he was ashamed to have these terrible instruments exhibited to the eye of modern civilization. Guilty as he was of stamping out the liberties of the Republic which he betrayed, he had too much consideration for the humanity of the nineteenth century to give it the shock of a sight of these fiendish instruments. There are, however, to be seen within these walls dark rooms, narrow passages, huge locks, heavy bars and bolts; enough of the ghosts of dead and buried fanaticism, superstition and bigotry to cause a man of modern times to shudder. Looking into the open and stony mouth of the dungeon into which heretics were hurled and out of which none were allowed to come alive, it required no effort of the imagination to create visions of the Inquisition, to see the terror-stricken faces, the tottering forms, and pleading tears of the accused, and the saintly satisfaction of the inquisitors while ridding the world of the representatives of unbelief and misbelief.
It is hard to think that men could from innocent motives thus punish their fellows, but such is, no doubt, the fact. They were conscientious, and felt that they were doing righteous service unto the Lord. They believed literally in cutting off right hands and plucking out right eyes. Heaven and hell were alike under their control. They believed that they had the keys, and they lived up to their convictions. They could smile when they heard bones crack in the stocks and saw the maiden's flesh torn from her bones. It is ​only the best things that serve the worst perversions. Many pious souls to-day hate the negro while they think they love the Lord. A difference of religion in the days of this old palace did for a man what a difference of color does for him in some quarters at this day; and though light has not dawned upon the color question as upon freedom of thought, it is to be hoped that it soon will. This old palace is no longer the home of saints, but the home of soldiers. It is no longer the stronghold of the church, but the stronghold of the state. The roll of the drum has taken the place of the bell for prayer. Martial law has taken the place of ecclesiastical law, and there is no doubt which is the more merciful.
Though Avignon awakened in us a train of gloomy thoughts, we still think of it as a charming old city. We went there with much curiosity and left it with much reluctance. It would be a pleasure to visit the old city again. No American tourist should go through the south of France without tarrying awhile within the walls of Avignon, and no one should visit that city without going through the old papal palace.
One of the oldest and most fascinating old towns met with in a trip from Paris to Marseilles is that of Arles. Its streets are the narrowest, queerest and crookedest of any yet seen in our journey. It speaks of Greek as well as of Roman civilization. The bits of marble picked up in the streets show that they have been under the skillful hands either of the Greek or Roman workmen. The old Amphitheater, a miniature Coliseum, where men fought with wild beasts amid the applauding shouts of ladies and gentlemen of the period, though used no longer for its old-time purposes, is in good condition and may yet stand for a thousand years. We were shown through its various apartments ​where the lions were kept, and the dens out of which they came to the arena, where, lashed to fury, they waged their bloody contests with men. A sight of this old theater of horrors, once strangely enough the place of amusement to thousands, makes one thankful that his lot is cast in our humane and enlightened age. There is, however, enough of the wild beast left in our modern human life to modify the pride of our enlightenment and humanity, and to remind us of our kinship with the people who once delighted in the brutality and cruelty practiced in this amphitheater. In this respect our newspapers tell us a sad story. They would not be filled with the details of prize-fights, and discussions of the brutal perfections of prize-fighters, if such things did not please the brutal proclivities of a large class of readers.
Another interesting object in Arles is a long line of granite coffins, buried here for ages and discovered at last by excavations for a railroad just outside of the town. These houses of the dead are well preserved, but the dust and ashes once their tenants are lost and scattered to the winds.
An hour or two after leaving this quaint and sinuous old town, we were confronted at Marseilles by the blue and tideless waters of the Mediterranean, a sea charming in itself and made more charming by the poetry and eloquence it has inspired. Its deep blue waters sparkling under a summer sun and a half tropical sky, fanned by balmy breezes from Afric's golden sand, was in fine contrast with the snow-covered mountains and plains we had just left behind us. Only a few hours before reaching Marseilles we were in mid-winter; but now all at once we were greeted with the lemon and the orange, the olive and the oleander, all flourishing under the open sky. The transition was so sudden and so agreeable ​and so completely in contrast, that it seemed more like magic than reality. Not only was the climate different, but the people and everything else seemed different. There was a visible blending of the orient with the occident. The sails of the ships, the rigging of the smaller vessels, the jib-like mainsails, and the general appearance of all, resembled the marine pictures of the East and made the whole scene novel, picturesque and attractive. A general view of that far-famed city made plainly visible in Marseilles the results of large wealth and active commerce as expressed in the far-reaching streets, large warehouses, and fine residences. We, however, cared less for all this than for Château D'If, the old prison anchored in the sea and around which the genius of Alexander Dumas has woven such a network of enchantment that a desire to visit it is irresistible; hence, the first morning after our arrival Mrs. Douglass and myself hired one of the numerous boats in the harbor and employed an old man to row us out to the enchanted scene. The morning was clear, bright and balmy. The distance was so great and the air so warm that the old man of the sea was quite ready to have me take a hand at the oars. After a long pull and a strong pull, as the sailors say, we reached the weird old rock from which Edmond Dantes was hurled. The reality of the scene was not of course up to the point as painted by Dumas. But we were glad to have seen it disrobed of the enchantment that distance and genius have thrown around it. It is a queer old place, surrounded by the sea, lone and desolate, standing boldly and high against the horizon, and the blue waves coming from afar dashing themselves against its sharp and flinty sides, made for us a picture most striking and not soon to be forgotten.
On our way along the far-famed Riviera to Genoa, ​ once the city of sea-kings and merchant princes, we, like most travelers, tarried awhile at Nice, that favorite resort of health and pleasure and one beautiful for situation. The outlook from it on the sea is enchanting, but no one should visit Nice with a lean purse, and a man with a full one will be wise not to tarry long. It was the most expensive place we found abroad.
Genoa, the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, the man who saw by an eye of faith the things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen, is a grand old city with its multitude of churches, numerous narrow streets, many-colored buildings, and splendid palaces. Looking out upon the sea I recalled to mind one of the finest pieces of word painting I ever heard from the lips of the late Wendell Phillips. He visited this city fifty years ago. He was then a young man fresh from his marriage tour of the continent of Europe. He was speaking on the platform of the old tabernacle in Broadway, New York, and criticising the conduct of our Government in refusing to unite with England and France to suppress the African slave-trade. While in Genoa, the correspondence between our Government and that of France and England was going on. General Cass, who represented us at the court of Louis Philippe, had placed our Government on the wrong side of this question. In this very city, standing perhaps on these very heights upon which I stood looking off to sea, Mr. Phillips saw our well-known ship of war, the Ohio, lying in the harbor, and thus describes the feeling with which he contemplated that ship in view of our attitude towards other nations in regard to the slave-trade. With a face expressive of indignation, shame and scorn, Phillips said, "As I stood upon the shores of Genoa, and saw floating upon the placid waters of the Mediterranean our beautiful American ship, the Ohio, with masts tapering ​proportionately aloft and an Eastern sun reflecting her graceful form upon the waters, attracting the view of the multitude upon the shore, it was enough to pride any American heart to think himself an American; but when I thought that in all probability the first time that gallant ship would gird on her gorgeous apparel and wake from her sides her dormant thunders it would be in defense of the African slave-trade, I could but blush and hang my head to think myself an American."
This fine passage in the speech of Wendell Phillips, uttered when I was new from slavery, was one element in my desire to see Genoa and to look out upon the sea from the same height upon which he stood. At the time of hearing it I had no idea that I should ever realize this desire.
Like most Italian cities, Genoa upholds the reputation of its country in respect of art. The old masters in painting and sculpture—and their name is legion—are still largely represented in the palaces of the merchant princes of this city. One of its singular features is the abundance of fresco work seen on both the inside and the outside of buildings. One feels emphatically the presence and power of the Roman Catholic Church in the multitude of shrines seen everywhere and containing pictures of apostles or saints, or the Virgin Mother and the infant Jesus. But of all the interesting objects collected in the Museum of Genoa, the one that touched me most was the violin that had belonged to and been played upon by Paganini, the greatest musical genius of his time. This violin is treasured in a glass case and beyond the touch of careless fingers, a thing to be seen and not handled. There are some things and places made sacred by their uses and by the events with which they are associated, especially those which have in any measure changed the current of human taste, thought, ​and life, or which have revealed new powers and triumphs of the human soul. The pen with which Lincoln wrote the emancipation proclamation, the sword worn by Washington through the war of the Revolution, though of the same material and form of other pens and swords, have an individual character, and stir in the minds of men peculiar sensations. So this old violin, made after the pattern of others and perhaps not more perfect in its construction and tone than hundreds seen elsewhere, detained me longer and interested me more than anything else in the Museum of Genoa. Emerson says, "It is not the thing said, but the man behind it, that is important." So it was not this old violin, but the marvelous man behind it, the man who had played on it and played as never man played before, and thrilled the hearts of thousands by his playing, that made it a precious object in my eyes. Owing perhaps to my love of music and of the violin in particular, I would have given more for that old violin of wood, horse-hair, and catgut than for any one of the long line of pictures I saw before me. I desired it on account of the man who had played upon it—the man who revealed its powers and possibilities as they were never known before. This was his old violin, his favorite instrument, the companion of his toils and triumphs, the solace of his private hours, the minister to his soul in his battles with sin and sorrow. It had delighted thousands. Men had listened to it with admiration and wonder. It had filled the largest halls of Europe with a concord of sweet sounds. It had even stirred the dull hearts of courts, kings and princes, and revealed to them their kinship to common mortals as perhaps had been done by no other instrument. It was with some difficulty that I moved away from this old violin of Paginini.
Never to be forgotten by one who has enjoyed it is a ​morning at Pisa, the city of the leaning tower; a city renowned in Italian history. Though still possessing many imposing buildings, like many other once famous places its glory has departed. Its grand old cathedral, baptistery, and leaning tower are the features that most attract the attention of the tourist. The baptistery is especially interesting for its acoustic properties. The human voice heard here has imparted to it the richest notes of the organ, and goes on repeating and prolonging itself, increasing in volume and ranging higher and higher in ascent till lost in whispers almost divine at the very top of the dome.
But no American sensitive and responsive to what is old, grand and historic, with his face towards the East and the city of Rome only a few hours away, will tarry long even in this fine old city of Pisa. Like the mysterious loadstone to steel, he is attracted by an invisible power, and the attraction increases with every step of his approach. All that one has ever read, heard, felt, thought, or imagined concerning Rome comes thronging upon mind and heart and makes one eager and impatient to be there. The privilege of daylight was denied us on our arrival, and our first glimpse of Rome was by the light of moon and stars. More unfortunate still, we were landed in the new part of the city, which contradicted all our dreams of the Eternal City. To all appearances we might have been dropped down at any railway station in Paris, London or New York, or at some of the grand hotels at Saratoga or Coney Island. At this station were long rows of carriages, coaches, omnibuses and other vehicles, with their usual accompaniment of drivers, porters and runners, clamorous for passengers for their several hotels. All was more like an American town of the latest pattern than a city whose foundations were laid nearly a thousand years before the flight of Joseph ​and Mary into Egypt. We were disappointed by this intensely modern aspect. It was not the Rome we came to see. But the disappointment was temporary, and happily enough the first impression heightened the effect of the subsequent happy realization of what we had expected. With the light of day, the Eternal City, seated on its throne of seven hills, fully gave us all it had promised, banished every feeling of disappointment, and filled our minds with ever-increasing wonder and amazement. In all directions were disclosed those indications of her ancient greatness for which we were looking, and of her fitness to be the seat of the most powerful empire that man had ever seen—truly the mistress of the known world and for a thousand years the recognized metropolis of the Christian faith and the head still of the largest organized church in the world. Here can be seen together the symbols of both Christian and pagan Rome; the temples of discarded gods and those of the accepted Saviour of the world, the Son of the Virgin Mary. Empires, principalities, powers, and dominions have perished; altars and their gods have mingled with the dust; a religion which made men virtuous in peace and invincible in war has perished or been supplanted, yet the Eternal City itself remains. It speaks from the spacious Forum, yet studded with graceful but time-worn columns, where Cicero poured out his burning eloquence against Catiline and against Antony, for which latter speech he lost his head; from the Palatine, from whose summit the palaces of the Cæsars overlooked a large part of the ancient city; and from the Pantheon, built twenty-seven years before the songs of the angels were heard on the plains of Bethlehem, and of which Byron says:—
"Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime, Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods,
. . . spared and blessed by time; Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods Arch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plods His way through thorns to ashes—glorious dome! Shalt thou not last? Time's scythe and tyrant's rods Shiver upon thee—sanctuary and home Of art and piety—Pantheon!—pride of Rome!"
Though two thousand years have rolled over it, and though the beautiful marble which once adorned and protected its exterior has been torn off and made to serve other and inferior purposes, there, speaking to us of ages past, it stands, erect and strong, and may stand yet a thousand years longer. Its walls, twenty feet thick, give few signs of decay. More than any building I saw in Rome, it tells of the thoroughness of the Romans in everything they thought it worth their while to undertake to be or to do.
Hardly less indicative of their character did we find the remains of the stupendous Baths of Titus, Diocletian, and Caracalla, among the ruins of whose spacious apartments, designed to fulfill every conceivable condition of ease and luxury, one needs not to consult Gibbon for the causes of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. The lap of luxury and the pursuit of ease and pleasure are death to manly courage, energy, will, and enterprise.
None of the splendid arches, recalling as they do the glories of Rome's triumphs, can, by the reflective mind, be contemplated with a deeper, sadder interest than is indelibly associated with that of Titus, commemorating the destruction of the unhappy Jews and making public to a pagan city the desecration of all that was most sacred to the religion of that despised people. This arch is an object which must forever be a painful one to every Jew, since it reminds him of the loss of his ​beloved Jerusalem. Surely none who have never suffered a like scorn can adequately feel for their humiliation, as they, for their abasement, were forced to pass beneath that arch whose sculptured sides portrayed the sacred vessels torn, in the profanation of their Temple, from its Holy of Holies.
Among other objects calling up ancient events in the history of Rome, stands the Column of Trajan, after which Napoleon's monument in Paris was modeled. It tells of the many battles fought and won by Trajan, and is a beautiful column. Though now slowly yielding to the wasting touch of Time, we may still say of it as was once said by the great Daniel Webster of Bunker Hill Monument: "It looks, it speaks, it acts." It certainly is a memorial of the past, a monitor of the present, though it may not be a hope of the future. In sight of the palaces of the Caesars and the Temple of the Vestal Virgins and the Capitoline Hill, darkening the horizon with its somber and time-defying walls, rises the immense and towering form of the Coliseum,—an ancient hell of human horrors,—where the élite of Rome enjoyed the sport of seeing men torn to pieces by hungry and infuriated lions and tigers and by each other. No building more elaborate, vast and wonderful than this has risen since the Tower of Babel.
While the old part of Rome has antiquities of its own, the new part has antiquities from abroad. There are here fourteen obelisks from Egypt, one of the finest of which adorns the square in front of St. Peter's.
The streets of Rome, except in the newest part, are generally very narrow, and the houses on either side of them being very high, there is much more shade than sunshine in them, and hence the remarkably chilly atmosphere of which strangers complain. Yet the city is not without redeeming and compensating features. ​It has many fine open spaces and public squares, supplied with large flowing fountains, and adorned with various attractive deviccs, where the people have abundant pure water, fresh air, and bright, health-giving sun-light.
Of street life in Rome I must not speak except to mention one feature of it which overtops all others, and that is the part taken both consciously and unconsciously by members of various bodies of the church. All that we see and hear impresses us with the gigantic, all-pervading, complicated, accumulated and mysteterious power of this great religious and political organization. Wherever else the Roman Church may question its own strength and practice a modest reserve, here she is open, free, self-asserting and bold in her largest assumptions. She writes indulgences over her gateways as boldly to-day as if Luther had never lived, and she jingles the keys of heaven and hell as confidently as if her right to do so had never been called into question. About every fifth man met with holds some official relation to this stupendous and far-reaching body and is at work in some way to maintain its power, ascendancy and glory. Religion seems to be in Rome the chief business by which men live. Throngs of young students of all lands and languages march through the streets at all hours of the day, but never unattended. Experienced, well-dressed, discreet and dignified ecclesiastics attend them everywhere. On the surface these dear young people, so pure and in the full fresh bloom of youth, are beautiful to look upon; but when you reflect that they are being trained to defend dogmas and superstitions contrary to the progress and enlightenment of the age, the spectacle becomes sad indeed.
In contrast to them are other specimens of religious ​zeal, neither pleasant to the eye, to the touch nor even to the thought. They are the vacant-faced, bare-legged, grimy monks, who have taken a vow neither to marry, nor to work, nor to wash, and who live by prayer; who beg and pay for what they get by praying for the donors. It is strange that such fanaticism is encouraged by a church so worldly-wise as that of Rome; and yet in this I may be less wise than the church. She may have a use for them too occult for my dim vision.
​ The outside of St. Peter's and her three hundred sister churches and the many-storied Vatican give no hint of the wealth and grandeur within them. As in its day pagan Rome drew tribute from all the known world, so the Church of Rome to-day receives gifts from all the Christian world, our own republican country included, and the end is not yet. Even a President of the United States sends his presents to his Holiness the Pope. A look into some of these Romish churches will show that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. All that architecture, sculpture, and fine colors can do, all that art and skill can do to render them beautiful and imposing, has been done in these magnificent edifices. St. Peter's, by its vastness, wealth, splendor, and architectural perfections, acts upon us like some great and overpowering natural wonder. It awes us into silent, speechless admiration. One is at a loss to know how the amplitudinous and multitudinous whole that is there displayed to view has been brought together. The more one sees of it the more impressive and wonderful it becomes. Several other churches are very little inferior to St. Peter's in this wealth and splendor. For one, however, I was much more interested in the Rome of the past than in the Rome of the present; in the banks of its Tiber with their history than in the images, angels and pictures on the walls of its splendid churches; in the preaching of Paul eighteen hundred years ago than in the preaching of the priests and popes of to-day. The fine silks and costly jewels and vestments of the priests of the present could hardly have been dreamed of by the first great preacher of Christianity at Rome, who lived in his own hired house, and whose hands ministered to his own necessities. It was something to feel ourselves standing where this brave man stood, looking ​on the place where he lived, and walking on the same Appian Way where he walked, when, having appealed to Cæsar, he was bravely on the way to this same Rome to meet his fate, whether that should be life or death. This was more to me than being shown, as we were, under the dome of St. Peter's, the head of St. Luke in a casket, a piece of the true cross, a lock of the Virgin Mary's hair, and the leg-bone of Lazarus; or any of the wonderful things in that line palmed off on a credulous and superstitious people. In one of these churches we were shown a great doll, covered with silks and jewels and all manner of strange devices, and this wooden baby was solemnly credited with miraculous power in healing the sick and averting many of the evils to which flesh is heir. In the same church we were, with equal solemnity, shown a print of the devil's cloven foot in the hard stone. I could but ask myself what the devil could a devil be doing in such a holy place. I had some curiosity in seeing devout people going up to the black statue of St. Peter—I was glad to find him black; I have no prejudice against his color—and kissing the old fellow's big toe, one side of which has been nearly worn away by these devout and tender salutes of which it has been the cold subject. In seeing these, one may well ask himself, What will not men believe? Crowds of men and women going up a stairway on their knees; monks making ornaments of dead men's bones; others refusing to wash themselves,—and all in order to secure the favor of God,—give a degrading idea of man's relation to the Infinite Author of the universe. But there is no reasoning with faith. It is doubtless a great comfort to these people, after all, to have kissed the great toe of the black image of the Apostle Peter, and to have bruised their knees in substituting them for feet in ascending a stairway, called the Scala Santa. ​I felt, in looking upon these religious shows in Rome, as the late Benjamin Wade said he felt at a negro camp-meeting, where there were much howling, shouting, and jumping: "This is nothing to me, but it surely must be something to them."
​Naples is a great city, and its bay is all that its fame has taught us to expect. Its beautiful surroundings rich with historical associations would easily keep one lingering for months. Pompeii, Herculaneum, Puteoli where St. Paul landed from his perilous voyage to Rome; the tomb of Virgil; the spot still traceable where stood one of the villas of Cicero; the islands of Capri and Ischia, and a thousand other objects full of worthy interest, afford constant activity to both reflection and imagination. Mrs. Douglass and myself were much indebted to the kindness of Rev. J. C. Fletcher and wife during our stay in this celebrated city.
When once an American tourist has quitted Rome and has felt the balmy breezes of the Mediterranean; has seen the beautiful Bay of Naples; reveled in the wonders of its neighborhood; stood at the base of Vesuvius; surveyed the narrow streets, the majestic halls, and the luxurious houses of long-buried Pompeii; stood upon the spot where the great apostle Paul first landed at Puteoli after his eventful and perilous voyage on his way to Rome,—he is generally seized with an ardent desire to wander still farther eastward and southward. Sicily will tempt him, and once there, and his face turned towards the rising sun, he will want to see Egypt, the Suez Canal, the Libyan desert, the wondrous Nile—land of obelisks and hieroglyphys which men are so well learning to read; land of sphinxes and mummies many thousand years old, of great pyramids and colossal ruins that speak to us of a civilization which extends back into the misty shadows of the past, far beyond the reach and grasp of authentic history. The more he has seen of modern civilization in England, France and Italy, the more he will want to see the traces of that civilization which existed when these ​countries of Europe were inhabited by barbarians. When once so near to this more renowned and ancient abode of civilization, the scene of so many Bible events and wonders, the desire to see it becomes almost irresistible.
I confess, however, that my desire to visit Egypt did not rest entirely upon the basis thus foreshadowed. I had a motive far less enthusiastic and sentimental; an ethnological purpose in the pursuit of which I hoped to turn my visit to some account in combating American prejudice against the darker colored races of mankind, and at the same time to raise colored people somewhat in their own estimation and thus stimulate them to higher endeavors. I had a theory for which I wanted the support of facts in the range of my own knowledge. But more of this in another place.
The voyage from Naples to Port Said on a good steamer is accomplished in four days, and in fine weather it is a very delightful one. In our case, air, sea and sky assumed their most amiable behavior, and early dawn found us face to face with old Stromboli, whose cone-shaped summit seems to rise almost perpendicularly from the sea. We pass through the straits of Messina, leave behind us the smoke and vapor of Mount Etna, and in three days are safely anchored in front of Port Said, the west end of the Suez Canal, that stupendous work which has brought the occident face to face with the orient and changed the route taken by the commerce of the world; which has brought Australia within forty days of England, and saved the men who go down to the sea in ships much of the time and danger once their lot in finding their way to the East around the Cape of Good Hope.
At Port Said, where we entered the Suez Canal, the vessels of all nations halt. The few houses that make ​up the town look white, new and temporary, reminding one of some of the hastily built wooden towns of the American frontier, where there is much space outside and little within. Here our good ship, the Ormuz, the largest vessel that had then ever floated through the Suez Canal, stopped to take in a large supply of coal prior to proceeding on her long voyage to Australia. Great barges loaded with this fuel stored there from England for the purpose of coaling her eastern-bound vessels, were brought alongside of our steamer and their contents soon put on board by a small army of Arabs. It was something to see these men of the desert at work. As I looked at them and listened to their fun and frolic while bearing their heavy burdens, I said to myself: "You fellows are, at least in your disposition, half brothers to the negro." The negro works best and hardest when it is no longer work, but becomes play with joyous singing. These children of the desert performed their task in like manner, amid shouts of laughter and tricks of fun, as if their hard work were the veriest sport. In color these Arabs are something between two riding-saddles, the one old and the other new. They are a little lighter than the one and a little darker than the other. I did not see a single fat man among them. They were erect and strong, lean and sinewy. Their strength and fleetness were truly remarkable. They tossed the heavy bags of coal on their shoulders and trotted on board our ship with them for hours without halt or weariness. Lank in body, slender in limb, full of spirit, they reminded one of blooded horses. It was the month of February, and the water by no means warm, but these people seemed about as much at home in the water as on the land, and gave us some fine specimens of their swimming and diving ability. Passengers would throw small coins into the water for the interest ​of seeing them dive for them; and this they did with almost fish-like swiftness, and never failed to bring from the bottom the coveted sixpence or franc, as the case might be, and to show it between their white teeth as they came to the surface.
Slowly and carefully moving through the canal an impressive scene was presented to the eye. Nothing in my American experience ever gave me such a deep sense of unearthly silence, such a sense of vast, profound, unbroken sameness and solitude, as did this passage through the Suez Canal, moving smoothly and noiselessly between two spade-built banks of yellow sand, watched over by the jealous care of England and France, two rival powers each jealous of the other. We find here, too, the motive and mainspring of English Egyptian occupation and of English policy. On either side stretches a sandy desert, to which the eye, even with the aid of the strongest field-glass, can find no limit but the horizon; land where neither tree, shrub nor vegetation of any kind, nor human habitation breaks the view. All is flat, broad, silent, dreamy and unending solitude. There appears occasionally away in the distance a white line of life which only makes the silence and solitude more pronounced. It is a line of flamingoes, the only bird to be seen in the desert, making us wonder what they find upon which to subsist. But here, too, is another sign of life, wholly unlooked for, and for which it is hard to account. It is the half-naked, hungry form of a human being, a young Arab, who seems to have started up out of the yellow sand under his feet, for no town, village, house or shelter is seen from which he could have emerged; but here he is, and he is as lively as a cricket, running by the ship's side up and down the sandy banks for miles and for hours with the speed of a horse and the endurance of a hound, ​plaintively shouting as he runs: "Backsheesh! Backsheesh! Backsheesh!" and only stopping in the race to pick up the pieces of bread and meat thrown to him from the ship. Far away in the distance, through the quivering air and sunlight, a mirage appears. Now it is a splendid forest and now a refreshing lake. The illusion is perfect. It is a forest without trees and a lake without water. As one travels on, the mirage travels also, but its distance from the observer remains ever the same.
After more than a day and a night on this weird, silent, and dreamy canal, under a cloudless sky, almost unconscious of motion, yet moving on and on without pause and without haste, through a noiseless, treeless, houseless, and seemingly endless wilderness of sand, where not even the crowing of a cock or the barking of a dog is heard, we were transferred to a smart little French steamer and landed at Ismalia, where, since leaving the new and shambling town of Port Said, we see the first sign of civilization and begin to realize that we are entering the land of the Pharaohs.
Here the Khedive has one of his many palaces, and here and there are a few moderately comfortable dwellings with two or three hotels and a railroad station. How and by what means the people in this place live is a mystery. For miles around there is no sign of grain or grass or vegetation of any kind. Here we first caught sight of the living locomotive of the East, that marvelous embodiment of strength, docility, and obedience, of patient endurance of hunger and thirst—the camel. I have large sympathy with all burden-bearers, whether they be men or beasts, and having read of the gentle submission of the camel to hardships and abuse, of how he will kneel to receive his heavy burden and groan to have it made lighter, I was glad right here in the edge of Egypt to have a visible ​illustration of these qualities of the animal. I saw him kneel and saw the heavy load of sand put on his back; I saw him try to rise under its weight and heard his sad moan. I had at the moment much the same feeling as when I first saw a gang of slaves chained together and shipped to a foreign market.
A long line of camels attended by three or four Arabs came slowly moving over the desert. This spectacle, more than the language or customs of the people, gave me a vivid impression of Eastern life; a picture of it as it was in the days of Abraham and Moses. In this wide waste, under this cloudless sky, star-lighted by night and by a fierce blazing sun by day, where even the wind seems voiceless, it was natural for men to look up to the sky and stars and contemplate the universe and infinity above and around them; the signs and wonders in the heavens above and in the earth beneath. In such loneliness, silence and expansiveness, imagination is unchained and man has naturally a deeper sense of the Infinite Presence than is to be felt in the noise and bustle of the towns and men-crowded cities. Religious ideas have come to us from the wilderness, from mountain tops, from dens and caves, and from the vast silent spaces from which come the mirage and other shadowy illusions which create rivers, lakes and forests where there are none. The song of the angels could be better heard by the shepherds on the plains of Bethlehem than by the jostling crowds in the busy streets of Jerusalem. John the Baptist could preach better in the wilderness than in the busy marts of men. Jesus said his best word to the world when on the Mount of Olives. Moses learned more of the laws of God when in the mountains than when down among the people. The Hebrew prophets frequented dens and caves and desert places. John ​saw his wonderful vision in the Isle of Patmos with naught in sight but the sea and sky. It was in a lonely place that Jacob wrestled with the angel. The Transfiguration was on a mountain. No wonder that Moses wandering in the vast and silent desert, after killing an Egyptian and brooding over the oppressed condition of his people, should hear the voice of Jehovah saying, "I have seen the affliction of my people." Paul was not in Damascus, but on his lonely way thither, when he heard a voice from heaven. The heart beats louder and the soul hears quicker in silence and solitude. It was from the vastness and silence of the desert that Mahomet learned his religion, and once he thought he had discovered man's true relation to the Infinite he proclaimed himself a prophet and began to preach with that sort of authority and power which never failed to make converts.
Such speculations were for me ended by the startling whistle of the locomotive and the sound of the rushing train—things which put an end to religious reveries and fix attention upon the things of this busy world. In passing through the land of Goshen I experienced a thrill of satisfaction in viewing the scene of one of the most affecting stories ever written—the story of Jacob; how his sons were compelled by famine to go into Egypt to buy corn; how they sold their young brother Joseph into slavery; how they came home with a lie upon their lips to hide their treachery and cruelty; how the slave boy Joseph gained favor in the eyes of Pharaoh; how these brothers who had sold him were again by famine brought face to face with Joseph who stipulated that the only condition upon which he could again see them was that they should bring their young brother Benjamin with them; how Jacob plaintively appealed against this arrangement by which his gray ​hair might be brought down in sorrow to the grave, and finally, through the good offices of Joseph, the happy settlement of the whole family in this fertile land of Goshen. Than this simple tale nothing has been written, nothing can be found in literature, more pathetic and touching. Here was the land of Goshen, with fields yet green, its camels still grazing and its corn still growing as when Jacob and his sons with their flocks and herds were settled in it three thousand years ago.
The fertilizing power of the Nile, wherever the land is overflowed by it, is very marked, especially in contrast with the sandy desert. It is seen in the deep black and glossy soil, and in the thick and full growth and deep green color of its vegetation. No fences divide field from field and define the possession of different proprietors. To all appearance the land might belong to one man alone. The overflow of the Nile explains this feature of the country, as its mighty floods would sweep away such barriers. The mode of grazing cattle is to us peculiar. The donkeys, horses, cows and camels are not allowed to roam over the field as with us, but are tethered to stakes driven down in the ground. They eat all before them, leaving the land behind them as though it had been mowed with a scythe or a sickle. They present a pleasant picture, standing in rows like soldiers, with their heads towards the tall vegetation and seemingly as orderly as civilized people at their dining-tables.
Every effort is made to get as much of the Nile water as possible. Ditches are cut, ponds are made, and men are engaged day and night in dipping it up and having it placed where it is most needed. The two processes adopted by which to raise this water are the shâdûf and the sâkiyeh. Long lines of women are sometimes ​seen with heavy earthen jars on their heads distributing this precious fertilizing water over the thirsty land. Seeing the value of this water and how completely the life of man and beast is dependent upon it, one cannot wonder at the deep solicitude with which its rise is looked for, watched and measured.
Egypt may have invented the plow, but it has not improved upon the invention. The kind used there is perhaps as old as the time of Moses, and consists of two or three pieces of wood so arranged that the end of one piece turns no furrow, but simply scratches the soil. Still, in the distance, the man who holds this contrivance and the beast that draws it look very much as if they were plowing. I am told, however, that this kind of plow does better service for the peculiar soil of Egypt than ours would do; that the experiment of tilling the ground with our plow has been tried in Egypt and has failed; so that the cultivation of the soil, like many other things, is best where it answers its purposes best and produces the best results.
Cairo with its towers, minarets and mosques presents a strangely fascinating scene, especially from the citadel, where away off in the distance, rising between the yellow desert and the soft blue cloudless sky, we discern the unmistakable forms of those mysterious piles of masonry, the Pyramids. According to one theory they were built for sepulchral purposes; and according to another they were built for a standard of measurement, but neither theory has perhaps entirely set aside the other, and both may be wrong. There they stand, however, grandly, in sight of Cairo, just in the edge of the Libyan desert and overlooking the valley of the Nile, as they have stood during more than three thousand years and are likely to stand as many thousand ​years longer, for nothing grows old here but time, and that lives on forever.
One of the first exploits a tourist is tempted to perform here is to ascend to the top of the highest Pyramid. The task is by no means an easy one, nor is it entirely free from danger. It is clearly dangerous if undertaken without the assistance of two or more guides. You need them not only to show you where to put your feet, but to lift you over the huge blocks of stone of which the Pyramids are built, for some of these stones are from three to four feet in thickness and height. Neither in ascending nor descending is it safe to look down. One misstep and all is over. I went, with seventy years on my head, to the top of the highest Pyramid, but nothing in the world would tempt me to try the experiment again. I had two Arabs before me pulling, and two at my back pushing, but the main work I had to do myself. I did not recover from the terrible strain in less than two weeks. I paid dearly for the venture. Still, it was worth something to stand for once on such a height and above the work and the world below. Taking the view altogether—the character of the surroundings, the great unexplained and inexplicable Sphinx, the Pyramids and other wonders of Sakkara, the winding river of the valley of the Nile, the silent, solemn and measureless desert, the seats of ancient Memphis and Heliopolis, the distant mosques, minarets, and stately palaces, the ages and events that have swept over the scene and the millions on millions that lived, wrought and died there—there are stirred in the one who beholds it for the first time thoughts and feelings never thought and felt before. While nothing could tempt me to climb the rugged jagged, steep and perilous sides of the Great Pyramid ​again, yet I am very glad to have had the experience once, and once is enough for a lifetime.
I have spoken of the prevalence and power at Rome of the Christian Church and religion and of the strange things believed and practiced there in the way of religious rites and ceremonies. The religion and church of Egypt, though denounced as a fraud and their author branded throughout Christendom as an impostor, are not less believed in and followed in Egypt than the church and Christianity are believed in and followed at Rome. Two hundred millions of people follow Mahomet to-day, and the number is increasing. Annually in Cairo twelve thousand students study the Koran with a view to preaching its doctrines in Africa and elsewhere. So sacred do these people hold their mosques that a Christian is not allowed to enter them without putting off his shoes and putting on Mahometan slippers. If Rome has its unwashed monks, Cairo has its howling and dancing dervishes, and both seem equally deaf to the dictates of reason. The dancing and howling dervishes often spin around in their religious transports till their heads lose control and they fall to the floor sighing, groaning, and foaming at the mouth like madmen, reminding one of scenes that sometimes occur at our own old-fashioned camp-meetings.
It is not within the scope and purpose of this supplement of my story to give an extended account of my travels or to tell all I have seen and heard and felt. I had strange dreams of travel even in my boyhood days. I thought I should some day see many of the famous places of which I heard men speak, and of which I read even while a slave. During my visit to England, as I have before said, I had a strong desire to go to France, and should have done so but for a Mr. George M. Dallas, who was then minister to England. He refused ​to give me a passport on the ground that I was not and could not be an American citizen. This man is now dead and generally forgotten, as I shall be; but I have lived to see myself everywhere recognized as an American citizen. In view of my disappointment and the repulse I met with at the hands of this American minister, my gratification was all the more intense that I was not only permitted to visit France and see something of life in Paris; to walk the streets of that splendid city and spend days and weeks in her charming art galleries, but to extend my tour to other lands and visit other cities; to look upon Egypt; to stand on the summit of its highest Pyramid; to walk among the ruins of old Memphis; to gaze into the dead eyes of Pharaoh; to feel the smoothness of granite tombs polished by Egyptian workmen three thousand years ago; to see the last remaining obelisk of Heliopolis; to view the land of Goshen; to sail on the bosom of the Nile; to pass in sight of Crete, looking from the deck of our steamer perhaps as it did when Paul saw it on the voyage to Rome eighteen hundred years ago; to walk among the marble ruins of the Acropolis; to stand upon Mars Hill, where Paul preached; to ascend Lycabettus and overlook the plains of Marathon, the gardens of Plato, and the rock where Demosthenes declaimed against the breezes of the sea; to gaze upon the Parthenon, the Temple of Theseus, the Temple of Wingless Victory, and the Theatre of Dionysius. To think that I, once a slave on the eastern shore of Maryland, was experiencing all this was well calculated to intensify my feeling of good fortune by reason of contrast, if nothing more. A few years back my Sundays were spent on the banks of the Chesapeake Bay, bemoaning my condition and looking out from the farm of Edward Covey, and, with a heart aching to be on their decks, watching the white sails of the ships ​passing off to sea. Now I was enjoying what the wisest and best of the world have bestowed for the wisest and best to enjoy.
Touching at Naples, we returned to Rome, where the longer one stays the longer one wants to stay. No place is better fitted to withdraw one from the noise and bustle of modern life and fill one's soul with solemn reflections and thrilling sensations. Under one's feet and all around are the ashes of human greatness. Here, according to the age and body of its time, human ambition reached its topmost height and human power its utmost limit. The lesson of the vanity of all things is taught in deeply buried palaces, in fallen columns, in defaced monuments, in decaying arches, and in crumbling walls; all perishing under the silent and destructive force of time and the steady action of the elements, in utter mockery of the pride and power of the great people by whom they were called into existence.
Next to Rome, in point of interest to me, is the classic city of Florence, and thither we went from the Eternal City. One might never tire of what is here to be seen. The first thing Mrs. Douglass and I did, on our arrival in Florence, was to visit the grave of Theodore Parker and at the same time that of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The preacher and the poet lie near each other. The soul of each was devoted to liberty. The brave stand taken by Theodore Parker during the anti-slavery conflict endeared him to my heart, and naturally enough the spot made sacred by his ashes was the first to draw me to its side. He had a voice for the slave when nearly all the pulpits of the land were dumb. Looking upon the little mound of earth that covered his dust, I felt the pathos of his simple grave. It did not seem well that the remains of the great American preacher should rest thus in a foreign ​soil, far away from the hearts and hands which would gladly linger about it and keep it well adorned with flowers. Than Theodore Parker no man was more intensely American. Broad as the land in his sympathy with mankind, he was yet a loving son of New England and thoroughly Bostonian in his thoughts, feelings and activities. The liberal thought which he taught had in his native land its natural home and largest welcome, and I therefore felt that his dust should have been brought here. It was in his pulpit that I made my first anti-slavery speech in Roxbury. That its doors opened to me in that dark period was due to him. I remember, too, his lovingkindness when I was persecuted for my change of opinion as to political action. Theodore Parker never joined that warfare upon me. He loved Mr. Garrison, but was not a Garrisonian. He worked with the sects, but was not a sectarian. His character was cast in a mold too large to be pressed into a form or reform less broad than humanity. He would shed his blood as quickly for a black fugitive slave pursued by human hounds as for a white President of the United States. He was the friend of the non-voting and non-resistant class of Abolitionists, but not less the friend of Henry Wilson, Charles Sumner, Gerrit Smith and John Brown. He was the large and generous brother of all men, honestly endeavoring to bring about the abolition of negro slavery. It has lately been attempted to class him with the contemners of the negro. Could that be established, it would convict him of duplicity and hypocrisy of the most revolting kind. But his whole life and character are in direct contradiction to that assumption.
Its ducal palaces, its grand Duomo, its fine galleries of art, its beautiful Arno, its charming environs, and its many associations of great historical personages, ​especially of Michel Angelo, Dante and Savonarola, give it a controlling power over mind and heart. I have traveled over no equal space between any two cities in Italy where the scenery was more delightful than that between Florence and Venice. I enjoyed it with the ardor of a boy to whom all the world is new. Born and raised in a flat country without the diversity of hill and valley, mountains have always attracted me. Those in sight on this journey were far away, but lost nothing by the soft haze that blended their dark summits with the clouds and sky. There were, too, the mountains of the Tyrol, the scene of the patriotic exploits of Hofer and his countrymen. The railway between Florence and Venice is over some of the oldest and best cultivated parts of Italy. The land is rich and fruitful. Every outlook has the appearance of thrift. There is not a single point upon which to hang the reproach of laziness so commonly charged against the Italians. I saw in Italy nothing to justify this unenviable reputation. In city and country alike the people seemed to me remarkably industrious and well provided with food and raiment.
I could tell much of the once famous city of Venice, of Milan, Lucerne, and other points subsequently visited; but it is enough that I have given my readers an idea of the use I made of my time during this absence from the scenes and activities that occupied me at home. I assume that they will rejoice that after my life of hardships in slavery and of conflict with race and color prejudice and proscription at home, there was left to me a space in life when I could and did walk the world unquestioned, a man among men.