Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-06-22
The Emphatic Announcement OF
Her Arrival in Rome.
What One Expects and What is Really
Seen in the Great City-Its Looks
from the Outside.
A Striking Illustration Of the strests-In He-
Next She will Tell The Gazette Readers
How she Saw tas Pope.
,pecial eorre.pondenee OF the Gazette.

u
region OF Monte Cetorio knew when we
arrived in Rome. 1t was IL o'clock at
night as we sat in the CARR ge before the
| Pension de l'Union, surrounded by an
ever thickeni crowd, while the cab
man and the porter of the pension were
talking and shouting and getting more
furious every moment. 1t seems the
cabman was demanding exorbitant pay +,
and he was enraged that instead of two
ladies TO bully, here was bulky-n osed
Phillipo, ready to fight to the blood. Be-
fore we knew what it all meant, Phillipo
had found a policeman, but this made
more noise and drew more people. for
| the whole case had to be re-
hearsed before the judge. 1 understood
little of it: ''The signora ought to
have paid it herself!' was one of the
cabman s arguments. f'She can It talk
italian, - responded Phillipo decIsively.
"She CAM She said Monte Cetorio!' -
| but iE. spite of this evidence, Phillipo
gained the cause for us; the crowd dis
| persed and we were arrived in Rome.
WHAT ONE EXPECTS OF ROME.
1 hardly know what it is one expects
to see in Rome as city. l had vague
| idea of ruins and hills, of glorious
chu ches, of fine palaces, of quaint,
narrow old streets, and spacious new
ones, and over it all kind of an ancient,
shadowy, sleepy, glorified atmosphere
that wraps up the visitor and carries him
from wonder to wonder in a dream of
the past. At least had not expected to
find Rome simply modern city without
- fY,lr-
looks that way from the outside. The
hundreds of fine churches make no fine
external show; sometimes just a dome or
tower will distinguish a church from a
square block of buildings: the medieval
palaces are more square blocks, and the
Tiber is the greatest fraud of all. Never
again will Macauley stir up any senti-
ment in me about Father Tiberi' He
is simply the most stupid old slow coach
of river imaginable; heavy and yellow
with mud he sinks along between banks
of mud, forgetful of all his historic in
terest, in fact too muddy headed to have
ever realized the greatness of his
position among rivers. Anyway, he has
forgotten all about Romulus and Remus,
or Horatio, or Brutus, or Cassius, CT he
could not look so impeuetrably stupid
l think oven poor wretches would prefer
to commit suicide in some more interest
ing way than to drown themselves il lie
mud of the Tiber.
VERY LITTLE ROMANTIC TENDERNESS.
1t would seem that the present govern
ment has very little romantic tenderness
for old Rome. Its policy is to wipe out
the quaintness, to level the seven historic
hills, to tear down the old houses and
make Rome commonplace city of COM
a.
what else one could expect. Modern
Romans are naturally sverse to tumble
down dwellings,, and of going over two
or three hills on their way to business,
but it must be always somewhat of dis
appointment to the tourist to find the
eternal city merely the capital of united
Italy. Rome is not dreaming about her
past; she is wide awake, and her chief
interest in the past is the money to be
made out of it. She cherishes her an
tiquities as Investments; she paints them
and photographs them, and charges ad-
mission TO them. Every scrap of old
glass or bronze dug up by the peasants is
carefully boarded and sold at fancy
prices, and there are manufactures for
the making of new antiqufsies, so that
while there Is glass and bronze in the
world, tourists will always be able to buy
''old' Roman lamps and "ancient'
tear-jugs.
AN ILLUSTRATIVE DIAGRAM.
To throw box of matches loose on the
table would give an idea of the general
plan of Rome. There are no particularly
fine, wide streets, but neither are the
streets picturesquely narrow. Only the
very finest ones have little shelves of
sidewalks; in all others the mule team
- 81.
of the shops or dwellings, and one fire.
quently has to dive over a door-sill to
avoid being run over. Never have 1
come into such close relation TO horses
and carts as here in Rome. Surely there
never was anything so crazy, SO inextri-
cable as this maze of streets. London is
comparatively lucid, for every corner is
plainly named and there are regular
squares by which one can at least deter
mine the general direction, but in Rome
the name of street is put anywhere
along in the course Of the first block or
two, and instead of open squares
there are these little, shapeless
piazZas without head, or tail, or backssi
or sides, and from which streets shoatsid
every direction. The streets q not
wind-oh no; that is too patent d de-
ception, and the Roman street is insinet'
ating and guileful. Old Nick himself
could not lead mortal from the pa tn of
rectitude more insidiously than a Roman
side-street will slowly and surely lead
the trustful stranger from the way
he wants to go, till his
sense of directions is as muddled as be-
deviled conscience. You think a GER
tain little street will hit that church you
want to see right in the door; you con-
fide your fortunes to it, and you come
out in some strange and unknown quarter
where north is east and south is west. 1t
is safe to say that there are no two
streets parallel in the city, and no street
that seems to hold any straight and hon.
orable communications with any other. |
The piazzas are
EXPRESSIONS OB UNITED DEvILTRY.
There are books written about sswalks |
in Rome. - L. too, could write volumes !
about ''walks In Rome mice little |
walks-too short to take a cab-all |
planned beforehand on the map-which |
turned out to be w0eful wanderings in |
dirty slums where cab stands are not, |
and little lanes are nameless; where men |
and women are too stupid to under
stand the name of the place you want, |
and il is only the bright small boy, bless |
him with wits sharneuad nv dasira Of 1