The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1909-05-07
WILL SEABROOK'S TRAVELS
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care of her tourists and foreign resi-
dents. Here nature, the government,
ever courteous, and the "man on the
street, all seem to be in league to
make the visitor carry away the i'm
preston that the City of the Seven
Hills is the most charming spot in
the universe.
The stories carried home to Eng
land and America by chronic grumb-
lers about poor sewerage, dirt, fleas,
fever, step stairways, no elevators.
scarcity of fireplaces, and absence
Of bath rooms, have been untrue, for
twenty years. The old Papal city,
with its medieval discomforts, has
long since melted into a broad-street-
ed, we'll drained, electric-trammed me-
tropoEs, where practical modern in
dustry and civic improvement are
striding side by side with artistic
and intellectual progress. But what s
the difference if We do occasionally
encounter conditions unlike those at
home? Narrow stairs, built on the
model of Jacobs ladder, have no
power to frighten the would-be resi-
dent, when they lead to a fifth-story
apartment, with a roof garden full Of
trellised roses, a carpet Of violets,
and a view Of St. Peters dome, with
sunset that makes you feel that the
evening sky has never before famed
with such gorgeous colors and that
no future sinking sun can ever equal
the effect Of this particular evening.
But back comes the obliging sun next
day to do the same "stunt" over
again with even more glorious varia-
tions. 1 dom know of any other
place on earth where the drop curtain
of the heavenly theatre works so reg
ularly without hitch as behind the
Vatican hill.
Here the "toulist tide becomes a
torrent, rich idlers love Rome because
its fashionable hotels are unsurpass-
ed, students come to be nourished
with the past, modern pagans, Chris
tions, psychologists, artists, cynical
newspaper men, all come and all, who
remain for more than few days, find
themselves in the grip Of the magic
spell.
But it IS not a good place for in
valids. Following certain rules of
hygiene, there is nothing to fear
more than in other cities, in fact less,
but all things animate and inanimate
seem to conspire to make one forget
the rules. Since the Cloaca Maxima
has been conducted outside the walls,
the sanitary conditions, per Sc, are
excellent. Roman fever is now usual
ly an effect of overeating, over-exer-
tion or chills. Go into cold church
in the summer time, come out to bask
in the sun, and then plunge into an
other church, and quite likely the iron
will enter into your soul, or rather
the chill into the marrow Of your
bones; come up from Naples poisoned
with stale oysters or something else
you have taken into your system in
that vilest, rottenest of cities, and
then blame Rome for your illness;
come here already dying from con-
sumption, and then exclaim with your
last expiring gasp that Rome has
caused your death. Lots of people
do. But if you avoid foolish eccen-
tricities and treat the place sanely,
it Will return the compliment.
Many tourists, particularly rich So
ciety people. come here and remain
for entire seasons without ever visit
ing the Coliseum, the Forum and the
other ruins Of Imperial Rome, and
not because they are stupid or uned-
ucated, but simply because there are
so many other things to see and do.
The Pope, the King, the two great
branches of local aristocratic society,
known as the "Blacks'' and the
"Whites,' the churches, one for ev-
cry day in the year, in which gorgeous
spectacles are always taking place,
the theatres and Sunday concerts, the
long opera season, in which Wagner
takes back seat because the Italians
like their own Verdi best, the fox
hunts on the Campagna, the thousand
and one pleasant diversions offered
the wealthy stranger, all combine to
make the modern city no mean rival
of the ancient. Bablngton's Tea
Rooms are as famous as Delmonico s
or Sherry's, and here the tourists
gather, make appointments with their
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