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