which contains some magnificent halls, adorned with statues and paintings; Palazzo del Padesta, chiefly remarkable as having been the prison of Eugenis, King of Sardinia, and son of the Emperor Frederick II. who was captured and kept here by the Bolognese for more than twenty years, till his death; and the church or Ansilica of St. Petronio, which was commenced in 1390, and is not yet finished. The palaces and churches are too numerous to make any remarks on. The leaning towers, Degli Asmilli and Garisenda, dating from the twelfth century, are among the most remarkable objects in Bologna. The former is square, and of massive brick-work, built in three portions, and diminishing in diameter to the top. Its height is 321 feet, and its inclination from the perpendicular 6ft. 10in. The Garisenda is 161 feet high, and inclines a little more than 8 feet. Bologna has always been famous for cheap living, and has been chosen as a residence by many literary men. Gourmands praise it as the native country of excellent maccaroni, sausages, liquors, and preserved fruits. The pilgrimage to the Madonna di S. Lucca, whose church is situated at the foot of the Apennines, half a league distant from Bologna, and to which an arcade of 640 arches leads, annually attracts a great number of people from all parts of Italy. Bologna was founded by the Etruscans under the name of Felsina, before the foundation of Rome. In 189 B.C. it was made a Roman colony, and called Bonovia.
I had been told that the Certosa, or burying ground, was well worth a visit. It is about 2½ miles outside the city by the Porta St. Isaia, so I took a cab and was well rewarded for my trouble, for this burying ground is the most beautiful and remarkable in Italy. Here we can walk for hours under cover between rows of statues and marble tablets of the greatest beauty. When I returned to my hotel I found dinner waiting, and afterwards it struck me that I must seek some more exhilarating mode of amusement after my visit to the Certosa. I accordingly made my way to the Teatro Communale, one of the three best theatres in Italy, San Carlos at Naples and La Scala in Milan taking precedence. The opera was “Mefistofele,” splendidly mounted and well supported by artistes. The orchestra was large and all that could be desired by the most fastidious critics, and there are plenty of them in a Bolognese audience. Boxes are in every tier in the house, and the effect is very pretty.
As I had to start for Brindisi at 3 a.m. on Sunday, November 20th, I had not much time for sleep, notwithstanding which I got between the sheets until then, when I was conveyed to the station and finished my nap in the train.
CHAPTER III.
P. AND O. STEAMER “TANJORE”—ARRIVAL OF THE MAIL AND PASSENGERS—ANCIENT BRINDISI—BRINDISI TO ALEXANDRIA—ALEXANDRIA PAST AND PRESENT—ITS TRADE.
I arrived at Brindisi at 10 p.m. and was straightway driven off to the quay, was soon on board the P. and O. steamship Tanjore, commanded by Captain Briscoe, and not many minutes afterwards in my berth and fast asleep. My slumber was disturbed at 6 a.m. by the arrival of the Indian mail and a large number of passengers, who produced a great commotion over-head quite incompatible with sleep. I therefore turned out, and was soon on deck watching the busy scene. Some little time after I had breakfasted I discovered two of the party which I was to accompany, Messrs. F. L. James and E. L. Phillipps. We were to meet three more at Cairo, and one at Suez, to complete the party.
No one would care to remain very long in Brindisi, as it is a most uninteresting place notwithstanding its antiquity. I remember once, in 1877, spending a few hours there, and was then very glad when my train left for Naples. Brindisi (ancient Brundusium) was, if I remember rightly, the birth-place of Virgil. It is a sea-port and fortified town 45 miles from Taranto. In ancient times it was one of the most important cities of Calabria. It is said by Strabo to have been governed by its own kings at the time of the foundation of Tarentum. It was one of the chief cities of the Sallentines, and the excellence of its port and commanding situation in the Adriatic were among the chief inducements of the Romans to attack them. The Romans made it a naval station, and frequently directed their operations from it. It was the scene of important operations in the war between Cæsar and Pompey. On the fall of the Western Empire it declined in importance. In the eleventh century it fell into the possession of the Normans, and became one of the chief ports of embarkation for the Crusades. Its importance as a sea-port was subsequently completely lost, and its harbour blocked. In 1870 the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company put on a weekly line of steamers between Brindisi and Alexandria for the conveyance of Her Majesty’s eastern mails, and at the same time made it a post of transit for goods brought from India by these steamers to be forwarded to the north of Italy by rail. From this cause the imports of Brindisi have suddenly risen in importance.
About 12 mid-day on the 21st November, we got under way with 110 first-class passengers on board, the weather was fine, much warmer than in Turin and Milan, and the sea smooth, which I was thankful for; 22nd the same; 23rd fine and sea smooth until about 4 p.m., when the sea became rough, and I very uncomfortable, undesirous of dinner and very desirous of being quietly settled in my berth, which I sought without loss of time, knowing by a past bitter and sour experience that I should ere long present a pitiable spectacle. During the night the sea became so rough that the port-holes of the cabins had to be closed, so that in addition to feeling excessively sick I was almost suffocated, as the weather was very warm. On the morning of the 24th, at 10 o’clock, we landed at the far-famed city of Alexandria.
Even in sunny Italy I had felt the weather, in the neighbourhood of Turin, Milan, and Bologna, cold and frosty enough in the morning for an overcoat. At Brindisi it was not so cold, but as we neared the African coast the sky grew warmer and warmer, and tinged, so to speak, with a reflection of the Libyan desert, a soft purple hue, rather than the deep blue of Italy. Only those who have witnessed sunset in Africa can form any conception of the beautiful tints reflected from the rocks and sands; there you see the soft purple, lovely crimson, pale gold, rose and violet colours all shading off into one another in the most charming manner. I have never seen anywhere such glorious sunsets as in Africa.
Having but a short time to stay in Alexandria, I made good use of it in exploring the place. Through what strange vicissitudes has this ancient city passed. Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great, B.C. 332, on the site of a village called Rakôtis, or Racoudah. Its founder wished to make it the centre of commerce between the east and west, and we know how fully his aspirations have been realized. It stood a little to the south of the present town, was 15 miles in circumference, and had a population of 300,000 free inhabitants, and at least an equal number of slaves. So distinguished was it for its magnificence, that the Romans ranked it next to their own capital, and when captured by Amru, general of the Caliph Omar (A.D. 641), it contained 4,000 palaces, 4,000 baths, 400 theatres or places of amusement, 12,000 shops for the sale of vegetables, and 40,000 tributary Jews. But we are getting on a little too fast. As I said before, it was founded B.C. 332, by Alexander the Great, who is said to have traced the plan of the new city himself, and his architect, Dinarchus or Dinocrates (the builder of the temple of Diana at Ephesus) directed its execution. The city was regularly built, and traversed by two principal streets, each 100 feet wide, and one of them four miles long. Campbell says: “He designed the shape of the whole after that of a Macedonian cloak, and his soldiers strewed meal to mark the line where its walls were to rise. These, when finished, enclosed a compass of 80 furlongs filled with comfortable abodes, and interspersed with palaces, temples, and obelisks of marble porphyry, that fatigued the eye with admiration. The main streets crossed each other at right angles, from wall to wall, with beautiful breadth, and to the length (if it may be credited) of nearly nine miles. At their extremities the gates looked out on the gilded barges of the Nile, of fleets at sea under full sail, on a harbour that sheltered navies, and on a lighthouse that was the mariner’s star and the wonder of the world.”
One-fourth of the area upon which it was built was covered with temples, palaces, and public buildings. Conspicuous upon its little isle was the famous lighthouse of Pharos, the islet being connected with the city by a mole. Under the Cæsars, Alexandria attained extraordinary prosperity; large merchant fleets carried on a reciprocal commerce with India and Ethiopia, and its industrial population were chiefly employed in the weaving of linen, and the manufacture of glass and papyrus.
The