User:TheSkullOfRFBurton/Arabia, Egypt, India: A Narrative of Travel/Chapter II

by Isabel Burton

CHAPTER II. TRIESTE, AND GENERAL POLITICS IN THAT QUARTER.

A ND now for a few words about my beloved Trieste. There -^-^ are two ways of getting bere. Either embark in a small Lloyds at Venice at midnight, and find yourself at Trieste at five or six a.m., or go by train round the top of the Adriatic, nine and a half hours from Venice. Slow travelling, but, with its glorious contrast of Carnian Alps and rich riverine plains which belong to the lowlands of Northern Italy, one can bear it sometimes in fine weather. The gliding down the steep incline extending from Nabre- sina, in the Karso, to old " Tergeste " (Trieste), is truly glorious. Nothing can be more beautiful than coming into Trieste from the Karst or Karso, a wilderness of stone like Syria, forming the mass of the Carniola, and the broken surface of fawn-grey lime- stone, pitted with huge pot-holes, and seamed by a few goat paths. It is as grisly a scene as man's eye could see, untU you emerge at OpQina, a Slav village, near which stands a rural inn and a single obelisk. This height shows Trieste and the Adriatic like a map at your feet. The view of azure sea, coasted by long projecting points, and deeply recessed bays of emerald green, hill range and valley and dale waxing faintly blue in the airy distance ; a noble City, crowning heights spreading over the subject plain, sending forth skirmishers of villa and farmhouse, and sapping with her moles and piers the covered way of the waves, is a sight worth gazing upon.

About 1835, there were English merchants at Trieste. They lived in good style, and kept foxhounds, though I can't think how they could ever have had a chance with a fox, whose im- mediate refuge would be the impassable Karst. They throve

Description of Trieste. 31

iipon imported sugar, but the vile beetroot stuff from Hungary, Moravia, and Bohemia, has supplanted the business. The Jews and Greeks who now monopolize commerce have long since "eaten them up," to use a Kafir phrase. The Jew makes ^oney, and spends it : he does all the hospitality of the place. The Greek makes and hoards it, or else he is hospitable only to his own people.

We have a new port. Unfortunately the only breakwater is built to leeward, not to windward as it should be. Its huge moles and diminutive basins, gigantic expense, and utter dis- regard for local interests, smells, etc., duly prove the omnipotence of the EaUway system in these our days. The combined effect of station and harbour wdll be to build a new town, and to reduce by half, the value of house property in the older city, where some tenements, like the Casa Carciotti, let for £3,000 per annum. The reason, say the Eailway authorities, is, that by making Trieste a mere half-way house, they will benefit the many to the detriment of the few. But the Citizens who lose all, can hardly be expected to adopt that aspect of the matter, and already there are loud complaints that the new Port, thougJi already costing some twenty millions of florins, and far- from finished, is seriously disturbing trade.

The effect of Oalifornian and Australian gold has been to build here, as elsewhere, a bit of the capital, contrasting strongly with the antiquated and pauper Gitta Vecchia (pronounced in Triestine, Vetishia). The thoroughfares are lined with slabs, like Florence and Pisa ; not with kidney stones and bands, as in Upper Italy ; and the fine material, easily quarried in the seaward face of the Karso escarpment, is profitably exported to Alexandria. But never was a maritime city less maritime. Not a yacht, not a private boat, appears off the quay^, — everything is for trafiic. The wor- ship of the almighty florin in dirty paper is universal, but there is a doleful lack of labour-saving appurtenances. We have only just laid down a tramway. Porterage is done by the back of man and the one-bullock carts (zaje), as in Madeira, and long trucks (carradori), drawn by the well-bred carriage-horses in the morning, in most instances, who in the afternoon draw the

32 Trieste, and General Politics in that Quarter.

carriages of the local aristocracy to St. Andrea, our Rotten Eow, and at night take the same pleasure-seekers to the balls and con- versazione. I often wonder when these horses sleep ; Trieste is the only town I know that is never stiU day or night. The horses show a good deal of " blood." There is a Government stud at Lipizza, two hours from Trieste, where Arab stallions are crossed with Hungarian, Croat, and sometimes English mares, and all the produce that does not reach a certain standard of excellence is sold to the riding and driving public. The former are to be counted on the fingers of one hand. I have seen only one lady who can be called a horsewoman. The local jeunesse doree are beginning to drive " fast trotters," but these things are in their babyhood. There are no rich, idle, horsey people. If I kept any- thing, it would be a couple of strong Croat ponies, to scramble over the Karso with my gun, and bring back^ perhaps, a hare for dinner now and then ; but even so small a stable as this would be attended with great difficulty, as with my English ideas of horse- flesh, I could not trust a Triestine groom, and to attend to one's own one must live in the country, with a stable attached to the house. The "victorias" and "coupes" of Paris here appear so civilized after the hideous and impure " growlers " of London, the worst- cabbed capital in the world (save our hansoms, which are most creditable) ; and they ply amongst a kind of drosky, the carrettella used by the peasantry, with its single pony harnessed to the near side of the pole. The driver wears a conical cap of black Astracan, with a coat of skin, the hairy side in, extending to his ankles ; and his nether limbs are clad in Hessian boots. Parisian toilettes and the Italian costume of the lower orders — calico jacket and petticoat — -jostle the Slav market women from the neighbouring villages. Some of the girls, especially those of Servola, are exceedingly beautiful, — the profile purest Greek, the outline ~a regular oval, and there is a general delicacy of form and hue that startles one. But the eye is washed-out, nay, colourless, and the blonde hair is like tow ; it wants the golden ray. The dress is as remarkable as the face, a white triangular head- kerchief with embroidered ends hanging down the back, a boddice either of white flannel picked out with slashes of colour, or a

The Peasantry and Population of Trieste. 33

black, glazed, and plaited stuff; a skirt of lively colour, edged below with a broad belt of even livelier green, blue, pink, or yellow ; white stockings, and short stout shoes. The ornaments on high days and holidays, when the country girls come out to dance, are gdd necklaces and crosses, a profusion of rings and ear pendants, sometimes of brUliants : often of the enamelled work for which Fiume is celebrated, turbaned Moors' heads, probably a survival of the Turkish wars. Opposed to the coMa- dina is the sartorella, "the little tailoress," a local institution like the French grisette and the Milanese madamina. I always call Trieste " II Paradiso delle Sartorelle e I'lnferno degli animali," because the former is a prominent figure in Trieste, and Fortune's favourite. She fills the streets and promenades, especially on festa days, dressed a qvxitre Spingles, powdered and rouged and coiffee as for a ball, with or without veil (never a hat or bonnet). She is often pretty, mostly has a good figure, but she does not always look nice, and her manners, to use a mild word, are very degagees. There are 4,000 of these girls, who fill the lower-class balls and theatres. There is one in every house, off and on : for example, a family have a dress to make, or a petticoat. They send for their sartorella. She comes for eighty kreuzers or a florin a day, and her food, and she is supposed to sew for twelve hours, leaving at six, when she begins her evening. She is always well dressed outside, but often has not a rag, even a chemise, under it, unless she is in luck. Luck, I grieve to say, means that every boy, or youth, or man, beginning at twelve, and up to twenty-five to twenty -eight, is in love with a sartorella ; and I may safely assert, without having a mauvaise langue, that she does not give her — shall we say heart ? — gratis. She generally turns the ser- vants' heads by relating that she is immediately going to be married to a real Graf (Count) as soon as he is independent of his parents. The children are brought up much too preco- ciously, and allowed to enjoy the world before their studies are over. An old colonel told my husband that, in consequence of this premature dissipation and late hours, out of one hundred and eighty recruits for the army, often only eight are passed

as sound.

3

34 Trieste, and General Politics in that Quarte'>:

By the Inferno degli animali I mean to say tliat no foreigners, however rich and charitable, — and they are immensely so, — would ever think of giving a florin to secure the comfort of a beast ; and that the lower orders do not yet know that an animal can feel ; so that what with ignorance, carelessness, and brutality, their lives are made truly wretched. I have tried to remedy this great want by kindness, good manners with the people, and making in England a collection of twelve hundred florins to give in prizes for every class of humanity, and to abate every sort of cruelty here practised. My English sentiment for animals was long looked upon as a harmless lunacy, which I was allowed to indulge in, as it hurt nobody j and it raised only a passing smile and shrug when some one saw me rushing in between a broken-down horse and infuriated driver using his knobbed stick, to save the beast. They would laugh and exclaim, " Corpo di Bacco ! Quella e ammalata Bisognerebbe mandarla aWospedale!" But truth almost always prevails. I have won a hearing, and at last all the authorities, and even the people, with few exceptions, are with me, and we are getting things very nicely into order.

But to return to our population. To the east of the town the Wallachian " Cici " charcoal dealers from Inner Istria, show the dress of the old Danubian homes. The Friulano with his velvet jacket and green corduroys, the most estimable race in the land, is often a roaster of chesnuts at the corners of the streets; whilst his wife, the best of balie (wet-nurses), bravely attired, often makes h&T padrona, or mistress, look, if civilized, at least commonplace. Trieste has a mixed population. North of Ponte Eosso is Germania, composed of the authorities, the employes, and a few wealthy merchants. They have a maniacal idea of Germanizing their little world, a mania which secures for them abundant trouble and ill will, for eight miUions cannot denationa- lize thirty-two mUlions. There are twelve thousand Italians at Trieste who speak a corrupted Venetian ; eleven thousand of these are more or less poor— one thousand perhaps are too rich. However, their civilization is all Roman, and they take a pride in it, whUst the exaltes and the Italianissimi hate their rulers like poison. In this they are joined by the mass of

Austrian Difficulties and Troubles. 35

the wealthy and influential Israelites, who divide the commerce with the Greeks, The former subscribe handsomely to every Italian charity or movement ; and periodically and anonymously memorialize the King of Italy. The lower class take a delight in throwing large squibs, here called by courtesy "torpedoes," amongst the unpatriotic petticoats who dare to throng the Austrian balls. The immediate suburbs, country, and villages are Slav', and even in the city some can barely speak Italian. This people detests all its fellow citizens with an instinctive odium of race, and with a dim consciousness that it has been ousted. from its own, Thus the populatioii may be said to be triple. Politics are lively, and the Italianissimi thrive be- cause the constitutional Grovernment, which has taken the place of the old patriarchal despotism, is weak,, acting as if it feared them. Austria of to-day is feeble and gentlemanly, and as such is scarcely a match for the actual Italy.. Let us lay out a little map of politics immediately around our small corner of the world.

Being a devoted Austrian,. I have many anxieties concerning the political health of this admira,ble country. Austria, once so famed for the astute management, the "Politik6," which kept in order the most heterogeneous of households, between Bohemia and Dalmatia, and from Hungary to the Milanese, is suffering from a complication of complaints. The first is the economic : her deficit for 1877 is already laid at twenty-six millions of florins ; she lives on paper, and she habitually outruns the constable, Secondly are the modus vivendi with Hungary, the Convention, the Bank,, and half-a-dozen other troubles, which result from the " chilling dualism " of Count Beust (1867). The inevitable rivalry of a two-fold instead of a three-fold empire is now deepening to downright hostility.. The Slavs complain that the crown of the Empire is being dragged through the mire by the "Magyarists ; " and on December 9th the Vienna Chamber of Deputies heard for the first time a proposal to substitute Trialism for Dualism. Third, and last, is the Eastern Question, in which the poor invalid is distracted by three physicians proposing ^hree several cures. Doctor Hungary wants only the integrity (!)

36 Trieste, and General Politics in that Quarter.

of Turkey : alliance with England, war with Eussia. Dr. Ger- many, backed by the Archduke Albert, and aided by the army, looks to alliance with Eussia and to the annexation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina when Turkey falls to pieces. Lastly, Dr. Progressist with the Club of the Left, advocates the cold water treatment, absolute passivity : no annexation, no occupa- tion, no intervention. The triad division seems inveterate : even the Constitutionalist party must- split into three— a Centrum, a Left, and a Fortschritts-parteh Hence Prince Grortschakoff, not without truth, characterized this mosaic without coherence as " no longer a State, but only a Grovernment"

Austria, like England, is suffering from the manifold disorders and troubles that accompany a change of life. At home we have thrown over for ever the rule of aristocracy ; and we have not yet resigned ourselves to what must inevitably come — Democracy pure and simple- Accordingly, we sit between two stools with the usual proverbial result. Austria, in 1848, sent to the Limbo of past things the respectable "paternal government," with its car' cere, its car cere duro, and its car cere durissimo; and threatened to make sausage-meat of M. Ochsenhausen von Metternich. Constitutionalism, adopted by automatism, found the Austrians utterly unfit for freedom ; and the last thirty years have only proved that constitutionalism may be more despotic than despot- ism. Austria has ever been the prey of minorities German and Magyar. Her Beamier class has adopted the worst form of Latin Bureaucratic. Her Press has one great object in life, that of " Germanizing " unwilling Slavs. Her fleet has lost Tegetthoff and Archduke Max. Her army, once the best drilled in Europe, and second to none in the ingens magnitudo corporum, has been xeduced by short service to a host of beardless boys ; and the marvels of the Uchatius gun will not prevent half the regiments being knocked up by a fortnight's work. But these are the inevitable evils of a transition system, and if Austria can only tide over her change of life she will still enjoy a long, hearty, and happy old age.

Hence Austro-Hungary is freely denounced as " disturbing the European Areopagus." Hence Paskievich declared in 1854 that

Austrian Difficulties and Troubles. 37

the road to Stambonl leads tlirotigli Vienna. Hence Fadajeff, the Panslavist, significantly points out that Europe contains forty- millions of Slavs who are not under the White Czar. These ancient Scythians have hitherto shown very little wisdom. Instead of cultivating some general language, — ^for instance the old Slavonic, which would have represented Latin,: — they are elaborating half-a-dozen different local dialogues ; and, at the last Slav Congress, the Pan-Slav Deputies, greatly to the delight of the Pan-Germanists, were obliged to harangue one another in German. If " TriaHsm " be carried out in the teeth of Hungary, what and where can be the capital of the Jugo-Slavs — the Southern and Latin, as opposed to the Pravo-Slavs or orthodox ? Where shall be the seat of its Houses ? Prague is purely Czech, utterly distasteful to Slavonia, Croatia, and Dalmatia. Laibach in Krain is the only place comparatively central ; but that means that all would combine to reject Laibach. Meanwhile the Slavs declare that they are treated as Helots, and that they will stand this treatment no longer.

Austria wQl hardly declare war against Eussm even at the bidding of the Turko-Hungarian alliance, — even if menaced with her pet bugbear, the formation of a strong Slav kingdom, or king- doms, on her south-eastern frontier. She is thoroughly awake to the danger threatened by her friends : that of falling into her four coniiponent parts, each obeying the law of gravitation, — Styria, Upper and Lower, absorbing herself in Germany, and Dalmatia and Istria merging into Italy. She has made aU her preparations for occupying Bosnia, which the Turks are abandon- ing, and for which it is generally believed they will not fight. Count Andrassy,, the rebel of '48, the Premier of '76-'78, will keep his own counsel and carry out his own plans. He has been unjustly charged with a vacillating and uncertain policy \ as if a man who is being frantically pulled diametrically in four opposite directions were not obliged to stoop at times in order to conquer.

Italy has of late made strong representations at Vienna against the possible occupation of Bosnia by Austria. She knows that the step would for ever debar her from the possession of Dalmatia ; and that the old Kingdom, the mother of Emperors, will never

38 Trieste, and General Politics in that Quarter.

rest satisfied till her extensive seaboard is subtended by a pro- portionate interior. Italy would prefer to occupy Bosnia in pro- prid persond ; but, tbat being hardly possible, she would leave it unoccupied, or, worst of all, 'occupied by the Turks. Italy is the deadliest enemy of Austria, and wears the dangerous aspect of a friend. Such is the present standpoint of the Empire,* and you see, she is still, as she has been for years, a "political necessity." We, her well wishers, can only say to her, in olden phrase, Tu, felix Austria, nube, — Yea, marry, and take unto thy- self the broad and fertile lands lying behind the Dinaric Alps.

Meanwhile, Italy, the rival sister of France, the recipient of many favours from her, and, par consequence, her bitterest foe, bides her time, remains quiet as a church mouse, and, like the Scotchman's owl, thinks hard. She is at present the last, the only hope of Latinism. She has shown, since 1870, a prudence, a moderation, an amount of common sense, comparatively speaking, which have surprised the world. Ethnologists, who scoffed at " Pan-latinism," were over-hasty in determining that the game of the Latin race was " up ;*' and that the three progressive families of the future are the English (including the German and the , Anglo-American), the Slav, and the Sons of the Flowery Land. The present standpoint of Italy is this. She has a treaty with Russia whidi makes her a spectator. She has returned an ovef- .whelming majority of the progressists, who aim at converting her into a Eepublic ; and Italy, • classical and mediEeval, has never attained her full development except under Republican rule. Meanwhile, her " citizens and patriots " look forward to recovering Nice, where in 1860, some 26,000 votes against 160 were polled in favour of annexation to France. She wants an Algeria, and would like to find it at Tunis, with Carthage for capital. And finally, she would fain round off her possessions by annexing from Austria the Trentine, the County of Gorizia,

• This was written at the end of 1876. It would be impossible to-day (1878)

not to sympathise with and admire Austria and her brave army struggling single- handed and manfully in the great Bosnian and Herzergovinian difficulty, but when it is over her reward wiU be great. It is a large step in the right direction, but we who want a great Austrian Empire, wish she had had all the nineteen million Slavs, not a part.

The Aspirations of Italy. 39

the Peninsula of Istria, including the chief emporium, Trieste, and eren the Kingdom of Dalmatia.

It was not a little amusing to note the expressions of simple amazement with which the general Press of England acknow- ledged the discovery that Italy " actually contemplates" this ex- tension of territory. Would they be surprised to hear that such has been her object for the last six hundred years; that in her darkest hour she has never abandoned her claim; that .during the last half-century she has urged it with all her might, and that at the present moment she is steadily labouring to the same end?. We, who derive experience from the pages of history, firmly believe that the prize would even now be in her hands were it not for Prussia, who calculates upon the gravitation of the Austro-German race, and who already speaks of Trieste as " our future seaport." But why, we ask, cannot Italy rest contented with Venice, which after a century of neglect, might by liberal measures again become one of the principal commercial centres, of Europe ?

Under Augustus the whole of Istria was annexed to the Xth

Eegion of Italy; the south-eastern limits being the Flumen

Arsas, the modern Afsa, that great gash in the Eastern flank

beyond which began Liburnia. Hence Dante «ang (Inferno,

IX., 113-115) :—

" SI come a Pola presso del Quarnaro Che Italia ehivde e i siooi term'mi iagna, Fanno i sepolcri tutto '1 loco varo."

Hence Petrarch (Sonnet cxiv.) declares of his Laura, whose praises he cannot waft all the -world over : —

" udralo il bel paese,

Ch' Apennin parte, e 1 mar circonda e '1 Alpe."

And who can forget the glorious verse of Alfieri, the first to discern Italy in the "geographical expression" of the eighteenth century ?

" Giorno Terr 4, torneri giorno in cut Eedivivi omai gli Itali staranno, In campo armati," etc., etc., etc.

Italy bases her claim to the larger limit, upon geography.

40 Trieste, and General Politics in that Quarter.

ethnology, and sentiment, as well as upon history. Only the most modest of patriots contend that the Isonzo river, the pre- sent boundary of Austria, was a capricious creation of Napoleon I. The more ambitious spirits demand the whole southern water- shed of the Julian Alps; nor are they wanting who, by "Alps " understanding the Dinaric chain, would thus include the whole Kingdom of Dalmatia inherited from the Komans.

Ethnologically again, Istria declares herself Italian, not Austrian. Her 290,000 souls (round numbers) consist of 166,000 Latins to 109,000 Slavs, the latter a mongrel breed that emigrated between A.D. 800 and 1657; and a small residue of foreigners, especially Austro-German officials. The Italians are, it is true, confined to the inner towns and to the cities of the seaboard ; still, these scattered centres cannot forget that to their noble blood Istria has owed all her civilization, all her progress, and aU her glories in arts and arms. Lastly, " sentiment," as a factor of unknown power in the great sum of what constitutes "politics," is under- valued only by the ignorant vulgus. The Istrians are more Italian than the Italians. Since the first constitution of 1848, they have little to complain of the Government in theory, much in practice. Austria, after the fashion of Prussia, unwisely attempts to " Ger- manize" her Italian subjects, who in Istria outnumber the Teutons by five to one. The true policy of Austria would be to Italianise the Italians, to Slavonise the Slavs, and to Magyarise the Hun- garians ; in other words, to elicit the good qualities of her four component races, instead of attempting to unrace them. And her first practical step should be to abolish all idea of "Ger- manizing." If she did not try for it, it might settle itself.

The chief danger of Italy, at present, is wishing to go too fast. She would run before she can walk steadily : she forgets the past : she ignores that her independence and unity were won for, and not by, her ; that each defeat was to her a conquest. She had the greatest statesman in Europe, Cavour ; who so disposed his game, opening it in 1854 with the Crimean War, and following it up with a seat for Piedmont amongst the Great Powers in the Congress of Paris, that it led by a mathematical certainty to Solferino in 1859, and to securing Eome for a capital in 1870.

The Aspirations of Italy. 4 1

But "Milor Camillo" is dead, and Prince Bismarck, who rules in his stead, bluntly says : " No one can doubt, even beyond the Alps, that an attack upon Trieste and Istria would meet the point of at sword which is not Austrian." Italy must put her house in order before she can aspire to extend her grounds. Her income is insufficient for her expenses ; her gold is paper ; her currency is forced, and her heavy taxes breed general discontent. . She has a noble estate for agriculture, but her peasants prefer the stock- ing to the Stocks, the Funds, or the Bank. Her Civil Service is half paid, and compelled to pay itself. Her Custom House duties are a scandal to a civilized power, and her post office is a farce. Her army cannot compare, in fighting qualities, with that of Prussia, Austria, or even France. Her sailors are not tailors, but she cannot afford a first-rate armour-clad fleet; she was beaten at Lissa, and her seaboard would easily be blockaded by a great maritime power. Moveover she has that dual Govern- ment at Eome, and a terrible skeleton in the cupboard, — her treatment of the Pope.

The Liberal press and the " indignation meetings " of Italy have been alternately severe and sarcastic upon the entente cordiale between the Vatican and the Seraglio. But the Papal logic is clear and sound. It says : — "The reverence of Constantine for the Keys transferred the seat of civil empire to the Byzantium, whereas Anti-Christ Eussia founded the pseudo-throne of Saint Peter in the far north. We fought against the Moslem when he was an aggressor. Innocent XI., not to mention the crusader- Popes, preached the liberation of Vienna. Pius I. worked up to the Battle of Lepanto. But things are now changed. You, Bulgarian and Bosnian Catholics, have religious liberty, and you will have political liberty when you deserve it ! . Meanwhile, obey the Sultan, who has nothing to do with Christianity, and shun Anti-Christ — the Czar." Good logic, I say, cold and clear-drawn; but powerless to purge away the sentiments, the prejudices, and the passions of mankind.

Italy drives the coach too fast. Patriotic Italians declare that England has no right to hold Malta. Cyprus was under Venice ; ergo, they think it should be under Italy. The Trentine, the

42 Trieste, and General Politics in that Quarter.

Southern Tyrol, Istria, and Dalmatia are in the same condition*. The Latin kingdom has achieved a great position in Japan. She sends her travellers to explore New Guinea. She aims at being the most favoured nation in Egypt, where she lately received a severe schiaffo. The Italian national expedition landed iu the dominions of the Khedive without having had the decency to call upon him in Cairo. You know how the Egyptian noticed the affront. Finally, she talks of herself as one of the Powers, ready to occupy the insurgent districts which the Porte cannot reduce.. Such is the actual standpoint of United Italy..

I will now sketch the state of Hungary, whose ambition threatens to make her aggressive, entitled, by the press of Eng- land, the "backbone of the Austrian monarchy; " and praised for the " superior political organisation " with which she has crushed her Slav rivals.

Since the days, now forgotten, when Prince Esterhazy first flashed, in London society, his diamond jacket upon the dazzled eyes of the " upper ten thousand," the name of Hungarian has been a passport to favour amongst us. We meet him in the shape of a Kinsky, an Erdody, or a Hunyadi, — well-born, well-clad, and somewhat unlearned, except in the matter of modern languages. But he is a good rider, a keen sportsman, and a cool player for high stakes, — qualities in one point (only) much resembling Charity. He looks like a gentleman in a drawing-room and in the hunting field ; he is quite at home at a fancy ball ; he wears his frogged jacket, his tights and his tall boots, his silks, satins, and furs with an air ; his manners are courteous, cordial, and pleasant ; in money matters he has none of the closeness of the catankerous Prussian, none of the meanness of the Italian ; and, lastly, he makes no secret of his sympathy with England, with the English, and with all their constitution-manias. What, can you want more ? You pronounce him a nice fellow, and all, women especially, re-echo your words : " he is such a gentle- man !" and — he received the Prince of Wales so enthusiastically!

But there is another side (politically speaking) to this fair point of view. The Hungarian is a Tartar with a coat of veneer and varnish. Hungary is, as regards civUization, simply the most

The State of Hungary. 43

backward country in Europe. Buda-Pest is almost purely Ger- man, the work of the Teutons, who, at the capital, do all the work ; you hardly ever hear in the streets a word of Magyar, and the Magyars have only managed to raise its prices and its death-' •rate to somewhat double those of London. The cities, like historic Gran on the Danube, have attempts at public buildings and streets ; in the country towns and villages the thoroughfares are left to Nature ; the houses and huts, the rookeries and doggeries are planted higgledy-piggledy, wherever the tenants please ; and they are filthier than any shanty in Galway or Cork, in Carinthia or Krain. The Ugrian or Ogre prairies have no roads, or rather they are all road ; and the driver takes you across country when and where he wills. The peasantry are "men on horseback," — in this matter preserving the customs of their Hun and Tartar ancestors. They speak a tongue of Turkish affinity, all their sympathies are with their blood-kinsmen the Turks, and they have toiled to deserve the savage title of " white Turks," lately conferred upon them by Europe.

Fiume, the only seaport of Hungary, is a study of Hungarian nationality. The town is neatly built, well paved, and kept tolerably clean by Slav and Italian labour, the former doing the coarse, the latter the fine work. The port is, or rather is to be, bran-new. Because Austria chooses to provide a worse than useless and frightfally expensive — in fact, ruinous — ;harbour for Trieste, whose anchoring roads were some of the best" in Europe, therefore (admire the consequence) Hungary demands a similar folly for her emporium, Fiume, whose anchoring roads are still better. After throwing a few millions of florins into the water, the works are committed to the charge of the usual half-dozen men and boys ; moreover, as the port is supposed to improve, so its shipping and its business fall ofi" in far quicker ratio. Commerce cannot thrive amongst these reckless, feckless people. There is no spirit of enterprise, no union to make force, no public spirit ; the dead cities of the Zuyder Zee are bustling New England centres in comparison with Fiume ; and the latter, which might have become the emporium of the whole Dalmatian coast, and a dangerous rival to Trieste, is allowing her golden opportunity to

44 Trieste, and General Politics in that Quarter.

pass away never to return. For when Dalmatia shall have been vitalised by the addition of Bosnia and the Herzegovina, her glorious natural basins — harbours that can hold all the navies of the world— will leave Fiume mighty little to do, except what she does now, look pretty and sit in the sun.

All Englishmen who have Kved long amongst Hungarians remark the similarity of the Magyar and the southern Irish Catholic. Both are imaginative and poetical, rather in talk than in books ; neither race ever yet composed poetry of the highest class. Both delight in music ; but, as the "Irish Melodies " are mostly old English, so the favourites of Himgary are gipsy songs. Both have the "gift of the gab " to any extent, while their elo- quence is notably more flowery than fruity. Both are sharp and intelligent, affectionate and warmhearted ; easily angered and appeased, delighted with wit and to be managed by a hon- mot ; superficial, indolent, sensitive, punctilious, jealous, quarrel- some, passionate and full of fight. Both are ardent patriots, with an occasional notable exception of treachery; both are brilliant soldiers ; the Hungarians, who formerly were only cavalry men, now form whole regiments of the Austrian Line. They are officered by the Germans, who will not learn the language, justly remarking, " If we speak Magyar, we shall be condemned for ever to Magyar corps, and when the inevitable split takes place, where shall we then be ? " Both are* bold and skilfal- riders; and, as the expatriated Irish Catholic was declared by Louis Le Grand — an excellent authority upon such matters— to be " one of the best gentlemen in Europe," so Europe says the same of the Hungarian haute volee.

As regards politics and finance, Buda-Pest is simply a modern and eastern copy of Dublin. The Hungarian magnate still lives like the Squireen and Buckeen of the late Mr. Charles Lever's "earliest style ;" he keeps open house, he is plundered by all hands, and no Galway landowner of the last generation was less fitted by nature and nurture to manage his own affairs. Hence he is drowned in debt, and the Jew usurer is virtually the owner of all those broad acres which bear so little. An " Encumbered Estates Bill " would tell strange tales ; but the sabre is readily

The State of Hungary. 4 c

drawn in Hungary, and the " chosen people," sensibly enough, content themselves with the meat of the oyster, leaving the shells to the owner.

This riotous, rollicking style of private life finds its way into public affairs ; and as a model of " passionate politics," the Hungarian is simply perfect. He has made himself hateful to the sober-sided Grerman and to the dull Slav ; both are dead sick of his outrecuidance ; the former would be delighted to get rid of the selfish and short-sighted irrepressibles, who are ever bullying and thr^tening secession about a custom tax, or a bank, or a question of union. They are scandalized by seeing the academical youth, the Jeunesse doree of Magyar universities, sympathising with Turkish atrocities, declaring Turkey to be the defender of European cmliz&tion,Jackelzugijig the Turkish Consul, insulting the Eussian, and sending a memorial sabre to a Sirdar Ekrem (Commander-in-Chief) whose line of march was marked by the fire-blackened walls of Griaour \dllages, and by the corpses of murdered Christians, men, women, and babes. Could the Austro- Grermans only shake off the bugbear of Panslavism, they would cut the cable, allow the ne'er-do-well Hungarian craft to drift away waterlogged into hypostatic, union with that big ironclad the Turk ; they would absorb the whole of Bosnia, the Herzego- vina, and Albania ; they would cultivate the Slav nationality, and they would rely upon racial differences of dialect and religion to protect them against the real or imaginary designs of Russia. Prince Eugene of Savoy, in the last century, a man of wit, was of that opinion, and so are we.

Hungary, indeed, is a tinder-box like Montenegro, and much more dangerous, because her supply of combustible is on a larger scale. The last bit of puerile foUy has been to press for an Austrian military occupation of Servia ; and why ? Because an Austrian monitor, being in a part of the river where " no thoroughfare " is put up, was fired upon with ball cartridge by a schildwache (sentinel) from the fort walls, and exploded, bungler that she was, one of her own shells. The Hungarians had been raving at the idea of " occupation " in Bulgaria, but the moment they saw an opportunity of breaking the Treaty of Paris, they

46 Trieste, and General Politics in that Quarter.

proposed doing so at once. By-the-by, now that Prince Wrede, a persona ingrata, is removed from Belgrade, you will hear no more of Servian outrages against Austria. To the "Magyarists" we may trace most of the calumnies against the brave and un- fortunate Servian soldiery, — lies of the darkest dye, so eagerly swallowed by the philo-Turk members of the English Press, and as freely vomited for public benefit. And here is the main danger of Hungary and her politics of passion. Russians and Turks might be safely put into the ring together, like " Down- Easters " in a darkened room, and be allowed to fight iff out till one cried " Enough."

If these views of Hungary and the Hungarians be true, — and they are our views, — you will considerably discount the valuation set upon them by the Turcophile Press. They were once a barrier against Tartar savagery, a Finnish race, invited by the Byzantine Emperors to act as a buifer against Mohammedanism. The three orders of Magyars — Magnates, Moderates, and Miserables — hate Eussia for the sensible and far-seeing part which she played in 1848^9 ; all excitement is apt to spread ; even so in a street dog-fight, every cur thinks itself bound to assist, and to bite and wrangle something or other, no matter what. And where, we may ask, is the power that can muzzle these Eastern ban-dogs? who shall take away the shillelaghs of these Oriental Paddies ?

A taste of Hungarian quality has been given by M. Vamb&y in the columns of the Daily Telegraph. M. Vamb^ry was born in Hungary, of Israelitish German parents. Like the sons of Israel generally, he hates Russia, and he loves England, and probably he has good and weighty reasons both for his hate and for his love. He was daring enough to tell us, in his first book of travels, that after dining with the Turkish Minister at Teheran —and a very good dinner it was— he just disguised himself as a dervish, and travelled perfectly incog, for months and months under Russian eyes, partly through Russian territory. The Russians must have known every step taken by M. Yamb^ry. He saw only what he was allowed to do ; and thus Mr. Schuyler, whose name has, we regret to say, been altered by the irreverent Turcophile to " Squealer," roundly declares that he never visited

Trieste. 47

the places wHch he has so well described. Yon will therefore regard M, Vamb^ry's opinions upon the subject of Turkey with suspicion, and reserve all your respect for his invaluable publi- cations upon the Turanian dialects, his specialite. Lieutenant Payer's book will disappoint you ; its main merit is that of having been written by a Magyar.

Do not believe these Ugrians to be " the backbone of the Austrian Empire," whatever they may be to its element of weak- ness, the Monarchy. And if you are driven to own that the Hungarians "play the leading part in the events of Southern Europe," understand that the chief end and aim of Magyarist policy is to ruin the Slavs. I am a strong Austrian, with a great admiration for the Hungarians, who are to me, personally and individually, most attractive ; but this does not blind me to the disadvantages they, en masse, bring to Austria. I believe the Slav to be the future race of Europe, even as I hold the Chinese to be the future race of the East. In writing politics and histoigr which may live after one is long forgotten, one must speak the truth, and bury repulsions and attractions.

Were I Emperor of Austria, I should have the police organized on English principles. I should punish with death the first two or three cases of brutal crime. The people are excellent ; it speaks highly for them that, with weak laws, and authorities that act as though they dreaded the independent Triestines, the worst crimes are only stabbing when drunk, and suicide ; and the latter is entirely owing to the excitability of the climate and the utter throwing off of religion, whilst all moral disgrace or dread ijs removed by the applause conferred on the suicide, and sympathy with the surviving family, — which last is good and noble. I have seen thousands -accompanying a felo de se to the grave, with verses and laurel leaves and a band of music, as if he had done something gallant and brave. Indeed one was considered very narrow-minded for not joining in his eulogy.

They say that forty years ago Trieste was a charming place to live in ; but that with increase of trade, luxury and money flowed in, and faith flowed out. Let us say that the population is 130,000, with suburbs : 30,000 are practical Catholics, 20,000

48 Trieste, and General Politics in that Quarter.

are freethinkers, and 90,000 are utterly indifferent. In fact, the national religion is dying out ; and when that is so in a Catholic land, there is nothing to replace it except materialism. After re- peated outrages and torpedo-throwing, the Habeas Corpus would have been at once suspended in free England, and the French would haye placed the City under martial law. The Empire- ■ Kingdom does not, however, disfranchise the turbulent city by suppressing the local Diet till such time as the public expression of disloyal feeling shall have disappeared. A more manly policy would suit better. Trieste is also allowed to retain peculiar privi- leges. She is still a free port; her octrois are left to her for squandering and piUage, and are so heavy that till lately the adjoining villages consumed sugar which came vid Holland all, round and through Europe. Trieste has three towns, as well as three races. The oldest is the Citta Vecchia, which dates before the days of Strabo. Filthy in the extreme, it is a focus of in- fection. Small-pox is rarely absent from it, and it swells the rate of mortality to the indecent figure of 40-50 per 1000 per annum ; London being 22, and Madras 36. The climate is peculiar. It has three winds, — the Bora (Boreas), the Baltic current, the winter wind— cold, dry, highly electrical, very exciting, and so violent that sometimes the quays have been roped, and some of the walls have iron rails let in to prevent people from being blown into the sea. And there have been some terrible accidents in my time. An English engineer has been blown from the quay into the hold of a ship (thirty feet) ; I saw him in the hospital, a mere jelly, but nothing broken ; he is well, and at work. A cab and horse have been upset, and also a train. The summer wind is the Sirocco, straight from Africa, wet, warm, and debilitating; whilst the contraste means the two blowing together, and against each other, with aU the dis- advantages of both.

Trieste, the chief Port of Austria, is a harbour greatly coveted equally by the Italian and the aerman. Mr. Freeman says that the chief glory of Trieste is its being on the way to Spalato. We thank him. He enters at some length into the origin of the City, and has well described the cathedral of San Giusto. But

Trieste > 4g

he should have read our little guide-book, " Three Days at Trieste,' ' which carefully describes the ruins of the Eoman temple, Jupiter Capitolinus, and the classical Arco di Eiccardo (Richard of England), who never was here. The old gateway to the temple is not, however, in any sense a " double arch." He says nothing of the remnants of the Roman theatre and aqueduct in the old town ; nothing of the Museums (Winckelmann and Civico Ferdinand Maximilian), and nothing of the old Keltic (?) castellieri, or proto- historic villages lying within cannon-shot of the city of Augustus. Trieste, wealthy as she is, still wants all modern improvements. The reason is simply that the two rival parties act like the two bundles of hay in the fable ; between them the ass starves. Thus, the water, being not only scarce, but dear, exceedingly ill- flavoured, and unwholesome, a fresh supply has been demanded for years. The Italianissimi proposed to bring it from the Risano, stream to the south-west, thereby ruining one of the happiest valleys in Istria. The Tedeschi put forward the Rekka, or San Canziano rivulet to the north-east, — a mere ditch in summer, and mightily foul at aU seasons. Let us hope that Mr. Ritterbandt, C.E., after satisfying Venice, may bring the Timavo, the classical Timavus, bodily into the City. The effect of better water at Vienna has been at once to reduce the mortality by one quarter. Similarly, Trieste trade is being ruined because Trieste wants a northern railway to Salzburg ; the Laak line is advocated by one lot, the Predil by the other, and meanwhile transit and traffic must describe a long semicircle, vid Venice or Vienna.

In two points Trieste can claim a pre-eminence. The first is her Exchange (the Tergesteo), which probably originates half the views about Herzegovina and Bosnia which fill the papers of Europe. The second is her new Municipal Palace. The ancient building had the true Venetian cachet, but was small and low, and so was improved off. The new is of the order which I have heard called "bastard nothing," and has not a straight line in the frontage. The joints converge like a Chinaman's eyes ; it cost 270,000 florins, and the sharp natives name it Sipario^— stage- curtain palace. The masons of Trieste are nevertheless admirable. They run up a five-story house of cut stone, with walls two feet

4

50 Trieste, and General Politics in that Quarter.

thick, with a surprising rapidity. These buildings are not pretty, they are like deal boxes; lack balconies, verandahs, are painftdly wall-sided, and unconscious of light and shade, and they ignore all that adorable, straggling, no-shapedness and pictur- esqueness which makes one long to buy. But this is the architect's want of soul, not the mason's.

Trieste is a political and coy personage, hotly wooed by Italy and by Germany. The latter openly declares that she is part of the new Teutonic Empire, and that the eight millions or so of Austro-Grermans ought to belong body and soul to the Father- land. Meanwhile she is enjoyed by the Empire- Kingdom, greatly against the grain. A powerful rival is rising a few miles to the south, in the person of Croatian Fiume, which has long ago re- pented her of having cast her lot with Hungary. The Flanatic Bay of the ancients is magnificent, almost equalling the scenery of Naples. A French company is building a port, which will avoid much of the expense and some of the errors fatal to Trieste, and but for the inveterate backwardness of the people, the utter ignorance of what progress means, and the miserable local jealousies, Fiume, connected by a railway with Agram or Zagabria, might already have risen upon the decline of Trieste ; but Fiume does not see her advantage, and we retain our supremacy.

Beyond the Sinus Flanaticus begins the kingdom of Dalmatia, with a line of natural harbours between Zara and the Bocche di Cattaro, which are perhaps the finest in the European world. Unhappily, at present these ports have nothing • to export or import. After long and careful consideration of the question, based upon the impartial hearing of both sides discussed, we have come to the conclusion,— firstly, that the dualism of 1867 has not been successful ; secondly, that Austria should have been a Triregno; thirdly, that H.I.M. Franz Josef might still be crowned King of Bohemia as well, and thus establish a nucleus about which the divided families of Slavs, especially the estimable Slovenes, the Wends who founded Venice, could and would group themselves. I am essentially Austrian by sympathy and ancient family ties, as I have said ; but I do not Like the Germans to chuckle when they tell me that the last great Slavonic Congress

Politics in our Little Corner of the World. 5 1

which met in 1845, wag compelled, after various failures, to make speeches in German; because the laughers ignore the fact that Panslavism is still rampant in Austria, and the clergy puif up the patriotic movement with all their might, and that schools and colleges are teaching the rising generation its rights as well as its wrongs. None hut an inveterate theorist who holds that the Slav race is not to he the race of the future, would neglect the importance of a people constituting nearly half the total of Austro-Hungary — nineteen millions out of the thirty- four which remained after the cession of Venice in 1866.

The evil action of this unfair dualism is now causing pro- found discontent. Dalmatia is the narrowest kingdom in Europe, — 300 miles long by to 15 mUes broad, the cypher representing the two spots where Turkey touches the sea. She is a face with- out a head; the latter would be Bosnia and the Herzegovina. She has a profusion of ports which have nothing to port, and a fine seafaring population ready for, and capable of, any amount of carrying ■ trade, but condemned to be professors, custom-house oflficers, and fishers of sardines. Bosnia, with her unworked mines and forests, her unimproved flocks and herds, and her hundred other som-ces of neglected wealth, is the complement of, a political necessity io, Dalmatia. Some day she must become Dalmatian, and the sooner she connects herself with Austro-Hungary by a plebiscite, or some such civilised instru- ment, the better it wiU be for both. The only drawback to this movement in the far west of the Ottoman Empire is that it appears to be somewhat premature. Eussia has her hands full in Eastern Asia, and Austria has for some time had a hole in her pocket. No one knows how sick the famous Sick Man really is since his last attack of Russomania, following his chronic Russo- phobia,*— an attack brought on by our own disgraceful (Liberal) abandonment of the Black Sea Treaties. None know, save those who have sat by his bedside, looked at his tongue, and have felt his pulse. He was breaking fast when he determined to risk a national bankruptcy. Finding the so-called " tax of blood " too heavy, he was already talking of a Christian recruitment, which

• N.B. — This was written January 1876,

52 Trieste, and General Politics in that Qtiarter.

would have been the beginning of the end ; and the paroxysm induced by sending a few thousand troops to ravage and lay waste his discontented outlying estates, has reduced him to the last gasp. For the rebellion, although premature, is a reality, — it will not be put down by paper ; it means to last till next spring, and when the fighting season comes it will call for the armed intervention of Europe.

The integrity of the Ottoman Empire has been, since the days of Chatham, a fortieth article of faith to English statesmen ; although since the publication of Macfarlane's " Turkey and her Destiny," every traveller from Mostar to Bussorah, from Candia to Circassia, has shown up the miserable misrule which oppresses those fair and fruitful regions. The British Cabinet till now has not opened its eyes to ask "How long?" or has had originality enough or irreverence sufficient to pull down the old idol, and to propose a remedy for the present condition of things. The official mind was made up : there was . no more to be said upon the subject. A Grovernment that preferred peace and present pros- perity to the discharge of an arduous and distasteful duty, laid down its law, determined to let sleeping dogs lie, till that little matter of the Turkish debt, the neatest thing done by the arch- enemy of the Ottoman, came like a thunderbolt and "roused the spirit of the British Lion."

Meanwhile the action of Austria has been sadly trammeled by the Dualism which she has brought upon herself. The German population of the Empire naturally dislikes being swamped by the new influx of Slavs, but it has not proved itself unpatriotic. The contrary is the case with the kingdom of Hungary, — the five millions of Magyars who, strengthened by the position and the character of Count Andrassy, have opposed themselves with all their might to the development of Dalmatia. This is a mistake, because sooner or later Dalmatia will develop herself without them. The reason that Austro-German officers joining Hungarian regiments avoid as much as possible studying the language is that they fear not being allowed to exchange, and they do not see their way in case of a separation between the Empire and the Kingdom,

Politics in our Little Corner of the World. 53

The Britisli philo-Tark, if any there he now, would characterise Ihe ahsorption of Bosnia and Herzegovina, — I would even add Montenegro and Alhania, with the frontiers of Greece, — as a spolia|fcion of Turkey. Let him prove that it is not a just and right retaliation for the centuries of injury which she has inflicted, which she still inflicts, and which she will ever inflict, upon tht sacred causes of civilization and progress. If any casuist declare that the misrule of a government, as in the case of Oude, does not justify the annexation by powers professing faith in the development of man, in the religion of humanity; if he put forward that old saw that "the end does not justify the means ;" let him he answered that Europe has duties which she owes to herself, that the first rule of conduct is her own safety, and that the second is the support of her co-religionists in Europe and Asia, throughout the Ottoman Empire. The Christian popula- tion equals, if not exceeds the Mahometan, and the evident hope with which it looks forward to emancipation from Islamism deserves the most careful consideration.

For the last ten years the relations of Great Britain with Turkey have been peculiar and unsatisfactory. The Ottoman voice has openly said : " The last Englishman who cared for us was Lord Palmerston. You will assist us if it be to your interest, no matter how we treat you, well or ill. You do not fight for an idea, like France. You will not fight for love of us, as in the days of Silistria and Eupatoria. "We prefer an open enemy to a false friend. Go to ! We have had enough of you." And they showed their especial contempt by their treatment of English subjects in Turkey; the debts owed to them by the Turk remain unpaid, and in Syria our fellow countrymen were the last to receive the compensation for the destruction of their property in the massacre of 1860.

Again, the present is, if any, the moment for us to act, or to •encourage action in others, the stride of the young Colossus is temporarily, not lastingly, stayed. In future Mvne.^* quien sale? (but God avert it!), we maybe so hampered by civil dis- turbances between Capital and Labour, so trammeled by intestine

• I fear that the Future nonr tlireatens to he the Present (1878).

54 Trieste, and General Politics in that Quarter.

troubles in Ireland, or so engaged in external war, that moral force only will not suffice to give our voice any weight in the European world. And the effect would be allowing Russia, a vigilant enemy of overpowering resolution, to annex Turkey in Europe without any attempt to preserve the last rag of balance of power by strengthening the hands of Austria.

Again, there are thousands of our fellow countrymen scat- tered over the surface of Turkey, and were England known to be incapacitated from using arms, yet having arms and money, it is to be feared that the first Eussian gun fired from Con- stantinople would be the signal of a miserable butchery. But it wUl be said that the Sultan has begun the task of reform, his last rescript has been more favourable to the Eayyahs than any- thing ever issued by Turkey. I reply, it is easy to have dust thrown in our eyes provided we open them for the purpose. What have all the Hatts Shereef or Humayoun yet done for the Christian Turk? We must be made, after the image of David (Jrquhart, to believe in such pie-crust promises. Grant we that H.I.M. the Sultan is sincere, yet he cannot act himself, and there is no one to act for him; the Turkish official — and, for the matter of that, the unofficial — society is much like her army. The private is an excellent man, sober, honest, truthful, brave, and docile to a degree. Promote him, and he runs through the several grades of bad comparison, not repente, but with an agility which surprises the slow northern mind. As a, non- commissioned officer he is bad ; higher he is worse ; and com- mand makes him worst. The same with the French peasant : give him a small emploi, a bit of gold lace, and he falls from an angel to a demon in a week, without stopping to look round.

Now back to rwtre premier amour, Trieste. I, as a woman, should naturally know but little of these things of myself, but associating with politicians and clever men all day, with open eyes and ears, an average amount of intelligence, and an occa- sional peep at a despatch, make one learn a good deal, and form strong opinions. I am neither philo-Turk nor Russ. I am John Bull to the backbone, with hereditary and personal Austrian symr pathies, and a strong leaning to all that is of Arab blood.

Private Life in Trieste. 55

This port was once a favourite with the British bird of passage, especially when embarking with the Austro-Hungarian Lloyd for Alexandria. But the Northerner did not approve of the line. He liked his beef and mutton in huge joints, not in slices and cutlets ; he preferred his potatoes in theii* jackets to pommes de terre d la maitre d'hdtel; in fact, he grumbled about everything, and at Suez he transferred himself on board the P. and 0. like on« that had found a home. The stranger has also been put to flight by the hotel managers. This city is one of the dearest in Europe. The shilling, the lira, and the franc have become the florin, but these gentlemen gild refined gold, and charge highly for the operation. There are three establishments which call themselves first-rate, and which Englishmen would consider decently com- fortable. Unhappily, they belong to companies, not individuals, and they are farmed out to managers, who squeeze you as the tax-gatherer does the Eayyah. There are no tables of charges hung up in the rooms, so you pay according to length of purse, real or supposed. Thus, the late Lord Calling had a bill of £45 for two days, during which he never dined in the house, and the present Prince Ypsilante was plundered at the same time of 950 florins. It is said that he sent for the manager, and, after settling his account, warmly complimented him upon being the greatest rascal he had ever had to do with. So the late Lord Hertford, when paying oif his Parisian architect, politely re- gretted that he had ever had le deplaisir de sa connaissance.

All the world here is reading M. Charles Yriarte. That popular writer, the Ipsilon of the Reviie des deux Mondes, who spent the winter of 1873-4 in Istria and Dalmatia, Montenegro and Herze- govina, published his trip in the illustrated journal, the T'our du Monde ; and, the time being propitious, it was translated into Italian at Milan, with a variety of notes taking the Italianissimo view of the matter, and converting a delightful tale of travel into a rabid wrangle of politics. The Austrian Government has shown a want of knowledge of human nature, put the book a Vindex, confiscating every copy found in the libraries ; consequently we are all devouring it en cachette.

Now, having vivisected Trieste from a manly, business-like and political point of view, I return to my own nature, that of a tender and indulgent woman, very much in love with her home. Trieste is beautiful; I know of no more fascinating panorama than that of the Carnian Alps from the rive{qp.&jB) of Trieste. In summer they are hid by the exhalations of the Aquilejan lowlands, but in winter, when they raise their giant heads, hoar with snow, and extend their lower garments of light azure over the plain, whose foreground is the deep blue Adriatic, dotted with its lateen sails, they give an inconceivable majesty to the north-western horizon. All round our bay the hills are covered with woodland and ver- dure, and are overtopped on one side by the bit of wild Karst, which looks like stony Syria. The town fills the valleys, and straggles up these wooded slopes ; the sky is softly blue ; on a balmy day, the birds and bees, the hum of the insects, the flowers, fresh air, and the pretty peasantry on gala days, combine to form a picture which makes one glad to live. The boisterous winds and bad climate have never hitherto, thank God, given me any- thing but the strongest health.

You can live exactly as you please here ; you can be as retired or as gay as you like. If you have money there is every creature comfort ; and if you do not find it here, you can have it in a day or two, for you are near Vienna, Paris, London, Berlin, Rome. If you have not money, you must be content with modest living. There is abundance of society of all kinds, — and it is so good- natured and amiable; it does not care whether you are rich or poor, whether you receive or do not receive ; it only asks you to be nice, and opens its arms to you. I daresay my visiting list, private and consular, comprises 300 families ; but we have our little intime clique, which is quite charming, and includes some sixty or seventy persons, the crdme of Trieste. It is a great deal to say in a small town of 130,000 inhabitants, that I have found twenty-six women friends whom I should be glad to see again in any part of the world. They are mostly pretty, have charming figures, are beautifully dressed, have delightful manners, are well educated and accomplished; all speak three or four languages, are good musicians, and swim like fish to say nothing of being good-hearted and most pleasant company.

One gets to know the male portion of society less well because they are all (except the Austrian authorities), in some profes- sion, or mostly on the Bourse, so that they are rarely seen, except at a ball or party, and so we do not get very intimate. All are married or mere boys ; there is a scarcity of what we fehould call "young men," so there are few weddings. And I would strongly recommend any friend who has a wife tant soil peu Ugdre, to come and reside here. We have what Captain Burton is pleased to call " hen parties," — Kaffee gesellschaft, which is really five o'clock tea, where we meet, dance (together), play, sing, recite stories, and have some refreshments ; but a man, except the master of the house, is never seen. Then, en revanche, we have plenty of evening entertainments, for both sexes, when a rigid decorum is observed. No one dares indulge in the most innocent flirtation.

Captain Burton and I have drawn out a line for ourselves. We rise at three or four in summer, and five in winter. He reads, writes, and studies all day, out of Consular hours, with occasional trips for health ; and I learning Italian, German, and singing. We take our daily exercise in the shape of an hour's swimming or fencing at the school, according to the weather. Then, what with writing, reading, looking after the poor, work- ing for the Church, or for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (here an arduous and muchrueeded mission), the day is all too short. You can, in one word, occupy yourself as you like, and have the best of masters for everything. The prettiest thing of all is the swimming school. It is moored out at the entrance of the harbour. We reach it in a boat, and get hold of " Tonina," the old woman who pro- vides us with a camerino, or little stall to undress in, and grins from ear to ear at our " chafi"," and prospects her bakshish. Our costumes are short trousers, boddice, and belt, of blue serge, or black alpaca, trimmed with white, and we plunge into the great Vasca, or basin, — an acre of sea, bottomless, but enclosed on all sides with a loaded net to keep out the sharks. There are twelve soldiers to teach us ; they begin with a pole and rope, like a fishing-rod and line, and to the end of the latter is a broad belt, which goes round the waist of a beginner whilst she learns the movements ; and you hear the incessant "eins, zwei, drei " of the drill. Next they lead you round the edge of the Vasca with a rope, like a pet dog. Some swimmers cast away the rope after the third, fourth, fifth, or sixth time, and some, who will never swim, keep it for forty or fifty times ; it is a mere matter of courage, as it is natural for every animal to swim. The adepts plunge in head first from a sort of trapeze, or from the roofs of the dressing rooms, making a somersault on the way. They do the prettiest tricks in the water, — young married women meeting in the middle, and shaking hands and holding long conversations ; scores of young girls romping about, ducking each other under, climbing on each -other's backs for sport in deep water ; and children of three or four swimming about like whitebait in and out between us aU. One old lady sits lazily on the water like a blubber-fish, knitting, occasionally moving her feet (we call her the buoy, and hold on to her when we are tired).

We have a curious local custom. On the 24th August you find the streets full of baggage, carts, and trucks, processions of boxes and furniture. The impression of a stranger is, that the town is being bombarded, or there is an earthquake, and we are taking flight with our " little aU." No such thing ; if you wish to change your house, you must give notice this 24th August, and you must change next 24th August, and on no other day, and that the hottest of the year, or you may option to lose a year's rent. There are two or three other curious local customs, already dying out in my time, — that of two friends or relations meeting in society, and perhaps after embracing affectionately, dropping each other a Court " curtsey." Visiting hours are from twelve to two ; men are required to go in white cravats, kid gloves, and evening costume. This " Minstrel "-like mode is happily also fading out. Every lady has her reception day, fixed, say, every Monday or every Friday, from such to such an hour. When I first came, I was often invited en intime to tea with half-a-dozen friends, all related to each other, and to come "just as you are, my dear," nnrl would find them decolletee with diamonds, whilst I, being English, had taken them au pied de la lettre, and gone " as I was," A friend once said to me, in confidence, "You know, my dear, we are so fond of our toilettes and diamonds, so it giyes us pleasure to dress, even for one another ; but don't you do it if it bores you." An invitation received in the morning to " drink a cup of cold water" at a friend's house in the evening, generally means a splendid ball, with Parisian supper and toilettes. All these extremes are, however, dying out, even during my stay here, or else I have grown used to them and do not perceive it. It is, taking it all in all, a most cordial and generous town, and nowhere have I been received with more kindness, affec- tion, and consideration. I shall always return to it with pleasure, and even if it should be my lot to leave it officially, I shall never desert it. This I can say both as to its private and public life, for the latter is always progressing, always in movement, and always trying to improve itself. The people have a good heart, and are amenable to kindness, and to reason and good manners. It is a most talented, a most tolerant, and charitable town, with its purse ever open to dis- tress of all kinds.