With This
View, They Carefully Avoid All Steps Towards Rendering That
Country Accessible By Land; And At The Same Time Discourage Their
Trade By Sea, Lest It Should Interfere With The Commerce Of Their
Capital, In Which They Themselves Are Personally Concerned.
Those who either will not or cannot bear the sea, and are equally
averse to riding, may be carried in a common chair, provided with
a foot-board, on men's shoulders:
This is the way of travelling
practised by the ladies of Nice, in crossing the mountains to
Turin; but it is very tedious and expensive, as the men must be
often relieved.
The most agreeable carriage from here to Genoa, is a feluca, or
open boat, rowed by ten or twelve stout mariners. Though none of
these boats belong to Nice, they are to be found every day in our
harbour, waiting for a fare to Genoa; and they are seen passing
and repassing continually, with merchandize or passengers,
between Marseilles, Antibes, and the Genoese territories. A
feluca is large enough to take in a post-chaise; and there is a
tilt over the stern sheets, where the passengers sit, to protect
them from the rain: between the seats one person may lie
commodiously upon a mattress, which is commonly supplied by the
patron. A man in good health may put up with any thing; but I
would advise every valetudinarian who travels this way, to
provide his own chaise, mattrass, and bedlinnen, otherwise he
will pass his time very uncomfortably. If you go as a simple
passenger in a feluca, you pay about a loui'dore for your place,
and you must be intirely under the direction of the patron, who,
while he can bear the sea, will prosecute his voyage by night as
well as by day, and expose you to many other inconveniencies: but
for eight zequines, or four loui'dores, you can have a whole
feluca to yourself, from Nice to Genoa, and the master shall be
obliged to put a-shore every evening. If you would have it still
more at your command, you may hire it at so much per day, and in
that case, go on shore as often, and stay as long as you please.
This is the method I should take, were I to make the voyage
again; for I am persuaded I should find it very near as cheap,
and much more agreeable than any other.
The distance between this place and Genoa, when measured on the
carte, does not exceed ninety miles: but the people of the
felucas insist upon its being one hundred and twenty. If they
creep along shore round the bottoms of all the bays, this
computation may be true: but, except when the sea is rough, they
stretch directly from one head-land to another, and even when the
wind is contrary, provided the gale is not fresh, they perform
the voyage in two days and a half, by dint of rowing: when the
wind is favourable, they will sail it easily in fourteen hours.
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