Marseilles Is Seated In The Midst Of A Semicircle Of Mountains Of Whitish
Rock, The Steep And Naked Sides Of
Which scarce afford "a footing for the
goat." Stretching into the Mediterranean they inclose a commodious harbor,
in front of
Which are two or three rocky islands anchored in a sea of more
vivid blue than any water I had ever before seen. The country immediately
surrounding the city is an arid and dusty valley, intersected here and
there with the bed of a brook or torrent, dry during the summer. It is
carefully cultivated, however, and planted with vineyards, and orchards of
olive, fig, and pomegranate trees. The trees being small and low, the
foliage of the olive thin and pale, the leaves of the fig broad and few,
and the soil appearing everywhere at their roots, as well as between the
rows of vines, the vegetation, when viewed from a little distance, has a
meagre and ragged appearance. The whiteness of the hills, which the eye
can hardly bear to rest upon at noon, the intense blue of the sea, the
peculiar forms of the foliage, and the deficiency of shade and verdure,
made me almost fancy myself in a tropical region.
The Greeks judged well of the commercial advantages of Marseilles when
they made it the seat of one of their early colonies. I found its streets
animated with a bustle which I had not seen since I left New York, and its
port thronged with vessels from all the nations whose coasts border upon
the great midland sea of Europe. Marseilles is the most flourishing
seaport in France; it has already become to the Mediterranean what New
York is to the United States, and its trade is regularly increasing. The
old town is ugly, but the lower or new part is nobly built of the
light-colored stone so commonly used in France, and so easily
wrought - with broad streets and, what is rare in French towns, convenient
sidewalks. New streets are laid out, gardens are converted into
building-lots, the process of leveling hills and filling up hollows is
going on as in New York, the city is extending itself on every side, and
large fortunes have been made by the rise in the value of landed property.
In a conversation with an intelligent gentleman resident at Marseilles and
largely engaged in commercial and moneyed transactions, the subject of the
United States Bank was mentioned. Opinions in France, on this question of
our domestic politics, differ according as the opportunities of
information possessed by the individual are more or less ample, or as he
is more or less in favor of chartered banks. The gentleman remarked that
without any reference to the question of the United States Bank, he hoped
the day would never come when such an institution would be established in
France. The project he said had some advocates, but they had not yet
succeeded, and he hoped never would succeed in the introduction of that
system of paper currency which prevailed in the United States. He
deprecated the dangerous and uncertain facilities of obtaining credit
which are the fruit of that system, which produce the most ruinous
fluctuations in commerce, encourage speculation and extravagance of all
kinds, and involve the prudent and laborious in the ruin which falls upon
the rash and reckless. He declared himself satisfied with the state of the
currency of France, with which, if fortunes were not suddenly built up
they were not suddenly overthrown, and periods of apparent prosperity were
not followed by seasons of real distress.
I made the journey from Marseilles to Florence by land. How grand and wild
are the mountains that overlook the Mediterranean; how intense was the
heat as we wound our way along the galleries of rock cut to form a road;
how excellent are the fruits, and how thick the mosquitoes at Nice; how
sumptuous are the palaces, how narrow and dark the streets, and how pallid
the dames of Genoa; and how beautiful we found our path among the trees
overrun with vines as we approached southern Italy, are matters which I
will take some other opportunity of relating. On the 12th of September
our _vetturino_ set us down safe at the _Hotel de l'Europe_ in Florence.
I think I shall return to America even a better patriot than when I left
it. A citizen of the United States travelling on the continent of Europe,
finds the contrast between a government of power and a government of
opinion forced upon him at every step. He finds himself delayed at every
large town and at every frontier of a kingdom or principality, to submit
to a strict examination of the passport with which the jealousy of the
rulers of these countries has compelled him to furnish himself. He sees
everywhere guards and sentinels armed to the teeth, stationed in the midst
of a population engaged in their ordinary occupations in a time of
profound peace; and to supply the place of the young and robust thus
withdrawn from the labors of agriculture he beholds women performing the
work of the fields. He sees the many retained in a state of hopeless
dependence and poverty, the effect of institutions forged by the ruling
class to accumulate wealth in their own hands. The want of self-respect in
the inferior class engendered by this state of things, shows itself in the
acts of rapacity and fraud which the traveller meets with throughout
France and Italy, and, worse still, in the shameless corruption of the
Italian custom-houses, the officers of which regularly solicit a paltry
bribe from every passenger as the consideration of leaving his baggage
unexamined. I am told that in this place the custom of giving presents
extends even to the courts of justice, the officers of which, from the
highest to the lowest, are in the constant practice of receiving them. No
American can see how much jealousy and force on the one hand, and
necessity and fear on the other, have to do with keeping up the existing
governments of Europe, without thanking heaven that such is not the
condition of his own country.
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