THE

ALPENSTOCK;

OR, GLACIAL TOILS AND SUNNY RAMBLES.

BY CAPTAIN J. W. CLAYTON,

(Late of the 13th Light Dragoons: Author of " Ubique.")

[COMMUNICATED TO, AND EDITED BY, LORD WILLIAM LENNOX.]

CHAPTER VI.

The following day's sun lighted our way out of Pont St. Martin, and set from us at Turin, we having passed through, in the course of the journey, the mediocre town of Ivrea, remarkable for cotton-works, and a fine, massive old castello, now defaced and converted into a prison. The town is of great antiquity, and mentioned by Strabo. It was known as Eporedia, in Gallia Cisalpina, on the Duria (Doire), in the territory of the Salassi, who, upon the Roman colonization of the place, B.C. 100, were sold as slaves. The Romans used it as a bulwark against the neighbouring Alpine tribes. From thence a succession of long level roads across the plains, wonderfully straight, and wonderfully uninteresting, brought us to Chivasso, remarkable for nothing at all save a railway station, which to us was no ordinary luxury, not to say a novelty. Here, having lunched upon some very fanciful food, and having paid a still more fanciful price, we embarked in the train. Of course there was an American in the carriage; and his information, though various, was certainly unique. "His great-uncle, Mr. John Jabez Jenkinson, of Arkansas, whose sight is such as to render glasses necessary, put his spectacles on his ear instead of his eyes, one day, and actually walked three miles sideways, in a storm of thunder and lightning, before he discovered his mistake!" Then the speed of the train naturally was a little insipid to one who had all his life travelled on the rail at such a pace that the milestones going by so quickly in succession, made the road look like a graveyard!!"

Turin lay basking in the golden sunset as we arrived, and the brightly heaving bosom of the Po was flashing back the departing rays, looking as if its waves were still illumined by the radiance flowing upwards from the submerged gorgeous sun-chariot of Phaeton. The Court of Turin may be considered the most aristocratic and refined of all the Italian states. The miseries once entailed upon the people of this province by the French are still too fresh upon the public mind to allow much exasperation to have abated, notwithstanding the long interval of peace. It is, in fact, most curious to observe throughout the Italian peninsula the wonderful variety and systems of government, politics, ideas, animosities, and forms of religion, all so different in their constitutions. An observing character, and explorer into the motives and mysteries of humanity, cannot have a wider or more fertile ground for his researches than Italy; there is no place where, in

travelling, he can so well combine instruction and amusement, with greater advantage or pleasure. In the wide world, such varied collections of artistic and natural beauties, so distributed as to render both more lovely, cannot be found. There, walk hand in hand the three Graces of genius, each breathing a separate and heaven-born language, taught by the echoes of angel-whispers, floating down from the halls of Heaven, and shedding fresh sweetness upon the dull prison of clay, Music, the voice of the soul; Painting, of the mind; and Statuary, of the true and the perfect. Abounding with the most exalted productions of architecture, both ancient and modern, of poetry and the drama, the people of the land wear yet around their brows that shekinah of genius, that glorious, ever-shining flame, lit by the old masters of the world, and tended still by the mighty shades of the great and holy Dead. Objections may be urged as to the novelty being worn away from the scenes we are now passing through, and the sentiments which accompany them. Yet the topics relating to immortal Italy, the fair land of fable and of truth, can never be exhausted; the various mental colourings imbued upon the mind of the traveller who employs himself well in this country, that is now but as a ghost of itself, are as the changing and glowing hues of the dying dolphin, "in magical variety diffused," beautiful and more lovely in downfal, death, and decay. And again, as the general surface of creation may be, to a certain extent, considered in a common light by all, yet we may hope that originality still exists, and that subjects, however much they may have been discussed, may be either set in as many new lights as there are minds to kindle them, or accompanied with different reflections. Herein is proposed for consideration, not the high recondite theme of the historian, soaring, ambitious, and important,—but merely a perhaps deeper insight and notice of the trifles and accidents of a journey in Italy, than is generally condescended to by authors, in order that the whole may appear, to the eye of the reader for amusement, as a light and sketchy panorama, flowing easily by, and not taxing too strongly either the brains of those certain few who will only care to read these pages, or the very moderate supply of him from whence they are born.

The palace hotels of Turin are likely to strike with awe the heart of the English traveller, when he considers how little spirit and impetus there is amongst his own people to outshine or even compete with others in magnificence, elegance of design, and luxury combined. Paintings completely overspread the massive ceilings, glowing with real art, and, in the absence of a sooty and solid atmosphere, instructive withal, as they chiefly display to the wondering gaze of the uninitiated the various and curious pursuits and recreations of the heathen Gods and Goddesses the walls supporting these worthies are mirrored to the floor, and pillared and pilastered with gold and a hundred marbles; whilst the aristocratic-looking waiters, seeming as if they had been born in full evening costume instead of their skin, stalk with spurning feet over the polished inlaying of oak, chestnut, ebon, and maple beneath.

The Duomo of the city, though founded by King Agilulph, is ordinary as to its present construction. Beyond the high altar, in solemn and darkening perspective, rise the cupola, arches, and columns of the Santo Sudario. This chapel is so named from its being the mag

nificent and consecrated casket which holds in its centre a fragment of the actual shroud in which the body of our Lord was wrapped and buried. The colonnades of black, massive marble pillars, with their gold Corinthian capitals, leading, by gradually ascending steps of the same hue, to the chapel itself, are superbly grand; while the virgin whiteness of the magnificent and royal statues rearing, around the holy walls of sable, come out in dazzling lustre and grandeur.

The journey of two hours by railway, from Turin to Arona, is across the warm, wide plains of Piedmont, which would be uninteresting were it not for the extraordinary magnificence of the whole range of snowy Alps bounding the distance, and subsiding gradually far away into the soft azure to the left, as their snowy realms seem walling up the very skies, looking down upon the sunlit plains below, as if in serene and undisturbed consciousness of their tremendous might, and to say to all and everything that approach them, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther.' The railway in question carried us at the fair average pace of four miles per hour to Arona; and glad were we to escape from our travelling friends in that stew of a railway carriage, as their society though under ordinary circumstances would have been desirable for the liveliness displayed, yet, at the time we speak of, it must certainly be classed as an occasion extraordinary to us, though a matter of course to them; for an apparent bodily irritation was noticeable in the persons of two snuffy old ladies, a fat and greasy priest, and three other human nondescripts, inducing them to the self-satisfaction of firstly scratching themselves, and then one another collectively, like monkeys in a cage; this animated proceeding, though somewhat productive of uneasiness and distrust to ourselves, seemed highly gratifying, and particularly adapted for an amusement to those irritable personages, who were evidently of that peculiar stamp so often met with in Italy, having nothing to do, plenty of time to do it, and lots of people to help them. However, all this was soon obliterated from our minds by the contemplation of the first really complete Italian picture which was spread before us from the albergo window at Arona, set in its frame of azure. There lay the deeply blue and glassy lake of Maggiore, over whose sunny wavelets gleamed the snowy and flying wings of numberless skiffs and gaily-coloured barques, as they skimmed over the bright bosom of the waters like sporting butterflies. From every lovely hill and beautiful grove, which so lavishly enrich the banks of the soft lake, came the odours of the flowery myriads, and on every breeze were borne the trembling cadence of the fisherman's song. In the foreground rose a bold castle-topped crag, standing grandly out against the clear warm field of the sky, rising up from a wide-spreading flooring of various green, of smooth lawns, and groves of acacias, blended with the orange and olive, which seemed resting gently on the reflecting water as a quiet, floating isle of rest; while far away, mellowing and dying into the glowing haze of the distance, rose and sank the long ranges of swelling hills, and gleaming whitely from afar the soaring peaks of the eternal Alps. All nature seemed a holiday, and reposing in the glowing radiance of that golden clime. The eye knew not where to rest; and the mind, restless and intoxicated with beauty, wandered from theme to theme, feeling then that life was, after all, happy, and for a

time, however short, free from care, and all but the contentment of the hour, where the grief of the mourner may be lulled as in a dream, as, following the influence of the scenery around, we lingered along the sheeny banks of the lake, till the gorgeous sun, rolling down far over the purpling mountains and darkened forests, took his last farewell and lingering kiss upon another day, tinging the light feathery clouds with the hues of the rose, as they again floated in magical variety through an atmosphere flooded with those tender violet tints so peculiar to that fair climate. Oh, reader! to wander amongst such scenes with her thou lovest; to hear the soft music of her voice mingling with the dying murmurs of the day, and to kiss away the pearly trees tenderly streaming from those gentle and earnest eyes overflowing with the sweet excess of happiness, seeming rather like the beams quivering on the dark bosom of a lake, as, melting in the summer twilight sky, the vesper star is seen in the mirroring depths of its lonely waters-this is to have lived. To wander thus hand in hand; to guide thy love with arm-encircled waist, on by starry waves, and through deepening bowers, inhaling the dewy breath of the sacred eve, as the last prayer-bell of the hill-side convent is softly trembling along the air-then, higher and still brighter is exalted the truth, the poetry of nature, and then is really felt the gladness and beauty of Life, and a heart of sympathy responding. Such moments as these are rarely felt; cherish while ye may that pure happiness, that ataraxy then filling thy soul, when, by the resistless strength and divine majesty of woman's love, the clouds of sorrow and care are chased away from the aching brow, and that calmness, that rapture of repose,' steals over thy spirit, and illumines the paths of Life with a foretaste of a better existence, like the smile of the blue sky as it breaks brightly through a rift in the darkness of the storm. Oh! come back, ye happy hours of the heart's first bright passion! let us stamp thy glowing colours on the mind's page, when-where the green leaves shrank not from the breath of furnaces, where all was pure untroubled nature, was found all that is loveliest in life and deathless in song-when the sighing of the night wind and the repining voice of the forest mingled harmoniously with the heart's throbbings loud and fast, and the tender whisper was sweetly smothered by the raining kisses of love!-nevermore. This, in truth and purity, describes and is allied to that heavenly and indescribable idea and longing buried within the soul of man-the love of the Beautiful; and the vain striving (although, perhaps, akin to pain) to attain in our mortal state a prescience of the glories that lie beyond the dark portals of the grave: "Tis, alas!" the desire of the moth for the star."

་

RACING PHOTOGRAPHS.

BY ARGUS.

No. XV.-SIR JOSEPH HAWLEY.

Few of our readers who have been racing any period of time can have failed to remark a short gentleman, with sharp intelligent features, a rather stooping figure, and cigar in his mouth, talking very earnestly to John Day, or some other trainer. This is Sir Joseph Hawley; and as there are few men who have recently engaged more public attention, he is fully entitled to an early niche in our Gallery. Sir Joseph Hawley, when he began life, entered the army, in which he remained for a few years in one of our crack cavalry regiments, and on his retirement took up his residence at Florence. Here his love for the Turf was first displayed, as he imported some horses from England, and in conjunction with his subsequent confederate, Mr. Stanley, ran them at most of the meetings in Italy with varied success, his most formidable opponent being the famous Polish Prince Powniatowski. At Florence he cultivated the fine arts, of which he was a liberal patron, and, in addition to other mental accomplishments, he improved his knowledge of painting, of which there are few better judges among the members of the aristocracy. He is also deep in black letter lore. Sir Joseph's début on the English Turf was in 1844, where we find him with Vibration, Venus, and the Bishop of Romford's Cob at " Field-Marshal Beresford's" at Newmarket. With these he did but little good, and had all the worst of it in his matches. In the following year he improved slightly, and his stud was enlarged; but as yet there was no "flier" in it. But in 1846 things began to look more cheery with him, as with Miami he beat Cossack for the July, which the Days thought to be impossible, from their colt having been tried with St. Lawrence at three stone and beaten him two lengths. Seven to four was betted freely on Mr. Pedley's colt; and, to the great mortification of the Danebury division, he was bowled out by the mare, who proved her goodness on the following Thursday by being only beaten a head, with her nine-pound penalty for the Chesterfield, by Nerissa. And it was singularly conclusive of the merits of the first and second for the July, that they should have turned out the winners of the Derby and Oaks. Sir Joseph also won the Drawing Room at Goodwood with Humdrum, and several times with The Cob, Bravissimo, and Prospect. His progress, which up to this time had been but slow, now became more rapid, and in 1847 he perpetuated his name in the Calendar as the winner of the Oaks (worth upwards of £4,000) with Miami; but he did not net a very large sum in addition, as the market was so unwholesome for some time about her, as to give him but little encouragement to back her for a stake.

The week after this race he gave an instance of his pluck and desire