Rollo in Rome Page 4

  CHAPTER IV.

  A RAMBLE.

  "And now, uncle George," said Rollo, "we'll get ready, and then thefirst thing that we will do, will be to go down into the dining room andget some breakfast."

  "Why, we have had our breakfast already," said Mr. George. "We had it attwo o'clock this morning, on the Pontine Marshes."

  "O, no," said Rollo, "that was our supper for last night."

  "Very well," said Mr. George, "we will have some breakfast. You may godown and order it as soon as you are ready. I will come down by the timethat it is on the table."

  "What shall I order?" asked Rollo.

  "Whatever you please," said Mr. George.

  Accordingly Rollo, as soon as he was ready, went down stairs, andlooking about in the entrance hall, he saw a door with the words TABLED'HOTE, in gilt letters, over it.

  "Ah," said he to himself, "this is the place."

  He opened the door, and found himself in a long, narrow room, whichseemed, however, more like a passage way than like a room. There was asort of rack on one side of it for hats and coats. There were severalpictures in this room, with prices marked upon them, as if they were forsale, and also a number of very pretty specimens of marble, and inlaidpaper weights, and models of columns, temples, and ruins of variouskinds, and other such curiosities as are kept every where in Rome tosell to visitors. Rollo looked at all these things as he passed throughthe room, considering, as he examined them, whether his uncle Georgewould probably wish to buy any of them.

  One of them was a model of a column, with a spiral line of sculpturesextending from the base to the summit. These sculptures representedfigures of men and horses, sometimes in battle, sometimes crossingbridges, and sometimes in grand processions entering a town.

  "This must be a model of some old column in Rome, I suppose," said Rolloto himself. "Perhaps I shall find it some time or other, when I amrambling about the streets. But now I must go and see about breakfast."

  So saying, Rollo passed on to the end of the passage way, where therewas a door with curtains hanging before it. He pushed these curtainsaside, opened the door, and went in. He found himself ushered into adining room, with a long table extending up and down the centre of it.There was a row of massive columns on each side of the table, whichsupported the vaultings of the ceiling above. In different parts of thistable there were small parties of gentlemen and ladies, engaged intaking late breakfasts.

  Rollo walked down on one side of the table. There was on that side aparty consisting of a lady and gentleman with two children, a girl and aboy,--all dressed in such a manner as to give them a foreign air. Thegentleman was speaking to the waiter in French when Rollo passed by theparty. The boy was sitting next to one of the great pillars. Thesepillars were so near the table that each one of them took the place of aseat.

  Rollo walked on and took his seat next beyond the pillar. Of course thepillar was between him and the boy.

  In a few minutes a waiter came to ask what Rollo would have forbreakfast. He asked in French. Rollo gave an order for breakfast fortwo. He said that his uncle would be down in a few minutes.

  "Very well, sir," said the waiter.

  As soon as the waiter had gone, Rollo looked round the other way, andhe saw that the other boy was peeping at him from behind the pillar. Theboy laughed when he caught Rollo's eye, and Rollo laughed too. The boyseemed to be about nine years old.

  A moment afterwards the boy began to peep at Rollo from behind thepillar on the back side, and then again on the front side, thus playinga sort of bo-peep. In this way, in a few minutes the two boys began tofeel quite acquainted with each other, without, however, having spoken aword. They would, perhaps, have continued this game longer, but just atthis moment the breakfast for the party came in, and the boy set himselfat work eating a warm roll, buttered, and drinking his coffee.

  "Can you speak French?" asked Rollo,--of course speaking French himselfin asking the question.

  "Yes," said the boy, "but not very well."

  "Then," said Rollo to himself, "he cannot be a French boy. Perhaps he isan Italian boy."

  "Italian?" asked Rollo.

  "No," said the boy, "not at all. All I know of Italian is _grazia_."[4]

  [Footnote 4: Pronounced _gratzia_.]

  "What does that mean?" asked Rollo.

  "It means, Thank you," said the boy.

  "He must be a German boy, I think," said Rollo to himself.

  After pausing a moment, Rollo ventured to ask the boy what his name was.

  "Charles Beekman," said the boy. He pronounced the name in so English afashion, that Rollo perceived at once that he must speak English, so hechanged from French to English himself, and said,--

  "So you are an English boy."

  "No," said Charles, "I'm an American boy."

  Rollo here laughed outright, to think how much trouble they had bothbeen taking to speak to each other in French, each supposing the otherto be some outlandish foreigner, when, after all, they were bothAmericans, and could talk perfectly well together in their own mothertongue. Such adventures as these, however, are very frequently met with,in travelling in foreign countries.

  After finding that they could both speak English, the two boys talkedwith each other like old friends, for some minutes; and at lengthfinding that the pillar between them was very much in the way, Charles,with his mother's permission, moved his seat round to Rollo's side ofit, Rollo himself moving to the next chair, to make room for him. Mrs.Beekman readily consented to this, having first observed that Rolloappeared to be a boy of agreeable and gentlemanly manners and demeanor.

  When Mr. George at length came down, he was at first quite surprised tofind that Rollo had thus obtained a companion; but before the breakfastwas completed, he had become quite well acquainted with the Beekmanfamily himself. Towards the end of the breakfast Rollo said that he wasgoing out to take a walk, and he asked Mrs. Beekman to let Charles gowith him. Mr. George was going to finish some letters in his room, andwas then going to the post office and to the bankers, where Rollo didnot particularly wish to go.

  "It will be better for you and me to go out and take a walk byourselves," said he to Charles, "if your mother is willing."

  "Yes," said Mrs. Beekman, "I am willing. Only you must take care and notget lost."

  "O, no," said Rollo; "I'll take care of that. Besides, if we should getlost, I know exactly what to do."

  "What would you do?" asked Mr. Beekman.

  "I would just take a carriage," replied Rollo, "and order the coachmanto drive right to the hotel."

  "Very good," said Mr. Beekman, "that would do very well."

  Accordingly, after breakfast Mr. George went to his room to finish hisletters, while Rollo and Charlie set out on their walk, to see what theycould see of Rome.

  Rollo's plan of taking a carriage, in case of getting lost in a strangecity, and ordering the coachman to drive to the hotel, is a veryexcellent one; but one thing is quite essential to the success of it,and that is, that the person lost should know the name of his hotel.Unfortunately, Rollo was going out without this requisite. Neither hehimself nor Mr. George had observed the name of the hotel where thecoachman whom they had employed, on their arrival, had finally leftthem; and in going out Rollo forgot to observe what it was. He did noteven take notice of the name of the street. He did observe, however,that the hotel had a small open space, like a square, before it, with afountain on one side. The water from the fountain flowed into a smallstone basin, with curious figures sculptured on the side of it.

  "Let us go and look at this basin," said Charles, "and see if it wouldnot be a good place for us to sail little boats."

  The basin was in a cool and pleasant place, being overshadowed by thedrooping branches of a great tree. Rollo, however, did not wish to stayby it long.

  "Let us go now and see the streets of Rome," said he; "we can come outand look at this basin at any time."

  So the two boys walked along, paying little attention to the di
rectionin which they were going.

  "We shall find some of the great streets pretty soon," said Rollo, "andthen we will take an observation."

  "What do you mean by that?" asked Charles.

  "Why, we will take particular notice of some great building, orsomething else that is remarkable where we come out into the street, andby that means we shall be able to find our way back to the hotel."

  "Yes," said Charles, "that will be an excellent plan."

  So the boys went on, and presently they came out into what seemed to bequite a busy street. It was not very wide, but it was bordered withgay-looking shops on each side. These shops were for the sale of models,specimens of marbles, Etruscan vases, mosaics, cameos, and other suchthings which are sold to visitors in Rome. The number of mosaics andcameos was very great. They were displayed in little show cases, placedoutside the shops, under the windows and before the doors, so thatpeople could examine them as they walked along.

  "O, what a quantity of mosaics and _cameos_!" exclaimed Rollo.

  "What are mosaics and cameos?" asked Charles.

  As perhaps some of the readers of this book may not know precisely themeaning of these words, I will here explain to them, as Rollo did toCharles, how mosaics and cameos are made.

  In the first place, in respect to cameos. Imagine a small flat piece ofstone, of different colors on the two sides, say white and black. Wewill suppose that the white extends half through the thickness of thestone, and that the remaining part of the thickness is black. Stones areoften found with such a division of colors, not only white and black,but of all other hues.

  Now, the artist takes such a stone as this, and marks out some designupon one side of it, say upon the white side. Perhaps the design may bethe figure of a man. Then he cuts away all the white of the stone exceptthe figure; and the result is, that he has the figure of the man, orwhatever else his design may be, in white, on a black ground, and thewhole in one piece of stone, all solid.

  Besides stone, shell is often used for cameos; many shells being pink,or of some other such color on the inside, and white towards theoutside. In such a case, the figures of the design would be pink, orwhatever else the color of the stone might be, on a white ground.

  The artists of Rome are celebrated for making beautiful cameos, both inshell and in stone. The figures are very nicely drawn, and are verybeautifully cut, and when finished are set as pins, bracelets, and otherornaments.

  The _mosaics_, on the other hand, are made in a very different way. Inthese, the design is represented by different colored stones or bits ofglass worked in together, with great care, in an opening made in thematerial serving for the groundwork. Rollo and Charlie went into oneof the shops, and saw a man making one of these mosaics. He was workingat a table. On one side was a small painting on a card, which was hismodel. He was copying this painting in mosaic. The bits of glass that hewas working with were in the form of slender bars, not much larger thana stiff bristle. They were of all imaginable colors--the several colorsbeing each kept by itself, in the divisions of a box on the table. Theman took up these bars, one by one, and broke off small pieces of them,of the colors that he wanted, with a pair of pincers, and set them intothe work. He put them in perpendicularly, and the lower ends went intosome soft composition, placed there to receive and hold them. The upperends, of course, came together at the surface of the work.

  The man who was making the mosaic told Rollo, that as soon as he hadfinished placing the pieces for the whole design, he should grind offthe surface so as to make it smooth, and polish it. It would then havethe appearance of a painted picture.

  You would think that as the colors of the design are thus represented byseparate pieces of glass, put in one after the other, the result wouldbe a sort of mottled appearance, or at least that the gradations of huewould be sharp and harsh in their effect. But it is not so. The piecesare so small, and the different shades succeed each other so regularly,that when viewed from the ordinary distance, the junctions disappearaltogether, and the shades mingle and blend together in the softest andmost perfect manner.

  The mosaic which the workman was making in the shop where Rollo andCharles went in, was a small one, intended to form part of a bracelet.There were, however, some in the same shop that were quite large. Theywere framed like pictures, and were hanging up against the wall.Indeed, there was nothing but the circumstance that they were in amosaic shop, to denote that they were not pictures, beautifully paintedin oil. One was a landscape; another was a portrait of a beautiful girl;another was a basket of fruit and flowers.

  In some of the churches of Rome, there are mosaics of very large size,which are exact and beautiful copies of some of the most celebratedpaintings in the world. Strangers coming into the churches and lookingat these pictures, never imagine them to be mosaics, and when they aretold that they are so, they can scarcely believe the story. But onexamining them very near, or in looking at them through an operaglass,--for sometimes you cannot get very near them,--you can easily seethe demarcations between the little stones.

  It is a very curious circumstance that the most ancient pictures in thechurches of Rome and Italy are mosaics, and not paintings. Mosaics seemto have come first in the history of art, and paintings followed, inimitation of them. Indeed, the arranging of different colored stones ina pavement, or in a floor, so as to represent some ornamental design,would naturally be the first attempt at decoration made in theconstruction of buildings. Then would follow casing the walls withdifferent colored marbles, arranged in pretty ways, and finally therepresentation of men and animals would be attempted. This we find, froman examination of ancient monuments, was the actual course of things,and painting in oil came in at the end as an imitation of pictures instone.

  Rollo and Charles were induced to go into the mosaic shop by theinvitation of the workman, whose table, as it happened, stood near thedoor. He saw the two boys looking in somewhat wistfully, as they wentby, and he invited them to walk in. He saw at once from their appearancethat they were visitors that had just arrived in town, and though he didnot expect that they would buy any of his mosaics themselves, he thoughtthat there might be ladies in their party who would come and buy, if hetreated the boys politely. It was on that account that he invited themto come in. And when they had looked about the establishment as much asthey wished, and were ready to go away, he gave them each one of hiscards, and asked them to give the cards to the ladies of their party.

  "But there are no ladies of my party," said Rollo.

  "Who is of your party?" asked the workman.

  "Only a young gentleman," said Rollo.

  "O, very well," rejoined the man, "that will do just as well. He willcertainly wish to buy mosaics, while he is in Rome, for some of theyoung ladies of his acquaintance."

  "I think that is very doubtful," said Rollo; "but nevertheless I willgive him the card."

  So Rollo and Charles bade the mosaic man good by, and went away.

  They had been so much interested in what they had seen in the mosaicshop, and their attention, now that they had left it, was so muchoccupied with looking at the display of mosaics and cameos which theysaw in the little show cases along the street, that Rollo forgotentirely his resolve to take an observation, so as not to lose his way.The boys walked on together until they came to a long and straight,though not very wide street, which was so full of animation and bustle,and was bordered, moreover, on each side by so many gay looking shops,that Rollo said he was satisfied it must be one of the principal streetsof the town.

  It was, in fact, the principal street in the town. The street is called_the Corso_. It runs in a straight line from the Porto del Popolo, whichI have already described, into the very heart of the city. It is nearthe inner end of this street that the great region of ancient ruinsbegins.

  Rollo and Charles began to walk along the Corso, looking at the shops asthey went on. They were obliged, however, to walk in the middle of thestreet, for the sidewalks, where there were any, were so narrow
andirregular as to be of very little service. Indeed, almost all thepedestrians walked in the middle of the street. Now and then a carriagecame along, it is true, but the people in that case opened to the rightand left, and let it go by.

  After going on for some distance, Charles began to look about himsomewhat uneasily.

  "Rollo," said he, "are you sure that we can find our way home again?"

  "O! I forgot about the way home," said Rollo; "but never mind; I canfind it easily enough. I can inquire. What is the name of the hotel?"

  "I don't know," said Charles.

  "Don't know?" repeated Rollo, in a tone of surprise. "Don't know thename of the hotel where you are lodging?"

  "No," said Charles, "we only came last night, and I don't know the nameof the hotel at all."

  "Nor of the street that it is in?" asked Rollo.

  "No," said Charles.

  "Then," said Rollo, in rather a desponding tone, "I don't know what weshall do."

  Just then a carriage was seen coming along; and Rollo and Charles, whohad stopped suddenly in the middle of the street, in their surprise andalarm, were obliged to run quick to get out of the way. The carriage wasa very elegant one in red and gold, and there were two elegantly dressedfootmen standing behind.

  "That must be a cardinal's carriage," said Rollo, when the carriage hadgone by.

  "How do you know?" asked Charles.

  "Uncle George told me about them," said Rollo. "You see Rome and all thecountry about here is under the government of the pope, and the chiefofficers of his government are the cardinals; and uncle George told methat they ride about in elegant carriages, in red and gold, verysplendid and gay. We saw one of them, too, when we were coming intotown."

  Charles watched the carriage a minute or two, until it had gone somedistance away, and then turning to Rollo again, he said,--

  "And how about finding our way home again, Rollo?"

  "Ah!" said Rollo, "in regard to that I don't know. We shall have to takea carriage when we want to go home, so we may as well go on and have ourwalk out. We are lost now, and we can't be any more lost go where wewill."

  So the boys walked on. Presently they came to a large square, with animmense column standing in the centre of it. This column was so similarto the little model which Rollo had seen at the hotel, that he exclaimedat once that it was the same. It had a spiral line of sculptures windinground and round it, from the base to the summit. The figures, however,were very much corroded and worn away, as were indeed all the angles andedges of the base, and of the capital of the column, by the tooth oftime. The column had been standing there for eighteen or twentycenturies.

  "I saw a model of that very column," said Rollo, "in a little room atthe hotel. It is the column of Trajan. I'll prove it to you."

  So Rollo asked a gentleman, who was standing on the sidewalk with aMurray's Guide Book in his hand, and who Rollo knew, by thatcircumstance, was an English or American visitor, if that was not thecolumn of Trajan.

  "No," said the gentleman; "it is the column of Antonine."

  Rollo looked somewhat abashed at receiving this answer, which turned hisattempt to show off his learning to Charles into a ridiculous failure.

  "I thought it was called the column of Trajan," said he.

  The gentleman, who, as it happened, was an Englishman, made no reply tothis observation, but quietly took out an opera glass from a case, whichwas strapped over his shoulder, and began studying the sculptures on thecolumn.

  So Rollo and Charles walked away.

  "I believe the name of it is the column of Trajan," said Rollo, "for Isaw the name of it on the model at the hotel. That man has just come,and he don't know."

  "Are you sure it is the same column?" suggested Charles.

  "Yes," said Rollo, "for it was exactly of that shape, and it had thesame spiral line of images going round and round it, and a statue on thetop. See, how old and venerable it looks! It was built almost twothousand years ago."

  "What did they build it for?" asked Charles.

  "Why, I don't know exactly," said Rollo, looking a little puzzled; "forornament, I suppose."

  "But I don't see much ornament," said Charles, "in a big column standingall by itself, and with nothing for it to keep up."

  "But it _has_ something to keep up," rejoined Rollo. "Don't you see,there is a statue on the top of it."

  "If that's what it is to keep up," said Charles, "I don't see any sensein making the column so tall as to hold up the statue so high that wecan't see it."

  "Nor I," said Rollo, "but they often made tall columns, like these, inancient times."

  After rambling about a short time longer, the boys came to another openspace, where there was a second column very similar in appearance to thefirst.

  "Ah!" said Rollo, "perhaps this is the column of Trajan."

  Rollo was right this time. There are several large columns standingamong the ruins of Rome, and among them are two with spiral lines ofsculpture around them, which are extremely similar to each other, and itis not at all surprising that Rollo was at first deceived by theresemblance between them.

  These columns were built in honor of the victories of great generals,and the spiral lines of sculptures were representations of theirdifferent exploits. The statue upon the top of the column was,originally, that of the man in whose honor the column was erected. Butin the case of the Roman columns, these original statues have been takendown, and replaced by bronze images of saints, or of the Virgin Mary.

  Near the column of Trajan was a large sunken space, in the middle ofthe square, with a railing around it. In the bottom of this sunken spacewas a pavement, which looked very old, and rising from it were rows ofcolumns with the tops broken off. The old pavement was eight or ten feetbelow the level of the street.

  "This must be some old ruin or other," said Rollo; "a temple perhaps."

  "Only I do not see," said Charles, "why they built their temples down solow."

  "Nor do I," said Rollo.

  "But, Rollo," said Charles, "I think it is time for us to begin to tryto find our way home. I don't see how you are going to find the way atall."

  "If I only knew the name of the hotel, or even the name of the street,"said Rollo, "I should know at once what to do."