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"About three o'clock in the morning we took leave of the hospitable cavern, but it was not without difficulty we crossed the precipices which frowned before us, and for the first time had to employ our long ladder. We supported it against the side of a chasm, the opposite brink of which lay several hundred feet below. We descended backwards the close and narrow steps, strictly forbidden to cast a downward glance. Day advanced rapidly. The masses of snow which rose around us resembled so many mountains piled upon other mountains. We were in the heart of the vast solitudes of the Eiger, which seemed astonished by the echoes of our steps. We often made use of the ladder. By the third time I had recovered my liberty of action, and no longer descended backward, but contemplating with an undefinable charm the gaping gulfs which vanished in the obscure recesses of the glacier, bluer than the skies of the East.

"The troop soon divided into two sections. We wore blue glasses to protect our eyes from the dazzling brilliancy of the snow, which every moment became less compact. Almer had even covered his face with a green veil, but mine I found inconvenient, and resolutely exposed my skin to the burning rays of the sun, which were reflected from the glittering frozen surfaces, though the sun itself was hidden by clouds. The fissures in the glacier were few and very narrow, and we employed the ladder but once or twice in the immense plain of powdery snow which, towards eight o'clock, opened before us. It was then that our real sufferings began. The heat was excessive; walking, slow and very difficult, for at each step we sank almost to our knees. Sometimes the foot could find no bottom, and when we withdrew it we found a yawning azure-tinted crevasse. The guides called such places mines, and feared them greatly. The air every instant grew more rarefied; my mouth was dry; I suffered from thirst, and to quench it swallowed morsels of snow and kirsch-wasser, the very odour of which became at last insupportable, though I was sometimes compelled to drink it by the imperative orders of the guides.

"It had taken us long to cross the region of springs and torrents; not so long to traverse that in which the fissures of the glacier were hidden under the snow; and now at last we trod the eternal and spotless shroud of the frozen desert. I breathed with difficulty, my weakness increased, so that it was with no small pleasure I arrived at the halting-place marked out by our foremost party. I threw myself, exhausted, but enchanted, on the bed of snow which had been prepared for me. Avalanches were frequent. Sometimes they rolled in immense blocks with a sullen roar; sometimes whirlwinds of snow fell upon us like showers of heavy hail. To our great alarm the mist rose on all sides so that we often lost sight of those of our party who were acting as pioneers. After leaving the plain of snow we ascended a steep and difficult incline. The guides had hardly strength enough to clear a path, so rude was the acclivity and so dense the snow.

"At length, about ten o'clock, we halted on a platform which stretched to the base of the Mönch, whose ridge or backbone rose before our eyes. Here a small grotto had been excavated in the ice in which I was bidden to rest myself, thoroughly well wrapped up. We were literally on the brink of a complete collapse, respiration failed us, and for some minutes I expectorated blood. However, I regretted neither my fatigues, nor the resolution which had carried me to this point. All that I feared was that I should not be able to go farther. The very air which I endured so badly was an object of interest and study on account of its extraordinary purity. One of the guides, having brought from the grotto a few juniper branches, kindled a fire and melted some snow, which we drank with eagerness. I then remarked that they had collected in a group at some distance apart, and were conversing in a low tone and with anxious faces. The Jungfrau had been indicated as the goal of our enterprise, and their apprehensive glances were turned towards that mountain, which rose on our left, shrouded in dense fogs. I felt a vague fear that they wished to interpose some obstacle to the complete realization of my projects; and, in fact, they soon came to tell me that it would not be possible to climb the Jungfrau that day; that there was still a long march to be made before we could reach its base, which, by an optical illusion, seemed so near to us; and that from thence to the summit would be at least another three hours' climb.

"It seemed scarcely practicable to pass the night on the snow at so great an elevation, where the effort of breathing was a pain, and the icy cold threatened to freeze our aching limbs, and, besides, the guides were unanimous in predicting a violent storm in the evening. 'And then,' said they, 'what shall we do without shelter, without coverings, without fire, without any hot drink (for our supply of coffee was exhausted), in the midst of this ice?' I knew in my heart they were right, but I was keenly disappointed at failing to reach the goal when it seemed so near. As I could not make up my mind to adopt their opinion, Almer rose, and laying the ladder at my feet, said, with much energy, 'Adieu, I leave you, for my conscience as an honest man forbids me to lend a hand to a peril which I know to be inevitable.'

"I called him back, and rising in my turn, exclaimed: 'Will the difficulties be as great in the way of an ascent of the Mönch? There it is, only a few paces from us. It is free from mist, why should we not reach its summit?' At these words the astonishment was general, and everybody turned towards the peak I had named. The snow upon it seemed quite solid, and I thought it would be impossible to find there anything more dangerous than we had already experienced. Their hesitation surprised me. 'Are you aware,' said they, 'that yonder mountain has never been ascended?' 'So much the better,' said I, 'we will baptize it!' And, forgetting in a moment my weariness, I started off with a firm step. Pierre Jaun and Pierre Bohren, seeing me so resolved, seized our flag, set out in advance, and never rested till they had planted it on the loftiest summit of the Mönch, before the rest of us could get up. The flag was of three colours, white, yellow, and blue, and bore the beloved name of 'Wallachia,' embroidered in large letters. As if Heaven favoured our wishes, while clouds rolled upon all the surrounding mountains, they left free and clear the peak of the Mönch.

"Though the acclivity was much steeper than that of the Eiger, we did not find the difficulties much greater. The snow was hard, and as we did not sink far into it, our march was less fatiguing. We held to one another so as to form a chain, and advanced zigzag, fired with impatience to reach the summit. All around us I saw deep beds of snow, but nowhere such blocks of ice as M. Deser found upon the crest of the Jungfrau. It is probable that, owing to the season, the Mönch was still buried under the accumulated snows of winter, and this circumstance greatly contributed to our success.

"The image of the Infinite presented itself to my mind in all its formidable grandeur. My heart, oppressed, felt its influence, as my gaze rested upon the Swiss plain half hidden in the mists of the surrounding mountains, which were bathed in golden vapours. I was filled with such a sense of God that my heart – so it seemed to me – was not large enough to contain it. I belonged wholly to Him. From that moment my soul was lost in the thought of His incomprehensible power.

"But the time had come for our departure, and I must take leave of the mountain where I was so far from men! I embraced the flag, and at three o'clock we began our homeward march. With much toil and trouble we descended the declivities of the Mönch. We were obliged to lend each other more assistance than in ascending, and more than once we nearly fell into the abysses. But as soon as we regained the Eiger, we swept forward as rapidly as the avalanche which knows no obstacles, as the torrent which carves out its own channel, as the bird which on mighty pinions cleaves space. Seated on the snow, we allowed ourselves to slide easily down those steeps which we had so painfully climbed, even to the very brink of the precipices, which we had crossed on a ladder instead of bridge. We observed that the gulfs yawned wide which in the morning we had crossed upon the snow that covered them; for the aspect of these mountains changes with a truly extraordinary rapidity. Song and laughter soon broke forth again, provoked by our strange fashion of travelling. Great was our joy when we found ourselves once more in an atmosphere favourable to the life of vegetation, and all of us rushed headlong to the first brook, whose murmur sounded as sweet to us as the voice of a friend.

"But as soon as we reached the rocks free from snow, our troubles recommenced; difficulties reappeared, and were even more serious than those we had met with in our ascent. The peril was extreme; and but for the courageous Pierre Bohren, who carried me rather than supported me, I could never have descended the bare rocks that skirt the edge of the glacier. When we struck the Mer de Glace, we fell in with so many gaping fissures that we could cross them only by hazardous leaps and bounds. We had not reached the other side before we were met by our porters with the sedan-chair; and we arrived singing and cheering at Grindelwald, where everybody eyed us with as much wonder as if we had risen from the dead. I asked for some citrons, which I devoured while changing my clothes. Though completely knocked up, I set out immediately for Interlachen, to reassure those who were awaiting me there. At the foot of the Grindelwald hill, I stopped at Pierre Bohren's châlet to pay a visit to his wife, who held in her arms an infant only a few days old. I embraced it and promised to be its godmother.

"About midway between Grindelwald and Interlachen, we were overtaken by a storm as violent as that which had heralded our departure.

"The guides, therefore, had made no mistake. We should have experienced this tempest among the loftiest summits of the Alps, if we had continued our excursion.

"When I rose next morning, my face was one great wound, and for a long time I endured the keenest sufferings. Not less fatigued than myself, the guides at length arrived singing, and brought me a superb diploma upon official paper."³

The princess afterwards travelled in Greece, where she received an enthusiastic welcome, and ovations were offered to her as to a sovereign. Everybody did homage to the bright and generous author of "La Nationalité Hellénique," – the liberal and zealous advocate of the rights, the manners, the character, and the future of Greece. But of nationalities she was always the defender, and her wide sympathies embraced not only the Greeks, but the Albanians and the Slavs.

After having studied the antiquities of Athens, undertaken sundry scientific and archæological excursions into Attica, and enjoyed a delightful intercourse at Athens with kindred spirits – such as Frederika Bremer – she traversed the nomarchies, or provinces, of the kingdom of Greece, with the view of obtaining an exact and comprehensive account of the moral and material condition of the rural population.

As M. Pommier remarks, this long excursion in a country which offers no facilities to travellers, and where one must always be on horseback, could not be accomplished without displaying a courage unexampled, an heroic perseverance, and a physical and moral strength equal to every trial. She had to undergo the strain of daily fatigue and the heat of a scorching sun; to fear neither barren rocks, nor precipices, nor dangerous pathways, nor brigands. In spite of the counsels of prudence and of a timorous affection, the intrepid traveller would not omit any portion of her itinerary; she traversed successively into Bœotia, Phocis, Ætolia, and the Peloponnesus. When the mountaineers of Laconia saw her passing on horseback through the savage gorges, they cried out in their enthusiasm, "Here is a Spartan woman!" And they invited her to put herself at their head and lead them to Constantinople.

From Greece she went into Italy, in 1861, and took up her residence, where she has ever since remained, at Florence. Garibaldi has saluted as his sister this ardent champion of the rights of nationalities, who, to this day, has continued her philanthropic exertions. In 1867, she published "La Nazionalità Albanese secondo i Canti popolari;" in 1869, "Discours sur Marco Polo;" in 1870, "Venise en 1867;" in 1871-1873, "Gli Albanesi in Rumenia," a history of the princely family of the Ghikas from the 17th century; in 1871, a couple of novels, "Eleanora de Hallingen," and "Ghizlaine;" in 1877, "La Poésie des Ottomans;" and in 1878, "The Condition of Women among the Southern Slavs."

The princess, besides plunging into historical labours, sedulously cultivates the Fine Arts, and is moreover a first-rate pistol-shot. A true Albanian, she loves arms, and handles them skilfully.

It cannot be denied, that she deserves her splendid reputation. Any one of her works, says a French critic, would make a man famous; and they are unquestionably marked by all the characteristics of an independent and observant mind. But it is her life that best justifies her renown – her life with its purity, its enthusiasm, its zeal for the oppressed, its intense love of knowledge, its vivid sympathies and broad charities, and its constant striving after truth and freedom, and the highest beauty.

THE PRINCESS OF BELGIOJOSO

A French writer observes, that in an age like ours, when firm convictions and settled beliefs are rare, it is no small satisfaction to have to record a career like that of the Princess of Belgiojoso – a career specially illustrious, because, above all things, honourable. But truly great minds, to paraphrase some words of Georges Sand, are always good minds.

The princess's chief titles to distinction are as a vigorous writer and a liberal thinker; she did not qualify herself for a place among great female travellers until unhappy events exiled her from her country.

Christina Trivulzia, Princess of Belgiojoso, was born on the 28th of June, 1808. At the early age of sixteen she was married to the Prince Emile de Barbian de Belgiojoso. She died in 1871.

Passionately devoted to the cause of a "free Italy," she was unable to live under the heavy yoke of the Austrian supremacy, and hastened to establish herself at Paris, where her rank, her fortune, her love of letters and the arts, and the boldness of her political opinions, made her the attraction of the highest society. She formed an intimate acquaintance with numerous great writers and celebrated statesmen, particularly of Mignet and Augustin Thierry, whose daily diminishing liberalism she rapidly and boldly outstripped. In 1848 she plunged with all the ardour of an enthusiastic nature – a child of the warm South – into that wild revolutionary movement which swept over almost every country in Europe, rolling from the Alps to the Carpathians, from Paris to Berlin. She hastened to Milan, which had expelled its Austrian garrison, and at her own expense equipped two hundred horse, whom she led against the enemy. But Italy was not then united; she was not strong enough to encounter her oppressor; the bayonets of Radetzky re-imposed the Austrian domination; the princess was compelled to fly, and her estates were confiscated.

During the insurrectionary fever at Rome, in 1849, she fearlessly made her way into the very midst of the fighting-men, and in her own person directed the ambulances. Her love of freedom and her humanity were rewarded by banishment from the territories of the Church. As she could nowhere in Italy hope for a secure resting-place, she resolved to reside for the future in the East, and, repairing to Constantinople, she founded there a benevolent institution for the daughters of emigrants.

But in a short time she withdrew from European Turkey, and at Osmandjik, near Sinope, laid the foundations of a model farm. In 1850 she published in a French journal, the National, her memorials of Veile; and as a relief to the stir and unrest of politics, she wrote, in the following year, her "Notions d'Histoire à l'usage des Enfants" (1851). The narrative of her journey in Asia Minor appeared at a later date in the well-known pages of the Revue des deux Mondes.

Having recovered possession of her estates, thanks to the amnesty proclaimed by the Emperor Francis Joseph, she sought in literary labour a field for the activity of her restless intellect. Balzac points to that great female artist and republican, the Duchess of San-Severins, in Stendhal's "La Chartreuse de Parme," as a portrait of the princess. Whether this be so or not, she was assuredly one of the most conspicuous and original figures of the time.

Her chief title to literary reputation rests upon her "Études sur l'Asie-Mineure et sur les Turcs." In reference to these luminous and eloquent sketches, a critic says: "I have read many works descriptive of Mussulman manners, but have never met with one which gave so exact and full an idea of Oriental life." But in the princess's writings we must not seek for those richly coloured pictures, those highly decorative paintings in which style plays the principal part – pictures composed for effect, and entirely indifferent to accuracy of detail or truth of composition. She never seeks to dazzle or beguile the reader; her language is direct and vigorous and full of vitality because it always embodies the truth.

No one has shown a juster appreciation of that strange Eastern institution, the harem, though it is no easy thing to form a clear and impartial judgment upon a system so alien to Western ideas and revolting to Christian morality. A vast amount of unprofitable rhetoric has been expended upon this subject. Let us turn to the princess's discriminative statement of facts.

After explaining the many points of contrast between the people of the East and the people of the West, she continues: —

"Of all the virtues held in repute by Christian society, hospitality is the only one which the Mussulmans think themselves bound to practise. Where duties are few, it is natural they should be greatly respected. The Orientals, therefore, have recognized in its highest form this sole and unique virtue, this solitary constraint which they have agreed to impose upon themselves.

"Unfortunately, every virtue which is content with appearances is subject to sudden changes. This is what has happened – is happening to-day – in respect of Oriental hospitality. A Mussulman will never be consoled for having failed to observe the laws of hospitality. Take possession of his house; turn him out of it; leave him to stand in the rain or sun at his own door; plunder his store-rooms; use up his supplies of coffee and brandy; upset and pile one upon another his carpets, his mattresses, his cushions; break his crystal; ride his horses, and even founder them if it seems good to you – he will not utter a word of reproach, for you are a monzapi, a guest, – it is Allah himself who has sent you, and whatever you do, you are and will ever be welcome. All this is admirable; but if a Mussulman finds the means of appearing as hospitable as laws and customs require, without sacrificing an obolus, or even while gaining a large sum of money, fie upon virtue, and long live hypocrisy! And such is the case ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Your host overwhelms you while you sojourn beneath his roof; but if at your departure you do not pay him twenty times the value of what he has given you, he will wait until you have crossed his threshold, and consequently doffed your sacred title of monzapi, to throw stones at you.

"It goes without saying that I speak of the rude multitude, and not of the simple honest hearts who love the good because they find it pleasant, and practise it because in practising it they taste a secret enjoyment. My old mufti of a Tcherkess is one of these. His house, like all good houses in Eastern countries, consists of an inner division reserved for women and children, and an outer pavilion, containing a summer-saloon, and a winter-saloon, with one or two rooms for servants. The winter-saloon is a pretty apartment heated by a good stove, covered with thick carpets, and passably furnished with silken and woollen divans arranged all round the apartment.

"As for the furniture of the summer-saloon, it consists of a leaping, shining fountain in the centre, to which are added, when circumstances require it, cushions and mattresses on which to sit or recline. There are neither windows, nor doors, nor any kind of barrier, between the exterior and the interior. My old mufti, who, at the age of ninety, possesses numerous wives, the oldest of whom is only thirty, and children of all ages, from the baby of six months, up to the sexagenarian, professes the repugnance of good taste for the noise, disorder, and uncleanness of the harem. He repairs there every day, as he goes to his stable to see and admire his horses; but he dwells and he sleeps, according to the season, in one or other of the saloons. The good fellow understood that if long habit had not rendered the inconveniences of the harem tolerable to himself, it would be still worse for me, freshly disembarked from that land of enchantments and refinements which men here call 'Franguistan.' So at the outset he informed me that he would not relegate me to that region of obscurity and confusion, smoke and infection, named the harem, but would give up to me his own apartment. I accepted it with gratitude. As for himself, he took up his abode in the summer-saloon. Though it was the end of January, and snow was deep on the ground, both in town and country, he preferred his frozen fountain, his damp pavement and draughts of air, to the hot, but unwholesome, atmosphere of the harem.

"Perhaps I destroy a few illusions, in speaking of the harem with so little respect. We have all read of it in 'The Thousand and One Nights,' and other Oriental stories; we have been told that it is the dwelling-place of Love and Beauty; we are authorized to believe that the written descriptions, though exaggerated and embellished, are nevertheless founded upon reality, and that in this mysterious retreat are to be found all the marvels of luxury, art, magnificence and pleasure. How far from the truth! Picture to yourself walls black and full of chinks, wooden ceilings, split in many places and dark with dust and spiders' webs, sofas torn and greasy, door-hangings in tatters, traces of oil and candle-grease everywhere. When for the first time I set foot in one of these supposed charming nooks, I was shocked; but the mistresses of the house detected nothing. Their persons are in harmony with the surroundings. Mirrors being very rare, the women bedizen themselves with tinsel, the bizarre effect of which they have no means of appreciating.

"They stick a number of diamond pins and other precious stones in the handkerchiefs of printed cotton which they twist around their head. To their hair they pay no attention, and none but the great ladies who have resided in the capital have any combs. As for the many-coloured ointment which they use so immoderately, they can regulate its application only by consulting one another, and as the women occupying the same house are all rivals, they willingly encourage one another in the most grotesque daubs of colouring. They put vermilion on the lips, rouge on the cheeks, nose, forehead and chin, white anywhere to fill up, blue round the eyes and under the nose. But strangest of all is the manner in which they tint the eyebrows. They have undoubtedly been told that, to be beautiful, the eyebrow should form a well-defined arch, and hence they have concluded that the greater the arch the greater will be the beauty, without asking if the place of that arch were not irrevocably fixed by nature. Such being the case, they give up to their eyebrows the whole space between the temples, and paint the forehead with two wide arches, which, starting from the origin of the nose, extend, one on each side, as far as the temple. Some eccentric beauties prefer the straight line to the curve, and describe a great streak of black all across the forehead; but they are few in number.

"Most deplorable is the influence of this painting when combined with the sloth and uncleanness natural to the women of the East. Each feminine countenance is a work of high art that cannot be reconstructed every morning. It is the same with the hands and feet, which, variegated with orange, fear the action of water as injurious to their beauty. The multitude of children and servants, especially of negresses, who people the harems, and the footing of equality on which mistresses and attendants live, are also aggravating causes of the general uncleanliness. I shall not speak of the children – everybody knows their manners and customs – but consider for a moment what would become of our pretty European furniture if our cooks and maids-of-all-work rested from their labours on our settees and fauteuils, with their feet on our carpets, and their back against our hangings. Remember, too, that glass windows in Asia are still but curiosities; that most of the windows are filled up with oiled paper, and that where corn-paper is scarce the windows are blocked up, and light enters only by the chimney – light more than sufficient for the inmates to drink and smoke by and to apply the whip to refractory children – the only occupations during the day of the mortal houris of faithful Mussulmans. Let not the reader suppose, however, that an Egyptian darkness prevails in these windowless apartments. The houses being all of one story, the chimneys being very wide and not rising above the level of the roof, it often happens that by stooping a little in front of the chimney-place you see the sky through the opening. What these apartments are really deficient in is air; but the ladies are far from making any complaint. Naturally chilly, and having no means of warming themselves by exercise, they remain for hours at a time huddled on the ground before the fire, and cannot understand that a visitor is almost choked by the atmosphere. If anything recalls to my mind these artificial caverns, crowded with tattered women and noisy children, I feel ready to faint."

The princess does not, on the whole, speak unfavourably of the Turkish character. Perhaps the reader would judge it more severely; but still the consensus of the best authorities supports the view taken by the princess, and it is the governing-class, rather than the masses, that seems to justify the general dislike. Of Turkish officials it would be difficult, perhaps, to say anything too severe; the ordinary Turk, however, has many good qualities, which need only the stimulus of good government for their happy development. As to the governing-class, their vices are the natural result of the corruption of the harems, and until these are reformed, it is useless to expect any elevation of the low moral standard which now unfortunately prevails among the pashas.

The Turkish people, if less enlightened than other European nations, are not without qualities that demand recognition. They are temperate, hospitable, and orderly. They are faithful husbands and good wives.

The Turkish peasant is at once father, husband, and lover to his wife, whom he never contradicts willingly and knowingly, and there is little to which he will not submit in the depth of his affection for her.

In these climates, and under the influence of coarse and unwholesome food, the woman ages early; whereas the man, better constituted to endure fatigue and privation, preserves his vigour almost to the last unimpaired. Nothing is more common here than to see an old man of eighty and odd surrounded by little children who are his flesh and bone. In spite of this disproportion between man and woman, the union, contracted almost in childhood, is only dissolved by death. The Princess de Belgiojoso tells us that she has seen hideous, decrepit, and infirm women tenderly cared for and adored by handsome old men, straight as the mountain pine, with beard silvered but long and thick, and eyes bright, clear, and serene.

One day, our traveller met an old woman, blind and paralytic, whom her husband brought to her in the hope that the princess would restore her sight and power of movement.

The woman was seated astride an ass, which her husband led by the bridle. On arriving, he took her in his arms, deposited her on a bench near the door, and installed her on a heap of cushions with all the solicitude of a mother for her child.

"You ought to be very fond of your husband," said the princess to the blind woman.

"I should like to be able to see clearly," answered she. The princess looked at the husband, he smiled sadly, but without any shadow of ill-will.

"Poor woman," he remarked, passing the back of his hand over his eyes, "her blindness renders her very unhappy. She cannot accustom herself to it But you will give her back her sight, will you not, Bessadée?"

As the Princess Christina shook her head, and began to protest her powerlessness, he plucked the skirt of her robe and made her a sign to be silent.

"Have you any children?"

"Alas! I had one, but he died a long time ago."

"And how is it you have not taken another wife, as your law allows – a strong and healthy woman who might have brought you children?"

"Ah, that is easily said; but this poor creature would have been sadly vexed, and then I could not have been happy with another, not even if she had brought me children. You see, Bessadée, we cannot have everything in this world. I have a wife whom I have loved for nearly forty years, and I shall make no second choice."