There Is One Part Of This Repository Of The Dead Which Is Little Visited,
That In Which The Poor Are Buried, Where Those Who Have Dwelt Apart From
Their More Fortunate Fellow-Creatures In Life Lie Apart In Death.
Here are
no walks, no shade of trees, no planted shrubbery, but ridges of raw
earth, and tufts of coarse herbage show where the bodies are thrown
together under a thin covering of soil.
I was about to walk over the spot,
but was repelled by the sickening exhalations that rose from it.
Letter II.
A Journey to Florence.
Florence, _Sept_ 27, 1834.
I have now been in this city a fortnight, and have established myself in a
suite of apartments lately occupied, as the landlord told me, in hopes I
presume of getting a higher rent, by a Russian prince. The Arno flows, or
rather stands still, under my windows, for the water is low, and near the
western wall of the city is frugally dammed up to preserve it for the
public baths. Beyond, this stream so renowned in history and poetry, is at
this season but a feeble rill, almost lost among the pebbles of its bed,
and scarcely sufficing to give drink to the pheasants and hares of the
Grand Duke's Cascine on its banks. Opposite my lodgings, at the south end
of the _Ponte alla Carraia_, is a little oratory, before the door of which
every good Catholic who passes takes off his hat with a gesture of homage;
and at this moment a swarthy, weasel-faced man, with a tin box in his
hand, is gathering contributions to pay for the services of the chapel,
rattling his coin to attract the attention of the pedestrians, and calling
out to those who seem disposed to pass without paying.
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