TRAVELLING LETTERS. WRITTEN ON THE ROAD.—BY CHARLES DICKENS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume III, Issue 126, 14 October 1846, Page 4

TRAVELLING LETTERS. WRITTEN ON THE ROAD. — BY CHARLES DICKENS.

Lyons, the Rhone, and the Goblin of Avignon. What a city Lyons is ! Talk about people feeling, at certain unlucky times, as if they had tumbled from the clouds ! Here is a whole town that has tumbled, anyhow, out of the sky ; having been first caught up, like other stones that tumble down from that region* out of fens and barren places, dismal to bdnold ! The two great streets through which the two great rivers dash, and all the little streets whose name is Legion, were scorching, blistering, sweltering, stinking, hideous. The houses high arid vast, dirty to excess, rotten as old cheeses, and as thickly peopled. All up the hills that hem the city in, these houses swarm ; and the mites inside were lolliug out of the windows, and drying their ragged clothes on poles ; and crawling in and out at the doors; and coming out to pant and gasp upon the pavement ; and creeping in and out among huge piles and bales of fusty, rausty, stifling goods ; and living, or rather not dying till their time should come, in an exhausted receiver- Every manufacturing town, melted into one, would hardly convey an impression of Lyons as it presented itself to me ; for all the undrained, unscavengered, qualities of a foreign town, seemed grafted there, upon the native miseries of a manufacturing town ; and it bears such fruit as 1 would go many miles out of my way to avoid encountering again. In the cool of the evening — or rather in the faded heat of the day — we went to see the Cathedral; where divers old women, and a few dogs, were engaged in contemplation. There was no difference, in point of cleanliness, between its stone pavement arid that of the streets ; and there was a wax saint in a little box like a berth aboard ship, with a glass front to it, whom Madame Tussaud would have nothing to say to, on any terms ; and which even Westminster Abbey might be ashamed of. Soon after daybreak next morning, we were steaming down the arrowy Rhone, at the rate of twenty miles an hour, in a very dirty vessel, to Avignon, where the grapes were hanging in clusters in the streets. These streets are old and very narrow, and but tolerably clean, and shaded by awnings stretched from house to house. Bright stuffs, and handkerchiefs ; curiosities, ancient frames of carved wood, old chairs, ghostly tables, saints, virgins, angels, and staring daubs of portraits, being exposed for sale beneath, it was very quaint and lively. All this was much set off, too, by the glimpses one caught, through rusty gates standing ajar, of quiet, sleepy, courtyards, having stately out-houses within, as silent as tombs. After breakfast next morning, we sallied forth to see the lions. Hard by the cathedral, stands the ancient Palace of the Popes, of which one portion is now a common jail ; and another, a noisy barrack ; while gloomy suites o! state apartments, shut up and deserted, mock their own old state and glory/ like the embalmed bodies of kings. We went to see the ruins of the dreadful rooms in which the Inquisition used to sit. A little, old, swarthy woman, with a pair of flashing black eyes, — proof that the world hadn't conjured down the devil within her, though it had had between sixty and seveuty years to do it in,— came out of the Barrack Cabaret,, of which she was the keeper, with some large keys in her hands, and marshalled us the way that we should go. Her action was violent in the extreme. She never spoke, without stopping expressly for the purpose. She stamped her ieel) clutched us by the arms, flung herself into attitudes, hammered against walls with her keys, for mere emphasis ; now whispered as if the Inquisition were still : now shrieked as if she were on the rack herself ; and had a mysterious, hag like way with her forefinger, when approaching the remains of some new horror ; looking back and walking stealthily, and making horrible grimaces — that might alone hare qaalified her to walk up and down a sick man's counterpane, to the exclusion of all other figures, through a whole fever. Passing through the court yard, among groups of idle soldiers, we turned off by a gate, which this She-Goblin unlocked for our admission, and locked agaiu behind us ; and entered a narrow court, close to which is a dungeon — we stood within it, in another minute — in the dismal tower dcs oubliettes, where Rienzi was imprisoned, fastened by an iron chain to the very wall that stands there now, but shut out from the sky which now looks down into it. A few steps brought us to the Cacbots in which the prisoners of the Inquisition

were confined for forty-eight hours after their capture, without food or drink that their constancy might he shaken, even before they were confronted with their gloomy judges. The day has not got in there yet. They are still small cells, shut in by four unyielding, close, hard walls ; still profoundly dark ; still massively doored and fastened, as of old. Groblin, looking back as I have described, went softly on, into a vaulted chamber, now used as a store room : once the chapel of the holy office. The place where the tribunal sat was plain. The platform might have been removed but yesterday. Conceive the parable of the good Samaritan upon the wall ! But it was painted there, and may be traced yet. I am gazing round me, with the horror that the place inspires, when Goblin clutches me by the wrist, and lays, not her skinny finger, but the handle of a key upon her lip. She invites me, with a jerk to follow her; I do so. She leads me out into a room adjoining — a rugged room, with a funnel shaped, contracted roof, open at the top to the bright day. I asked her what it is. She folds her arms, leers hideously, and stares. I ask again. She glances round, to see that all the little company are there ; sits down upon a mound of stones ; throws up her arms, and yells oui, like a fiend, " La Salle de la Question :" The Chamber of Torture ! And the roof was made of that shape to stifle the victim's cries ? Goblin is in the middle of the chamber, describing, with her sun burnt arms, a wheel of heavy blows. Thus it ran round ! cries Goblin. Mash, mash, mash ! An endless routine of heavy hammers. Mash, mash, mash! upon the sufferer's limbs. See the stone trough ! says Goblin. For the water torture ! Gurgle, gurgle ; swill, bloat, burst for the Redeemer's honour ! Suck the bloody rag, deep down into your unbelieving body, Heretic, at every breath you draw ; and when the executioner plucks it out reeking with the smaller mysteries of God's own image, know us for his chosen servants : true believers in | the Sermon on the Mount ; elect disciples of Him who never did a miracle but to heal ; who never struck a man with palsy, blindness, deafness, madness : any one affliction of mankind ; and never stretched his hand out, but to give relief and ease ! ! See, cries Goblin. There the furnace was.; there they made the irons red hot. Those holes supported the sharp stake on which the ; tortured person hung poised, dangling with their whole weight from the roof. " But ;" and Goblin whispers this ; " Monsieur has heard of this tower ? Yes ? Let Monsieur i look down then? A cold air, laden with an earthy smell, falls upon the face of Monsieur ; for she has opened, while speaking, a trap door in the wall. Monsieur looks in. Downward ,to the bottom, upward to the top, of a steep, dark, lofty tower ; very dismal, very dark, very cold. The executioner of the Inquisition says Goblin, edging in her head to look down also, flung those who were past all further torturing, down here. " But look ! does Monsieur see the black stains on the wall ?" A glance, over his shoulders, at Goblin's keen eye, shows Monsieur — and would without the aid of the directing key — where they are. " What are they ?" " Blood !" In October, 1791, when the Revolution was at its height here, sixty persons ; men and women (" and priests," says Goblin, " priests") ; were murdered here, and hurled, the dying and the dead, into this dreadful pit, where a quantity of quick lime was tumbled down upon their bodies. Those ghastly tokens of the massacre were seen no more; but while one stone of the strong building in which the s deed was done, remains upon another, there they will lie in the memories of men, as plain to see as the splashing of their gore upon the wall is now. Goblin steals out again, into the Chapel of the Holy Office. She stops at a certain part of the flooring. Her great effect is at hand. She waits for the rest. She darts at the brave Courier, who is explaining something ; hits him a sounding rap on the hat with the largest key ; and bids him be silent. She assembles ua all round a little trap door in the floor, as round a grave. " Voila !" she darts down at the ring, and flings the door open with a crash, in her goblin energy, though it is no light weight. " Voila les oubliettes ! Voila les oubliettes ! Subterranean ! Frightful! Black! Terrible! Deadly! Les oubliettes de l'lnquisition," My blood ran cold, as I looked from Goblin down into the vaults, where these forgotten creatures, with recollections of the world outside — of wives, friends, children, brothers — starved to death, and made the stones ring with their unavailing groans. But, the thrill I felt on seeing the accursed wall below, decayed s»nd broken through and the sun shining in through its gaping wounds, was like a sense of victory and triumph. I felt exalted with the proud delight of living, in these degenerate times, to see it. As if I were the hero of some high achievement ! The light in the doleful vaults was typical of the light that has streamed in,

on all persecution in God's name, but which is not yet at its noon ! It cannot look more lovely to a blind man newly restored to sight, than to a visitor who sees it, calmly and majestically treading down the darkness of that Infernal Well. — Daily News. Exiles in Siberia — "Persons condemned to transportation travel to Siberia on foot, carts not being allowed, excepting for the sick: murderers and great criminals are chained. Every attempt at flight is punished with corporal punishment, even in nobles. Instead of numbers, proper names are given to the exiles ; but different from those which they bore before their condemnation. If they were to change them among themselves, they would be punished with five years'compulsorylabour over and above their sentence. At Kasan the exiles coming from most of the governments are collected. That city has, in fact, a bureau of despatch for exiles, which is tuthoristd to retain, for the salt works of Iletz, an indeterminate number of convicts condemned to compulsory labour or merely to txile : at Perm, the authorities may keep a number for the fabrication of wine and even for the college of public beneficence. At Tobolsk sits the committee of the exiles, composed of a chief, his assessors, and a chancellery having two sections. It depends on the civil governor of Tobolsk, and has bureaux of despatch in several towns. On their arrival in Siberia, the criminals are set about different kinds of labour according to their faculties. ; Some are employed in the mines, either because they have been specially condemned to them, or, having undergone the punishment of the pleite, they are deemed fit for that sort of labour, or simply because there is a want of labourers there ; but, in this case, they are not confined to the mines for more than a year, which counts for two years of exile, with double pay. If they commit any new crime, they remain there two years longer, even though the tribunal has not sentenced them to compulsory labour. Those who have learned a trade are act to work at it ; others become colonists, and others again domestic servants. Those destined for the latter station are divided among the inhabitants who apply for them. These are obliged to feed them, and to pay them wages at the rate of at least a silver ruble and a half per month in advance. The term of this punishment is eight years, at the expiration of which these compulsory valets can turn peasants, serfs of the crown. The usual duration of compulsory labour is twenty years, after which the condemned may establish themselves freely in the mines where they worked, or in other occupations. Those employed in the cloth manufactories remain there but ten years. Labour in the fortifications is considered as the most severe. Cripples and incurables form a particular class. The colonists are not exempt from taxes ft.r more than three years: for the other seven, they pay half of the personal contribution. At the expiration of their punishment, they pay the whole of the tax. After an abode of twenty years in Siberia they become subject to the recruiting. The serfs sent to Siberia on the application of their masters are forwarded at the expense of the latter, and distributed in the villages as agricultural labourers. The exiles are at liberty to marry in Siberia either free persons or condemned culprits. The free woman who marries an exile for her first husband receives a donation of fifty silver rubles, and the free man who t«kes to wife an exiled woman receives fifteen. Person condemned for political offtnces remain in Siberia under the special surveillance of the third section of the chancellery of the empire." — Russia under Nicholas I.

A Singular Character. — The Brussels Gazette announces the death of the widow Pappaert, in that city, leaving property to the amount of 500,000 francs : — " Died on the 2d of march the philosophic millionnaire known to all Brussels by the namt of the Zwerte Madame (Black lady), and for the contempt she affected to have for riches ; this singular character had for years occupied apartmeats in the ancient Silversmiths' Hall, about to be demolished for the new passage of St. Hubert : she h»d bten heard to say, when informed that it was about to be delivered over to its demolishers, 'to leave my dear residence will be death to me.' Scarcely had she been installed in her new lodging before she was attacked with an affection of the lungs and died. She was a remarkably intelligent woman, but a great misanthropist. Her only daughter, who is married to a diplomatic Hollander, has been sent for to inherit this fortune, with the exception of a few legacies of little importance, stipulated in her very remarkable will."