Brindisi

“ I did not intend to be out-done, so I told the waiter that I must take some wine with me, insisted on paying for it, and with low bows and sweet smiles we took leave of one another, and I rushed after the guard to the train, boarding it just as the horn blew for it to continue on its way.
We arrived at Brindisi two hours late. When the train stopped, our car was surrounded with men wanting to carry us as well as our baggage to the boats. ”

“ A few days after, Violetta Kutufa was inhabiting an apartment in one of Don Giovanni’s houses on the town square, and much hearsay floated through Pescara. The company of singers departed from Brindisi without the Countess of Amalfi. In the solemn, quiet Lenten days, the Pescaresi took a modest delight in gossip and calumny. Every day a new tale made the circuit of the city, and every day a new creation arose from the popular imagination. ”

“ He who goes steadily from Rome to Brindisi, seeing what comes in his way by the easiest manner of going, will not come very much oftener on the track of Horace and his friends than he to whom Brindisi is the haven for Egypt or India, and who rushes thither as fast as he can along the Italian side of the Hadriatic. The three routes will of necessity coincide at Bari. To Bari the traveller who starts from Rome must add Benevento, and he may, without much trouble, add Aricia. ”

“ Conditions of life were not easy or luxurious here in the outposts of the western empire, and the influx of alien Greek and Turk and Jew has ever tended to{239} change the Italian colouring to one almost Oriental in tone and brilliance.
Brindisi has usually been considered a mere way station on the traveller’s itinerary, where he changes train for boat. But it is more than that. It was the ancient Brentesion of the Greeks, indeed it was the gateway of all intercourse between the peninsula and the Greece of the mainland and the islands of Ægina. ”

“ We should not take our wives and children there at any time. The extra trouble and expense have prevented most of us from making use of the Brindisi line, which really saves us a week and avoids the Bay of Biscay ”

“ Brindisi (ancient Brundusium) was, if I remember rightly, the birth-place of Virgil. It is a sea-port and fortified town 45 miles from Taranto. In ancient times it was one of the most important cities of Calabria. It is said by Strabo to have been governed by its own kings at the time of the foundation of Tarentum. It was one of the chief cities of the Sallentines, and the excellence of its port and commanding situation in the Adriatic were among the chief inducements of the Romans to attack them. The Romans made it a naval station, and frequently directed their operations from it. ”

“ It is, therefore, advisable that one should take the sea voyage when especially it causes a saving of expense. The second-saloon fare to London by sea is Rs. 370, while via Brindisi it is more than Rs. 400. Those who get sea-sick very often need not be afraid of a sea voyage on that score. For during the 13 days for Brindisi one gets used to the sea and overcomes the sickness. It is to be hoped that no one would avoid the voyage from Brindisi for the reason that thereby he would be less open to the dangers of a wreck. This is an idea unworthy of one intending to go to England. ”

“ One is the railroad to Brindisi, traversing the mountainous Italian interior to the Adriatic coast, where on stated days very comfortable steamers ply between Brindisi and Patras, touching at Corfù. The other route is from Naples to the Piræus by sea on either French or Italian steamers, the latter lines being slower and enabling stops in Sicily and in Crete. To those fortunately possessed of ample time and willing to see something of Magna Graecia as well as of Greece proper, the slower route is decidedly to be recommended. ”

“ Tomorrow we reach Brindisi and we have already passed Sicily and had a glimpse of the toe of Italy and it is the coldest sunny Italy that I ever imagined. I am bitterly disappointed about Tunis. I have no letters to big people in Cairo only subalterns but I shall probably get along. I always manage somehow with my "artful little Ikey ways." It was most gratifying to mark my return to this boat. One young woman danced a Kangaroo dance and the Captain wept and all the stewards stood in a line and grinned. ”

“ Three or four desperate men could certainly find or make an opportunity of attacking him during the long and tedious journey to Brindisi, especially on the Italian portion of it, when the train, as he well knew, crawled along for twenty-two hours at an average speed of twenty miles. ”

“ Cleric said he thought Virgil, when he was dying at Brindisi, must have remembered that passage. After he had faced the bitter fact that he was to leave the ‘Aeneid’ unfinished, and had decreed that the great canvas, crowded with figures of gods and men, should be burned rather than survive him unperfected, then his mind must have gone back to the perfect utterance of the ‘Georgics,’ where the pen was fitted to the matter as the plough is to the furrow; and he must have said to himself, with the thankfulness of a good man, ‘I was the first to bring the Muse into my country.’ ”

“ PESCARA, a river of Italy, formed by the confluence of the Gizio and Aterno, and flowing into the Adriatic at the small town of Pescara. This town occupies the site of the ancient Aternum, the terminus of the Via Claudia Valeria, and up to 1867 a fortress of some importance. The railway from Sulmona follows the Pescara valley and joins the coast line to Brindisi at Pescara. ”

“ We called our voyage over at Brindisi; [Pg 167] it was over so far that we were given up to our own devices, and no longer bound to consult those times and tides that wait for no man. There was no occasion for us, as daddy said, to get to London in a couple of days; and we certainly did not hurry ourselves. We went to Venice, and Florence, and Naples, and Milan, and Rome, and all the famous continental show-places that tourists always go to—Australian tourists, at any rate. ”

“ British Consul, S. G. Cocoto.
Steamboat Offices. Società Nazionale, Via Margherita 32; Austrian Lloyd, Thos. Cook & Son, Strada Marina.—The steamers are generally 430moored at the quay; otherwise, landing or embarkation 60 c.—Lloyd’s Agent, Sig. Nervegna.—English Church Service in winter.
Brindisi (pop. 22,000) , a quiet town, the seat of an archbishop, has been ever since ancient times an important starting-point for the East. In the middle ages its harbour was often sought by the Crusaders, and hosts of travellers now pass through it on their way to or from Egypt, India, Australia, etc. ”

“ Even in sunny Italy I had felt the weather, in the neighbourhood of Turin, Milan, and Bologna, cold and frosty enough in the morning for an overcoat. At Brindisi it was not so cold, but as [27] we neared the African coast the sky grew warmer and warmer, and tinged, so to speak, with a reflection of the Libyan desert, a soft purple hue, rather than the deep blue of Italy. Only those who have witnessed sunset in Africa can form any conception of the beautiful tints reflected from the rocks and sands ”

“ The other buildings of the town are modern. Foggia is a commercial centre of some importance for the produce of the surrounding country, and is also a considerable railway centre, being situated on the main line from Bologna to Brindisi, at the point where this is joined by the line from Benevento and Caserta. ”

“ BRIXIA, a town of Italy, on this side of the Po; now Brescia.
BRUCTERIANS, a people of Germany, situate in Westphalia. See the Manners of the Germans, s. 33. note a.
BRUNDUSIUM, a town of Calabria, with an excellent harbour, at the entrance of the Adriatic, affording to the Romans a commodious passage to Greece. The Via Appia ended at this town. Now Brindisi, in the territory of Otranto, in the kingdom of Naples.
BYZANTIUM, a city of Thrace, on the narrow strait that separates Europe from Asia; now Constantinople. See Annals, xii. s. 63. ”

“ God and Allah are the same." We may now urge the narrative. From Brindisi the Emir sailed to Venice. Two weeks in "the glorious city in the sea" informed him of it thoroughly. While there, he found, on the "ways" of an Adriatic builder, the galley in which we have seen him at anchor in the Golden Horn. Leaving an order for the employment of a sailing-master and crew when the vessel was complete, he departed next for Rome. At Padua he procured the harness of a man-at-arms of the period, and recruited a company of condottieri—mercenary soldiers of every nationality. ”

“ We fell in with a Sicilian privateer, that informed us she had just been chased by the enemy, who were steering for Corfu. Our calculations were thus verified; every sail was crowded, and our hearts rebounded with the expectation that the dawn would present to us the enemy in the offing. The morning came, however, and in vain did our eyes traverse in all directions within the verge of the horizon. Not a foe was to be seen, and the glowing hopes of a battle vanished. We stood for Brindisi, across to Cattaro, on the Albanian coast, and ran down the whole Adriatic ”

“ These people deserve our pity rather than censure. Many of them are evidently sometimes in a famishing condition. But few who have not seen, can form an idea of the poverty which reigns in some sections of Southern Italy, especially between Naples and Brindisi. ”

“ But, as the Neapolitan Government was bent on treating us shamefully to the last moment, they took great care not to tell us our captivity was at an end. On the contrary, with fresh menacings, with formidable preparations, and as though they meant to send us there so that we should all perish together, they transferred us all to Brindisi, although we were under French law at Taranto and in its environs.
"Not until the moment of going on board did we know that the armistice was concluded and the cartel of exchange arranged: we were free. ”

“ A rapid flight through Europe brought him with his companions to Brindisi, whence they embarked for Alexandria. Two years were passed in Upper Egypt and Abyssinia in the study of hieroglyphics and ruins, and in sending learned treatises to the principal European Reviews. Magazines, journals, letters from men of science, elections to academies poured in from Italy, from France, from Germany; some silly letters even came from his landlady in Padua. From Florence, from Maria Lisa Altavilla not a word. ”

“ Two days later San Giovanni was bombarded by an Austrian cruiser, and all the shipping was sunk, Benedetto and all.
We were heartily welcomed in Brindisi by the English colony, and at the consul's office learned that the submarine was an Austrian, and that the cruiser had made the sweep to chase it away. Jo, Miss Brindley, and Jan went to Rome, where theyPg 375 ere feasted by more English, while at Milan—where the rest of the party spent the night—a whole theatre stood and cheered them when they came in. ”

“ From Patras to Athens, 1371⁄2 M., railway in 71⁄2–91⁄2 hrs. (fare 25 or 18 dr.) ; express on Tues. and Frid. in 6–1 ‘wagon de luxe’ 33 dr. 40 l.) . As to Greek money, see p. 502.
The Italian steamers (comp. p. 427) from Venice touch at Ancona, Bari, and Brindisi. The Lloyd steamers, except those of the Thessalian line, go direct from Trieste to Brindisi (comp. p. 429) .
Soon after leaving Brindisi we steer to the S.E. To the left of the Straits of Otranto (p. 430) are seen the outlines of Albania (Turkey) , with the great rampart of the Acroceraunian Mts. ”

“ One left Venice this evening at seven. At twelve a P. and O. liner sailed for Brindisi. These were the regular means of travel. But nothing could be more simple than for him to hire a craft. If one pays enough, one can go anywhere. The search seemed almost hopeless.
Obviously, the first thing for me to do was to go to St. Hilary’s hotel. I was not so simple as to expect to find him there, but I might learn if he had made any plans beforehand to leave Venice.
His hotel was on the Riva, not far from Danielli’s. The concierge knew me well, and in answer to my careless inquiry as to whether St. ”

“ The modern town extends in the plain at the S.W. foot of the plateau on which the old town is built and forms the suburb of Ste Catherine, with the railway station, and an important silk-weaving factory. Briançon is 511/2 m. by rail from Gap. The commune had a civil population in 1906 of 4883 (urban population 3130) , while the permanent garrison was 2641—in all 7524 inhabitants.
Briançon was the Brigantium of the Romans and formed part of the kingdom of King Cottius. ”

“ If your judgment tells you that you ought to flee from Rome, you have my permission to send me a messenger; I know you will not resort to that without real need. I rely on your judgment. The gods be with you, child. You have taken a load of my shoulders, two loads, in fact.”
Thereupon preparations for departure were pushed and soon after sunrise on the next day Brinnaria found herself left to her own resources, responsible for the welfare of a large retinue of obsequious slaves, autocrat over them, and mistress of one of the largest private houses in Rome. ”

“ Florence grew to be a second, home and a domestic shrine to Mrs. Browning. Her first impressions of it were pleasant, and the pleasure became permanent. Writing from the Tuscan capital to Horne, she says:—
"Here we live for nothing, or next to nothing, and have great rooms, and tables and chairs thrown in; and although hearing occasionally that Florence is to be sacked on such a day, and our Grand Duke deposed on such another, I have learnt to endure meekly all such expectations, and to hold myself as safe as you in your garden through them all. ”