44

418 LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

of enchantment that a desire to visit it is irresistible; hence, the first morning
after our arrival Mrs. Douglass and myself, hired one of the numerous boats
in the harbor and employed an old man to row us out to the enchanted scene.
The morning was clear, bright and balmy. The distance was so great and the
air so warm that the old man of the sea was quite ready to have me take a
hand at the oars. After a long pull and a strong pull as the sailors say, we
reached the weird old rock from which Edmond Dantes was hurled. The
reality of the scene was not of course up to the point as painted by Dumas.
But we were glad to have seen it disrobed of the enchantment that distance
and genius have thrown around it. It is a queer old place, surrounded by the
sea, lone and desolate, standing boldly and high against the horizon, and the
blue waves coming from afar dashing themselves against its sharp and flinty
sides, made for us a picture most striking and not soon to be forgotten.

On our way along the far-famed Riviera to Genoa, once the city of sea
kings and merchant princes, we. like most travellers, tarried awhile at Nice,
that favorite resort of health and pleasure and one beautiful for situation. The
outlook from it on the sea is enchanting, but no one should visit Nice with a
lean purse, and a man with a full one will be wise not to tarry long. It was
the most expensive place we found abroad.

Genoa, the birth-place of Christopher Columbus, the man who saw by
an eye of faith the things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen, is a
grand old city, with its multitude of churches, numerous narrow streets,
many colored buildings and splendid palaces. Looking out upon the sea I
recalled to mind one of the finest pieces of word painting I ever heard from
the lips of the late Wendell Phillips. He visited this city fifty years ago. He
was then a young man fresh from his marriage tour of the continent of
Europe. He was speaking on the platform of the old Tabernacle on Broadway,
New York, and criticising the conduct of our Government in refusing to
unite with England and France to suppress the African slave-trade. While in
Genoa, the correspondence between our Government and that of France and
England was going on. General Cass who represented us at the court of
Louis Philippe, had placed our Government on the wrong side of this ques-
tion. In this very city standing perhaps on these very heights upon which l
stood looking off to sea, Mr. Phillips saw our well known ship of war the
"Ohio," lying in the harbor, and thus described the feeling with which he
contemplated that ship in view of our attitude towards other nations in
regard to the slave-trade. With a face expressive of indignation, shame and
scorn, Phillips said, "As I stood upon the shores of Genoa and saw floating
upon the placid waters of the Mediterranean our beautiful American ship,