The next letter is of interest in that it gives us the program and volume of his work. With all the sight seeing he was averaging a full four letters a week—long letters, requiring careful observation and inquiry. How fresh and impressionable and full of vigor he was, even in that fierce southern heat! No one makes the Mediterranean trip in summer to-day, and the thought of adding constant letter-writing to steady travel through southern France, Italy, Greece, and Turkey in blazing midsummer is stupefying. And Syria and Egypt in September!
To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis:
Constantinople, Sept. 1, ’67.
Dear folks,—All well. Do
the Alta’s come regularly? I wish I knew
whether my letters reach them or not. Look over
the back papers and see.
I wrote them as follows:
1 Letter from Fayal,
in the Azores Islands.
1 from Gibraltar, in
Spain.
1 from Tangier, in Africa.
2 from Paris and Marseilles,
in France.
1 from Genoa, in Italy.
1 from Milan.
1 from Lake Como.
1 from some little place
in Switzerland—have forgotten the name.
4 concerning Lecce,
Bergamo, Padua, Verona, Battlefield of Marengo,
Pestachio, and some other cities in Northern Italy.
2 from Venice.
1 about Bologna.
1 from Florence.
1 from Pisa.
1 from Leghorn.
1 from Rome and Civita
Vecchia.
2 from Naples.
1 about Pazzuoli, where
St. Paul landed, the Baths of Nero, and the
ruins of Baia, Virgil’s tomb, the Elysian Fields,
the Sunken Cities and
the spot where Ulysses landed.
1 from Herculaneum and
Vesuvius.
1 from Pompeii.
1 from the Island of
Ischia.
1 concerning the Volcano
of Stromboli, the city and Straits of
Messina, the land of Sicily, Scylla and Charybdis
etc.
1 about the Grecian
Archipelago.
1 about a midnight visit
to Athens, the Piraeus and the ruins of the
Acropolis.
1 about the Hellespont,
the site of ancient Troy, the Sea of
Marmara, etc.
2 about Constantinople,
the Golden Horn and the beauties of the
Bosphorus.
1 from Odessa and Sebastopol
in Russia, the Black Sea, etc.
2 from Yalta, Russia,
concerning a visit to the Czar.
And yesterday I wrote another letter from Constantinople
and
1 today about its neighbor
in Asia, Scatter. I am not done with
Turkey yet. Shall write 2 or 3 more.
I have written to the New York Herald 2 letters from Naples, (no name signed,) and 1 from Constantinople.
To the New York Tribune I have written
1 from Fayal.
1 from Civita Vecchia
in the Roman States.
2 from Yalta, Russia.
And 1 from Constantinople.
I have never seen any of these letters in print except
the one to the
Tribune from Fayal and that was not worth printing.