Wintering in the Riviera: With Notes of Travel in Italy and France, and Practical Hints to Travellers — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Wintering in the Riviera: With Notes of Travel in Italy and France, and Practical Hints to Travellers
John Stuart Mill · en
Fire in the private rooms is always an extra. Nowhere is coal burnt,
at least that we have seen, unless in the northern parts of France.
The visitor, when he wishes fire, is supplied with a basket of wood,
the size and the quality of which vary very much, as do the prices. It
consists of logs sawn into pieces about 12 to 18 inches long, and split
up, and the kind of wood necessarily varies with the locality. In the
olive–growing countries it is olive wood, which burns slowly. At Pau it
is the short oak grown in the woods in the vicinity. In other places
it is pine wood, which burns rapidly. At Lyons we paid 2 francs for a
small pannier of soft wood, which lasted two nights. At Mentone a large
pannier of olive wood, probably mixed with pine, cost 2 francs 20
centimes, and lasted much longer. If we had no fire during the day, and
we found day fires very rarely necessary in Mentone, a pannier would
last us nearly a week for one fire per evening, lit after dinner. At
Spezzia, where the wood burnt very fast, the pannier was charged 3·50
francs. At Pisa the charge was 3 francs; and at Rome, had we found it
needful, we should have been charged at the hotel, for each room, 5
francs for a pannier which would not have lasted more than two nights.
Indeed, at Rome the expense of wood is so serious an extra charge, that
I have heard of a gentleman with a large and perhaps extravagant family
feeling obliged to curtail his visit on that account.
The wood is laid across two iron dogs, and emits, especially in the
case of olive wood, good heat. The ashes of former fires are always
left lying between the dogs, and greatly help to keep the fire in. The
ashes smoulder away for a long time, and bellows, always hung by the
fireside, will bring them to a glow long after they are apparently dead.
The dogs are hardly suitable for coals, but might not a good trade in
coals with the Continent be brought about? I suppose the abundance
of wood renders it unnecessary. But a great deal may result from the
force of habit, or, not improbably, there may be a prohibitory duty
preventing the people from using coal.
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