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The best way will probably be to begin at the beginning, and go as far as our limits allow us, referring our readers to the original for the many good things that want of space will compel us to exclude. M. Dumas calls his book the Corricolo, and devotes a short and characteristic preface to an explanation of the title. This explanation we must give in his own words.
Having made up his mind, he sends for his host, and enquires where he can hire a corricolo by the week or month. His host tells him he had better buy one, horse and all. To this plan M. Dumas objects the expense.
"'It will cost you, said M. Martin, after a momentary calculation in his head, 'it will cost you the corricolo ten ducats, each horse thirty carlini, the harness a pistole; in all, eighty French francs. "'What! for ten ducats I shall have a corricolo? "'A magnificent one. "'New? "'Oh! you are asking too much. There are no such things as new corricoli.
The blade had been changed fifteen times, and the handle fifteen times, but it was still the same knife. "'The case of the corricolo is exactly similar. It is forbidden to build new ones, but it is not forbidden to put new wheels to old bodies, and new bodies on old wheels. By these means the corricolo becomes immortal. "'I understand. An old body and new wheels for me, if you please.
If, on the other hand, the monk is safe and sound, nobody has a right to complain; he resumes his seat, the nurse and the peasant woman resume theirs, the others climb up into their respective places a crack of the long whip, and a shout from the driver, and the corricolo is off again full speed."
Nevertheless, it is the case with the corricolo. In the present advanced state of civilization, every thing is diverted from its primitive destination. As it is impossible to say at what period, or in how long a time, the capacity of the vehicle in question was extended in the ratio of one to fifteen, I must content myself with describing the way of packing the passengers.
It is more picturesque than the Neapolitan corricolo; it is all ribs and bones, and is much given to inward groaning as it jerks and jolts along. Such a trap we took; the driver lazily clambered on the shafts, and away hobbled our lean steed.
There is a standing order of the police forbidding coachmakers to build them. "'Indeed! How long has that order been in force? "'Fifty years, perhaps. "'How comes it, then, that there is such a thing as a corricolo in existence? "'Nothing easier. You know the story of Jeannot's knife? "'To be sure I do; it is one of our national chronicles.
It is so highly graphic, that, after reading it, we fancied we had seen a picture of what it describes. "A corricolo is a sort of tilbury or gig, originally intended to hold one person, and be drawn by one horse.
There are three ways of seeing Naples on foot, in a corricolo or in a carriage. On foot, one goes every where, but one sees too much; in a carriage, one only goes through the three principal streets, and one sees too little the corricolo is the happy medium, the juste milieu, to which M. Dumas for once determines to adhere.
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