I presume it was entirely an illegal charge,
and that he had no right to pass any luggage without examination; but the
thing is winked at by the authorities, and no money is better spent for
the traveller's convenience than these fifteen pauls. There was a papal
military officer in the room, and he, I believe, cheated me in the change
of a Napoleon, as his share of the spoil. At the door a soldier met me
with my passport, and looked as if he expected a fee for handing it to
me; but in this he was disappointed. After I had resumed my seat in the
coupe, the porter of the custom-house--a poor, sickly-looking creature,
half dead with the malaria of the place--appeared, and demanded a fee for
doing nothing to my luggage. He got three pauls, and looked but half
contented. This whole set of men seem to be as corrupt as official
people can possibly be; and yet I hardly know whether to stigmatize them
as corrupt, because it is not their individual delinquency, but the
operation of a regular system.
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