no time to linger by the way, though we might have found enough to interest us if our arrangements had allowed any latitude. We took leave of our palace in the Via della Croce; its uneducated fleas and its "wholesome" stable-yard, and its ever-weeping fountains; its balconies, its artists, its unlighted stairway, its unswept carpets,all tolerable because they were in Rome. We drove up the Corso, almost weeping to think it was the last! looked at Francisco with affection, which indeed the poor fellow deserved, for his untiring patience and good humor; gazed upon the very paving-stones, quivering hot in that intense sun, as if we would fain carry them with us to hallow some Campo Santo at home. We thought we would stop once more at Torlonia's, lest some letter should escape us, and there, to be sure, were several! This consoled us a little, and kept our eyes off the pavement for a while.

When we reached the place of the Diligence, there was the usual appearance of perfect leisure. A few passengers were waiting, but the people whose business it was to forward us seemed quite at ease. Happily the piazza was shady, so we sat down on an old cart to await the course of things, knowing that sometime during the day we should certainly get off. We felt in no hurry to leave Rome, and could afford to wait. For my own part I should have been glad to sit upon the cart all day, looking about, and "realizing" that I was still in Rome. But after a while the word was given, and we took our places-not in the coupé, for somebody had been beforehand with us there; but in the interior, which was tolerably pleasant,-when the people in the coupé did not smoke. A tall gentlemanly man, massive in form, and

reminding me of the German ideal man in Retsch's outlines-a Maltese, but in the service of Great Britain,recounted with great animation all the particulars of his quarrel with the Diligence agent, who had, as he thought, tried to impose upon him; and he finished by the assertion that he had broken his cane over the rascal's back, and wished he had had another. Some little discussion ensued upon this, but he remained firm in the belief that the cane was the best argument in such a case.

The sun was intensely hot, and our voiturier so careful of his horses that we were nearly an hour reaching the Porta San Giovanni, the ground being ascending all the way. So we looked and looked on all sides; strained our eyes and necks for a last glimpse of objects that had particularly impressed us, and bade adieu to Rome. My own private choice would have been to stay there until it was time to return home.

The grand object was now to get through the Pontine marshes before midnight, that nobody might be tempted to sleep while we were passing them. To this end the tall burly Maltese fee'd the driver, and we went at a good pace over the Campagna.

The road through the marshes has a ditch as wide as a canal, on each side; and this is bordered with trees, a most monotonous tameness, of course, pervading the whole. At Terracina there was a detention on account of the customs, and here we waited in the forlornest of taverns, and finished by changing carriages, the one into which we were now put being incomparably worse than the other. So our hopes of sleeping after we had passed the marshes were completely quashed, and we had the pleas

ure of a sleepless and most uneasy ride to Fondi, and through the rest of the journey. Whatever ought to have been seen between Rome and Naples may, I dare say, be found in the guide-books; but for ourselves, we saw little that interested us until we reached Capua, which is a curious and very picturesque walled town of great antiquity, where we found some delicious iced lemonade, which after the excessively dusty ride we had been enduring, was a matter of more serious importance than it may seem to the reader.

The white dust went with us all the way to Naples, filling the air completely, and making the trees and herbage look light grey, and ourselves like a company of millers. I think even in Italy I have never seen such dust. The Mediterranean was in full sight much of the way, and at Gaeta we had some fine views.

NAPLES.

The city has a new, ample and elegant look as you enter it; there are no walls, and you drive down a wide and well-paved avenue into the heart of the place; passing on the right a magnificent Insane Asylum, of great extent. But I began to think it ought to be large enough to contain a good part of the inhabitants, for they certainly look and behave as little like rational beings as one can well imagine. Beggars beset us at once, VOL. II. 4

dressed in every variety of rags, and exhibiting every species of deformity and mutilation. When we were stopt by the doganieri, a little boy in a ragged shirt began tumbling in the road for our amusement, performing the strangest antics, and concluding by playing castanets with his teeth, striking his chin alternately with fist and elbow, and I think with his knee too-but of the elbow I am certain—making an incredibly loud noise, so that it was long before I discovered that his teeth were the only instrument. Fruitsellers cried their wares; whole families were cooking their dinner out of doors, on furnaces in the street; immense caldrons of Indian corn were boiling, also in the street, for sale to the passengers; and people stopped to buy and eat, as coolly as possible. Some merchants were frying fish, others making a sort of fritters; but we saw no macaroni.

We drove on through this strange swarm, to the Hotel de Russie, which our gigantic friend of the Diligence had recommended very highly. It is situated in the Strada Sta Lucia, directly on the bay, scarcely a stone's throw from the water. The quay in front was covered with lazaroni, in every graceful attitude of repose or enjoyment. Multitudes of stalls were thronged with purchasers, and cooking and eating went on everywhere. In the midst of all this, splendid carriages were passing to and from the Chiaja-a very beautiful public promenade which follows the line of the bay westward as far as Pozzuoli. The scene was altogether unique and indescribable. The bay calm and smooth as a mirror, and enlivened everywhere by craft of all varieties; Capri in the distance, faintly blue with vapors touched by the declining sun; the Mole

on the right, a tall, frowning, warlike mass; on the other side, Vesuvius and his brethren; the air transparent, and full of mild sunshine; the earth seeming instinct with life and joy, from the gay crowds visible everywhere. An American ship of the line lay in the bay, and like the other vessels, exhibited her colors, dear to our eyes. We looked while we could, but we were very tired, and very, very dusty.

Pleasant rooms at the Hotel de Russie; a good table and the best possible attendance. When we had dined, we stepped out on the balcony to look again at Vesuvius. Not a wreath of smoke bore witness to his identity, and I was half ready to suspect F. of having blundered in introducing him. He has been very quiet for three weeks past, they say. We watched the sunset changes on bay, mountain, ocean and swarming street, where the fires and lanterns began now to make a figure. Lights appeared on most of the vessels in the harbor, before the last sunshine had left Capri. No picture could be more perfect.

We drove out the next morning, having exchanged our Francisco for a new Antonio, with a smart cockade in his hat, and a sort of livery trimmings about his cuffs and pocket-holes, by way of adding to the attractiveness of his barouche in the eyes of travellers. The box was so high that I felt a little afraid, sometimes, in going up hill, that he and F.-who was wedged in by his side,-would come toppling in upon us, backwards. But it was a very stylish affair in the eyes of its owner and the beggars, and a very comfortable one for us, so we liked it very well. We passed through the Toledo, the middle of which was as much thronged as the sides-the pavement being, as every