d find brigands or any thing to eat on the road,
without expectation of finding either. In respect of robbers, we were
not disappointed; but shortly after nightfall we stopped at a lonely
post-house to change horses, and found that the landlord had so far
counted on our appearance as to have, just roasted and fragrantly
fuming, a leg of lamb, with certain small fried fish, and a
sufficiency of bread. It was a very lonely place as I say; the sky was
gloomy overhead; and the wildness of the landscape all about us gave
our provision quite a gamy flavor; and brigands could have added
nothing to our sense of solitude.

The road creeps along the coast for some distance from Civita Vecchia,
within hearing of the sea, and nowhere widely forsakes it, I believe,
all the way to Follonica. The country is hilly, and we stopped every
two hours to change horses; at which times we looked out, and, seeing
that it was a gray and windy night, though not rainy, exulted that we
had not taken the steamer. With very little change, the wisdom of
our decision in favor of the diligence formed the burden of our talk
during the whole night; and to think of eluded sea-sickness requited
us in the agony of our break-neck efforts to catch a little sleep, as,
mounted upon our nightmares, we rode steeple-chases up and down the
highways and by-ways of horror. Any thing that absolutely awakened us
was accounted a blessing; and I remember few things in life with so
keen a pleasure as the summons that came to us to descend from our
places and cross a river in one boat, while the two diligences of
our train followed in another. Here we had time to see our
fellow-passengers, as the pulsating light of their cigars illumined
their faces, and to discover among them that Italian, common to all
large companies, who speaks English, and is very eager to practice
it with you,--who is such a benefactor if you do not know his own
language, and such a bore if you do. After this, being landed, it was
rapture to stroll up and down the good road, and feel it hard and real
under our feet, and not an abysmal impalpability, while all the
grim shapes of our dreams fled to the spectral line of small boats
sustaining the ferry-barge, and swaying slowly from it as the drowned
men at their keels tugged them against the tide.

"_S' accommodino, Signori_!" cries the cheerful voice of the
conductor, and we ascend to our places in the diligence. The
nightmares are brought out again;