craft. The hills are
bald and bare, and you find, as you draw near, that the city lies at
their feet under a veil of mist, or climbs earlier into view along
their sides. The prospect is singularly devoid of gentle and pleasing
features, and looking at those rugged acclivities, with their aspect
of continual bleakness, you readily believe all the stories you have
heard of that fierce wind called the Bora which sweeps from them
through Trieste at certain seasons. While it blows, ladies walking
near the quays are sometimes caught up and set afloat, involuntary
Galateas, in the bay, and people keep in-doors as much as possible.
But the Bora, though so sudden and so savage, does give warning of its
rise, and the peasants avail themselves of this characteristic. They
station a man on one of the mountain tops, and when he feels the first
breath of the Bora, he sounds a horn, which is a signal for all within
hearing to lay hold of something that cannot be blown away, and cling
to it till the wind falls. This may happen in three days or in nine,
according to the popular proverbs. "The spectacle of the sea," says
Dall' Ongaro, in a note to one of his ballads, "while the Bora blows,
is sublime, and when it ceases the prospect of the surrounding hills
is delightful. The air, purified by the rapid current, clothes them
with a rosy veil, and the temperature is instantly softened, even in
the heart of winter."

The city itself, as you penetrate it, makes good with its stateliness
and picturesqueness your loss through the grimness of its environs. It
is in great part new, very clean, and full of the life and movement
of a prosperous port; but, better than this, so far as the mere
sight-seer is concerned, it wins a novel charm from the many public
staircases by which you ascend and descend its hillier quarters, and
which are made of stone, and lightly railed and balustraded with iron.

Something of all this I noticed in my ride from the landing of the
steamer to the house of friends in the suburbs, and there I grew
better disposed toward the hills, which, as I strolled over them,
I found dotted with lovely villas, and everywhere traversed by
perfectly-kept carriage-roads, and easy and pleasant foot-paths. It
was in the spring-time, and the peach-trees and almond-trees hung
full of blossoms and bees, the lizards lay in the walks absorbing the
vernal sunshine, the violets and cowslips sweetened all the grassy
borders. The scene did not