dark withered faces looked
out, as if wondering at the unusual din. I felt as if it were cruel to
rouse these quiet slumber-loving towns, by dragging through their
streets so noisy a vehicle as a _diligence_.

We passed Caravaggio, famous as the birthplace of the two great painters
who have both taken their name from their city,--the Caravacchi. We
passed, too, the little Mozonnica, that is, all of it which the
calamities of the middle ages have left. Darkness then fell upon us,--if
a firmament begemmed with large lustrous stars could be called dark.
The night wore on, varied only by two events of moment. The first was
supper, for which we halted at about eleven o'clock, in the town of
Chiari. At eleven at night people should think of sleeping,--not of
eating. Not so in Italy, where supper is still the meal of the day. An
Italian _diligence_ never breakfasts, unless a small cup of coffee,
hurriedly snatched while the horses are being put to, can be called
such. Sometimes it does not even dine; but it never omits to sup. The
supper chamber in Chiari was most sumptuously laid out,--vermicelli
soup, flesh, fowls, cheese, pastry, wine,--every viand, in short, that
could tempt the appetite. But at midnight I refused to be tempted,
though most of the other guests partook abundantly. I was much struck,
on leaving the town, with the massive architecture of the houses, the
strength of the gates, and other monuments of former greatness. Imagine
Edinburgh grown old and half-ruined, and you have a picture of the towns
of Italy, which was a land of elegant stone-built cities at a time when
the capitals of northern Europe were little better than collections of
wooden sheds half-buried in mire.

There followed a long ride. Sleep, benignant goddess, looked in upon us,
and helped to shorten the way. What surprised me not a little was, how
soundly my companions snoozed, considering how they had supped. The
stages passed slowly and wearily. At length there came a long, a very
long halt. I roused myself, and stepped out. I was in a spacious street,
with the cold biting wind blowing through it. The horses were away; the
postilions had disappeared; some of the passengers were perambulating
the pavement, and the rest were fast asleep in the _diligence_, which
stood on the causeway, like a stranded vessel on the beach. On
consulting my watch, I found it was three in the morning, and in answer
to my inquiries I was told that I was in Brescia,-