hearth, which was raised several
feet above the floor, stationed us there, like the giants Gog and Magog,
while the children, assembled below, gazed up in open-mouthed wonder at
our elevated greatness. They even invited us to share their simple meals
with them, and it was amusing to hear their goodhearted exclamations of
pity at finding we were so far from home. We slept in the great beds
(for the most of the Italian beds are calculated for a man, wife, and
four children!) without fear of being assassinated, and only met with
banditti in dreams.

This is a very unfavorable time of the year for foot-traveling. We were
obliged to wait three or four weeks in Florence for a remittance from
America, which not only prevented our leaving as soon as was desirable,
but, by the additional expense of living, left us much smaller means
than we required. However, through the kindness of a generous
countryman, who unhesitatingly loaned us a considerable sum, we were
enabled to start with thirty dollars each, which, with care and
economy, will be quite sufficient to take us to Paris, by way of Rome
and Naples, if these storms do not prevent us from walking. Greece and
the Orient, which I so ardently hoped to visit, are now out of the
question. We walked till noon to-day, over the Val di Chiana to
Camuscia, the last post-station in the Tuscan dominions. On a mountain
near it is the city of Cortona, still enclosed within its Cyclopean
walls, built long before the foundation of Rome. Here our patience gave
way, melted down by the unremitting rains, and while eating dinner we
made a bargain for a vehicle to bring us to this city. We gave a little
more than half of what the vetturino demanded, which was still an
exorbitant price--two scudi each for a ride of thirty miles.

In a short time we were called to take our seats; I beheld with
consternation a rickety, uncovered, two-wheeled vehicle, to which a
single lean horse was attached. "What!" said I; "is that the carriage
you promised?" "You bargained for a _calesino_," said he, "and there it
is!" adding, moreover, that there was nothing else in the place. So we
clambered up, thrust our feet among the hay, and the machine rolled off
with a kind of saw-mill motion, at the rate of five miles an hour.

Soon after, in ascending the mountain of the Spelunca, a sheet of blue
water was revealed below us--the Lake of Thrasymene! From the eminence
around which we drove, we looked on the whole of