, the side-currents pouring and dashing. These latter,
ordinarily but small rills, carrying off the drainage of the land by
gentle course, were now swollen to rough cataracts, leaping with furious
rapidity from crag to crag in deluges of turbid water, discolored to a
dingy yellow-brown by the heaps of earth and stone which they dislodged
and brought down with them, and hurled hither and thither over the
precipitous projections, and occasionally flung athwart the highway. At
one spot, where a heap of such stones--large, flat slabs--had been
tossed upon the road, and a few of their companions were in the very act
of plunging down after them, our postilion drew up to guide his cattle
among those already fallen; and, raising his voice above the thunder of
the sea-waves, rain, wind, and waters, shouted out in broad Genoese to
the falling ones, "Halloo, you there, up above! Stop a bit, will you?
Wait a moment, you up there!" Then, driving on carefully till he had
steered by the largest of the fragments that lay prostrate, he turned
back his head, shook his whip at it, and apostrophised it with, "Ah, you
big pig! I've passed you, for this time!"

The first change of horses took place at a village close down on the
sea-shore, where some fishermen were busily employed hauling up the last
of a row of boats that lay upon the beach. Every available hand, not
occupied in aiding the conductor and postilion to unharness the
diligence horses and put to the fresh team, was enlisted in the service
of the boat-hauling. Young gentlemen out for an evening's amusement,
attired in sacks or tarpaulins thrown over their shoulders, while their
nether garments were rolled up tightly into a neat twist that encircled
the top of each thigh, were frisking about a line of men with
weather-beaten countenances and blown hair, who tugged bare-legged at
the sides of the fishing-boat, half in the water and half out.
Occasionally one of these young gentry, feeling perhaps that he had
aided sufficiently in the general work, betook himself to a doorway
near, dripping and shaking himself, and looking out through the sheeted
rain at his companions, who were still in the excitement of whisking
round the heaving and tugging fishermen, while the waves rose high, the
spray dashed up in mist over their grizzled heads and beards, and the
wind whistled sharply amid the deeper tumult of the sea and torrent
waters. To heighten the grim wildness of the scene, the shades o