f
evening were closing round, and by the time the four travellers were off
again and proceeding on their way, darkness was fast setting in.

Nightfall found them toiling up a steep ascent that diverges inland for
a few miles, winding round the estate of some inflexible proprietor,
upon whom nothing can prevail to permit the high-road to take its
passage through his land, there bordering the sea-side. Up the ascent we
labored, and down the descent we lunged, the wheels lodging in deep mire
at every moment, and threatening to abide in the deeper holes and
furrows which the water-courses (forced from their due channels by
overflowing and by obstructive fallen masses) had cut and dug into the
road as they strayed swiftly over it.

By the time the next stage was reached, the conductor consulted the four
on the advisability of stopping to sleep, instead of proceeding on such
a tempestuous night, the like of which, for perilous effects, he said he
had but once before encountered during the whole of the sixteen years he
had been in office on this road. The three _coupe_ passengers,
consisting of two ladies--sisters--and a ruddy-faced, cheerful gentleman
in a velvet travelling-cap, who made it a principle, like Falstaff, to
take things easily, and "not to sweat extraordinarily," warmly approved
the conductor's proposal as a sensible one; and even the alert gentleman
in the _banquette_ agreed that it would be more prudent to remain at the
first good inn the diligence came to. This, the conductor replied, was
at Savona, one stage farther, as the place they now were at was a mere
boat-building hamlet, that scarcely boasted an inn at all,--certainly
not "good beds." A group of eager, bronzed faces were visible by
lamp-light, assembled round the conductor, listening to him as he held
this conference with his coach-passengers; and at its close the
bronze-faced crowd broke into a rapid outburst of Genoese dialect, which
was interrupted by our conductor's making his way through them all, and
disappearing round the corner of the small _piazza_ wherein the
diligence stood to have its horses changed. After some moments'
pause,--not in the rain, or wind, or sea-waves, for they kept pouring
and rushing and roaring on,--but in the hurly-burly of rapid talk, which
ceased, owing to the talkers' hurrying off in pursuit of the vanished
conductor, he returned, saying, "Andiamo a Savona." It soon proved that
he had been to ascertain the feasibilit