with a garden of laurel and other evergreens,
and with flower-beds where the annuals were beginning to show the
gardener's designs in their sprouting seeds. Beyond these ample villa
bounds a tram-car murmured to and from the well-removed city, and beyond
its track lay a line of open-air theatres and variety shows and bathing
establishments, as at our own Atlantic City, but here in enduring
masonry instead of the provisional wood of our summer architecture.

[Illustration: 45 PIAZZA VICTOR EMANUEL, LEGHORN]

This festive preparation intimated the watering-place supremacy which
Leghorn enjoys in Italy, and which must make our quiet hotel in the
season glisten and twitter and flutter with the vivid national life. The
preparation includes a delightful drive by the seashore, with groves and
gardens, to the city gate and indefinitely beyond it, which we one day
followed as far as an old fort, where a little hotel had nestled with
every promise of simple comfort. There was a neighboring village of no
very exciting interest, and I do not know that the Italian Naval
Academy, which we passed on the way, was very exciting, though with its
villa grounds it had a pleasing rural effect. Hard by our hotel, in a
piazza that seemed to have nothing to do but surround it, was the
colossal bust of an Italian admiral, or the like, which had not the
impressiveness of a colossal full-length figure, but which rendered the
original with the faithful realism of the Genoese Campo Santo sculpture.
In compensation there was, toward the city, near the ship-yards where
the great Italian battle-ships are built, the statue of their builder--a
man who looked it--standing at large ease, with one hand in his
pantaloons pocket, and not apparently conscious of the passer's gaze.
Beyond the ship-yard, in which a battle-ship was then receiving the last
touches, was a statue for which I could not claim an equal
unconsciousness. In fact, it challenged the public attention and even
homage as it extended the baton of command and triumphed over the four
Moorish or Algerine corsairs who, in their splendid nudity, were chained
to the several corners of the monument and owned themselves
galley-slaves. The Medicean grand-duke who lords it over them, and who
erected this monument in honor of himself for the victories his admirals
had gained in sweeping the pirates from the seas, is a very proud
presence, and is certainly worthy of the admiration which his bronze
requ