all but handsomely furnished. The Genoese
jewellery is very beautiful, particularly the gold and silver filagree
work. We were surprised to learn that the gold so-called is only silver
twice gilt.

The postal arrangements here are very convenient. By leaving your
address at the poste restante, you have all your letters sent to you at
the hotel without delay. There is a nice sheltered colonnade, a kind of
Burlington Arcade, running half-way up at the back of the Via Roma,
where the Hotel Isotta is situated, and close to the post-office; but on
a rainy day, the noise made by those talking and promenading there is
somewhat of a nuisance to visitors in the hotel. A very favourite
promenade--indeed, the best in Genoa--is that before mentioned, in front
of the harbour, but only when shaded from the heat of the sun, as the
glare of its rays on the white marble is scarcely to be borne. Here in
the evenings, when fine, the ladies of Genoa are seen to advantage, with
their charming dress at once so elegant, modest, and becoming. English
women might well take a few hints from its simplicity. These ladies are
mostly handsome, and their movements are exceedingly graceful.

Here and there among the houses you sometimes see between two windows a
painting simulating a third window half open, with perhaps a lady
looking out into the street below, and this is so natural, that for the
moment you fancy it is real. The houses are mostly six stories high, and
the shops and lower apartments are consequently extremely gloomy. The
upper rooms are the most suitable to dwell in, but visitors frequently
find it exceedingly fatiguing to toil up and down the stairs; and some
of the stone-paved passages, miscalled streets, are almost
perpendicular. Altogether, one needs extraordinary strength in this city
of precipices. It is thus very unsuitable to invalids, apart from its
variable climate. It is subject to very rapid changes of temperature,
warm winds from the south alternating constantly with dry cold winds
from the north, which render it very trying to delicate people.

The weather was so very cold during our visit, that, despite the great
interest with which Genoa inspired us, we were glad to leave it for
Pisa, which we understood would be milder. We had intended going hence
to Milan, Florence, and Venice, but the cold warned us not to go further
north; and we therefore altered our plans, and left Genoa on the 9th of
January for Pisa, _en rout