he room; and then a heavy sigh, peculiar to a
sleeping person, succeeded. Twisting about and blowing his breath with a
puff, as people do in hot weather, or when tormented, each time R----
moved, his straw-mattress yielded to his weight with the same noise as
the skin of a roasting-pig yields to the incision of a carving-knife.

"I can't stand this any longer," at length he exclaimed, and shooting
out of bed, walked up and down the room, scratching and fuming as if he
had just escaped from an ant's nest. Infuriated by the irritation of the
flea-bites, he could not do otherwise than stumble over everything that
came in his way; and the long nails of his naked toes coming in contact
with my ear, soon set me on my head's antipodes.

"Gracious heavens!" I exclaimed, smarting with pain; "why don't you
remain in bed, instead of stalking up and down the room all night long?"

"Go and remain there yourself," retorted R----, in no happy frame of
mind. "I won't be eaten up by bugs and all kinds of beastliness, for any
one."

"Yes; but you can keep your nails to yourself," I replied; and having
great faith in the power of friction, commenced rubbing my ear.

The silentness of death succeeded, interrupted only by the long, loud
breathing of P----, and the low, melancholy howl of wolves in the
mountains.

With regrets and earnest protestations never to leave the yacht again,
R---- and I wore the night away. P---- remained impregnable to the
attacks of bugs, fleas, and mosquitoes; and while he told us, in a
sonorous language of his own, how profoundly he slept, he sometimes gave
mechanical signs of feeling by scratching obstreperously his legs and
arms, and slapping himself smartly on the face.

Early the subsequent morning we took leave of our host, and regardless
of the intense heat, made the best of our way towards Faedde. The
peasantry along the road we travelled appeared to descend in
wretchedness the farther we advanced; and nothing could exceed the
poverty exhibited in the outward appearance of their hovels. At every
station where we stopped, misery, by exterior marks, stood dominant; and
one post-house, the last before we arrived at Faedde, was divested of
every comfort, and looked more dreary than all the others we had seen.
The whole family were partaking of their scanty meal spread on a deal
table, yet smooth as marble, and brilliant as a polished sword.
Surrounded by a gang of children, some grown to maturity, men