ead, of whom she has very
great numbers. It appeared to us that nearly every other house bore a
tablet announcing that "Here was born," or "Here died," some great or
good man of whom no one out of Bassano ever heard. There is enough
celebrity there to supply the world; but as laurel is a thing that grows
anywhere, I covet rather from Bassano the magnificent ivy that covers
the portions of her ancient wall yet standing. The wall, where visible,
is seen to be of a pebbly rough-cast, but it is clothed almost from the
ground in glossy ivy, that glitters upon it like chain-mail upon the
vast shoulders of some giant warrior. The bed of the moat is turned into
a lovely promenade, bordered by quiet villas, with shepherds and
shepherdesses carved in marble on their gates. Where the wall is built
to the verge of the high ground on which the city stands, there is a
swift descent to the wide valley of the Brenta, waving in corn and vines
and tobacco.

It did not take a long time to exhaust the interest of Bassano; but we
were sorry to leave the place, because of the excellence of the inn at
which we tarried. It was called "Il Mondo," and it had everything in it
that heart could wish. Our rooms were miracles of neatness and comfort;
they had the freshness, not the rawness, of recent repair, and they
opened into the dining-hall, where we were served with indescribable
salads and _risotti_. During our sojourn we simply enjoyed the house;
when we were come away we wondered that so much perfection of hotel
could exist in so small a town as Bassano. It is one of the pleasures of
by-way travel in Italy, that you are everywhere introduced in fanciful
character,--that you become fictitious, and play a part as in a novel.
To this inn of "The World" our driver had brought us with a clamor and
rattle proportioned to the fee received from us, and when, in response
to his haughty summons, the _cameriere_, who had been gossiping with the
cook, threw open the kitchen door, and stood out to welcome us in a
broad square of forth-streaming ruddy light, amid the lovely odors of
broiling and roasting, our driver saluted him with, "Receive these
gentle folks, and treat them to your very best. They are worthy of
anything." This at once put us back several centuries, and we never
ceased to be lords and ladies of the period of Don Quixote as long as we
rested in that inn.

It was a bright and breezy Sunday when we left "Il Mondo," and gayly
journeyed tow