the proverbial paths to the Eternal City that leading to
Padua, and thence through Ferrara and Bologna to Florence, and so
down the sea-shore from Leghorn to Civita Vecchia, was the best, the
briefest, and the cheapest. Who could have dreamed that this path,
so wisely and carefully chosen, would lead us to Genoa, conduct us on
shipboard, toss us four dizzy days and nights, and set us down, void,
battered, and bewildered, in Naples? Luckily,

"The moving accident is not my trade,"

for there are events of this journey (now happily at an end) which,
if I recounted them with unsparing sincerity, would forever deter the
reader from taking any road to Rome.

Though, indeed, what is Rome, after all, when you come to it?

II.

FROM PADUA TO FERRARA.

As far as to Ferrara there was no sign of deviation from the direct
line in our road, and the company was well enough. We had a Swiss
family in the car with us to Padua, and they told us how they were
going home to their mountains from Russia, where they had spent
nineteen years of their lives. They were mother and father and only
daughter and the last, without ever having seen her ancestral country,
was so Swiss in her yet childish beauty, that she filled the morning
twilight with vague images of glacial height, blue lake, snug chalet,
and whatever else of picturesque there is in paint and print about
Switzerland. Of course, as the light grew brighter these images melted
away, and left only a little frost upon the window-pane.

The mother was restively anxious at nearing her country, and told us
every thing of its loveliness and happiness. Nineteen years of absence
had not robbed it of the poorest charm, and I hope that seeing it
again took nothing from it. We said how glad we should be if we were
as near America as she was to Switzerland. "America!" she screamed;
"you come from America! Dear God, the world is wide--the world is
wide!" The thought was so paralyzing that it silenced the fat little
lady for a moment, and gave her husband time to express his sympathy
with us in our war, which he understood perfectly well. He trusted
that the revolution to perpetuate slavery must fail, and he hoped that
the war would soon end, for it made cotton very dear.

Europe is material: I doubt if, after Victor Hugo and Garibaldi, there
were many upon that continent whose enthusiasm for American
unity (which is European freedom) was not somewhat chilled by the
expensiveness