of a parrot, who
thought it fine to cry, "_Piove! piove! piove_!"--"It rains! it
rains! it rains!"--and had, no doubt, a secret interest in some
umbrella-shop. This unprincipled bird dwelt somewhere in the
neighborhood of the street where you see the awful tablet in the wall
devoting to infamy the citizens of the old republic that were false to
their country. The sight of that pitiless stone recalls with a thrill
the picturesque, unhappy past, with all the wandering, half-benighted
efforts of the people to rend their liberty from now a foreign and now
a native lord. At best, they only knew how to avenge their wrongs; but
now, let us hope, they have learnt, with all Italy, to prevent them.
The will was never wanting of old to the Ligurian race, and in this
time they have done their full share to establish Italian freedom.

I do not know why it should have been so surprising to hear the
boatman who rowed us to the steamer's anchorage speak English; but,
after his harsh Genoese profanity in getting his boat into open water,
it was the last thing we expected from him. It had somehow the effect
of a furious beast addressing you in your native tongue, and
telling you it was "Wary poordy wedder;" and it made us cling to his
good-nature with the trembling solicitude of Little Red-Riding-Hood,
when she begins to have the first faint suspicions of her grandmother.
However, our boatman was no wild beast, but took our six cents of
_buonamano_ with the base servility of a Christian man, when he had
put our luggage in the cabin of the steamer. I wonder how he should
have known us for Americans? He did so know us, and said he had been
at New York in better days, when he voyaged upon higher seas than
those he now navigated.

On board, we watched with compassion an old gentleman in the cabin
making a hearty meal of sardines and fruit-pie, and I asked him if
he had ever been at sea. No, he said. I could have wept over that
innocent old gentleman's childlike confidence of appetite, and
guileless trust of the deep.

We went on deck, where one of the gentle beings of our party declared
that she would remain as long as Genoa was in sight; and to tell the
truth, the scene was worthy of the promised devotion. There, in a
half-circle before us, blazed the lights of the quay; above these
twinkled the lamps of the steep streets and climbing palaces; over
and behind all hung the darkness on the heights,--a sable cloud dotted
with ruddy points