nted thick along all the
Italian routes,--the owner, of course, reckoning for the charges at the
end of the journey. In accordance with this custom, our _conducteur_
entered the shed-like building I have mentioned, to lay his way-bill and
his passports before the officials within. In the interim, we took our
places in the vehicle. The _conducteur_ was in no hurry to return, but I
dreaded no evil. I had had a wakeful night; and now, throwing myself
into my nook in the _diligence_, the stillness favoured sleep, and I was
half unconscious, when I found some one pulling at my shoulder, and
calling on me to leave the carriage. "What is the matter?" I inquired.
"Your passport is not _en regle_," was the reply. "My passport not
right!" I answered in astonishment; "it has been viseed at every
police-office betwixt and London; and especially at those of Austria,
under whose suzerainty the territory of Ferrara is, and no one may
prevent me entering the Papal States." The man coolly replied, "You
cannot go an inch farther with us;" and proceeded to take down my
luggage, and deposit it on the bank. I stept out, and bade the man
conduct me to the people inside. Passing under the papal arms, we
threaded a long narrow passage,--turned to the left,--traversed another
long passage,--turned to the left again, and stood in a little chamber
dimly lighted by a solitary lamp. The apartment was divided by a bench,
behind which sat two persons,--the one a little withered old man, with
small piercing eyes, and the other very considerably younger and taller,
and with a face on which anxiety or mistrust had written fewer sinister
lines. They quickly told me that my passport was not right, and that I
could not enter the Papal States. I asked them to hand me the little
volume; and, turning over its pages, I traced with them my progress from
London to the Po, and showed that, on the testimony of every
passport-office and legation, I was a good man and true up to the
further banks of their river; and that if I was other now, I must have
become so in crossing, or since touching their soil. They gave me to
understand, in reply, that all these testimonies went for nothing,
seeing I wanted the _imprimatur_ of the papal consul in Venice. I
assured them that omission was owing to misinformation I had received in
Venice; that the Valet de Place (an authority in all such matters) at
the Albergo dell' Europa had assured me that the two visees I had got in
Veni