to Bologna. I lodged at a fine old hotel, whose
spacious apartments left me in no doubt that it had once belonged to
some of the princely families of Ferrara. I saw there, however, men who
had "a lean and hungry look," and not such as Caesar wished to have about
him,--"fat, sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights;" and my
suspicions which were awakened at the time have since unfortunately been
confirmed, for I read in the newspapers, rather more than a year ago,
that the landlord had been shot.

CHAPTER XVIII.

BOLOGNA AND THE APENNINES.

Road from Ferrara to Bologna--Wayside Oratories--Miserable
Cultivation--Barbarism of People--Aspect of Bologna--Streets,
Galleries, and Churches of its Interior--Decay of Art--San
Petronio--View of Plain from Hill behind Bologna--Tyranny of
Government--Night Arrests--Ruinous Taxation--Departure from
Bologna--Brigands--The Apennines--Storm among these Mountains--Two
Russian Travellers--Dinner at the Tuscan Frontier--Summit of the
Pass--Halt for the Night at a Country Inn--The Hostess and her
Company--Supper--Resume Journey next Morning--First Sight of
Florence.

On the morrow at ten I took my departure for Bologna. It was sweet to
exchange the sickly faces and unnatural silence of the city for the
bright sun and the living trees. The road was good,--so very good, that
it took me by surprise. It was not in keeping with the surrounding
barbarism. Instead of a hard-bottomed, macadamized highway, which
traversed the plain in a straight line, bordered by noble trees, I
should have expected to find in this region of mouldering towns and
neglected fields, a narrow, winding, rutted path, ploughed by torrents
and obstructed by boulders; and so, I am sure, I should have done, had
any of the native governments of Italy had the making of this road. But
it had been designed and executed by Napoleon; and hence its excellence.
His roads alone would have immortalized him. They remain, after all his
victories have perished, to attest his genius. Would that that genius
had been turned to the arts of peace! Conquerors would do well to ponder
the eulogium pronounced on a humble tailor who built a bridge out of his
savings,--that the world owed more to the scissors of that man than to
the sword of some conquerors.

Along the road, at short intervals, were little temples, where good
Catholics who had a mind might perform their devotions.