an of flame the vines
and hamlets on the hill-side. Terrible peals of thunder broke over us;
and these were followed by torrents of rain, which the furious winds
dashed against our vehicle with the force and noise of a cataract.
We had to make our way up the mountain's side in the face of this
tempest. At times more than a dozen animals were yoked to our
_diligence_,--horses, oxen, and beasts of every kind which we could
press into the service; while half-a-dozen postilions, shouting and
cracking their whips, strove to urge the motley cavalcade onward. Still
we crept up only by inches. The road in most cases wound over the very
peak of the mountain; and there the tempest, rushing upon us from all
sides at once, threatened to lay our vehicle, which shook and quivered
in the blast, flat on its side, or toss it into the valley below. The
storm continued to rage with unabated violence from day-break till
mid-day; and, by favour of horses, bullocks, and postilions, we kept
moving on at the rate of two miles an hour, now climbing, now
descending, well knowing that at every summit a fresh buffeting awaited
us.

I had as my companions on this journey, two Russian gentlemen, with whom
afterwards, at several points of my tour, I came into contact. They were
urbane and intelligent men, full of their own country and of the Czar,
yet professing great respect for England, which they had just visited,
and looking down with a contempt they were at little pains to conceal,
upon the Frenchmen and Italians among whom they were moving. They
possessed the sobriety of mind, the turn for quiet, shrewd observation,
in short, much of the physical and intellectual stamina, of Englishmen,
with just a shade less of the exquisite polish which marks the latter
wherever they are met with. These, no doubt, were favourable specimens
of the Russian nation; but it is such men who give the tone to a State,
while the masses below execute their designs. I have ever since felt
that, should we ever meet that people on the field of battle, the
contest would be no ordinary one. I recollect one of these gentlemen
meeting me on the streets of Rome some weeks afterwards, and informing
me that he had been the day before to visit the ball on the top of St
Peter's, and that he had been delighted at seeing his Emperor's name, in
his Emperor's own handwriting, inside the ball, with a few lines beneath
the signature, stating that he had stood in that ball, and had there