prayed for Mother Holy Russia,--a fact full of significance.

About mid-day we came, wet, and weary, and cold, to the Duana on the
Tuscan frontier, where was a poor inn, at which, after our passports had
been viseed, and our trunks and carpet-bags plumbed, we dined. There
were some twenty of us at table; a priest taking the top, and the
_conducteur_ the bottom. I remember that two persons of the party kept
their hats on at table, and that these were the priest and a poor
country lad,--the priest because he presided perhaps, and the countryman
because, not knowing the etiquette of the point, he wisely determined to
follow in that, as in greater matters, the priest. Our dinner consisted
of coarse broth, black bread, buffalo beef, and wine of not the sweetest
flavour; but what helped us was an excellent appetite, for we had not
breakfasted beyond a few chestnuts and grapes picked up at the poor
villages through which we passed. We obtained, however, an hour's
shelter from the elements.

We resumed our journey, and in about an hour's ride we gained the
central chain of the Apennines. Happily the tempest had moderated
somewhat; for this, lying midway between the two seas, is ordinarily the
stormiest point of the pass. We crossed it, however, with less
inconvenience than we had looked for. The summits, which had hitherto
been conical, with vines straggling up their sides, now became rounded,
or ran off in serrated lines, with sides scarred with tempests and
strewn with stones. The scenery was bleak and desolate, as that of the
Grampian pass leading by Spittal of Glenshee to Dee-side. But as we
continued our descent, the richly wooded glens returned; the clouds
rose; and at one time I ventured to hope that I should yet have my first
sight of Florence under a golden sky, and that Milton's description
might, after all, be applicable to this day of storms:--

"As when from mountain-tops the dusky clouds
Ascending, while the north wind sleeps, o'erspread
Heaven's cheerful face, the low'ring element
Scowls o'er the darken'd landskip snow or shower;
If chance the radiant sun, with farewell sweet,
Extend his evening beam, the fields revive,
The birds their notes renew, and bleating herds
Attest their joy, that hill and valley rings."

But the hope was short-lived: no Florence was I to see that night; nor
was note of bird to gladden the dells. The mists again fell, and hid in
premature night those fine valleys, so famou