g can be more beautiful. The neatness of
the villas and the abundance of the population form a striking contrast to
the wild solitudes between Sarzana and Sesto, where (except at Borghetto)
there is not a house to be seen and scarce a human creature to be met, and
where the eagle seems to reign alone the uncontrolled lord of the creation.

GENOA, 23rd April.

The view of Genoa from the sea is indisputably the best; for on entering by
land from the eastern side, the ramparts are so lofty as to intercept the
fine view the city would otherwise afford. From the sea side it rises in
the shape of an amphitheatre; a view therefore taken from the sea gives the
best idea of its grandeur and of the magnificence of its buildings, for
everybody on beholding this grand spectacle must allow that this city well
deserves its epithet of _Superba_.

I observe in my daily walks on the _Esplanade_ a number of beautiful women.
The Genoese women are remarkable for their beauty and fine complexions.
They dress generally in white, and their style of dress is Spanish; they
wear the _mezzara_ or veil, in the management of which they display much
grace and not a little coquetry. Instead of the fan exercise recommended to
women by the _Spectator_, the art of handling the _mezzara_ might be
reduced to a manual and taught to the ladies by word of command.

I put up at the house of a Spanish lady on the _Piazza St Siro_, and here
for four _livres_ a day I am sumptuously boarded and lodged. There are
three principal streets in Genoa, viz., _Strada Nuova_, _Balbi_, and
_Nuovissima_. Yet these three streets may be properly said to form but one,
inasmuch as they lie very nearly in a right line. These streets are broad
and aligned with the finest buildings in Genoa. This street or streets are
the only ones that can be properly called so, according to the idea we
usually attach to the word. The others deserve rather the names of lanes
and alleys, tho' exceedingly well paved and aligned with excellent houses
and shops. In fact the streets _Nuova_, _Nuovissima_ and _Balbi_ are the
only ones thro' which carriages can pass. The others are far too narrow to
admit of the passage of carriages. The houses on each side of them are of
immense height, being of six or seven stories, which form such a shade as
effectually to protect those who walk thro' these alleys from the rays of
the sun. The houses diminish in height in proportion as they are built on
the slant