h all my heart I can echo Dickens' words--"I
find it difficult to separate my own delight in recalling, from your
weariness in having them recalled."

* * * * *

We took train to Leghorn, to procure our letters from the post-restante
there. The weather was so unpleasantly wet that, under the
circumstances, we did not find the place very interesting. Leigh Hunt
sums up _his_ impressions in a few exceedingly apt, albeit somewhat
unkind, words: "Leghorn is a polite Wapping, with a square and a
theatre." The grave of Smollett, who lived here for some time, is one of
the objects of interest to visitors from the British Isles. There is
always a degree of melancholy pleasure in coming across the last
resting-place of a distinguished countryman in a foreign land.

While at the post-restante, we experienced a singular example of the
persistency and malevolence of the typical Italian beggar. This time it
was a woman and her child, both extremely dirty, the latter evidently
alive with vermin. The woman, on my wife's refusing to give her
anything, deliberately told her poor neglected child to rub up against
her--in order, no doubt, to communicate some of her infirmity. To
relieve only a portion of the beggars of all kinds who pursue you
wherever you go in Italy, although this pest has been greatly reduced of
late years, would leave you with very little time or money.

On returning, we had a fine view of Pisa. In the distance it appears
like a city of white marble, with its tower leaning at one end, and the
blue mountains far away in the background, looking, however, much nearer
than is actually the case. Distance is almost annihilated in this clear,
dry, Italian atmosphere, which also to a great extent prevents decay,
the most ancient buildings looking often singularly fresh. "Antiquity
refuses to look ancient in Italy; it insists on retaining its youthful
aspect."

The _Torre del Fame_, or "Tower of Famine," where Ugolino and his sons
were starved to death, stood "a littel out" of Pisa, as old Chaucer has
it, but the very site of this monument of cruel tyranny and vengeance is
now lost, or at any rate apocryphal.

We were really glad to reach the Hotel Victoria once more, our journey
having been performed in the presently falling rain. There is much of
interest in this old city, but our time was limited, and we were
compelled to press on towards the south, and therefore left on the
evening of