was not so fortunate. Meeting an empty return carriage,
they asked the _vetturino_ to give them a ride; and he consenting, they
joyfully got in. Arrived at Ferrara, the _vetturino_ asked them for
money. Giovanni, astonished, replied that they had none; and the
unfeeling man stripped the poor children of their upper garments,
leaving them half-naked and penniless in the streets of an unknown city.
Giovanni's undaunted spirit would have led him still to persevere in the
wild-goose chase which had lured him from his home; but his brother
Antonio wept, and complained so loudly, that he was fain to console the
child by consenting to retrace their steps to Padua. That night, clasped
in each other's arms, they slept beneath a doorway, and the next morning
set out for their native city, begging their food on the journey.

The severe chastisement which Giovanni, as the instigator of this
escapade, received on his return, did not in anywise cure his love of
rambling. He submitted, however, to learn his father's trade, and at the
age of eighteen, armed with shaving and hair-cutting implements, he set
out for Rome, and there exercised the occupation of a barber with
success. After some time, he became deeply attached to a girl who, after
encouraging his addresses, deserted him and married a wealthy rival.
This disappointment preyed so deeply on Belzoni, that, renouncing at the
same time love and the razor, the world and the brazen bowl of suds, he
entered a convent, and became a Capuchin. The leisure of the cloister
was employed by him in the study of hydraulics; and he was busy in
constructing an Artesian well within the monastic precincts when the
French army under Napoleon took possession of Rome. The monks of every
order were expelled and dispersed; and our poor Capuchin, obliged to cut
his own beard, purchased once more the implements of his despised
calling, and traveled into Holland, the head-quarters of hydraulics,
which were still his passion. The Dutch did not encourage him, and he
came to this country. Here he met his future wife, and consoled himself
for his past misfortunes by marrying one who proved, through weal and
woe, a fond and faithful partner. The crude hydraulic inventions of a
wandering Italian were as little heeded here, as on the Continent; and
we have already seen the expedient to which Belzoni was obliged to have
recourse when Mr. Salt met him in Edinburgh.

Having reached London, the kind antiquary intr