ringing all our travelling in
the night, which we wished specially to avoid. Besides this, we found
ourselves in a little, miserable, jolting vehicle that did not, like the
diligence, suffer us to sleep.

"Thus we left Marseilles, pursuing our way through what seemed to us a
wild country, with many a dark ravine on our roadside and impending
cliffs above us; a safe resort for bandits to annoy the traveller if they
felt disposed."

At Toulon they visited the arsenal and navy yard.

"We saw many ships of all classes in various states of equipment, and
every indication, from the activity which pervaded every department, that
great attention is paying by the French to their marine. Their ships have
not the neatness of ours; there seems to be a great deal of ornament, and
such as I should suppose was worse than useless in a ship of war.

"We noticed the galley slaves at work; they had a peculiar dress to mark
them. They were dressed in red frocks with the letters 'G a l' stamped on
each side of the back, as they were also on their pantaloons. The worst
sort, those who had committed murder, had been shipped lately to Brest.
Those who had been convicted twice had on a green cap; those who were
ordinary criminals had on a red cap; and those who were least criminal, a
blue cap.

"A great mortality was prevailing among them. There are about five
hundred at this place, and I was told by the sentinel that twenty-two had
been buried yesterday. Three bodies were carried out whilst we were in
the yard. We, of course, did not linger in the vicinity of the
hospitals....

"On Saturday, January 30, we left Toulon in a _voiture_ or private
carriage, the public conveyances towards Italy being now uncertain,
inconvenient, and expensive. There were five of us and we made an
agreement in writing with a _vetturino_ to carry us to Nice, the first
city in Italy, for twenty-seven francs each, the same as the fare in the
diligence, to which place he agreed to take us in two days and a half. Of
course necessity obliges us in this instance to travel on the Sabbath,
which we tried every means in our power to avoid.

"At twelve we stopped at the village of Cuers, an obscure, dirty place,
and stopped at an inn called 'La Croix d'Or' for breakfast. We here met
with the first gross imposition in charges that occurred to us in France.
Our _dejeuner_ for five consisted of three cups of miserable coffee,
without milk or butter; a piece of beef stewed