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coast, beginning by the light-house, and tapering away, a mere
speck in the rosy distance, is the beautiful coast road that leads
to Nice. The garden near at hand, among the roofs and houses: all
red with roses and fresh with little fountains: is the Acqua Sola-
-a public promenade, where the military band plays gaily, and the
white veils cluster thick, and the Genoese nobility ride round, and
round, and round, in state-clothes and coaches at least, if not in
absolute wisdom. Within a stone's-throw, as it seems, the audience
of the Day Theatre sit: their faces turned this way. But as the
stage is hidden, it is very odd, without a knowledge of the cause,
to see their faces changed so suddenly from earnestness to
laughter; and odder still, to hear the rounds upon rounds of
applause, rattling in the evening air, to which the curtain falls.
But, being Sunday night, they act their best and most attractive
play. And now, the sun is going down, in such magnificent array of
red, and green, and golden light, as neither pen nor pencil could
depict; and to the ringing of the vesper bells, darkness sets in at
once, without a twilight. Then, lights begin to shine in Genoa,
and on the country road; and the revolving lanthorn out at sea
there, flashing, for an instant, on this palace front and portico,
illuminates it as if there were a bright moon bursting from behind
a cloud; then, merges it in deep obscurity. And this, so far as I
know, is the only reason why the Genoese avoid it after dark, and
think it haunted.

My memory will haunt it, many nights, in time to come; but nothing
worse, I will engage. The same Ghost will occasionally sail away,
as I did one pleasant autumn evening, into the bright prospect, and
sniff the morning air at Marseilles.

The corpulent hairdresser was still sitting in his slippers outside
his shop-door there, but the twirling ladies in the window, with
the natural inconstancy of their sex, had ceased to twirl, and were
languishing, stock still, with their beautiful faces addressed to
blind corners of the establishment, where it was impossible for
admirers to penetrate.

The steamer had come from Genoa in a delicious run of eighteen
hours, and we were going to run back again by the Cornice road from
Nice: not being satisfied to have seen only the outsides of the
beautiful towns that rise in picturesque white clusters from among
the olive woods, and rocks, and hills, upon the margin of the Sea.

The Boat which started for Nice that night, at eight o'clock, was
very small, and so crowded with goods that there was scarcely room
to move; neither was there anything to cat on board, except bread;
nor to drink, except coffee. But being due at Nice at about eight
or so in the morning, this was of no consequence; so when we began
to wink at the bright stars, in involuntary acknowledgment of their
winking at us, we turned into our berths, in a crowded, but cool

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