About noon, we turned off from the main road, and bending in among the green hills, without ascending any, reached Baden-Baden, which lies picturesquely yet snugly in the valley, on the banks of the Oes—a mere mountain torrent, it is true, but the “sweet inland murmur” of such is ever grateful to the ear. It looked a cheerful, and even a gay place; yet I feel that I could steal away from the throng, and find solitude at will on the mountain tops or amidst their woody ravines. A wish has come over me to remain here: this sounds strangely, considering my yearning after Italy. How seldom do human wishes flow smoothly towards their object; for a while they may steal imperceptibly on, unstopped, though often checked; winding round, or perseveringly surmounting impediments. Or obstacles still more mighty present themselves, and then our wishes gather power;—they swell, and dash down all impediments, and take an impetuous course. But when all is smooth and free for their accomplishment, then they shrink and are frightened, as (to make a grand similitude) the Gauls did when the open gates and silent walls of Rome offered no opposition to their entrance. We fear treachery on the part of fate; and objections, overlooked in the hurry of desire, present themselves during the peace of easy attainment. With regard to the feelings that hold my wishes in check when I think of Italy,—these are all founded on fear. Those I loved had died there—would it again prove fatal, and do I only please my fancy to destroy my last hope? We are bound for the lake of Como, a place of sad renown for wreck and danger; and my son’s passion for the water is the inducement that leads him to fix on it for his visit. What wonder that I, of all people, looking on the peaceful valley of Baden-Baden, with its mountain torrent that would not sail a paper boat, wistfully incline to stay here and be safe. But that which forms, in this sort of back-current manner, its attraction to me, renders it devoid of any to my companions: besides, study and solitude is their aim.

We dined at the table d’hôte; and a most tiresome and even disgusting mode of satisfying the appetite we found it. The company was disagreeably numerous; the noise stunning; and the food, to our un-Germanised tastes, very uninviting. We were amused, however, by our neighbours—three persons—a German, his sister, and his affianced bride, whom he is to marry to-morrow. She was pretty—he was ugly; but she saw him with the eyes of love, and very much in love they were, which they took no trouble to conceal, looking at each other as Adam and Eve might have done when no other human creature existed to observe them. Meanwhile, a number of little sins against the rules of well-bred behaviour at a dinner-table gave a very ludicrous turn to their overflowing sentiment.

In the evening we visited the salon, and looked in on the gamblers—often a dangerous spectacle. The Rouge-et-Noir table was densely surrounded; and gold or silver was perpetually staked, but never, as far as I could observe, to any great amount—four napoleons at a time being the most I saw placed on a colour, and that but once or twice—generally one gold piece or five francs. I believe serious play is reserved for a later hour of the night. I saw no signs of despair; but all looked serious,—some anxious. The floor was strewed with cards, pricked for numbers. One man I stood near, calculated very carefully, and generally won. Once, when he felt very sure, he staked four napoleons and was successful. He stowed his gains in a purse, which looked gradually but surely filling. The Rouge-et-Noir table was open all day; the roulette table, in another room, only in the evening—it was thinly attended. The multiplication of your stake at this game, if you are lucky, is attractive; but the chances are known to be so much in favour of the bank, that people are shy of it. Rouge-et-Noir, they say, is the fairest game of any; though, in that, the bank has advantages, which, unless under very excessive failure of luck, secures its being largely a gainer, and the players, of course in a mass, certain losers: thus, the players, in fact, play against each other, and the bank has a large premium on their stakes, which renders it for its holders a lucrative investment of money.

We spent this day at Baden-Baden. In the morning I took a bath; the water was exceedingly refreshing and pleasant, but the bathing rooms and baths themselves are small, without accommodation, altogether got up in an inferior and dirty-looking style. We have rambled among the hills; looked on the gamblers: the Rouge-et-Noir went on all day. I now betake myself to writing letters. There is to be a dance in the evening and a concert; the place seemed quietly gay, and there are some well-dressed people. I should think, with the aid of ponies to explore the surrounding country, one might spend a few months here, pleasantly. But the circumstance that always strikes me as strange is the manner in which the visitors always seem tied to the spot where they roost, as if they were fowls with a trellis before their feeding yard. It is true that they visit the lions of the place now and then; but, really, to wander, and ramble, and discover new scenes does not form a portion of their amusements; and yet this is the only real one to be found in such a place.

We left Baden-Baden a little before seven. The scenery had exactly the same character—level to the right, to which indeed was now added a view of distant high mountains; on the left, wooded hills; often picturesque with peak or precipice crowned by ruined castles. We dined at Offenberg, at the inn, “La Fortune,”—a very excellent one—where we had a good dinner; the host had lived in England, and now frequently exported wine thither. He showed us a book containing the names of his English customers, and took my companions into his cellars, to taste his vintage. He was a jovial, good-humoured man.^[2]

Before dinner at Offenberg, we had walked towards a ruin on the hills, but had not time to reach it; it was picturesque, and continued long to grace the landscape as we proceeded along the plain; for the peculiarity of this route from Franckfort to Freyberg is, that you never ascend in the least, though the hills, wild and romantic, are so near at hand. For several miles from the Rhine, there is a plain flat as the Maremma of Italy, and in that country might be as unhealthy.

I have not yet spoken of our carriage and voiturier. The former was roomy and commodious enough, a sort of covered calèche; it could have been thrown quite open but that the roof was encumbered by our luggage. During all this time, the weather, though dry, was by no means hot: it was, in fact, very agreeable weather for travelling. Our driver was quiet, civil enough, and the horses went well; our want of German prevented our knowing much about him. This evening we had expected to reach Freyberg, but he stopped at a road-side inn of bad promise, and no better execution. He could not be persuaded to go on; the evening was fine, the hour early; it was very provoking. I forget the name of the place; indeed, the inn was a solitary house: however, it was near Ettenheim, whither we walked, and which looked a cheerful small town, and has the sad celebrity of being the place at which the Duke d’Enghien was seized, whose fate was one of three crimes which cast a dark stain on Napoleon’s name. The others were—first, the miserable death of Toussaint l’Ouverture; second, the execution of Hoffer. The sun set cheerfully on a pleasant landscape; we returned to our dreary inn;—it was the first bad accommodation we had encountered on our way.

Proceeding along the same style of country, we arrived in the middle of the day at Freyberg, where we dined. This was not one of the regular, formal, white-looking, modern German towns; it was antique, irregular, picturesque. We visited its Cathedral; it is celebrated for its great beauty: it is Gothic, and the tower, and spire that surmounts it, are of the most exquisite tracery and finish. We were accompanied by a valet de place, who had lived in a nobleman’s family in England, and spoke English tolerably. His claims were high to the knowledge of our language; he had not only written an English description of the Cathedral of Freyberg in prose, but an English poem descriptive of the route we were about to pursue through the Höllenthal and Swartzwald, anglicè Valley of Hell, and Black Forest. The poem is in heroic measure, rhymed, meant to be in the style of Pope’s didactic poems. It is a curious specimen of the sort of mistakes a foreigner may make in a language which he otherwise understands very tolerably: the accents on the syllables are nearly all misplaced, and the words used with erroneous significations; but, make allowance for these defects, and it reads smoothly enough.

The name of the Black Forest alone awakens the imagination. I own I like to give myself up to the ideas excited by antique names, and by the associations that give it vitality. Through the Swartzwald poured the multitudinous Germans on their way to Helvetia—and the Roman legions penetrated its depths by dint of intense labour and perseverance. The Black Forest of the middle ages is peopled by shadows, still more grim and fearful: the charcoal burners were a race, savage, solitary, and to be feared: and, till quite lately, the name conjured up robbers, cut-throat inns, and the worst ills to which travellers are liable. We were to reach this wide track of evil renown through the pass of the Höllenthal, or Valley of Hell. The Germans know how to give the glory of spirit-stirring names to their valleys and their forests, very different from the Little Woman, or Muddy Creek, of America. The pass itself perhaps deserved its title better in times gone by:—as we passed through it on this calm and sunny summer evening, there was nothing frightful or tremendous, but all that is verdant and lovely. The Höllenthal is indeed a narrow ravine shut in by hills, not very high, but rocky and abrupt, and clothed in the rich foliage of majestic trees. In parts the ravine closes in so as to leave only room for the road between the precipice and the mountain river, the Dreisam, which now steals murmuring between its turf-clad banks, and now roars and dashes in a rocky bed. Jagged pinnacles and bare crags overhang the road; around it are strewn gigantic masses of fallen rock, but all are clothed with luxuriant vegetation, and adorned by noble woods. We caught points of view to charm a painter, and others almost beyond the reach of imitative art, that might well entice the traveller to linger on his way. The pass opened as we ascended it, and became wilder in its character. We remained the night at the Stern, a tolerable inn, placed amidst abrupt crags, a brawling torrent, and dark forest land.

Some very good hotels had been lately built and opened at Zurich. I believe the Hôtel des Bergues, at Geneva, is the model, as it is the best of these Swiss hotels, where every thing is arranged with cleanliness, order, and comfort, surpassing most English inns. To the door of each room was affixed a tariff of prices, moderate for such good hotel accommodation, though not cheap as lodgings for any length of time; but the certainty of the prices, the fixed one franc a day, per head, for attendance, the extreme cleanliness and order, makes them very agreeable.^[3]

We went to the Hôtel du Lac. From our balcony we looked out on the lake of Zurich. This lake is not so extensive nor majestic as that of Geneva, with its background of the highest Alps; nor as picturesque and sublime as Lucerne, with its dark lofty precipices and verdant isles; but it is a beautiful lake, with a view of high mountains not very distant, and its immediate banks are well cultivated, and graced by many country-houses. After dinner, I went out in a boat with P——, by ourselves; he rowed in the style of the natives, pushing forward, and crossing the oars as they were pulled back;—we crossed the lake, which is not wide at this point, and returned again by moonlight.

We had become tired of our slow voiturier style of proceeding, and were seized by a desire to get on. So we took our places in the diligence for Coire, determined to arrive at the end of our journey as soon as might be.

The diligence was neither clean nor comfortable; we ought to have gone to the end of the lake by the steamboat. The carriage-road runs at a very little distance from the water’s edge. Half way on the lake is the longest bridge in the world. A bridge across a lake is less liable to be carried away, I suppose, by storms and the swelling of the waters, than over a river, but it ceases to be the picturesque spanning arch that adds such beauty to a landscape; it becomes a mere long low pier. At the end of the lake we took into the diligence a number of passengers, who had come so far by the steamboat. Our road lay through a valley surrounded by immense mountains, which became higher, closer, and more precipitous as we advanced through the plain at their foot. At one time it seemed as if we must be quite shut in, and then, just as we reached the very extremity of the valley, another lake opened on us—the lake of Wallenstadt, so surrounded by precipitous mountains, that it had been impossible to construct a road round it; but blessings on steam—a traveller’s blessing, who loves to roam far and free, we embarked in a steamboat, and in an hour arrived at the other end of the lake. The lake of Wallenstadt, surrounded by its high precipitous mountains, is gloomy; indeed, all the region we now travelled was marked by a vastness allied to dreariness, rather than to the majesty of picturesque beauty. Leaving the lake we proceeded along the valley of the Rhine; vast mountain barriers arose on each side, and in the midst was a flat valley, frequently overflowed, with the Rhine in the midst, struggling through a marshy bed. There was something dreary in it; but if the traveller approaches those mountains, and turns aside into their ravines, they instantly disclose scenes graced by all the beauty of Alpine magnificence. I much regretted not visiting the baths of Pfeflers, which I heard to be particularly worth seeing, and only a few miles distant.

At about nine o’clock in the evening we arrived very much fatigued at Coire. Before leaving the diligence-office we secured our places for the following day to Chiavenna. To my great delight I found Italian spoken here. French does not penetrate into these parts; English, if ever found, is a mere exotic, nurtured in particular spots; German, we had none; so now to be able to inquire, and learn, and arrange with facility, was very agreeable. “You do speak Italian!” exclaimed one of my companions in accents of surprise and pleasure;—so many difficulties in the future disappeared under this conviction. I certainly did speak Italian: it had been strange if I did not; not that I could boast of any extraordinary facility of conversation or elegance of diction, but mine was a peculiarly useful Italian; from having lived long in the country, all its household terms were familiar to me; and I remembered the time when it was more natural to me to speak to common people in that language than in my own. I now easily settled for our places; and we repaired to the inn to supper and to bed—we were to set out early in the morning.

At five in the morning we were in the yard of the diligence-office. We were in high spirits—for that night we should sleep in Italy. The diligence was a very comfortable one; there were few other passengers, and those were of a respectable class. We still continued along the valley of the Rhine, and at length entered the pass of the Via Mala, where we alighted to walk. It is here that the giant wall of the Alps shuts out the Swiss from Italy. Before the Alp itself (the Splugen) is reached, another huge mountain rises to divide the countries. A few years ago, there was no path except across this mountain, which being very exposed, and difficult even to danger, the Splugen was only traversed by shepherds and travellers of the country on mules or on foot. But now, a new and most marvellous road has been constructed—the mountain in question is, to the extent of several miles, cleft from the summit to the base, and a sheer precipice of 4000 feet rises on either side. The Rhine, swift and strong, but in width a span, flows in the narrow depth below. The road has been constructed on the face of the precipice, now cut into the side, now perforated through the living rock into galleries: it passes, at intervals, from one side of the ravine to the other, and bridges of a single arch span the chasm. The precipices, indeed, approach so near, in parts, that a fallen tree could not reach the river below, but lay wedged in midway. It may be imagined how singular and sublime this pass is, in its naked simplicity. After proceeding about a mile, you look back and see the country you had left, through the narrow opening of the gigantic crags, set like a painting in this cloud-reaching frame. It is giddy work to look down over the parapet that protects the road, and mark the arrowy rushing of the imprisoned river. Midway in the pass, the precipices approach so near that you might fancy that a strong man could leap across. This was the region visited by storm, flood, and desolation in 1834. The Rhine had risen several hundred feet, and, aided by the torrents from the mountains, had torn up the road, swept away a bridge, and laid waste the whole region. An English traveller, then on his road to Chiavenna, relates that he traversed the chasm on a rotten uneven plank, and found but few inches remaining of the road overhanging the river.^[4] It was an awful invasion of one element on another. The whole road to Chiavenna was broken up, and the face of the mountain so changed that, when reconstructed, the direction of the route was in many places entirely altered. The region of these changes was pointed out to us; but no discernible traces remained of where the road had been. All here was devastation—the giant ruins of a primæval world; and the puny remnants of man’s handiwork were utterly obliterated. Puny, however, as our operations are, when Nature decrees by one effort that they should cease to exist, while she reposes they may be regarded proudly, and commodiously traversed by the ant-like insects that make it their path.

We dined at the village of Splugen. It was cold, and we had a fire. Here we dropped all our fellow-travellers,—some were going over the St. Bernardin,—and proceeded very comfortably alone. It was a dreary-looking mountain that we had to cross, by zigzags, at first long, and diminishing as we ascended; the day, too, was drear; and we were immersed in a snow-storm towards the summit. Naked and sublime, the mountain stretched out around; and dim mists, chilling blasts, and driving snow added to its grandeur. We reached the dogana at the top; and here our things were examined.

The custom-house officer was very civil—complained of his station, where it always rained—at that moment it was raining—and, having caused the lids of one or two trunks to be lifted, they were closed again, and the ceremony was over. More time, however, was consumed in signing passports and papers; and then we set off down hill, swiftly and merrily, with two horses—the leaders being unharnessed and trotting down gravely after us, without any one to lead or drive them.

All Italian travellers know what it is, after toiling up the bleak, bare, northern, Swiss side of an Alp, to descend towards ever-vernal Italy. The rhododendron, in thick bushes, in full bloom, first adorned the mountain sides; then, pine forests; then, chesnut groves; the mountain was cleft into woody ravines; the waterfalls scattered their spray and their gracious melody; flowery and green, and clothed in radiance, and gifted with plenty, Italy opened upon us. Thus,—and be not shocked at the illustration, for it is all God’s creation,—after dreary old age and the sickening pass of death, does the saint open his eyes on Paradise. Chiavenna is situated in a fertile valley at the foot of the Splugen—it is glowing in rich and sunny vegetation. The inn is good; but the rooms were large and somewhat dreary. So near our bourne, low spirits crept over some of us, I know not why. To me, indeed, there was something even thrilling and affecting in the aspect of the commonest objects around. Every traveller can tell you how each country bears a distinctive mark in the mere setting out of the room of an inn, which would enable a man who had visited it before, if, transported by magic, he opened his eyes in the morning in a strange bed, to know to what country he had been removed. Window-curtains, the very wash-hand stands, they were all such as had been familiar to me in Italy long, long ago. I had not seen them since those young and happy days. Strange and indescribable emotions invaded me; recollections, long forgotten, arose fresh and strong by mere force of association, produced by those objects being presented to my eye, inspiring a mixture of pleasure and pain, almost amounting to agony.

This morning, we were to proceed to Colico, at the head of the lake of Como, there to embark on board the steamer. We engaged a voiture, which cost more than we had hoped or expected. We drove through a desolate region,—huge, precipitous, bare Alps on either side,—in the midst, a marshy plain. The road is good, but difficult to keep up. The Adda flows into the lake, over a wide rock-strewn bed, broken into many channels. It is a mountain torrent, perpetually swollen by rain and snow into a cataract that breaks down all obstacles, and tears away the road.

We arrived at Colico two hours too early. The inn was uninviting: we did not enter it. We tried to amuse ourselves by strolling about on the shore of the lake. The air was bleak and cold; now and then it threatened rain. At length, welcome signal of release, the steamer, appeared; another hour had yet to pass while it crossed over to us, and we were on board.

Our plan, formed from the experience of others, had been to take up our quarters at Bellaggio—look at a map, and you will see the situation. The Lake of Como is long, and, in proportion, narrow. About midway between Colico and the town of Como, in its widest part, it is divided into two lakes—one taking a more eastern course to Lecco; the other, to Como. On the narrow, rocky promontory that divides these two branches, looking towards the north, Bellaggio is situated. The steamer, however, did not stop there, but on the opposite shore, Cadenabbia, which looked southward, and commanded a view of Bellaggio and the mountains beyond, surmounting Varenna. We were landed at the Grande Albergo di Cadenabbia. A tall, slight, rather good-looking, fair-moustached master of the inn, welcomed us with a flourish. And here we are.

Strange to say, there is discontent among us. The weather is dreary, the lake tempest-tossed; and, stranger still, we are tired of mountains. I, who think a flat country insupportable, yet wish for lower hills, and a view of a wider expanse of sky: the eye longs for space. I remembered once how the sense of sight had felt relieved when I exchanged the narrow ravine, in which the Baths of Lucca are placed, for the view over the plains of Lombardy, commanded from our villa among the Euganean hills. But it was not this alone that made us sad and discontented. This feeling frequently assails travellers when their journey has come to a temporary close; and that close is not home. It will disappear to-morrow. Meanwhile, to relieve my thoughts from painful impressions, I have written this letter. And now, it is night; the sky is dark; the waves still lash the shore. I pray that no ruin, arising from that fatal element, may befal me here; and I say good-night to you—to myself—to the world.—Farewell.

The morning after our arrival we began to consider where and how we should live for the next two months. Two of my companions went by the steamer to Como, for money; and I remained with the other, to arrange our future plans. We at once decided not to remove to Bellaggio, but to remain on this side of the Lake. One chief motive is, that the steamer stops each day at Cadenabbia; and our communication with the world is, therefore, regular and facile. We looked for lodgings in the neighbouring village of Tremezzo, and found several, not bad, nor very dear; though rather more so than we expected. But this was not our difficulty. There were five of us, including my maid, to be provided for. We must have food: we must have a cook. I knew that, in a strange place, it requires at least a month, and even more, to get into its ways, and to obviate a little the liabilities to being cheated. But we are only going to stay six weeks or two months; and the annoyance attendant on my initiation into housekeeping will scarcely be ended before my acquired knowledge will have become useless. The host of the inn declared we must have everything from his house, or, by steamboat, from Como: he insinuated we should be better off at his hotel. At first, we turned a deaf ear; then we listened; then we discussed: in brief, we finally settled to remain at the Albergo Grande. We have one large salon; four small bedrooms contiguous, for three of us and my maid, and one up stairs: we are provided with breakfast, dinner, and tea; the whole (rooms included) for seven francs a-head for the masters, four for the servant. This was reasonable enough; and we agreed for a month, on these terms. Thus I am delivered from all household cares; which otherwise, in our position, might prove harassing enough.

These arrangements being quickly made, our manner of life has fallen at once into a regular train. All the morning, our students are at work. I have selected a nook of the salon, where I have established my embroidery-frame, books, and desk. I mean to read a great deal of Italian; as I have ever found it pleasant to embue oneself with the language and literature of the country in which one is residing. Reading much Italian, one learns almost to think in that language, and to converse more freely. At twelve, the steamer arrives from Como; which is the great event of our day. At two, we dine; but it is five, usually, before the sun permits us to go out. During his visit to Como, P—— went over to the neighbouring village of Caratte, where lives a boat-builder, who studied his trade at Venice. All the boats of the country are flat-bottomed. P—— has selected one with a keel, which he is now impatiently expecting.

Descriptions with difficulty convey definite impressions, and any picture or print of our part of the lake will better than my words describe the scenery around us. The Albergo Grande della Cadenabbia is built at the foot of mountains, close to the water. In front of the house there is a good bridle-road, which extends to each extremity of the lake. One door of the house opens on an avenue of acacias, which skirts the water, and leads to the side-gate of the Villa Sommariva.

Continuing the road towards Como, we come to the villages of Tremezzo and Bolvedro, with frequent villas interspersed, their terraced gardens climbing the mountain’s side. In the opposite direction towards Colico, we have the village of Cadenabbia itself, with a silk mill: but after that, the road, until we reach the town of Menaggio, is more solitary. In parts, the path runs close upon the lake, with only a sort of beach intervening, sprinkled with fragments of rock and shadowed by olive-trees. Menaggio is three miles distant; it is the largest town in our vicinity, and properly our post-town, though our letters are usually directed to Como, and a boatman fetches them and posts ours, three times a week, with great fidelity.

High mountains rise behind, their lower terraces bearing olives, vines, and Indian corn; midway clothed by chesnut woods; bare, rugged, sublime, at their summits. The waters of the lake are spread before; the villa-studded promontory of Bellaggio being immediately opposite, and further off the shores of the other branch of the lake, with the town of Varenna, sheltered by gigantic mountains. Highest among them is the Resegone, so frequently mentioned by Manzoni in the Promessi Sposi, with its summit jagged like a saw. Indeed, all these Alps are in shape more abrupt and fantastic than any I ever saw.

I wish I could by my imperfect words bring before you not only the grander features, but every minute peculiarity, every varying hue, of this matchless scene. The progress of each day brings with it its appropriate change. When I rise in the morning and look out, our own side is bathed in sunshine, and we see the opposite mountains raising their black masses in sharp relief against the eastern sky, while dark shadows are flung by the abrupt precipices on the fair lake beneath. This very scene glows in sunshine later in the day, till at evening the shadows climb up, first darkening the banks, and slowly ascending till they leave exposed the naked summits alone, which are long gladdened by the golden radiance of the sinking sun, till the bright rays disappear, and, cold and gray, the granite peaks stand pointing to the stars, which one by one gather above.

Here then we are in peace, with a feeling of being settled for a year, instead of two months. The inn is kept by the brothers Brentani, who form a sort of patriarchal family. There is, in the first place, an old mother, who evidently possesses great sway in the family, and a loud voice, but with whom we have nothing to do, except to return her salutation when we meet. The eldest brother, Giovanni, a tall stout man, attends to the accounts. He is married. Peppina, his wife, is of good parentage, but being left an orphan in childhood, lost her all through the rascality of guardians during the troubled times of Napoleon’s wars and downfall. She waits on us; she is hardworking, good-humoured, and endowed with all the innate courtesy which forms, together with their simplicity of manner, the charm of the Italians. Luigi, the next brother, who welcomed us from the steamboat, is put forward to do the honours, as the beau of the establishment. He has all the airs of one, when each day he goes to receive guests from the steamer, with his white, low-crowned hat, and velvet jacket, his slim figure, and light mustachios; he waits on us also. Then there is Battista, who acts as cook: Bernardo, who seems as a sort of under-waiter: and Paolo, or Piccol, as he is usually called, to his great disdain, a handsome lad, who runs about, and does everything: these are all brothers. There is a woman besides, to clean rooms, and a scullion or two: all the family work hard. Poor Battista says his only ambition is to get a good-night’s sleep; he is up early and down late, has grown infinitely thin upon it. Bernardo nourishes the ambition of going to England—the frequent resort of the natives of the lake of Como—and try, as others of the villages about had done, to make a fortune. My young companions are great pets in the house. You can be on excellent terms with this class of people in Italy without their ever forgetting themselves: there is no intrusiveness, no improper familiarity, but perfect ease joined to respect and ready service. For the rest, they of course are not particularly addicted to truth, and may perhaps cheat if strongly tempted, and, I dare say, their morals are not quite correct. But in all their doings, as yet, they keep their compact with us faithfully, taking extreme pains to serve us to our liking; far from having the slightest cause of complaint, we have every reason to praise.

We begin to feel settled, but to-day a strange and disagreeable incident occurred. Peppina came in with wild looks, to say that a madman—an Englishman—had arrived by the steamer, and was frightening everybody with a pistol.

It seems that two gentlemen had landed from the steamer, and had proceeded, as was the wont of visitors, to the Villa Sommariva, to look over it. One was an Italian, the other an Englishman, who spoke Italian perfectly. Suddenly, as they reached the gate of the Villa which opened on the road, the Englishman said to the Italian, “Are you not afraid of being set upon? Are you not afraid of being assassinated?” The other, who had come from Milan with him, and was not otherwise acquainted, and had no idea of his malady, replied, “No, why should he?” “Do you not know that we are watched, and there is treachery everywhere about us?” “No,” said the other, “and if there were, you have as much cause to be frightened as I.” “But I am armed,” said the madman, “this is loaded,” and he drew a pistol from his pocket, and still more excited by the sight of the weapon, began to shriek “Tradimento! Tradimento! Alla Villa Sommariva! Tradimento!” His companion, frightened enough, ran off and alarmed the inn and village, and as Englishmen, my companions were summoned to see if they could do anything with their countryman.

There he stood on the steps before the gate of the villa leading down to the lake, shrieking “Tradimento;” he kept every one at bay with his pistol, which was cocked, capped, and ready. Some people from across the lake tried to land at the steps to visit the villa, but he soon made them row away; the inhabitants around all flocked, hiding behind trees and peeping from coverts. He was well content to talk or to be spoken to in Italian or English, but no one must approach; and his position, standing on a semicircular flight of steps leading down to the lake, was sufficiently impregnable: it gave him the whole command of the road in front, and no one could outflank, or come behind him. After three or four hours, however, he grew less watchful. As the people talked to him, he allowed them insensibly to approach nearer, till one fellow getting behind, threw up his arm with the pistol, and then throwing his arms round him, took him prisoner. His pistol was double-loaded. But with all his madness he was aware, that if he had fired it, his power was at an end; and this latent sanity saved, perhaps, a life.

He was brought to the hotel, and a dismal day my friends have passed watching over him. Poor fellow! he is quite mad. He had given English lessons at Milan for some years, and earned a sufficient livelihood. His insanity has taken the turn of believing, that the Austrian police want to poison him. He said he never went to the theatre but a police officer was behind, who scattered a poisonous powder over him. He will not take any food in consequence; neither touch bread nor water. My maid took him a cup of tea made by herself, and, to her great indignation, he refused it, as poisoned. He tried to escape several times. First, he made friends with his countrymen; but when he found that they watched him, he turned to the Italians, calling us, according to the phrase of the country, “non Cristiani,” and begging them to save him. He had sixteen napoleons with him. It seems that the doctor who attended him (he was without relations or English friends) had advised him to go to England, had put him into the diligence for Como, introducing him to a Milanese in the vehicle, without mentioning his malady, and thus he was delivered over to the miserable wanderings of his mind. A doctor had been sent for from Menaggio at the first moment; of course, he could do nothing. With difficulty he was induced to go to bed; he was thoroughly persuaded he should be murdered in the night, and his expostulations on the subject were shocking and ghastly enough. The next morning, having taken an aversion to all those with whom he had been friendly the preceding day, he consented to go back to Milan, under the escort of a police officer. I saw him as he got into the boat; he was a spare man, with an adust, withered face and unquiet eye; but not otherwise remarkable. We heard that at Como he selected a pear from the bottom of a basket in the market place, and ate it; it was the first food that had passed his lips since he left Milan, two days before.