^T. 28.] JOURNAL. 199 



It is now just sunset, and the air is remarkably 

 balmy, a mild sea-breeze, just enough to fan you. 

 And let me tell you, however, as to Italian skies and 

 sunsets that they are not a bit superior to our own. 

 You may enjoy from your own parlor windows finer 

 sunsets every clear day in summer than I have yet 

 seen in Italy ; though they certainly are very near 

 ours. It is only to those who are accustomed to 

 British clouds and fogs that they are remarkable. 



The peripatetic grinders of music upon hand-organs 

 vso common in all our towns are usually Italians, and 

 I supposed that street music here was of much the 

 same kind. This is a mistake. I have not seen such 

 a thing in Italy or the south of France. You have 

 universally the harp, commonly two players in concert, 

 and very frequently a violin also for accompaniment, 

 and the music is always creditable. At Avignon, 

 the very land of troubadours, we were serenaded at 

 dinner with a concert of harps, guitars, etc., but when 

 they called for the coppers we found, shame to this 

 degenerate age, that the troubadours were all women, 



O O 7 



and of the most unromantic appearance possible. The 

 patois of all this part of France and of Piedmont, 

 however, is the same as the language in which the 

 trouveres are written, and one who understands the 

 patois as now spoken can read the former without 

 difficulty. 



The Italian language is very soft and musical, far 

 more pleasant to the ear than the deep nasal tones of 

 the French. 



JOURNAL. 



FLORENCE, May 9, Thursday evening. 



Finding little more that I could do to-day, I then 

 called at the residence of Mr. Sloane, a descendant of 



