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never make a false step, though they have often all 
their four feet together on a loose slippery stone, 
and sometimes climb up places so steep that ’tis 
difficult to keep from sliding off their rumps. The 
weather was cold and windy; for though we rode 
through myrtle thickets, and among trees which 
even at Montpellier are kept in greenhouses, and 
had groves of orange-, lemon-, and palm-trees about 
us, yet there was ice an inch thick in the road, and 
snow on the hills at no great distance. The weather 
is, however, now very fine, rather cold but bright. 
On my arrival at Genoa, I called on my friend 
the Marquis Durazzo, and was a little struck at the 
magnificence of the house (notwithstanding what 
I had heard of the Genoese nobility), the ranks of 
servants, &c.; so that I began to dread some for- 
mality and reserve. I was, however, most agreeably 
relieved from all such ideas the moment I saw him; 
and I found him the same cheerful, easy, unassu- 
ming man as when I knew him in London. He 
made me most heartily welcome; insists upon all 
ceremony being laid aside; that he will make us 
acquainted with all his friends, and procure us ac- 
cess to every thing worthy our notice. Last night 
he introduced me to a family party; everybody 
received me in the same agreeable manner, and 
talked English or French (both equally well), out 
of politeness to me; while I blundered out some 
Italian. His family are persons of the first conse- 
quence here; their palaces far beyond what we 
have, except perhaps Chatsworth; and their collec- 
tions of pictures celebrated in books of travels. A 
