174 InATUEAL HISTOEY OF 



Baptist, the great festival of Genoa, the town was 

 brilliantly illuminated ; while along the purple coast 

 to the west, the last rays of the setting sun still 

 trembled on the hills, and the moon arose in the 

 east. To these three contrasted lights was added the 

 singular effect of the innumerable flying glow-worms, 

 darting their momentary splendour through all the 

 streets, gardens, and rooms. We used frequently 

 to catch these little insects, and entangle them in 

 the ladies' hair and head-dresses, a decoration the 

 women in some countries adopt themselves. A 

 lady of Genoa told me a singular anecdote of some 

 Moorish women of rank, taken prisoners by the 

 Genoese, and detained for a ransom. They were 

 lodged in a villa out of the town, and visited, dur- 

 ing their stay, by several families. A party going 

 to see them one summer's evening after a hot day, 

 were surprised to find all their doors and windows 

 close shut, and themselves in the utmost terror and 

 distress. They had conceived an idea that these 

 luminous flies were the disturbed souls of their re- 

 latives. The common people of Genoa too suppose 

 them to be of a spiritual nature, and to come out of 

 the graves — of course they are beheld with abhor- 



• Sketch of a Tour on the Continent, vol. iii. p. 84. 



