232 A SKETCH OF THE 



constant agitation by the waves and which, so we are told, were 

 trodden by strange forms — lizards, of which the crocodiles of Egypt 

 and India are the puny descendants, by mammoths, and perhaps 

 by man, armed with clubs and weapons tipped with flint, to battle 

 with the beasts around. These pebbly shores in time were covered 

 over by many thousand feet of earth and rock, and have remained 

 buried in the ground for ages. Here and there, however, along the 

 Corniche road they crop out, and in some places large blocks of the 

 conglomerate, or pudding stone, have fallen into the sea. Like Rip 

 van Winkle, the pebbles have started into life again, and, after so 

 many ages of repose, they may be seen rolled to and fro again by 

 the restless sea. Whilst they have been lying underground many 

 changes have taken place overhead ; not only 



" The Roman Empire has begun and ended," 



but the animal and vegetable kingdoms, if geologists are right, have 

 almost entirely changed. 



Near Savona we found a bed of coarse asbestos or actinolite 

 undistinguishable from specimens which I have from my district in 

 Bengal, and we passed many beds of gritless gault, which would 

 probably repay exportation to England for the manufacture of 

 Portland cement. 



Soon after noon we stopped for luncheon at a small roadside inn. 

 A man who was breaking stones by the roadside was singing " Vien 

 quay Dorina bella" and white and red camellias were growing near 

 the door. Peasants basking in the sun were drinking purple wine, 

 and our host congratulated us on our well-timed arrival, ; for, as he 

 and his family were on the point of sitting down to dinner, he 

 proposed that we should satisfy our hunger first. We needed no 

 second bidding to the feast, and followed our entertainer to his 

 sleeping chamber, where he gave us hot water to wash our hands, 

 telling us a long story — very little of which we understood — about 

 some honour he had received from Garibaldi. The room to which 

 he led us was almost destitute of furniture. In one corner was a 



