Bologna 271 



Th^re is a room, at the Tre Maurretti, which, communicating 

 with several apartments, the guests have it in common: among 

 them was a young Ballarini waiting here for an Englishman, to 

 attend her to Venice; she was pretty and communicative ; had 

 some expensive trinkets given her, to the amount of a consider- 

 able sjm, by her lover, who proved (for secrecy was not among 

 her qualities) to be a rider, as we should call him, to a manu- 

 facturing house in England. An Italian merchant present re- 

 marked that the profit of the English, on their manufactures, 

 must be enormous, or they could not support cotnmtssarii at such 

 an expense, some of whom travel in Italy post, from town to 

 town, and when arrived, amuse themselves, it is plain, with such 

 comforts as the good humour of the country throws in their way. 

 i^th. The rencontre at Mr. Taylor's of the French gentleman, 

 the Baron de Rovrure, and Madame de Bouille, has been pro- 

 ductive of an engagement to travel together to Florence, with 

 Signore Grimaldi, and Mr. Stewart, a Scotch gentleman,^ just 

 arrived from Geneva, and going also to Florence. We set off 

 in three vetturi this morning. The country from Bologna to 

 Florence is all mountainous ; most of it poor and barren, with 

 shabby, ragged, ill-preserved wood, spotted with a weak and 

 straggling cultivation. Houses are scattered over most of it, 

 but very thinly. We dined at Loiano, much in the style of hogs ; 

 they spread for us a cloth that had lost, by the snuff and greasy 

 fingers of veiturini, all that once was white ; our repast was black 

 rice broth, that would not have disgraced the philosophy of 

 Lycurgus, liver fried in rancid oil, and cold cabbage, the remnant 

 of the preceding day. We pleaded hard for sausage, eggs, or 

 good bread and onions, but in vain. We laid, not slept, in our 

 clothes at Covigliano, hoping, not without fears, to escape the 

 itch. Such accommodations, on such a road, are really in- 

 credible. It is certainly one of the most frequented that is to 

 be found in Europe. Whether you go to Florence, Rome, and 

 Naples, by Parma, Milan, or Venice ; that is, from all Lombardy, 

 as well as from France, Spain, England, Germany, and all the 

 north, you pass by this route, consequently one would expect at 

 every post a tolerably good inn to catch the persons whom 

 accident, business, or any other derangement of plan might 

 induce to stop between Bologna and Florence. The only place 

 possible to sleep at, with comfort, is Maschere, about 40 miles 

 from Bologna, but, for travellers who go any other way than 

 post, 40 miles are no division of 64. If the road were in England, 

 ^Travelling with a young gentleman, a Mr. Kinloch. — Author's note. 



