190 FIRST JOURNEY IN EUROPE. (1839, 
about it, and thus was again in Provence. The 
court of Constantine the Great was for several years at 
Arles, which was celebrated for its refinement, and the 
women and children are said to be still handsome and 
graceful. Certainly nearly all I saw, young or old, were 
comely, and many handsome. They are all brunettes, 
and not a little sunburnt; but their black hair, large 
dark eyes, and long eyelashes appear to advantage. 
We were soon on the road again, traveled over an 
immense plain, bordered on the north by a long ridge 
of mountains, composed of naked jagged rocks, —a 
picturesque range, in fine contrast to the fertile plain 
from which it abruptly rises. They are, I believe, 
the mountains of the Durance. At length the plain 
became as barren as the mountains; night came on, 
and rather late in the evening we reached Aix, took 
our supper. ... I slept pretty well, and when I | 
awoke we were in sight of the town and bay of Mar- 
seilles, the latter superb as seen from the elevated 
place of our view; but the town did not present such 
an imposing view as I had been taught to expect... . 
Genoa, April 27, 1839. Saturday evening. — I 
have just finished my afternoon and evening stroll 
through this, to me, the first Italian city: the birth- 
place of Columbus, the city of the Dorias, the rival 
and even the conqueror of that other proud republic 
of the Middle Ages, Venice, in remembrance of which, 
huge pieces of the chains which were employed to bar 
the harbors of the latter city are suspended from the 
gates of Genoa. We arrived in the bay before twelve 
o'clock to-day, and during our gradual approach to 
the town enjoyed the view to the full; both the dis- 
tant view and the near are very fine, — equal, I may 
say, to what I expected, which is saying a great deal. 
