ET. 28.) JOURNAL. 191 
As seen from the bay it certainly deserves the name 
its citizens long ago gave it,— Genoa the Superb. 
You have the whole completely before you in one 
view, the buildings rising one behind the other, the 
fortifications that overtop the whole, with the vast 
mountain amphitheatre for a background... . You 
are not much disturbed with the rattling of carriage 
wheels here. With the exception of one street, and 
this a new one (Strada Nuova) at least as to its 
present dimensions, they are barely wide enough for 
a wheelbarrow, and mostly too steep for a carriage, 
even if they were wider. The houses are very high ; 
six, seven, or eight stories being very common, indeed 
usual, so that the streets are mere chinks or crevices. 
I found the same advantage from this in Avignon 
and the other towns of the south of France, that is, 
the perfect protection afforded these warm days from 
the heat of the sun. You are sure of shade; and 
the air is so dry that none of the inconvenience and 
unhealthiness results which would surely be the case 
in other countries. I am at the Hotel des Etrangers, 
not far from the quay, and my room, five or six stories 
high, looks down upon the harbor and bay. It is 
nine o’clock in the evening. The light is burning 
quietly in the light-house, a tall and very slender 
column at the entrance of the harbor, forming a bea- 
con which is visible far and wide. I don’t know as I 
may say that 
“The scene is more beautiful far to my eye 
Than if day in her pride had arrayed it; ”’ 
but it is much softer. The evening gun has just 
been fired off from one of the batteries next the sea, 
the signal, I suppose, for closing the harbor, and the 
echo sent back by the hills on either side was pro- 
