Er, 28.] JOURNAL. 199 
It is now just sunset, and the air is remarkably 
balmy, — a mild sea-breeze, just enough to fan you. 
And let me tell you, however, as to Italian skies and 
sunsets that they are not a bit superior to our own. 
You may enjoy from your own parlor windows finer 
sunsets every clear day in summer than I have yet 
seen in Italy; though they certainly are very near 
ours. It is only to those who are accustomed to 
British clouds and fogs that they are remarkable. 
The peripatetic grinders of music upon hand-organs 
so common in all our towns are usually Italians, and 
I supposed that street music here was of much the 
same kind. This is a mistake. I have not seen such 
a thing in Italy or the south of France. You have 
universally the harp, commonly two players in concert, 
and very frequently a violin also for accompaniment, 
and the music is always creditable. At Avignon, 
the very land of troubadours, we were serenaded at 
dinner with a concert of harps, guitars, etc., but when 
they called for the coppers we found, shame to this 
degenerate age, that the troubadours were all women, 
and of the most unromantie appearance possible. The 
patois of all this part of France and of Piedmont, 
however, is the same as the language in which the 
trouvéres are written, and one who understands the 
patois as now spoken can read the former without 
diffieul 
The Italian language is very soft and musical, far 
more pleasant to the ear than the deep nasal tones of 
the French. 
—— 
'LORENCE, May 9, Thursday evening. 
Finding little more re T could do to-day, I then 
called at the residence of Mr. Sloane, a descendant of 
