^T. 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 Strangers, 

 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- 



