Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/132

102 passes of all descriptions: the sea beneath us on one side, and mountains covered with snow on the other. You seem to pass into all sorts of climates very speedily. On the land to our left was a fine starlight sky and clear, sharp air, and on the sea thunder and lightning and a white squall. There was always the excitement of imagining that a brigand might come or a torrent be impassable; but alas! not a ghost of an adventure, except once catching a milestone. I think the Whip Club would be puzzled at the driving: sometimes we have eleven horses, each with a different rein; to some the drivers whistle, to others they talk. It is tiresome work crawling up and down the mountains; but when they do get a bit of plain ground, they seem to go ten miles an hour, tearing through narrow streets where there seems scarcely room for a sheet of paper between the diligence and the wall, whirling round sharp zigzag corners with not the width of a book between the wheel and the precipice, and that at full gallop. We created a great sensation at one of our halting-places, and indeed everywhere, for we were in our nautical rig; and what amused the natives immensely was that one of our terriers was a very long dog with short legs, and they talked of the yards of dog we had with us. We at last arrived at Genoa.

I liked Genoa far better than Nice: the sky is more Italian; the sea looks as if it washed the town, or as if the town sprang out of it; it is all so hilly. The town with its domes looks like white marble. The lower range of mountains is covered with monasteries, forts, pretty villas, and gardens; the