Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/137

Rh him to sell the horse to me, and let me shoot him; but he shook his head and laughed. "You English treat your horses better than masters treat their servants in Italy," said he, as we topped the mountain. At my request Emanuele gave the poor beast a feed and sent him back, poor mass of skin and bones that it was. It was not fit to carry a fly, and I am told it was the best horse he had. That day our journey was a forty weary miles of black, barren ascent and descent, amongst snowy mountains, which looked as if man or beast had never trod there. Our halt was at Borghetto in the middle of the day. At the end of the forty miles came a delightful surprise. We were on a magnificent ridge of Maritime Alps covered with snow; a serpentine road led us down into a beautiful valley and Spezzia on the sea, the beautiful Gulf. The Croce di Malta was a comfortable little hotel. In half an hour we were round a roaring fire with a good supper.

Next morning we took a boat and explored the Gulf, the Source d'Eau, Lerici, where Byron and Shelley lived. That day was the Feast of Saint Anthony; the horses were blessed, which is a very amusing sight. It was the first night of the Carnival, and the Postilions' Ball, to which we were invited and went. It was full of peasant-girls and masqueraders; it was capital fun, and we danced all night. The costumes here are very pretty; they and the pronunciation change about every forty miles.

The day we went away we had great fun. The Magra had to be passed two hours from Spezzia;