LETTER VIII.

GENOA.

GENOA, April 4th. It is now 5.45, and I am up, looking out upon a sight long to be remembered. Our inn overlooks the magnificent port, or harbour, of Genoa, which forms three-fourths of a circle, and has on its right no end, apparently, of princely mansions. Every bell in Genoa seems to be ringing the sailors on deck, and the dock labourers to the sides of a forest of vessels. What a busy sight! What a gorgeous sky! Boats rowing off everywhere to ships in and out of the harbour. Tongues going under my window in all keys, and I suppose in every language, for Genoa is cosmopolitan if ever a city was. Here is the place to steal scraps from a feast of languages, if one may judge from what they see and hear. The only really good English sounds are cockcrowings and the screams of whistles from railway engines running along the docks, to and from one of the finest railway stations I have ever seen. But why tarry I, drinking in beautiful sights, while my fellow-travellers may be asleep? I ascend a flight of marble steps to a landing inlaid with curiously wrought stones-the work of a distant age-and tell them to rouse up and behold Genoa the Superb in her morning beauty. From a balcony we do so, and our

reward is great.

I confess Genoa ravishes me. It is such a mixture of land and sea, ships and houses, that it appeals to old associations, conjures up all that attracted my eye as a boy, and adds romance to the plain and prosaic. Who can look on those wonderful rows of ships without thinking of the lands from whence. they come and to which they go of their cargoes, their sailors, their owners-all with hopes, fears, joys, and sorrows so diverse from ours? On the heights, far as the eye takes in the view, are the mansions of those merchants whose fame as such is world-wide. And are they not the descendants as well as the successors of men who made Genoa famous as a free republic, or infamous as a pirates' refuge, ages before Liverpool was more than a pool for the liver? When Genoa was sending forth its Columbus, after having taken part in the ups and downs of the Roman world, Liverpool was absolutely unknown except as "Liverpool, near Warrington." Genoa has done well to erect a stately, a costly, and a beautiful monument to Columbus. Apart from being its greatest citizen, he opened to it the gates of the West, and made it great.

[6 p.m.]-I cannot speak in detail of its buildings, monuments, its house of Pilate-where that notoriously undecided character is said to have died-of its immense "palaces," equal in height in most cases to ten of our stories, of its picture galleries replete not with novelties but with the works of Paul Veronese, Rubens, Guido, and Titian. Our leader-I never will be onehurries us on. We have indeed seen some marvellous pictures at Genoa, marvels of art, and marvels in the way of painters-a Madonna for instance, by St. Luke. The Church of the Annunciation is worth a journey to the North Pole, let alone one to the land

of citrons and myrtles. What endless rows of columns, statues, pictures! How polite the young official who showed us all, and how fine the pictures over the boxes for our beneficences! Full particulars are put up at each. A beautiful painting drew money from one of our party, but he denied that the box was labelled "for the poor souls in purgatory." He said it was for the poor bodies in Genoa. Well, the Genoese can do with all they get. There is poverty in Genoa, and no mistake, but not perhaps so pinching as at home. A sky which enables them to live out of doors is a merciful dispensation where wood alone can be had for fires. We were early and much struck with the number of women, dressed rather stylishly, who wore veils instead of bonnets. They looked pretty, and seemed to be of the higher middle classes. A visit to the Bourse showed us the same noisy crowds as in those of Paris and Marseilles. It contains a very fine monument to Count Cavour, "the regenerator of Italy." Genoa with its 140,000 inhabitants is a busy place. Their docks swarm. Their piazzas swarm. Their bodies-I did not see it-swarm. There is no deathly look at Genoa. Their antecedents forbid it. For 300 years they and the Venetians were always fighting to know who could be greatest by sea. The discovery of the Cape of Good Hope route to India killed them both. For 300 years after that they were a wrangling, jangling set, but always courageous. At length France took them in hand in 1797, Corsica being taken from them ten years before. Napoleon was thus not a Frenchman by birth. At the peace of 1815 they were made over to Sardinia, and now with that kingdom they form part of the Italian nation. Genoa is a city of grand memories. It is a curious town for crooked and very narrow streets in

the older parts. You see scores of long streets near the docks, not wide enough for one cart, and you see crossbeams, apparently without end, to keep the houses from positively closing on each other at their higher stories. No doubt this style of architecture was caused by the necessity of living close together in warlike days. and being able to fight an enemy from every window. Now-a-days the town has two gigantic moles and two lines of fortification. The rich people live on the amphitheatre around, which rises nearly 400 feet, and has at its back the world-famed Apennines. I discovered why our inn and others have so much marble and so many frescoes. They had been palaces in olden times-that may be a thousand, or any lesser number of years ago. The tooth of Father Time cannot bite such seven-feet walls. No doubt in the lofty rooms and on the marble floors of the hotel where we are snugly lodged the Hôtel de Ville-many thousands of the fair and famous in the days of crusading, freebooting, and buccaneering, have dined and danced. fair to the Genoese to say that they are an industrious people. I have been particularly struck with the bone and sinew of the harbour porters, the constant ding, ding of the tinmen, blacksmiths, and other artisans near the docks, and the active manner of scores of decentlooking women who have cookshops for the especial benefit of the dock people. There are no windows to their little shops, so that this morning I saw all the process of mixing, if not of making, their savoury meats. I could enjoy life in Genoa, I am sure. We had a longish pull to see the steamer which sails to-night for Leghorn. The railway from here to that city is not yet completed, and to avoid the round-about journey by Florence, and also to have a sail on the Mediter

It is only

ranean, we have decided to start to-night by steamer. The distance is about 80 or 100 miles. Very large vessels trade to Genoa, apparently from every part of the world.

P.S.-After looking over my letter I find that I ought to have mentioned what I have no doubt would have interested you-the numbers of mules and asses coming in from the country laden with all kinds of articles, but chiefly with bricks and firewood. I suppose it is the narrowness of the streets which makes so many asses to be used and so few wheeled vehicles. The streets are paved with lava, and are by no means unpleasant to walk upon. I should also have added in the antiquity way that the Doria Palace, like too many other palaces falling into decay, was the home of Charles V. and Napoleon during their stay in Genoa. A far greater palace, called the Palazzo Doria, is the residence of Victor Emmanuel when he chooses to visit Genoa the Superb. I find I have also forgotten to mention several buildings pointed out to us in our drives and walks through the town. One especially is worthy of notice, not only because it provides for fifteen hundred orphans and old people, but because it contains a somewhat celebrated "Dead Christ," in alto relievo, by Michael Angelo. It may also be interesting to your moneyed friends to know that the Bank of St. George, in Genoa, is the oldest bank for circulation in Europe, having been founded in 1407. The Austrians carried away a good part of the funds in 1746, and on the union of Genoa with France, the French Government became responsible for an annual dividend to meet the Idemand of the bank's creditors. One thing which has much struck me, but no doubt will get common as we go further into Italy, is the public announcement of