These ladies were quite delighted with the splendour and bustle of Milan and particularly when I took them to the Scala theatre, where a very splendid Ballo was given, intitled Sammi Re d’Egitto.  The scenery and decorations were magnificent, being taken from Denon’s drawings of Egyptian views, and the costume was exceedingly appropriate.  My fellow travellers were much struck at the appearance of the horses on the stage and the grotesque dancing.  The last scene was the most magnificent.  It represented the great Pyramids, on the angles of which stood a line of soldiers from the base to the apex holding lighted torches.  The coup d’oeil was enchanting.  I took the ladies to see my old friend Girolamo and in fine was their cicerone every where.  We remained only four days at Milan and then proceeded to Florence, where we arrived on the 7th October.  We employed six days for our journey and one day we halted at Bologna.  After remaining four days at Florence and taking the Radicofani road we arrived at Rome the 18th October.

At Rome I met my friend P.G. and his wife who were travelling towards Naples and I likewise made two very pleasant acquaintances, the one a Portuguese, the other a Milanese.  The Milanese is a cousin of the Neapolitan minister Di M------; and the Portuguese (M. de N------) had been employed by his Government in a diplomatic capacity at Vienna.  At Rome I engaged appartments from the 20th of December for three months and then started for Naples, with the intention of passing two months there, and returning to Rome, to be in time to witness the fete at Christmas Eve.  At Velletri I met with a Jamaica family, Mr and Mrs O------, with their daughter and daughter-in-law; and we were strongly advised to take an escort as far as Torre tre ponti, being obliged to start very early from Velletri in order to reach Terracina before night-fall.  Nothing however occurred and we arrived at Terracina without accident.  The rascally innkeeper there made Mr O------ pay forty franks for each miserable room that he occupied, and fifteen franks a head for his supper; he was very insolent with all.  I was rejoiced to find that in one instance he failed in his hopes of extortion.  As he is obliged by law to furnish supper and beds at a fixed price to those who travel with vetturini and are spesati, he, whenever a vetturino arrives locks up all his decent chambers and says that they are engaged, in order to keep them for those travellers who may arrive in their own carriages and whom he can fleece ad libitum.  A friend of mine and his lady, who were travelling in their own carriage, had, in order to avoid this extortion, engaged with a vetturino to conduct them from Naples to Rome with his horses, but their own carriage, and, had stipulated to be spesati.  Mine host of Terracina, seeing a smart carriage drive up, ordered one of his best rooms to be got ready,