but the mulberry flats and ditches of water, and chilly rain and mist.  It grew unpleasant as we went south.  At dark we were riding slowly, very slowly, for miles through a country overflowed with water, out of which trees and houses loomed up in a ghastly show.  At all the stations soldiers were getting on board, shouting and singing discordantly choruses from the operas; for there was a rising at Padua, and one feared at Bologna the populace getting up insurrections against the enforcement of the grist-tax,—­a tax which has made the government very unpopular, as it falls principally upon the poor.

Creeping along at such a slow rate, we reached Bologna too late for the Florence train, It was eight o’clock, and still raining.  The next train went at two o’clock in the morning, and was the best one for us to take.  We had supper in an inn near by, and a fair attempt at a fire in our parlor.  I sat before it, and kept it as lively as possible, as the hours wore away, and tried to make believe that I was ruminating on the ancient greatness of Bologna and its famous university, some of whose chairs had been occupied by women, and upon the fact that it was on a little island in the Reno, just below here, that Octavius and Lepidus and Mark Antony formed the second Triumvirate, which put an end to what little liberty Rome had left; but in reality I was thinking of the draught on my back, and the comforts of a sunny clime.  But the time came at length for starting; and in luxurious cars we finished the night very comfortably, and rode into Florence at eight in the morning to find, as we had hoped, on the other side of the Apennines, a sunny sky and balmy air.

As this is strictly a chapter of travel and weather, I may not stop to say how impressive and beautiful Florence seemed to us; how bewildering in art treasures, which one sees at a glance in the streets; or scarcely to hint how lovely were the Boboli Gardens behind the Pitti Palace, the roses, geraniums etc, in bloom, the birds singing, and all in a soft, dreamy air.  The next day was not so genial; and we sped on, following our original intention of seeking the summer in winter.  In order to avoid trouble with baggage and passports in Rome, we determined to book through for Naples, making the trip in about twenty hours.  We started at nine o’clock in the evening, and I do not recall a more thoroughly uncomfortable journey.  It grew colder as the night wore on, and we went farther south.  Late in the morning we were landed at the station outside of Rome.  There was a general appearance of ruin and desolation.  The wind blew fiercely from the hills, and the snowflakes from the flying clouds added to the general chilliness.  There was no chance to get even a cup of coffee, and we waited an hour in the cold car.  If I had not been so half frozen, the consciousness that I was actually on the outskirts of the Eternal City, that I saw the Campagna and the aqueducts, that yonder were the Alban