Sleep was next to impossible, so I paced the deck occasionally, looking out on the moonlit sea and the dim shores on either side.  A little after midnight we passed between Elba and Corsica.  The dark crags of Elba rose on our right, and the bold headlands of Napoleon’s isle stood opposite, at perhaps twenty miles’ distance.  There was something dreary and mysterious in the whole scene, viewed at such a time—­the grandeur of his career, who was born on one and exiled to the other, gave it a strange and thrilling interest.

We made the light-house before the harbor of Leghorn at dawn, and by sunrise were anchored within the mole.  I sat on the deck the whole day, watching the picturesque vessels that skimmed about with their lateen sails, and wondering how soon the sailors, on the deck of a Boston brig anchored near us, would see my distant country.  Leaving at four o’clock, we dashed away, along the mountain coast of Carrara, at a rapid rate.  The wind was strong and cold, but I lay down behind the boiler, and though the boards were as hard as ever, slept two or three hours.  When I awoke at half-past two in the morning, after a short rest, Genoa was close at hand.  We glided between the two revolving lights on the mole, into the harbor, with the amphitheatre on which the superb city sits, dark and silent around us.  It began raining soon, the engine-fire sank down, and as there was no place of shelter, we were shortly wet to the skin.

How long those dreary hours seemed, till the dawn came!  All was cold and rainy and dark, and we waited in a kind of torpid misery for daylight.  The entire day, I passed sitting in a coil of rope under the stern of the cabin, and even the beauties of the glorious city scarce affected me.  We lay opposite the Doria palace, and the constellation of villas and towers still glittered along the hills; but who, with his teeth chattering and limbs numb and damp, could feel pleasure in looking on Elysium itself?

We got under way again at three o’clock.  The rain very soon hid the coast from view, and the waves pitched our boat about in a manner not at all pleasant.  I soon experienced sea-sickness in all its horrors.  We had accidentally made the acquaintance of one of the Neapolitan sailors, who had been in America.  He was one of those rough, honest natures I like to meet with—­their blunt kindness, is better than refined and oily-tongued suavity.  As we were standing by the chimney, reflecting dolefully how we should pass the coming night, he came up and said; “I am in trouble about you, poor fellows!  I don’t think I shall sleep three hours to-night, to think of you.  I shall tell all the cabin they shall give you beds, because they shall see you are gentlemen!” Whether he did so or the officers were moved by spontaneous commiseration, we knew not, but in half an hour a servant beckoned us into the cabin, and berths were given us.