A very great number of the streets in Genoa are footways merely,
and these are as narrow, as dark, as full of jutting chimney-places,
balconies, and opened window-shutters, and as picturesque as the
little alleys in Venice. They wander at will around the bases of the
gloomy old stone palaces, and seem to have a vagabond fondness for
creeping down to the port, and losing themselves there in a certain
cavernous arcade which curves round the water with the flection of the
shore, and makes itself a twilight at noonday. Under it are clangorous
shops of iron-smiths, and sizzling shops of marine cooks, and, looking
down its dim perspective, one beholds chiefly sea-legs coming and
going, more or less affected by strong waters; and as the faces to
which these sea-legs belong draw near, one discerns sailors from all
parts of the world,--tawny men from Sicily and Norway, as diverse in
their tawniness as olive and train-oil; sharp faces from Nantucket
and from the Piraeus, likewise mightily different in their sharpness;
blonde Germans and blonde Englishmen; and now and then a colored
brother also in the seafaring line, with sea-legs, also, more or less
affected by strong waters like the rest.

What curious people are these seafarers! They coast the whole world,
and know nothing of it, being more ignorant and helpless than children
on shore. I spoke with the Yankee mate of a ship one day at Venice,
and asked him how he liked the city.

Well, he had not been ashore yet.

He was told he had better go ashore; that the Piazza San Marco was
worth seeing.

Well, he knew it; he had seen pictures of it; but he guessed he